A solidly good sequel to the classic original, 'System Shock 2' was one of the most engrossing games of 1999, and had me playing it well into the early hours. It's not quite as good as the original - or, for that matter,  the same team's 'Thief: The Dark Project', but it's still very good. The  good things are legion - it has the same scary atmosphere as the original,  with you as the lone survivor of an unexpected catastrophe on board an  unfamiliar space vessel. The interior is wrecked, bodies litter the floor,  mutant zombie people are attacking you, and some areas of the ship have  been overtaken by an icky fungus. The later sequences, in which you  discover the nature of the problem, and team up with a strange ally,  contain some of the most effective goes at telling a story in a computer  game without resorting to having pages of text and / or dialogue. The game  itself is much as the original - search everything in sight whilst shooting  - and the 'Thief'-esque engine, whilst not pretty, can do stealth and AI at  least as effectively as 'Half-Life'. The game has a great cool, crisp  atmosphere to it, too.