It took me four years to finish this game. I’ve been watching the Sam Barlow (and Tom Hulett) redemption arc for awhile and I just don’t get it. His work was fine in Silent Hill: Shattered Memories just not up to the level of the previous entries. SH:SM was a game that pissed off a lot of the fan base largely because it just should not have been a remake of the first Silent Hill. His writing consistently falls short of being engaging and his characters are both flat and, somehow, insufferable.

System Shock Remake

I never got far in the 1994 or remastered version so this was a new one for me. For most of the game I felt lost and hunted and then at some point I realized I had memorized huge parts of the station and as a survival horror hoarder I had a lot of ammo. The gradual change from helpless to competent to overpowered is something that I remember being far more common in the past, even if I just remember it that way.

Then something happened during a Cortex Reaver fight and I realized that this game felt so slow on a 60hz display it seemed like I couldn’t respond fast enough. I’ve never had that experience in a game before and after changing over to my ‘gaming display’ and getting consistently over 100fps I was fine. This remaster could’ve done with some shortening of levels and by the end I was very ready to be done. The final boss fight was goofy. Would recommend.