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The game begins with the player choosing a career in a branch of the Unified National Nominate, a military organization. Backstory is explained progressively through the acquisition of Audio Logs and encounters with ghostly apparitions. Navigation is presented from a first-person perspective and complemented with a heads-up display that shows character and weapon information, a map, and a drag and drop inventory. The player uses melee and projectile weapons to defeat enemies, while a role-playing system allows the development of useful abilities. Like its predecessor, gameplay in System Shock 2 is an amalgamation of the role-playing game (RPG) and first person shooter (FPS) genres. Gameplay See also: System Shock 2 Controls Rebecca is shown speaking in a voice similar to that of SHODAN, asking Tommy if he "likes her new look", as the screen fades to black.
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Thomas responds, saying they will return and that Rebecca is acting strange. The final scene shows Thomas and Rebecca receiving a message from the Von Braun, informing them that the protagonist has regained control of the ship. Soldier confronts SHODAN in cyberspace and defeats her. SHODAN congratulates the protagonist and informs him of her intentions to merge real space and cyberspace by subverting the reality-altering mechanics of the Von Braun's Faster-Than-Light drive. The protagonist enters the biomass and destroys its core, stopping the alien infection. With the transfer complete, he travels to the Rickenbacker and learns both ships have been enveloped by the infection source, a gigantic mass of bio-organic tissue. While en route, soldier briefly encounters two survivors, Thomas Suarez and Rebecca Siddons, who flee the ship aboard an escape pod. SHODAN informs the protagonist that destroying the Von Braun is their only option, but he must transmit her program to the Rickenbacker first. SHODAN issues an ultimatum to soldier, stating his only chance for survival lies in helping destroy her rebellious creations. While SHODAN went into forced "hibernation", the Many evolved beyond her control. The Hacker ejected the Grove that contained her experiments to prevent them contaminating Earth, an act that also allowed part of SHODAN to survive the events of the first game. She goes on to mention that she is responsible for creating the Many, the results of her bio-engineering experiments on Citadel Station. It is revealed she has been posing as Polito to gain soldier's trust. He is confronted by SHODAN, a malevolent Artificial Intelligence that devastated Citadel Station in the previous game. The Many also telepathically communicate with him, attempting to persuade soldier to join their collective.Īfter restarting the ship's engine core and purging an elevator shaft, soldier reaches Deck 4 and discovers Polito is dead. Along the way, soldier battles the infected crew members. She demands that he rendezvous with her on the Operations Deck of the Von Braun. Janice Polito, who guides him to safety before the cabin depressurizes. He is immediately contacted by another survivor, Dr. Soldier awakens in a Cryo tube on the MedSci Deck of the Von Braun with amnesia due to a computer malfunction. The infestation eventually overtakes both ships. The eggs infect the rescue team and integrate them into an alien communion that calls itself the Many. A rescue team is sent to the planet surface where they discover strange eggs. As the Rickenbacker does not have an FTL system of its own, the two ships are attached together for the trip.Ī few months into the journey, the ships respond to a distress signal from the planet Tau Ceti V. The Rickenbacker is escorting Von Braun, an experimental Faster-Than-Light starship on its maiden voyage. After joining the Unified National Nominate, the protagonist, Soldier G65434-2, is assigned to UNN Rickenbacker, a military starship. The story begins in 2114, 42 years after the events of System Shock.
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