Old habits die hard.
To be precise, the "immersive simulation" that players often talk about is not a strict game genre. It's more like a kind of low-level attribute in interaction design, not just first-person linear level games, in fact, all modern games are somewhat contaminated with some "immersive simulation" habits. Just like the so-called "B-grade film", it was originally just a qualifying word in terms of production specifications, but over time, its exploitative nature domesticated the mainstream market and turned into a kind of setting the tone of the film.
The core experience of "immersive simulation" has nothing to do with hardware standards such as picture and perspective. Its biggest feature is a soft guide by design—rather, an attention test that encourages you to experience the game world. To this end, the developers have carefully arranged a lot of vital information into carefully arranged maps and puzzles, waiting for interested players to explore and discover.
"Cyber Shock", born in 1994, is the "prototype" that best represents this design concept. In order to get rid of the "A-movie" status of first-person shooter gameplay in the gaming industry, LookingGlass Technologies Studio, which created Cyber Shock, realized a series of system designs that are now groundbreaking, including but not limited to: non-linear vertical box court levels, voice log performances that enhance the world, item movement systems that simulate 3D physics, and composite tactical actions such as creeping, lying down, and rolling.
This work, which was extremely advanced at the time, laid an almost complete systematic foundation for many subsequent well-known series. It includes quasi-official sequels such as "BioShock", "Dishonored", "Predation", etc., as well as tribute masterpieces such as "Portal". The classic password "0451" and the yin and yang weird female artificial intelligence have also become the standard for this type of game.
But unlike Super Mitrod or King's Secret Order, which came out in the same year, Cybershock has received no attention commensurate with its historical status, and very few people have actually played it. Even Nightdive, who is in charge of the remake, is a group of fanatical fans who can't buy genuine copies online, and their brains are hot. The crowdfunding progress and the technical run-in problems of the temporary team led to the restart of the remake work again and again.
And after actually experiencing the game, I want to announce good news, bad news - the good news is, almost original. If you're curious about what the bad news is, then I suggest you check the release time of Cyber Shock.
The general structure of the main plot, box court map, etc. of this work is completely one-to-one reproduction of the original work, and even when you are tackling the problem, you can directly compare the graphic and text strategy of the Internet flood era. On the basis of unchanged bones, Nightdive has made the most basic modernization of the texture of the game's graphics, sound effects, resource management, weapon battles, etc.
Although the sound and art performance of "Cyber Shock: Remake" is only unsatisfactory by today's standards, the subtle pixel style textures and incomparably tight pipe vision in the game restore the retro charm of the original version to the greatest extent. At the same time, the remastered version solves the map recognition problem common to ancient games. Even the most dizzying "engineering area" in the original game will not have the confusion of "every corner looks the same" in this game.
However, under the premise of not changing the original level structure, more elaborate and complex environmental art also caused a series of big and small problems. Sometimes, the game's crosshairs won't get the desired items anyway, or normal ammo supplies, but some recording floppies placed on the table will not be available, which will directly affect the full collection achievement. The ladder against the wall and the interactive buttons on the wall will become very difficult to distinguish because of the dense pipeline system of the entire space station.
While it's a bit nitpicking on the old game's map recognition, considering that Cybershock Remastered takes place on an extremely tight space station with an extensive plumbing system, this obviously amplifies the irritation that the "immersion" part of the game brings to players. Don't get me wrong, this sense of irritability itself is not a problem, because the entire space station, as the embodied body of artificial intelligence SHODAN, is meant to disgust you and kill you - so there is absolutely nothing wrong with having irritability.
But the eye-catching "big red button" in low materials will obviously be easier for players to detect than the picture tube screen embedded in a pile of pipes. And as mentioned at the beginning, Cyber Shock Remake is the ultimate "immersion" game, which not only rewards players for observing the environment, but also punishes players who are inattentive. If for some artistic reason, you miss some key buttons or ladders, then even on normal difficulty, the space station named Citadel will become an eternal prison for the player, a little hacker.
The reason why I say this is also related to the level design of this work, which can be called a maze.
While I often abuse the "textbook" rating, the box court of Cybershock Remastered is indeed the master of all 3D non-linear levels. The space station in the game is divided into 10 floors, from the lowest reactor to the bridge on the top floor, each floor has a completely different connection design corresponding to its function. Awakening artificial intelligence SHODAN blocks many system permissions, arbitrarily arranges to transform people and combat drones, and sets death traps for players. THE PLAYER TAKES ON THE ROLE OF A HACKER JUST TO SURVIVE – NOT TO MENTION, YOU'LL HAVE TO BREAK THROUGH THE OBSTACLES AND REVERSE SHODAN'S CRAZY PLAN TO TRANSFORM ALL OF HUMANITY.
