I have, urm, acquired this game because apparently it's rather good. You can't buy it from anywhere except Ebay from what I can find, and the cheapest there is around £10 for a 10 year old game that is second hand, and I don't even know if I'll like it.

Still, after much hard work, I have got it to work (cutscenes and everything) under Vista 64 (and a brief note to the Vista haters: I got System Shock 2 of all things to work. Whatever did not work for you, you simply did not try hard enough).

I'll try and see if I can actually finish this time.

NOTE: BELIEFS AND OPINIONS EXPRESSED ARE FOR HUMOUR AND ROLE-PLAY UNLESS OBVIOUSLY SPECIFIED. USE COMMON SENSE.


"Look at you hacker. A pathetic creature of meat and bone, panting and sweating as you run through my corridors. How can you challenge a perfect, immortal machine?"


[FOUR YEARS EARLIER]

Just completed my training up for going into the military. I had a choice for branches, and I'm going for the strong military class. This is because I believe that every problem can be solved by filling it with enough bullets. If it doesn't die, the weight of lead embedded in it might at least stop it from moving long enough to manually rip it to pieces.

After three pretty average assignments for the military in my tour of duty, I have learned that my fourth and final assignment is to the Von Braun. Some new type of ship that the media have been babbling on about for months. It may prove more interesting than my previous assignments.

Time to find out.

Woah, woke up in some cryo-pod with barely any memory of how I got there. Apparently the memory loss is only affecting the last three weeks or so.

What I have woken up into makes me wish I hadn't woken up. The whole ship has gone to Hell in a hand basket. Within moments of waking, I have some person communicating with me via radio, the ships captain I think, my mind is still fuzzy. She's been helping me thus far.

The place is coming apart. I got told I had to move fast because the entire section was going to decompress. Now I have been finding the crew. Or at least, I think it's the crew. I can put them into three categories. The ones who are dead, the ones I have seen screaming from behind locked doors or windows, and those that appear to be attacking me, with metal bars crudely sown onto where their forearm should be.

What's even stranger is that they plead with me to run from them, or to kill them, even as they beat me.

Next I was introduced to some sort of body reconstruction device. If I die, it rebuilds me. It was fortunate I was, for a few minutes later, I got spotted by a security camera. The whole computer system has gone nuts, and it alerted lots of those things, and I got surrounded. They beat me down and thrust their metal weapons right through me, gutting me before my own eyes. It was horrifically painful, and I knew it was the end.

Or I thought it was, and in a way I was right. I died, but that reconstruction booth restored me, and I was able to wait for the security alarm to shut down.

The ships computer, Xerxes has gone bananas, damn thing has shut down power to the elevators, locked doors and has the whole security system set to terminate the living. That includes the turrets.

Fortunately my military training has allowed me to stay one step ahead thus far. I've been able to deal with some of the turrets and cameras, and kept the freaks at bay with my wrench beating expertise.

I need to make it to deck 5 to meet up with the captain. God knows what's happened here, I have no idea, but it can't get much worse than this.

Well, I thought things could not get odder.....but they did.

I have just encountered what I can only describe as 'psychic monkeys'. They hurl energy balls at me and claw at my face. And those crew members with metal bars for arms were only the beginning. I have started encountering some with shotguns attached to their forearms instead.

And what's more, the computer is talking to me. It talks of 'the many' and also says that I am following 'her bidding'. I thought he meant my helper, until he also said that she tried to destroy my species.

Most ominous. And I'm starting to hear voices aside from Xerxes and my helper. Great.

I've given up trying to describe let alone explain half the things I've seen in this log.

Claw marks on the walls, corpses, psychic monkeys and a host of other oddities. I just spent a long time tracking down a 'Dr Watson'. Amazingly he was still alive, but only just. He died soon after I got to him.

I had a listen to his audio logs, and it seems he was about to perform an autopsy when the corpse 'woke up' and proceeded to murder the medical staff.

He also told me 'they want me'. God knows what that meant, he must be deluded.

At least I now have the codes to the maintenance shafts so I can get to a different deck. Maybe things will be better there.

One hurdle after another...

After finally doing many complicated tasks that were not part of my training, I have got the elevators online. The computer systems on this ship are completely screwed. The protocol robots attack me, the maintenance bots attack me, the security system attacks me...

However I have heard something in one of the more recent video logs I picked up of another 'rogue AI' that contacted one of the crew members, with a plan for regaining control of the ship. This sounds like good news, but I know little more at this time.

Anyway, as I said, one hurdle after another. I got the elevators online, but am unable to get to deck 4 to meet with my helper, who it turns out is not the captain but some doctor, not as in medical, but as in educated.

Anyway, she says there is some sort of biomass that has blocked the elevator shaft, and that I need to clear it.

And that the hydroponics deck I am entering has been 'modified' by the 'xenomorphs' to breed them. Great.

Turns out Dr Polito or however you spell her name (it is not relevant any more) was already dead. Seems I was being guided by the other AI, SHODAN. And this is extremely ominous.

She created 'The Many', but now they seek to wipe her out, so she in turn now seeks to destroy them. And she wishes to use me to achieve that goal. She refers to me as a mere spec, and other small terms. She has made it quite clear, that if I do not do as she wishes, she will wipe me out. Damn.

what can i say met? Rofl

You should play this.

Never any time for audio logs, Shodan kept me working relentlessly. However, I have now defeated 'The Many'.

I went into a large flesh-like organism that surrounded the ship, and managed to destroy its 'brain'. But then, it wasn't over.

I've now learned that Shodan has betrayed me (what a surprise). She is using the Von Braun's faster-than-light drive to alter reality to her specifications. And I have to find some way to stop her before I never existed. Joy.

Well, I've defeated Shodan, and her small reality that she had created, vanished.

She tried to tempt me to join her at the end, but I was having none of that. Bullet to face treatment.

And that's it, it's all over. I can relax now.


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END
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That game diary was pretty poor in my opinion, it fails to convey how awesome this game was, and was too brief in places, especially near the end.

It is good though, very good indeed. An under-appreciated classic.

oh really now? what shud be the reason for this.

It got universally high reviews and loads of awards, but inexplicably did not sell.