One X-COM would be enough to call the 1994-th year of the most important for the development of computer games. But in the early spring of Origin and Looking Glass Studios released System Shock – the game, being on our industry with you about the same effect as published ten years earlier, "Neuromancer" by William Gibson – the fantastic literature. Trends were formed long ago: in the secret (as well as public) laboratories performed inhuman experiments on crossing shooters and role-playing games in Europe gaining strength newfangled genre survival horror (horror), and the success of Flashback Syndicate forced many developers to think about what cyberpunk – this is so cool … Producer Warren Spector and Doug Church programmer meanwhile tired endless Dungeon Ultima Underworld. At the junction of all these circumstances, there was a game prototype, which determined the path of FPS (and videogames in general) over the next fifteen years. Almost all findings of System Shock somehow taken root: neyroimplanty with upgradable; not feed the plot through conversations with the NPC, and via e-mail and found CDs with information, full of 3D-wireframe in cyberspace, ingeniously articulated with the game "reality." NPC in the game do not able because of technical limitations, but System Shock is still very good looks. It is not yet fully three-dimensional engine (three-dimensional model of virtuosity combined with sprites), but in System Shock already present inclined surfaces, layered architecture, a very interesting physics (there is constructed an invisible player model and all movements and contacts are calculated, for example, the position of his head) and the resolution to 640×480. Not a bit out of date and the total atmosphere of the game (the developers tried to build a hyper-world in which all objects appear three-dimensional and tactile, and that he was quite successful!), and extraordinary personality supercomputer SHODAN – a distant predecessor of GLDOS …

K Unfortunately, in March, was released heavily cut down version of the game on floppy disks – no public address and SVGA. Computer games have changed a lot since System Shock. In the fall, when there was a full CD-version, the world has rules Doom 2: Hell on Earth, coming, as opposed to resource intensive games Looking Glass, on absolutely any computer. In 1994, System Shock did not play almost no one, and Spector still gnaws at his elbows on the subject.