Players familiar with Metroidvania-like games will be extremely familiar with the process of "Cyber Shock: Remastered" - behind the corners of ventilation ducts and blocked doors, there are higher privilege key cards; Some minimaps may hide some supplies and secrets behind the black empty wall; Some areas that would otherwise be inaccessible or extremely harmful can only be safely reached with the help of anti-gravity boots and environmental protective clothing.
Considering that "Super Mitrod", which laid the foundation for the gameplay of the series, is almost indistinguishable from the release time of "Cyber Shock", perhaps the "3D Galaxy City" statement is not fair to "Cyber Shock", but it basically means this. Moreover, unlike 3D Galaxy City such as "Black Soul", "Cyber Shock" is limited by technical power, and it is impossible to fill various art scenes in the middle of the dense box court design, resulting in a surge in the programming density of environmental puzzles. It's not so much that the player is roaming through the map, but that the player is constantly playing with a bagua lock with an extremely complex structure. Its forcing and complex degree is far beyond "Predation" as a spiritual sequel.
And the puzzles are repetitive and complex far beyond most modern games. First, up to dozens of random puzzles on two types of patch panels will dissuade most modern players. Although I don't find it cumbersome, even the almost free puzzle solution of "Atomic Heart" is complained about by many players, presumably the old-school puzzle solution of this work will inevitably become arsenic for most players. What's more, in addition to endless small puzzles, the entire space station, or SHODAN, is a huge giant puzzle in itself.
To solve this holistic puzzle, you have to do as it says at the beginning – focus!
Playing games and focusing can seem like a natural thing to do, especially when you're fighting tough enemies or doing some tricky platform jumps. But this attention is not the other's attention, and the most difficult thing in Cyber Shock Remake is not the combat, not the terrain, but the player's access to environmental information. This can be seen in the game's multi-difficulty design. When the "story difficulty" is high, the game will only give the player 10 hours to complete the level, and once the time runs out, Shodan's plan will succeed.
And the time it took me to clear the level for the first time on normal difficulty was close to 30 hours. Because even on normal difficulty, Cybershock Remastered doesn't give players a clear message of its goals, and you can only try to turn the tide step by step through intermittent communication and the battle plans left behind by the dead crew. In this process, you will feel very confused and helpless, and every impact you have on the ending is half pushed, like a hacker passing by who has just been thrown on a killing space station and has no clue.
But compared to some works that are mysterious and cloudy, the fragmented puzzle solving of "Cyber Shock: Remake" is just, hardcore, and overwhelming. But if you listen to the crew's "suicide note" and know where you are and what to do, then the overall research process of this work will be extremely clear. In other words, Cyber Shock: Remake is by no means the kind of game that I checked and thought the game design was really stupid, and it caused me to get stuck. In most cases, the level is caused by their own frivolity and stupidity, but in fact, the game has already given enough retrieval information. At least that's my experience.
That's why I'll be critical of the recognition of key interaction points in this game, because you can't inferentially check this omission, just as this article will have more typos than logical errors no matter how many times you review. On the topic of "typos", I decided to name the localization team of this work. Chinese ultra-small fonts and out-of-frame are minor problems, the most vicious thing about remake localization is the problem of translation errors and omissions. Spoilers aside, the Chinese version has fatal omissions on some key audio and emails, such as the nonsensical situation of translating the Gamma quadrant into the center quadrant, which will cause players who don't understand the language to completely freeze directly on key puzzles.
Because this work does not have any mission punctuation system, all space station areas must rely on door numbers and physical map positioning, partial localization does not cover this part of English, but the key information nodes given is not the right Chinese, can only say that for Chinese players, being confused really can't blame themselves. In addition, this work has few strategies on the Chinese Internet, so it is normal to be completely stuck. This is really a waste of the various levels of this game. Because each non-linear functional area of "Cyber Shock: Remastered" is arranged, under the premise of targeting, players could have skipped most of the useless steps and achieved "out of order" research.
This is also the biggest problem of this game at the moment. Because of this problem, at least Chinese players will certainly not be able to experience a space maze that is difficult but justified as in Predation.
Fortunately, in addition to specific key locations and props that make people scratch their heads, the localization of the rest of the background, plot explanation, and remake are not too much of a problem. The crew voice acting, which was generally read by the ancient game, has become more flesh and blood in the remake, and on top of this, some other faction perspectives that were not originally available have been added. Most importantly, the production team hired Terri Brosius, who voiced SHODAN back then, to re-enact the famous villain who inspired GLaDOS.
