Items

Every RPG needs items, System Shock 2 being one, provides! While there are quite a few items in System Shock 2, most of the are only gag items, meant as jokes, although technically items, I will not list them here. The pre-game training does a good job explaining the item types, so this list is mostly redundant.

(Note: To find more info about an Item or to see what I mean by jokes, just click on the question mark while in inventory mode and then the item.)

Common Items

Abundant, Useful, and a whole bunch fit into 1 item slot. You can buy these, but it's not really necessary due to the fact that your "crew mates" usually carry one. Good for about 10 HP.

Quite a bit rarer than than the Health Hypo, this heals all your health. Good if you just lost a lot of Health in a skirmish and can't find a Medic Table, but try not to use them if you can heal with hypos, or if you can make it to a Medic Table because they are tough to find, and expensive if bought from a Replicator.

Although tempting to blow off food as useless, it's a godsend in Hard and Impossible. There are several different kinds of "food": Snack Food, Canned Drinks, Cigarettes, and Alcohol. Each type heals for different points. Snack Food and Drinks for 1 point and Alcohol for 2 points as well. However, please note that Alcohol and Cigarettes both hurt you in some way. Alcohol will take several Psi points away, but unless you are a psionic, this doesn't hurt at all. Cigarettes are just useless. They damage, not heal, with no benefit.

This is exactly the same as the Health Hypo, except it heals Psi points instead. It's a tad tougher to find, and, is the most common way to restore lost Psi points. Good for 20 Psi Points.

Actually, although I was tempted to call this hypo useless, it's not. It's really really useful, if you have a desire to commit suicide. Yes, you read that right, suicide. This Hypo "supposedly" doubles your speed for 12 seconds. In reality, it makes you move at insane speeds, causing damage whenever you hit a wall. In a spaceship with a lot of small spaces, this is a bad thing. A very bad thing. There might be a use for it in multiplayer, but in single player, the boost is too short and damaging to be much help. I recommend if you find it, you just chuck it into the recycler.

Well this one isn't quite as bad as the Speed Hypo, but there aren't any real great opportunities for using this. Because strength affects only 2 things: Wrench Damage, and Inventory Space, there are only 2 uses for this Hypo. Transporting an item you don't have room for, from a dangerous place to a non-dangerous place for later pickup, or more effectively bashing in peoples' skulls. I personally used it for only one of these purposes, can you guess which?

When you enter a room with radioactivity, a bar will begin to build on the lower left of the screen. As time passes, this bar will begin to shrink, and as it does, you will take some damage. Anti-Radiation Hypos will take a large chunk out of the bar without causing damage, effectively preventing a large amount of damage from occurring. Anti-Radiation Hypos are quite useful during the Engineering deck, but because you don't really see to many radioactive spots, their usefulness is limited. It's best to carry these only when you know you'll be needing them, thus saving inventory space for other items.

The Toxicity bar works exactly the same as the Radiatioactivity bar, but in regard to the amount of Toxins in your blood stream. Anti-Toxin Hypos will remove a large chunk of this bar without causing damage. Since there are several things that will cause your Toxicity Level to rise (Spiders, Annelid Pools, the Annelid Health Augmentation) It's tough to tell when you're going to need this Hypo, so it's best to keep some on you at all times.

The Surgical Unit Activation Key, when coupled with an Incomplete Surgical Unit, will create a Complete Surgical Unit (Go figure). Complete Surgical Units will restore you health to its maximum for a small amount of Nanites, making them invaluable. Try to hold on to these keys when there already is a Complete Surgical Unit in an area, so that you can use it in a later area which doesn't contain any Complete Surgical Units.

This is for entertainment only. Throughout the game you'll find various MFD Cartridges which, when used, will make a new game available for play on the MFD Game Player. All of these games are incredibly cheesy remakes of older Computer Games, and involve pigs and corn. This item can be hacked with a Hacking ability of Level 6, opening up all games for play.

If you have any maintenance skill, you'll need this tool to up the repair status on your weapon. Because there ARE unbreakable weapons in this game, this item wont have much use if you're using one. If you don't want to be cheap and use an unbreakable weapon, then you'll need to have some of these to maintain your weapon and keep it from breaking.

Restores some energy to any weapon or piece of equipment that requires energy. The amount of energy you get from a single battery goes up with your maintenance level. A good alternative when you can't make it to a recharge station.

This item is found in a replicator on the Operations Deck once the replicator has been hacked. This single item can make every useless thing in the game suddenly very useful. How? By converting the item into nanites, that's how. You can make quite a pretty penny recycling things like Speed Hypos with this, more than enough to quickly pay off the price for the Recycler. I strongly recommend that everyone attain this item.

This item instantly modifies any weapon for free, but is used up afterwards. Since there's around 6 of these in the game, a Modify skill higher than 1 or 2 shouldn't be necessary. Simply modify a weapon to the first level, then use the French Epstein Device to modify it to its second level.

This item instantly hacks any hackable console in the game, but is used up afterwards. I've only managed to find 4 of them in the entire game, so make sure the console you hack is well worth this valuable item's use. I'd recommend saving 3 of them for the final battle, as it will make things much easier.

This item instantly repairs any broken weapon in the game, but is used up afterwards. This item is fairly common throughout the entire game. It's availability, coupled with proper maintenance all but renders the Repair skill useless. Keep one of these on you at all times and you'll never need the repair skill.

Researchable Items

This has a small chance of appearing in an annelid egg that has been opened. Once researched, it can heal a large portion of your health and is a useful alternative to either the Med Kit or Health Hypo, but its rarity it a major drawback.

This is another item that has a small chance of appearing in opened annelid eggs. Once it's been researched, it can completely refill your PSI points, a major help near the end of the game when a Psi user can have 80+ Psi points. Like the Annelid Healing Gland though, its major drawback is its rarity.

This item will raise your PSI stat by 1 for 5 minutes, a pretty long time in this game. There's an important thing to remember when you use this though. Every time you load a new area, all bonuses conferred by Psi Abilities and Hypos are reset. So if you decide to use this hypo, just remember not to do it right before you load a new area.