History YMMV / SystemShock

** Hoppers are the most infamous example, and are hated by most of the original System Shock's fans, unlike most enemies they turn around pretty fast, deal an insanely high damage hitscan, are pretty chunky and will be very common.

* AccidentalNightmareFuel: Whether it's a quirk of the engine or the programming is unknown, but enemy corpses spawn standing up, only to fall when they enter your field of view. So be ready for a heart attack when the game fakes you out when you open a door and all the enemies you killed are standing back up, only to fall over dead again.

* AlternateCharacterInterpretation: The famous [[https://www.it-he.org/sshock.php Hacker's Guide to Sin]] which reframes the Hacker as some bizarre six-armed sado-masochistic junkie lunatic.

* CreepyAwesome: SHODAN is one terrifying and compelling villain.

* EvilIsCool: There's a reason SHODAN's become one of the most memorable video game villains in history.
* EvilIsSexy: Well, when SHODAN is compared to a dominatrix...

* EvilIsCool: There's a reason SHODAN's become one of the most memorable videogame villains in history.

* CompleteMonster: [[spoiler:[[AIIsACrapshoot SHODAN]], after her ethical restraints are removed, begins thinking of herself as the proper ruler of humanity. [[AGodAmI Fancying herself a goddess]], SHODAN takes over the space station she's on and has the humans on board killed or horribly converted into cyborgs to be used as her puppets. In [[VideoGame/SystemShock2 the sequel]], SHODAN is revealed to be the [[EvilutionaryBiologist creator]] of the monstrous being called The Many that assimilates innocent humans and enlists the help of the player character to destroy her wayward creation. SHODAN disposes of those in her way and reveals she plans to resume her goals of conquering humanity or replacing it with a sea of perfect machinery. Disdaining humans, [[DigitalAbomination SHODAN]] is viciously emotional and hatefully sadistic and cruel, stopping at nothing to achieve the godhood she craves.]]

* PolishedPort: The ''[[UpdatedRerelease Enhanced Edition]]'' greatly improves the game, with updated modern controls and sharper graphics.

* PolishedPort: It can't be emphasized enough how much the ''[[UpdatedRerelease Enhanced Edition]]'' changes the first game from "Borderline Unplayable" to legitimately enjoyable for modern audiences, by at least modding in modern keyboard + mouse controls instead of the originals archaic ''VideoGame/UltimaUnderworld''-style movement. The sharper graphics and performance helps too.

* CompleteMonster: After her ethical restraints are removed, [[AIIsACrapshoot the evil AI]] [[BigBad SHODAN]] begins thinking of herself as the proper ruler of humanity. [[AGodAmI Fancying herself a goddess]], SHODAN takes over the space station she's on and has the humans on board killed or horribly converted into cyborgs to be used as her puppets. [[spoiler:In the sequel, SHODAN is revealed to be the [[EvilutionaryBiologist creator]] of the monstrous being called The Many that assimilates innocent humans and enlists the help of the player character to destroy her wayward creation.]] SHODAN disposes of those in her way and reveals she plans to resume her goals of conquering humanity or replacing it with a sea of perfect machinery. Disdaining humans, SHODAN is viciously emotional and hatefully sadistic and cruel, stopping at nothing to achieve the godhood she craves.

* GameBreaker: The Skorpion Rifle can turn into this, it can shred everyone and everything in a matter of seconds, and instead of getting a secondary "special" ammo, it simply gets a 100-round magazine, which will spawn more commonly than the normal 50-round magazine.

* CompleteMonster: After her ethical restraints are removed, [[AIIsACrapshoot the evil AI]] [[BigBad SHODAN]] begins thinking of herself as the proper ruler of humanity. [[AGodAmI Fancying herself a goddess]], SHODAN takes over the space station she's on and has the humans on board killed or horribly converted into cyborgs to be used as her puppets. In the sequel, SHODAN is revealed to be the [[EvilutionaryBiologist creator]] of the monstrous being called The Many that assimilates innocent humans and enlists the help of the player character to destroy her wayward creation. SHODAN disposes of those in her way and reveals she plans to resume her goals of conquering humanity or replacing it with a sea of perfect machinery. Disdaining humans, SHODAN is viciously emotional and hatefully sadistic and cruel, stopping at nothing to achieve the godhood she craves.

* EvilIsSexy: Well, when SHODAN is compared to the dominatrix...

* The Riot Gun, and Stun Gun especially stand out, whilst it's neat to include theoretically non-lethal options, these two are only really good to waste ammo and precious space that could be saved for more effective weapons.
* The Railgun sounds awesome on paper, but in execution it's a complete liability - rare ammunition, rather weak performance (apart from the weakest, most enemies require several shots to put down effectively) and a projectile more likely to kill you than the enemy due to the tight spaces.

* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic: Most of the second game's sound track is ''very'' creepy and atmospheric, but of special note are MedSci 2, Engineering, and Hydroponics 2. There's also Command 2, which is more about action than suspense, but still awesome.

