System Shock - SHODAN steals the show in this faithful remake

As a newcomer to System Shock, I'd like to take a moment and declare my undying love for SHODAN, aka Sentient Hyper-Optimised Data Access Network, aka the murderous AI villain who engulfs the entire remake. Literally. As a captured hacker onboard the Citadel space station, you've been asked to remove the "ethical constraints" from the station's artificial intelligence (that's SHODAN) in an obviously shady exchange. You get back your freedom plus a cool cybernetic implant, and the megacorp executive who's in charge of the operation gets to do evil things with the new ethically unconstrained station.

Things don't work out for either of you. Months pass by and you've woken up, still on the Citadel, but this time the humans have turned into bloodthirsty mutants, killer robots and cyborgs attack with a vengeance, and my beloved SHODAN runs the whole bleak party.

The System Shock remake begins in much the same way as 1994's original game. Exactly the same events take place, but they've been rejigged. The opening cutscene to the original System Shock has this noisy, head-bopping beat playing in the background. The retro animation was kind of surreal, almost like it was straight out of a fever dream. The remake blunts some of that energy in exchange for something more palatable.

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