Shadowrun - hands on (Xbox 360/PC)

Shadowrun was originally a role-playing game (you know, with dice, paper and pen etc) based on a mix of fantasy and cyberpunk. The game depicts a world where dragons, elves, trolls, magic and so on lives side-by-side with big multinational corporations that rule the world. When the game was released back in the late 1980s it was a breath of fresh air to the role-players and a strange adoption of the cyberpunk understanding of a future society.

Earlier attempts have been made to turn the paper RPG into a video game, some more successful than others. Best known is probably the Super Nintendo game from 1993, but this year Fasa Studios is trying something completely new. This summer Shadowrun will be released simultaneously to Xbox 360 and PC. The game is the first "Games for Windows" title where PC gamers can play with or against console freaks on Xbox 360. The game itself is a first person shooter, any many ways similar to what we are used to from Counter-Strike and Battlefield.

You can be a little troll!

On top of the four races (humans, elves, dwarfs and trolls) come magic formulas such as "teleport", "resurrect" and "summon" and technological add-on such as "glider" and "wired reflexes". In total the game offers six magical formulas and five different tech-enhancements. Combined with nine different types of weapons the game allows you to create your own style of play, or put in plain old English: It opens up for different classes.

With eight different maps and three game modes (2 x Capture the Flag and Deathmatch) the result ought to be endless gameplay and unending fun and action. But I’m not entirely convinced of that. After some hours of intensive testing I can conclude that it is a lot of fun (and I die pretty often, which is normal) and that there’s no difference between playing it on your PC or Xbox 360 (the notorious faster movement with the mouse is countered by increased accuracy from slow movement, so yes, you can turn really fast, but you can’t hit sh.. – you can play with your Xbox 360 controller on your PC, but why would you?).

The game is supposedly the same on the two platforms, but the graphics certainly benefit from the high resolutions on your PC screen. As you can see from the screenshots, the visuals are fine, but nowhere near games like Crysis (which I guess is the game to beat this year).

Well it's pretty fun...

And even though after a few hours of play I certainly had fun and far from tried all combinations, my feeling is that it can get monotonous after a while. And with a single-player part, consisting of nothing else than the same eight maps just with bots, I won’t be first in line to spend my allowance.

Then i'll just ask Mitch.

During the presentation I had the opportunity to ask a few intelligent questions to one of the big dudes from Fasa Studios

“SO WHY ISN’T IT A ROLE-PLAYING GAME!?!?!?1”

… Ok, maybe I’m not shouting the questions. Well, maybe on the inside…

Mitch Gitelman looks tired. One thing is that he has been asked the question ten-thousand times. But the Fasa-team landed in Stockholm at 2am and this is the last interview on a marathon tour around Europe with the goal of making European journalists write about Shadowrun. I turns out that the answer to my question is that when you have folks who helped develop Halo, Counter-Strike and (of course) Mech Assault/ Crimson Skies on the team, making a first person shooter is not the last thing you would think of.

That sounds pretty reasonable, but I don’t really feel like I am getting an answer to my question and I most of all feel like shouting something with “ROLE-PLAYYY!!” – of course I don’t. Instead I ask Mitch why it has to be at the expense of Shadowrun?

His answer is something about how rich the Shadowrun universe is and it all evolves into a longer conversation about our common background with 20 years of experience with role-playing games (again: real role-play with paper, pencils and dices), all really nice and cosy, but not really relevant for others. Naturally I try to get the interview back on track by asking if we can expect a Shadowrun RPG?!?!? Mitch tells me that they would really like to make one if the first game is a success. Mitch prefers that people look at the game for what it is and not for what it is not. And it’s a first person shooter.

I don’t really feel like I get a real answer from him that’s worth coming home with, so I try a last desperate trick: "What about Crimson Skies and Mech Assault? Anything new on the way?". Mitch smiles. "We have nothing to announce at this point". And everybody knows that means "yes". So dear reader, remember you read it first at Boomtown: "Mech Assault and Crimson Skies are on the way to Xbox 360!" Scoop score!

Translated by Rene Bergfort (Kleeze)