Audio and emails do display the spoken words but if you do anything while listening it closes the window so you just have to sit there and listen if you want to understand them. My next big gripe with this game is the fact it doesn't have subtitles, yes I know its a game from 1999 but the original from 1994 had them and my ears barely work. This does absolutely nothing but lock you out of certain weapons, powers or technology which I absolutely should not be a thing in a singleplayer game and for whatever reason they decided to remove grenades as a weapon? In the first game you could arm and throw many different grenade types but they only act as ammo for the grenade launcher which is just a baffling decision. SS2 actively discourages this experimental gameplay by forcing you to create a build in a singleplayer shooter. SS2 while I definitely enjoyed it does not. SS1 has some pretty awful controls and very outdated gameplay but its very charming in its presentation and very open to experimental gameplay. I would probably say I enjoyed System Shock 1 more surprisingly. System Shock 2 is the game everyone talks about but if you asked me which one I preferred. Although I enjoyed System Shock 2 I think without a doubt that Bioshock took what SS2 had and refined it immensely into a better gameplay experience albeit with the advantage of being a much newer game.

You could point to almost anything in Bioshock and see a similar version of it originating in SS2 but its not like Bioshock didn't do its own thing.

The mutated enemies, the camera security systems, audio logs, the vending machines, the powers you obtain. Yes, you can very much tell that this game inspired Bioshock, Prey & Dead Space (Although Dead Space originally started as System Shock 3) but Bioshock is the one people point at first and its very easy to see why. I'll be mainly comparing this game to the first one and not as much its impact and influence on the genre but briefly.

System shock 2 research descriptions