System Shock 2, revisited.

[Lateralus]

OK, so it's a generally accepted fact that this is one of the best games of all time. Easily up there with the likes of Deus Ex (a different, but still totally awesome game that has held up and is a joy to play today).

It's also a generally accepted fact that SS2, as well as any other Dark Engine game (Thief I & II) can be a PITA to get to work on newer OSes and hardware.

I purchased SS2 many years ago and while I was able to get it working on my older hardware then, I never made it past the first couple of levels. Yeah, the game is challenging, but that's not what stopped me. It scared me. A lot. That, and other games got in the way.

Several times over the past couple of years I have tried to go back and play SS2 again. Finish what I started, or at least get further. But I never could get the darn thing to run longer than the training course. I did a lot of research on the matter, so I know about the dual core fix, the safe texture manager fix, the video codec problem and the host of other possible "workarounds" to get the game running with any degree of stability.

Other people were a bit luckier; some even reported that the game ran fine for them on XP or Vista without having to do any modifications to the game. But those who did have problems (and there were many) seemed to need different combinations of the various fixes in order to get the game running. This is not surprising, considering the vast number of PC configurations out there. Different OSes, different service packs, different graphics cards and drivers, etc.

I tried the HOTU version, which some people had better luck with than the original copy of the game. I didn't.

I searched the usual places again in vain, hoping to find something. Anything. And that's when I stumbled upon "System Shock 2 - Repacked for 2000/XP/Vista." This version was supposedly modified with the necessary fixes to get the game running on a newer PC, without the user having to wander through the myriad of solutions spread throughout various forums. It also boasted some popular mods, such as SHTUP and Anomalies, Discrepancies, and Outright Bugs.

I downloaded it guilt-free, since I still have my beloved SS2 disc in its case and probably the original box as well. But though I had a glimmer of hope that this would work as promised, I wasn't honestly expecting it to work without any intervention on my part, if at all.

Well, it did. I launched the game and was presented with the main menu after a delay that I wasn't used to (Saint's Row 2 launches much faster!). But after a few seconds I was into the game and able to enter training. So far, so good. Then, when I found myself aboard the Von Braun waking up to a disaster in the making, I just about giggled like a school girl.

I am now on the Hydroponics level and am ecstatic to report that the game not only runs, it runs well. No odd crashes, and today I did the widescreen fix. I've never seen the game in 1920x1080 until now. Although it is much more visually pleasing than 1024x768 with big black bars on the side, you bet your ass I would have played through the game in any resolution.

Now, all is not perfect. There is apparently a bug where if you change your key configuration, you have to reload custom configs every time you play. Annoying, but not a dealbreaker. I also don't recall seeing any videos, so I'm guessing you'd have to take it upon yourself to fix the codec problem. But just having the freaking game load up and play is enough for me. On a quad core CPU with Win7 64-bit no less! I never would have expected that to happen so easily. I was expecting to put in twice as many hours to try to get it running as it would take to complete the game.

So I hope it keeps working. It's awesome to finally be able to replay this gem, and with enhancements/mods to boot. If this assists even one person in being able to play the game then that's good enough. Just don't download it if you don't own the original. I've seen copies floating around for ~$40 and SS2 is *easily* worth that, especially when you consider you've paid more for buggy, DRM-plagued crapfests.

If you guys have any tips on how I can get more out of the game, post up.

 

[Frraksurred]

Interesting post. I've been in the same shoes. I bought the game years ago and have done all the same research trying to get it to work on XP or Vista. Found and tried the same software as you with about the same outcome.

I may track down this "Repacked" version and give it a try. It would be nice to finally play through the game. Thanks for the heads up.

 

[QDren]

Have you tried the rebirth mod? I played through with it a few years ago and it updates various textures and some other things that I can quite remember. They may have updated the rebirth mod since then. I used a combnation of mods in one pack (Shock Treatment compiled by Gallagher Knight). Even with mods the graphics are kinda hard on the eyes but your right about playing it with a larger res. The gameplay and sound is by far some of the best.

 

[Hellraiser]

I knew some guy who was really into this game and suggested and helped me to play it, so until now I have played through this awesome game a couple of times with just some high res texture mod and a file named "user" with the line "safe_texture_manager" inside, worked like a charm for me.
Although I am still using an old shitty box monitor with 1024x768, so it depends on what resolutions the texture mode supports.

 

[JaYp146]

Games like SS2 and Deus Ex are still lightyears ahead of most horror and RPG/FPS games ... hard to believe genius like this hasn't shaped the majority of future titles.

 

[TechHead]

No discussion of downloaded games here. Sorry