System Shock 2 Difficulty

Dev2 · 31 Jan 2009 at 20:50

Hello,

After playing Bioshock my biggest regret was having not played it on the highest difficulty setting. I found the game relatively easy albeit very enjoyable. I have gotten myself a copy of System Shock 2 and I am about to start. I solved the common resolution problem but I would like someone who has played this game to give me an indication on what setting to play it on.

I am simply looking for a good challenge not frustration.
I'm an experienced shooter.
I don't want to change the setting once I've started, I find this takes from a game.

What level should I play on?

Thanks,
Sean.

arc@css · 31 Jan 2009 at 23:15

Well done in managing to get a copy, I'm envious.

benwoodcock · 31 Jan 2009 at 23:20

I thought of was shareware these days?

Sleepery · 31 Jan 2009 at 23:51

Play it on the default difficulty - can't remember what they're called offhand, normal or whatever. Believe me, this gives plenty of challenge the first time through.

The difficulty comes with the different career paths you choose at the start of the game - navy is the easiest, psi-ops I always found the hardest.

FrenchTart · 1 Feb 2009 at 00:53

The first time through just play on normal difficulty. You can change it later on if you decide it's just too easy but I suspect you'll find even normal difficulty a significantly higher challenge than BioShock on hard.

arc@css · 1 Feb 2009 at 09:48

benwoodcock said:
I thought of was shareware these days?

The demo is free, that's all I can find. Oh well.

Wolfman Jack · 1 Feb 2009 at 10:15

I played it on Hard, first time outta the box. Its not impossible

great game.....wonder if it'll work on Vista?

Schizo · 1 Feb 2009 at 10:17

i hope so as ive just brought it.

RaMDOM · 1 Feb 2009 at 10:23

Still have my original copy - does it work on Vista 64bit?

FrenchTart · 1 Feb 2009 at 10:58

Wolfman Jack said:
I played it on Hard, first time outta the box. Its not impossible

great game.....wonder if it'll work on Vista?

Indeed it's not - but in this day and age of games that hold your hand, the frustration level with Hard for most players would be pretty damn high.

warnea1984 · 1 Feb 2009 at 14:13

Got my copy at a car boot sales last summer for 50p CD was in perfect condition but I made a load of copies in case the original stops working.

Dev2 · 1 Feb 2009 at 14:22

Thanks for the feedback, I will go for the default setting which is 'Normal', the gradient is Easy, Normal, Hard and Impossible. If this is half as good as Bioshock I will be very pleased.

Bane · 1 Feb 2009 at 14:29

The end encounter I found pretty hard and resorted to a cheat to gain additional ammo. And that was playing on medium or lower.

The game also respawns monsters by default, so when revisiting an area previously cleared it will have one or two respawns. This can be disabled in a config file, from memory, by changing a value to zero.

FrenchTart · 1 Feb 2009 at 14:53

Don't disable the respawn though - it keeps things a little more tense, and can be a nice source of ammo/meds.

Sleepery · 1 Feb 2009 at 16:18

No, don't mess with the default spawns etc first time round, just the the texture upgrade pack and monster model pack. It'll look pretty dated without them.

FrenchTart · 1 Feb 2009 at 16:21

Indeed. There's a mod to improve the model pack too - makes it more like the original models in terms of art style/direction.

Oh yes, also includes some models not originally released with the model pack:

http://www.strangebedfellows.de/index.php/topic,8.0.html