System Shock 2
System Shock 2 was the unwanted sequel to the horribly unsuccessful System Shock. Counter intuitively the sequel in fact narrowed the scope of game play from the first game, reducing all actions in the game to a simple and easy to play system of crying in various positions. the player was only required to mash buttons and pray for gods mercy, as the game accepted any input for any situation, and essentially preformed every action for the player. in this regard system shock 2 has been accepted as the first "casual" game and is seen as the ideological predecessor to the wii.
Peripherals[edit | edit source]
As this was a game developed for a Nintendo system it did require the player to spend more money on peripherals before they could properly enjoy the game. However these were the only Nintendo peripherals to ever openly mock the player, and the third to inflict physical pain on the player.the peripherals consisted of what was obviously a cheap sweatshop mash up of jumper cables and a snes controller. this device was attached to the player nipples and delivered a "system shock" at random intervals regardless of what the player did.
The insulation on the jumper cables was covered in insults, mocking the player for their purchase. with sayings such as.
| “ | You paid for this shit? | ” |
| “ | Are you mentally challenged or a fan boy? wait, no difference! | ” |
| “ | Princess peach is into men, accept that you can never fulfill that desire | ” |
| “ | I hear that bowser is looking for a new bitch | ” |
| “ | Samus would never play with this thing, let alone with you | ” |
| “ | This device costs the same amount of money as the average BJ, think of what you could have bought | ” |
| “ | Most of our employees are riddled with disease, and nothing is disinfected, good luck | ” |
| “ | Luigi is 10X more of a man than you and he's the loser of the pair | ” |
| “ | On the off chance that there is a woman using this device....HOT! | ” |
Game play[edit | edit source]
The summary at the beginning of the article was actually pretty decent, the game play consisted of the player mashing buttons on their controller, the button presses had no effect whatsoever on what was happening in game, but they were required simply to keep the game running. on screen a surprisingly detailed sprite person commonly referred to as "weeping will" cried in various positions that changed randomly. each level was denoted by a different background, however all backgrounds were essentially the same black screen with the games logo moving to different locations. As stated before all this was accompanied by random electric shocks from the peripheral directly to the players nipples (or wherever they had attached the electrodes).
Player immersion[edit | edit source]
The packaging on both the game and the peripheral boasted increased player immersion, however many view this as a blank faced lie as the electric shocks that the peripheral device delivered corresponded to nothing that was happening on screen. all attempts to decipher any pattern in the electric shocks have lead to insanity, loss of feeling in the upper body, or orgasmic pleasure (depending on who you talk to)
Controversy[edit | edit source]
Upon first booting up the game many players were sure that the weeping man on screen referred to their decisions not to buy a peripheral, and that once they had bought a peripheral they would be able to enjoy the full game experience, needless to say many players were disappointed when the game did not change after the addition of a peripheral, and many more were outraged that they could not return the peripherals as they were classified as "personal" items by most retailers.
Interestingly less controversy followed the news that nearly ninety percent of players died while playing the game due to the fact that the peripherals delivered a full 120V charge directly to the chest cavity of the player, in fact this became a sell point as advertisements bragged that the game was "to extreme for nine out of ten gamers" those parents who were upset to discover their gamers dead in front of the screen decided to sue rock star games or konami, because they did not know any other developer names. the one case that made it to court was thrown out by the judge because he "hates those stupid queer sticks that play games, they should get a real job and stop sucking cock" most other cases were settled outside of court, and usually ended with the developer reminding the parents that they were now without a nerd in their house, most parents responded to this with glee and offered to make donations to the developer.
Legacy[edit | edit source]
To this day you can buy a copy of system shock 2, however if you want to use the peripheral you will have to follow an online tutorial to build your own from a set of jumper cables and a snes controller. there are many groups around the country that will help you in your quest the most notable is the paradoxically named "gamer hater club".