As the object of the whole game with hackers, SHODAN's status in "Cyber Shock: Remake" is undoubted, whether it is portrayal length or performance techniques, it is far more than a number of protagonists and supporting characters. She will entangle with the protagonist step by step, correct herself extremely quickly when her scheme fails, and continue to disgust hackers in the next stall. And, like Matrix, SHODAN has a different plan for humanity, not blind action. THE FEMALE PERSONALITY SHE WAS GIVEN ALSO ADDED A LOT TO SHODAN.
As an aside, the title of SHODAN in the original setting set has always been male, but after accidentally letting Terri Brosius, one of the level designers of the work, participate in the audition, the production team felt that the effect was good, so they adopted the design of the female version of SHODAN, and this design continued to the 2nd generation and became the orthodox official character of the series.
In addition to the obvious skin, the two biggest new changes in this game come from the two major aspects of resource management and weapon combat.
On the whole, the systematic gameplay of "Cyber Shock: Remake" is no different from "Cyber Shock". In addition to searching for key cards for skills, players need to loot and stock up on supplies, defeat hordes of enemies at key nodes, and open access to the next area. These are the common flowers for all level shooters. One of the groundbreaking features of Cyber Shock is that it has a resurrection pod on each floor that players need to actively find and activate. Presumably, most BioShock players are familiar with this.
Unlike the save point mechanic, if the player fails to activate the resurrection pod in a specific floor area, the hacker will not be resurrected after the battle, but will be completely transformed by SHODAN to end the game. While the game adds a more modern Anytime F5 Quick Save, which allows players to try and try repeatedly in fixed places of death, it does not hinder the groundbreaking nature of the physics resurrection point.
In addition to finding the resurrection pod on the current floor, you can also try to destroy the electronic eyes and computer nodes of SHODAN on different floors, reduce the security level of specific floors, and unlock certain permission door locks. In addition to simply licking the diagram, these actions have some additional existential meaning - when everything is nearing the end, you will use all the previous accumulation, both material and informational. Here, all I can say is - watch out for seemingly meaningless numbers!
As for material accumulation, in addition to simply hoarding consumables such as medical kits and grenades, this work also introduces the resource recovery system in "Predation", and also adds the item space management backpack of "Cyber Shock 2". In addition to headaches for various puzzles, players have another way to solve their loneliness in Citadel - picking up rags.
Citadel, as a space station under the efficiency-oriented Tiyou Group, has set up a recycling station on each floor that can recycle old refrigerators, old computers, and old mobile phones. You can carry bags of medical equipment, electronic devices, and precious metals to the recycling depot in specific locations to exchange money. If you can't fit so much rag in one trip, players can also choose to vaporize the worthless but large-sized rags into waste slag, and exchange lower cost performance for larger capacity. Some items in the game are more cost-effective, such as tablets with a price-for-money ratio of 2 tiles of space and 3 titanium, while the lowest is a paper book, 4 tiles of 1 titanium.
Most importantly, the exchanged titanium coins will pop out one by one from the coin outlet in physical form, which simply increases the experience of picking up garbage by 200%. This sense of reality that approximates the interaction of primitive objects, those who sell things only add a few book numbers, can not be compared at all, it is recommended that all garbage picking games in the future can be referred to.
However, the refined item management system led to a rejection of the original design - the original weapon and material space was further compressed.
Although Cyber Shock Remastered has cut several redundant weapons that are duplicated compared to the original, the backpack space in this game is still outrageous. Especially with the addition of modular modifications that can upgrade weapons, players have to carry those upgraded weapons everywhere they go, and the remastered backpack will never be able to hold all kinds of weapons and ammunition in multiple firing modes even after expansion.
Even with the help of Doraemon, the "Resident Evil" series was ridiculed by players as "backpack crisis", now imagine a "Resident Evil" without a 4-dimensional prop box, you can only use a very limited backpack that cannot be shared the whole time to store everything, including weapons, supplies and so on. This means you have to make trade-offs between different weapons and throw away large sums of weapons and ammo you don't use – a kind of capital punishment for hamster players.
In Cybershock: Remake, such a hell goes to the next level. Because the enemies in this game will not drop the corresponding ammo according to the weapon you carry, so the ammo you pick up is very random. If you want to keep stockpiling some ammunition, large weapons with particularly scarce ammunition in other areas have no carrying value and will only take up valuable backpack space. The only backpack space that players can share on different floors through the freight elevator can't even fit a complete spear.
Yes, you heard it right, you can't stuff even one. Later in the game, I collected the big ticket mod modified weapons, and I could only concentrate the weapons I couldn't get and throw them into an armory on a certain floor. When a particular ammunition is hoarded in large quantities, take the elevator back to the armory, throw out the weapons that have run out of ammunition, and retrieve the weapons with surplus ammunition. This cycle greatly disrupts the pace of the game and is essentially meaningless.
