JOKES OF THE WEEK
Reboot of classic shooter is out of this world
I WENT out to play golf for the first time yesterday ..... and scored 72!
On the second hole I did much better though.
A MAN was feeling really down on his luck — having lost his job, his wife then divorced him all in a matter of weeks.
But then he inherited some money and decided to buy a Ferrari to pull himself out of his gloom.
As he pulled out of the dealership and drove down the street, he saw men and women stopping and staring at his shiny new motor.
As his confidence started to return, he put his foot on the pedal, racing through a red light in the process.
However, a police car spotted him and flashed its lights, giving chase. The Ferrari driver, still on a high, saw the cop car and accelerated even more. After a few moments, with the police car still following him, the man realised the stupidity of his actions and pulled over.
A policeman approached the Ferrari and said to the man, “Listen son, you have a nice car here and I admit I like seeing it driven the way it should be, but the law is the law. However, I clock off in five minutes, so if you can give me an original excuse I’ll let you go.”
The man pondered for a second before saying, “Well, my ex-wife left me for a cop and I thought you were bringing her back.”
DID you know that soul singer Marvin Gaye used to keep sheep at his winery?
If one got lost, he’d herd it through the grapevine.
STEVE McQueen once won a superhero lookalike competition.
He was in the greatest cape.
BOUGHT some rocket salad the other day. It went off before I could eat it.
I ASKED the librarian if she knew of any authors who wrote dinosaur novels.
She said, “Yes, try Sarah Topps.”
I MET a girl who runs a battery kiosk beside the local playground.
She sells C cells by the seesaw.
I PUT up a high-voltage electric fence around my property over the weekend.
My neighbour is dead against it.
Platform: PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC
Genre: Shooter
THIS is a full-on remake of the 1994 classic first-person game that, for many, redefined the action shooter.
Highly praised, and in many a gaming ‘hall of fame’, System Shock was able to deliver a non-linear, puzzles and fighting title set on a sinister space station the likes of which had never been seen before.
Flash-forward some 30 years and developer Nightdive Studios has lovingly re-crafted the original title into a more modern looking version.
Its graphics are far more akin to today’s FPS titles, as opposed to the bitty Dooms of the 90s, and feels unique still but in keeping with today’s gaming expectations.
But diehard System Shock fans need not worry.
We still have at its core a very faithful recreation of the original game with all the stress, discovery and AI malevolence
GAMES REVIEWS
that feels as relevant now as it would have then.
The game revolves around the Citadel space station and an AI gone rogue called Shodan.
As a captured hacker, you’re tasked with removing the “ethical constraints” from the station’s artificial intelligence.
Monsters
And once you’ve woken up from some cryo-like sleep all hell has broken loose and the station is fully under Shodan’s control, with cybernetic monsters, robots and beasties roaming around looking to kill.
Now it’s your turn to slowly learn the maze-like station, working your way through the levels in a bid to defeat the all-seeing AI and survive.
That means finding key cards, flipping switches, solving clever puzzles to get through areas and knocking out Shodan’s cameras everywhere to limit its eyes on what you are doing.
It can be tough at times as monsters appear and start beating on you.
And it can also prove frustrating as this game doesn’t hold your hand or signpost the next job like many of today’s blockbusters.
So you can often end up going back on yourself, trying to work out what vital thing you’ve missed to move the whole narrative forwards.
Resources are tight but the weaponry is easy to control when you do have the necessary ammo and are effective with it.
It runs and plays smoothly and has a tense atmosphere which leaves you on the edge of your seat at points.
And while this type of game has obviously been done better and bigger in the decades since, old-school gamers will love stepping back into this world.
However, modern players may find it interesting but not vital.