That terrible oik and New Game Journalism pater familias Kieron Gillen (yes, yes, his Phonogram comic is out now via Image) has posted an explanatory link to what he describes as 'the hefty 4000 word feature I wrote about SHODAN from System Shock 2' for PC Gamer UK. And it is!

Thus, we get things like this: "Shodan is, as far as videogames go, an original. Most games fiction is hopelessly derivative. System Shock, and Shodan especially, was /hopefully/ derivative. She’s taken from some obvious sources – 2001’s HAL primarily - but she’s something else, something more and something unique. She’s more than just a gender-switched HAL, and it’s a disservice to treat her as such. She’s, essentially, a pulp villainess."

There's also some nice comparisons of the first game and the sequel: "While the first System Shock opened the game with her in complete control and a petty little God in her own floating world, just a few days before the beginning of the story of System Shock 2, she didn’t even exist." The full feature looks really nice when laid out, FWIW, and is the kind of thing it's delightful to see magazines running, honestly. [Also, a shiny round penny for whoever gets the terrible Commodore Amiga-related game pun in the post title.]