Secondly, though, it also has the benefit of meaning they're not just trying to fight SHODAN, it's that they actually contributed! This neatly dodges one common problem with video games, where the player ends up feeling like they're surrounded by incompetent, apathetic morons who survive purely due to the player's herculean efforts to save them from themselves and I guess also save them from the villain. Other people are fighting back against SHODAN, it's just you're the only one lucky enough to survive the experience. In addition to the raw gameplay utility, this has two narrative benefits: first of all, it clearly signals that you're not the only person on the station doing anything of use. I specifically noted that logs in System Shock 1 often give you your next objective in the form of laying out a plan other resistance forces made that you then execute. The net result is that audio logs in System Shock 2 are relegated to backstory stuff -and I've already touched on how this backstory is often dumb, problematic nonsense, such as randomly revealing The Many can do direct psychic domination, never mind that this means The Many should automatically defeat you. (The very first keypad door has an audio log telling you its code, but the code doesn't get put into your Notes tab) which even if you find it before you spring the trap in question, it utterly fails to forewarn you on the nature of the trap, and in fact it wasn't until my third playthrough that I understood the trap in question was what the audio log was supposed to be referring to) In practice, you can get through System Shock 2 without opening a single audio log past the very beginning of the game. (Example: one audio log forewarns you that one of your objectives is trapped. but you'll have encountered at least one by the time you find the audio log in question, you'd chase them down, kill them, and loot them anyway, and it's too vague to be helpful to boot) then they're useless because you have to already know what they're talking about to get what they mean. If they're not redundant (Example: one audio log indirectly informs you that items you need are on red Cyborg Assassins. Oh, System Shock 2 tries to occasionally have audio logs tell you something of relevance worth paying attention to, but it invariably botches it. (Exception: the devs actually missed the Med-Sci sub-armory's audio log code in this regard, so that you'll have to actually listen to the audio log. In System Shock 2, you do what the voices in your head tell you to do and ignore audio logs entirely the only mechanical incentive to pay attention to audio logs in System Shock 2 is that they occasionally contain a code for a keypad, and the game undermines even that utility by making it so that just picking up an audio log will shove the relevant code into your Notes tab. In System Shock 1, you pay attention to every note or email you get, just in case it contains critical information on what to do next. System Shock 2 bringing in a radio buddy telling you what to do is ripping out one of the primary functions of such logs. This was a natural and organic way of handling the intersection of 'largely silent, undefined protagonist' and 'no direct interaction with friendly NPCs' and 'the objectives for the game are nonetheless more varied than just killing everything or getting to end-of-level locations'. Many of your objectives are fairly literally 'I found a note where a now-dead group of people trying to resist SHODAN's takeover were laying out their intended plan, so I guess I'll go execute that plan myself'. You were cut loose into the game world and left to fend for yourself, trying to figure out what's what from the clues scattered among emails and whatnot you find around the station. See, in System Shock 1, you didn't have a radio buddy constantly telling you exactly what to do next.
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