This game really intensely disturbed me. I've played hundreds of games over the years, including a dozen in first person perspective, so I'm rather jaded and find most games boring and deja vu now, and don't play much. Anyway, I got tired of coding one day last summer, so I downloaded System Shock off an abandonware site, since I had read someplace that it was cool. (
Looking Glass is bankrupt anyway)
For the first hour it's just an ordinary game with a clumsy control system. Then something strange happens. Over the course of 2 days of playing on and off, I gradually become more and more immersed without realizing it. When I get to level 3, I edge carefully out of the elevator into the almost pitch black hallway, listening carefully for sounds of monsters, and I literally jump in surprise and fear when I'm shot by an invisible monster. At that point, I was hooked.
Starting from level 6 (the scariest level, for me) I'm shaking with fear, my hands and body are cold, I'm constantly looking to the sides in case a cyborg attacks me in real life, but I can't stop, I have to get up to level 9 and kill that bastard SHODAN who did this to me. When I finally win after 13 harrowing hours, I lie back in relief for 5 minutes relishing my victory over one hell of a game. I couldn't sleep for 3 days afterwards: I kept leaping up at every sound and seeing SHODAN's terrifying face everywhere in the darkness, even in my Sailor Moon poster.
I don't know why this game had such an effect on me: I've never seen anything like it. Not even close. Not in another game, book, horror film or any other form of entertainment. The graphics in System Shock suck by today's standards, but somehow there's a mix of fundamentally scary elements in that game that really hits home.
I don't dare play System Shock again. I can't afford to spend any more nights without sleep. But it's definitely my favorite game ever.