Games like this make me wish there was a rating higher than "exceptional". This is one of those rare games that is a step above all. It belongs in the elite of the elite with the likes of Doom and Half-Life. Truly a great game.

If ever there was a game that proved gameplay > graphics this is it. The graphics weren't bad. They were just good enough not to distract you from the game itself.

What makes System Shock 2 great? In a word, atmosphere. Irrational combined average graphics, great sound effects and great storytelling and came out with a game that just oozes creepiness.

On top of that general sense of creepiness the game would just flat-out scare you from time to time. The only other game that scared me was Doom. In fact, most of my friends never managed to finish the game because they couldn't handle playing it alone at night. To some, a game this scary may be a bad thing but it was perfect for me.

Sounds, oh the wonderful sounds. From the great music and sound effects to the exceptional voice acting, I can't think of another game that put it all together like this. Shodan was great, but to me the best sound in the whole game was the voice of those damn Cyborg Midwives. You'd be going down a corridor, low on health, nervously peaking into every room and then you'd hear it. This grating, mechanical-human voice. You'd pause for a moment, try not to shit yourself, and then run like hell until you could gather yourself enough emotionally to go back and face it.

The story was fantastic. Irrational used a very low-tech way of telling the story. Audio-diaries. You would find them on the floor in just the right place to advance the story (I never did figure out how people kept dropping them) and they worked. What started out as a few separate simple plot lines soon became an intertwined web of intrigue (cheesy enough line?). The weirdest part is that you actually started caring about the characters you were hearing about. There were some sad moments when you would find the body of someone you'd been reading about in a pool of blood on the floor, their last words in a disc near their head.

System Shock 2 sort of had a class system. You could specialize in weaponry, psi, or tech. They all played a bit different and you could adjust your class one way or the other as the game progressed by upgrading different skills. Invariably I would end up with a hybrid that was mostly psi and tech with a sprinkle of weapons.

Bottom line. If you don't have it already, go out and get a copy. If you do have it, re-install it. You owe it to yourself to play a game this good. There really aren't that many games of this caliber.