What single player FPS campaign are you playing?

[Xeogred]

I'm on level R and 3 for System Shock 1. Digging it more as I go, but I don't see it surpassing 2 personally.

Since the one FAQ for it on GameFAQ's seems kind of terrible, anyone want to give me the lowdown on the patches? I think I have all types now. Also does the Booster use energy? I don't think it does, I've been leaving it on. I'm mainly using the SPARA weapon since energy seems easy to come by with recharge stations and battery packs.

I think I need an Enviro Suit to access more of the Reactor areas, but I think I need to activate power here somewhere for an elevator in level 3.

I have no idea what I'm doing in the Descent Cyberspace levels.

[MrPopo]

So in the Cyberspace portions your goal is to basically shoot every 3D shape until it either disappears or changes into a different shape. The former keeps you from getting kicked out and the latter opens up locks and activates machines.

You are correct that energy is easy to come by; I'd avoid using batteries for now because you should always be pretty close to a recharge station and you'll want them for when you get to the end parts of the game where those stations become scarce.

The only patch I ever found useful was the one that makes you temporarily smarter; I believe it makes the rewiring puzzles easier. But I could be wrong on that point. If there was a healing patch I naturally used that as well, but whatever one is like a terrible version of Doom's berserk pack is not worth using in my opinion.

There is definitely a form of energy protection that can keep the radiation at bay, but I think it's module and not a suit; it gives you an energy barrier or something.

[Xeogred]

I plugged away more at it after that post, but I'm still running circles in the reactor level and level 3. I have to be honest, I can't tell if I'm liking the game or not. The music doesn't do much for me and it's practically Doom compared to Ultima Underworld, there is far too much constant combat and action. I even put the difficulty level for combat down to 1 or something I think. I died like 10 times in the central reactor room and everytime I revived there was like 10 Roovers in the hallways. The crawling invisible blob things in level 3 are incredibly annoying.

I didn't mind the respawning enemies in SS2 and even loved that element about it, you never knew what was around the corner. But it was much easier to run and get away from enemies in that compared to this. Same with Prey. But with SS1 here the game is far more claustrophobic level design wise and you barely have room to get around enemies when they respawn. I'm not sure if there's a way to check your total ammo for weapons?

I still have no idea how to divert the power from the reactor level to activate the level 3 elevator. Pretty much getting stuck per level at some point and then I'm running circles while dozens of enemies continually spawn. Not really fun.

That's a good enough chunk to judge it, but also enough to feel like I'm in it enough to see it through to the end. But I'm not going to force it. The combat and interface itself is a big upgrade from Ultima Underworld, but the constant respawning enemies sucks ass. I don't have time to take in any atmosphere.

[Xeogred]

Stuck in System Shock 1 again.

- Elevator to level 7 is under a biohazard lockdown and I'm not sure what to do about it.
- Jettisoned Beta Grove
- Explored level 4-5, found escape pods but they're disabled

I'm using a guide and it's more fun. But once again I'm stuck.

[Xeogred]

Made it to level 9 in System Shock 1, so basically the final dungeon. Time to squash an insect.

[MrPopo]

Oh, let me give you a warning because this happened to me. The final boss is "timed", in that you need to kill the final boss before you get instant killed. The problem is that the timing routine seems to be CPU bound. So if your Dosbox cycles are set really high then it will kill you before you can physically deal enough damage to win. I had to step down the cycle count a bit when I played to make it winnable.

I don't know if this is a problem in the Enhanced Edition or not.

[Ack]

I'm pretty sure they changed that in the Enhanced Edition.

[Xeogred]

I can confirm that SHODAN was really easy, got it on my first try. Very underwhelming final fight, but so was SS2's. So I'm assuming it was changed.

I had a LOT of trouble in the cyberspace level in ... it was level 8 I think. There was a narrow hallway towards the end of the cyberspace level filled with those mines. They were never an issue up to that point, but that part was tricky to figure out and get around. Luckily the cyberspace enemies don't respawn so I didn't have to worry about them along the way.

This seems to be my FPS backlog as it stands:

Borderlands The Pre-Sequel
Call of Cthulhu Dark Corners of the Earth That's a Mouthful
Dark Messiah of Might & Magic (played on the 360, gonna replay on PC)
STALKER Call of Pripyat (still undecided if I want to go vanilla or with mods)
Star Wars Republic Commando
Turok Dinosaur Hunter Remaster
Vampire The Masquerade Bloodlines (if it counts? I hear it's like Deus Ex)

[marurun]

Vampire: Bloodlines is awesome, but make sure you get the fan/unofficial patch. It may also take some doing to get it running in a modern OS. I recall I had to jump through some hoops. But the game was awesome. I would say it is even better than Deus Ex in some ways.

[Xeogred]

Vampire: Bloodlines is awesome, but make sure you get the fan/unofficial patch. It may also take some doing to get it running in a modern OS. I recall I had to jump through some hoops. But the game was awesome. I would say it is even better than Deus Ex in some ways.

I think I heard more recently it's a Source Engine game? I never knew that, but I guess I'm surprised to hear it might have some optimization struggles. Then again Half-Life 2 was kind of a mess itself from the start, lol.