You may indeed be lucky as far as that goes. On my XP computer (which wasn't the one I mentioned), it refused to play no matter what. Even with a lot of the tweaking guides found on TTLG forums. If you can provide links, it'd be very much appreciated. I'm very keen to play the game longer than the five minutes I spent with it on the Pentium 3 machine.
Only three videos? That's really bizarre.. I could have sworn the video directory had more files than that. Sadly, I did try ffdshow and had no luck with System Shock 2, I was lucky enough for it to disrupt other games though. =/
Actually, if it's been updated (it was some time ago), it might be something to look into.
This somehow turned into a technical support thread rather than a licensing problems thread. ;)
Cheers!

That's why I said Looking Glass's IP was likely bought up by Eidos, which is now owned by Square Enix. When a company folds, its IP is generally assigned to another entity during liquidation, either directly as part of an existing contract (i.e. with a publisher) or to a third-party by auction. Looking Glass is no more, so of course they'd have nothing to say about it - Square Enix, on the other hand, potentially might.
I'd totally forgotten about the Indeo codec crap with the Dark Engine games, but you're probably right, Shalgroth - a required proprietary codec could just as easily be enough of a snag to prevent re-licensing the game for distribution.

Strange. I may not have SS2 (wish I had, though), but I managed to make Thief 2 (videos and all) work perfectly with Windows 7. I had to use some unofficial patches (because of my quad-core CPU), and installed the latest free version of the codec (the "Through the Looking Glass forums" have download links for all you need).
I remember trying the HOTU version (that I deleted since) which reencoded the videos. Strangely, it didn't worked with me.

Actually, that is strange. I also have Thief 2, and apart from having to disable a core (single core CPU, though the Hyper Threading still caused the Multi Core problem) on my older PC, I never had a problem with it's videos. But System Shock 2? It was a prolific experience if it even booted - only to immediately exit to desktop.
I wasn't aware that Thief 2 used the same codecs... Very strange.

Huh? Space Quest 1-3 aren't old enough for you?

Probably a typo. I think he meant Gog doesn't stock new games, and then points at the name. A bit of a miscommunication between drmlessgames and Gundato.

There's definitely fan-made graphics updates out there for SS2, perhaps there's video codec fixes available too...

I only followed the well-known FAQ on TTLG and it simply worked. Sorry I can't be any more help. It's weird you can run Thief 2 and not SS2, as their inner workings are basically the same. Not that I know much about these things; the codec thing is quite easy to spot, though. The same small red diagonal artefacts in every single video give it away.
And I really wouldn't be all that surprised if there were versions of the SS2 videos somewhere on the internet recoded into something more reasonable. Alas, I don't know where.

System Shock 2 with SS2Tool installed works fine here on Vista 32, videos and everything.
There are indeed more than 3 videos (the short cutscenes at the beginning after each choice of training course)

Err.. Wow. You just inadvertantly struck the mother lode by mentioning SS2Tool. According to the post I read (not sure if I can link it? Kolya's SS org site) by the Kolya, after the Indeo debacle with XP, Microsoft actually slipped an older version back into Vista and Windows 7 to get around the rights that Ligos now hold?!
So for anyone wanting to get the videos working without losing their hair, and presumably if you're running Vista or Windows 7 (apparently both 32 bit and 64 bit works, I can only confirm that it works for me with 7 64bit), the steps are fairly easy.
"Got to: Start -> Accessories -> Right click: DOS prompt
Select: Run As Administrator
Type: regsvr32 "c:\your\path\to\SS2\LGVID.AX" Return
On 32bit systems type: regsvr32 ir50_32.dll Return
On 64bit systems type: regsvr32 "%windir%\sysWOW64\ir50_32.dll" Return
On Vista/Windows7 run SS2 as admin"
I can't remember if I registered LGVID earlier when I booted my PC, but the only command I put in was the one that applies to the 64bit systems. I'm also guessing you'd have to run that command every time you reboot? I'd say so, anyway.
So yeah.. About 6 years of not being able to play System Shock 2, and now I can after a few small steps. Keep in mind that I applied the official patch (patches to 2.3? Or is it 2.03?), and at the game menu I have to bring up Task Manager, fiddle with the CPU affinity for the exe and icd so it only runs on one core.
If Microsoft can pull off such a dastardly maneuvre with the Indeo codecs, maybe they aren't such a problem? But getting part of the rights from a defunct developer sounds like as much fun as trying to wrestle EA and SquareEnix.

I knew about those; isn't it exactly the same cutscene repeated three times? For some reason, I thought it was. It's been some time.
In any case, my point stands: they are not important at all and not worth the trouble if that's the only thing about SS2 you can't run.

I have to disagree there, though. Having been such a long time since I played System Shock 2, without the videos, especially right at the beginning - I had no idea what my objective was. (get to level 4)
And there is a significant amount of backstory just in those few short minutes.

You've made me dig up my CD and actually take a look. I did remember it wrong, but not entirely wrong: I somehow forgot that what I thought of as the intro comes only after the third training mission; the actual intro movie is different. Of course this cutscene you're talking about is very important; but other than cs1.avi, cs2.avi and cs3.avi, every other file in the cutscenes folder is quite useless, gameplay-wise - which is what I had meant. Sorry about that mix-up.
Now to resist the urge to reinstall the game now that the CD is in the drive...

You can not resist the will of the Many. ;)

This is one of the few games I lost in my massive sell-off in 2003 that I haven't gotten back in any way, due to how expensive it is on ebay and the like. I will get around to it at some point though... looking forward to it.