The remastered version is the same as the original, and each different weapon can be obtained multiple times in different areas. In fact, this design is obviously a historical legacy. Because at that time, there was no concept of weapon upgrade modules in the game, you can change wherever you hit, use whatever weapon you have with ammunition, and throw away the weapon that has no ammunition when the backpack is full, after all, you will also pick up the same one later. However, in the Remastered Edition, players can only get a specific type of upgrade module once, which means that when you upgrade a weapon, it will perform better than other normal versions. It became the only Mighty Enhancement Exclusive Edition that you had to carry with you throughout.
Excuse me, with such a painstakingly upgraded weapon, what sane player would just say and throw it away? But if you don't lose it, you may even pick up trash in the game. Although the ammunition resources in this game are basically overflowing throughout the entire process under ordinary combat difficulty, this negative feedback of having to repeatedly discard the only upgraded weapon is still scalp-numbing.
But fortunately, the combat part of "Cyber Shock: Remake" is not the main play, including attacking physical enemies in the space station and attacking virtual programs in cyberspace, which reveals a kind of 90s shooter slovenliness. The good news is that the cyberspace, which was as abstract as the original Playstation boot screen, has changed, at least you won't even be confused about where to go. But the bad news is that there are still not many types of enemies, although there are different types such as cyborgs and modified people, mechanical T800, etc., but they are all card bunker turn-based, aiming at each other, revealing small slits, and looping indefinitely. In addition to the "flesh" of different enemies and bullets suitable for different attributes, the enemy's attack mode is also similar -
Bosses are also commonplace
Of course, except for the terrifying sweeping robot that can get you to the sky in 0.1 seconds, it is extremely fast, extremely high-damage, and extremely stealthy. Often when aiming at people and sewing turns, he was sentenced to a surprising death by a self-detonating sweeping robot that rushed out of nowhere. If SHODAN energy produces these sweeping robots, it must not be satellite rays and biochemical viruses, and human beings may have been created to wag their tails and beg.
In addition to gun attacks, hackers can use implants on their bodies to enhance their various abilities, such as using sensors to sense enemy information, using energy shields to absorb enemy firepower, and so on. These implants also require players to pay attention to as they explore the map, and all implants can be actively turned on and off. For example, if you turn off the life-testing implant, you won't even see your own blood streak. However, turning on active implants like accelerator boots, energy shields, etc., will quickly weaken the hacker's energy slot, and the energy can only be restored at the charging pile in a specific location.
Not only that, energy is a universal resource in the game, when you consume the physical ammunition on your body, you can also repeatedly return to the charging pile to replenish the ammunition of the energy weapon, which gives players more motivation to explore the map and find the charging pile. In certain disaster areas, such as radiation areas and biochemical areas, players also need to obtain and activate energy-consuming biochemical protective suits to stabilize their vital signs. These are all system additions that use the existing setting of cyberpunk to enrich the action content outside of combat. So, even if the shootout part is a little rough, the operational feedback of "Cyber Shock: Remake" is not bad.
But unfortunately, the "implants" of this work, like firearms, have been reduced in kind. Some of the implants that were originally very cool, such as those that gave you "eyes on your back", ceased to exist because of the popularity of quick mouse turns, making the remaining implants seem a bit routine. But at present, there are still many implants that can be tried, at least there are hacker implants that can hack into robots in the game, and I haven't found them until I clear the level.
But in the end, like the hacker in the remake, I experienced the cyber showdown with SHODAN, and I didn't sell myself to the Tiyou Group behind everything for stronger implants. And LookingGlass, after a miracle, also chose to let hackers return to their old business at the end of the original game - just as they ignored losses and launched Cyber Shock 2 without hesitation.
Old habits die hard。 After that, their successors launched one classic after another. But with the naked eye, the so-called "immersive simulation" is fading. Now, Irrational has been closed for many years, and Arkane has finally rolled over on commercial works, betraying the gate code "0451" of that year.
In 2023, when "Cyber Shock: Remake" returns, artificial intelligence is on the rise, humans are beginning to slide towards the Pavlov of dogs, and even the most difficult old habits have bowed to the bell of efficiency. SOCIETY NATURALLY CRAVES SIMPLICITY, REPETITION AND EFFICIENCY, AND IF SHODAN REALLY GIVES BIRTH TO HERSELF FROM ORDERLY RATIONALITY THIS TIME, I THINK SHE PROBABLY WON'T NEED TO PREPARE THOSE HORROR SWEEPING ROBOTS.