* DemonicSpiders: The second game has a ''literal'' example in the form of [[GiantSpider annelid arachids]]. They have a venomous bite and while the venom only does about 1 damage every few seconds, it ''never'' goes away on it's own, meaning unless you have a antidote hypo, YouAreAlreadyDead (which isn't so bad if you've turned on the reconstructor, unfortunately, some levels (such as the Body Of The Many) don't even ''have'' a reconstructor. They are considered so annoying there are some GameMods that remove them altogether.
** '''Rumblers'''. They've got all the qualifications for Demonic Spiders. Very fast, tons of health, hits like a runaway train, and even exploiting their WeaksauceWeakness to [[KillItWithFire fire]] takes much longer than any other enemy to wear down. It gets even worse when you're in the Body of the Many and you can get blindsided by up to '''6''' of the bastards. The only true disadvantage that they have is their lack of ranged attacks, but even that is negated if you're not properly equipped to face one of them.
** The Psionic Reavers. While they don't appear until you're in the heart (or brain, considering that their "boss" is a gigantic mutated cerebrum) of the Body of the Many (you also get a preview of one in the form of [[spoiler: Mutated!Korenchkin]]), they more than make up for their rarity by firing psychokinetic balls of energy that take away a ''very'' large amount of your health even on the easiest difficulty setting. Made worse by the fact that killing them only grants a temporary reprieve from further attacking you and they'll quickly respawn several seconds later to make you more miserable; the only way to truly prevent them from respawning is by destroying their primary brain that powers them which is located somewhere nearby in order for them to truly be eliminated.
** The Cyborg assassins. While they may not have as much hp as the others (60, or 48 for the red kind), they throw ninja stars which a really hard to dodge, and are one of the few enemies smart enough to back up if you try to melee them.

* GameBreaker: The assault rifle in the second game. It requires 6 in standard weapons to use but is well worth it, as while it only has a base damage of 10, the antipersonnel and armor-piercing rounds do ''double'' damage against the appropriate targets, and, due to ArbitraryGunPower not being in place, automatic fire does the same damage per shot as single shots, meaning you can kill a [[DemonicSpiders rumbler or military robot]] in about two seconds if you have the right ammo.

* HilariousInHindsight:
** One of Korenchkin's logs says that he has found "the borders of rapture." [[VideoGame/BioShock Hmmm...]]
** SHODAN is [[VideoGame/{{Portal}} not the only]] female evil AI to be the face of her franchise.

* ScrappyWeapon: The second game has a surprising number of them:
** The laser pistol has a pitiful base damage (2) in it's normal fire mode. Its SecondaryFire does a more reasonable 12 damage, but requires 2-3 seconds to recharge after every shot. As such, it's good for destroying security cameras and little else.
** The laser rapier, despite it's cool name and sounds. It has unreasonably high requirements (energy weapons 4, agility 3) and does energy damage, which is good vs robots, decent vs cyborgs, and pretty much crap against anything else, meaning the basic wrench is usually better.
** The fusion cannon seems meant to be a {{BFG}}, as it requires 6 in heavy weapons to wield, but it's damage is surprisingly low (20 on normal, 30 on "death" setting), and it does energy damage as well. Finally, the ammo for it (prisms) is pretty rare, meaning it's usually better to just use the grenade launcher.
** The viral proliferator looks cool, but that's about it. It requires 4 in exotic weapons as well as 4 to research before you can use it, and uses [[AbnormalAmmo worms as ammo, which require you to use the (surprisingly rare) beakers to collect.]] And while it actually does do decent damage against pure annelids on it's anti-annelid setting (about 40 per shot), its rate of fire is so low that the assault rifle on full auto with anti-personnel rounds is way better.
** The EMP rifle isn't as bad as the others, but requires 6 in energy weapons, and while EMP is ''really'' good against robots and decent on cyborgs, it has no effect at all on anything else. It's better to just use EMP grenades from the grenade launcher (which only requires 1 in heavy weapons.)

* TearJerker: The death of [[spoiler: Marie Delacroix]] in the second game. While you never meet her in person and don't actually see her die, she leaves more messages and the like than any other human character, so her death hits a lot harder.

* ThatOneLevel: The first Rickenbacker level is a serious step up in challenge compared to the earlier levels. For starters, the resurrection booth isn't found until the end of the level, meaning that you'll be save-scumming the whole way through. It's a massive labyrinth of twisting halls and chambers that's incredibly easy to get lost in, not to mention the high volume of very powerful robotic enemies that can slice off massive chunks of your health if you're not careful. Hope you brought enough first aid kits.

* GameBreaker: The assault rifle in the second game. It requires 6 in standard weapons to use but is well worth it, as while it only has a base damage of 10, the antipersonnel and armor-piercing rounds do ''quadruple'' damage against the appropriate targets, and, due to ArbitraryGunPower not being in place, automatic fire does the same damage per shot as single shots, meaning you can kill a [[DemonicSpiders rumbler or military robot]] in about two seconds if you have the right ammo.

* ThatOneLevel: The first Rickebacker level is a serious step up in challenge compared to the earlier levels. For starters, the resurrection booth isn't found until the end of the level, meaning that you'll be save-scumming the whole way through. It's a massive labyrinth of twisting halls and chambers that's incredibly easy to get lost in, not to mention the high volume of very powerful robotic enemies that can slice off massive chunks of your health if you're not careful. Hope you brought enough first aid kits.

* ThatOneLevel: Deck 7 is a serious step up in challenge compared to the earlier levels. For starters, the resurrection booth isn't found until the end of the level, meaning that you'll be save-scumming the whole way through. It's a massive labyrinth of twisting halls and chambers that's incredibly easy to get lost in, not to mention the high volume of very powerful robotic enemies that can slice off massive chunks of your health if you're not careful. Hope you brought enough first aid kits.

** Averted with SS2, which still holds up in a the same way Half Life 1 or 2 does.

* ThatOneLevel: Deck 7 is a serous step up in challenge compared to the earlier levels. For starters, the resurrection booth isn't found until the end of the level, meaning that you'll be save-scumming the whole way through. It's a massive labyrinth of twisting halls and chambers that's incredibly easy to get lost in, not to mention the high volume of very powerful robotic enemies that can slice off massive chunks of your health if you're not careful. Hope you brought enough first aid kits.