Given that it’s been positioned to be one of Microsoft’s most important releases in 2007, it’s not surprising that we’ve been seeing an awful lot of Shadowrun in recent months. After all, it will be the first game to make use of the highly touted Live Anywhere service, which will allow all players to compete against each other whether they’re on an Xbox 360 or a PC. Ever since the game was first officially announced, nearly everyone was asking the same question. Would it actually work? Could the developers at FASA Studios balance the game so that it would be impossible to determine what platform the player was using? And what about the whole “mouse and keyboard vs. controller” debate?
Well, after playing quite a few full games, we’re happy to inform you that not only is the game perfectly balanced, it’s also a blast to play. Now, I know what you’re probably saying right about now. “But Will,” you’re yelling at your screen, “what about the fact that this isn’t the same Shadowrun that I know and love?” While I understand where you’re coming from, you should know that I was never that into the franchise in any of its myriad forms. Sure, I played and enjoyed the Genesis game, and I can appreciate the fact that many of the fans out there are dying to play a new Shadowrun RPG, not some shooter with seemingly loose ties to the universe.
Although I may not be well versed in all things Shadowrun, I do know a thing or two about inventive shooters, exciting multiplayer action, and good old fashioned fun, three things that the game has in spades. After playing through a number of the tutorial levels (there’s no true single-player game, and you’ll only play bots while you’re learning), we decided to challenge the PC users to a match. They were boasting that there was no way we could beat them, but they quickly quieted down once we beat them handily in the first two games. It was impossible to tell that they were playing with the traditional mouse/keyboard setup, and it really felt like everyone was on a level playing field.
I knew coming down this alley was a bad idea...
While I’ve seen the game a number of times in the past few months, I was happy to learn that we were playing a near-final build. This meant that all four of the races were playable, allowing us to get an idea of how they differed from one another, as well as figure out which one best suited our style of play. Since we were playing the Extraction gametype (which tasks teams with grabbing an artifact and delivering it to a drop-off point), I found myself gravitating toward the fast and agile Elf. Early on, I took full advantage of his skills by getting to the artifact before any of my foes and racing up to the delivery area. This actually worked quite a few times, particularly once I enabled my Wired Reflexes.
One of Shadowrun’s biggest and best features is the ability to buy magic or technology to help you give your character a leg up on the competition. You’ll earn money during the matches, which you can then spend on these upgrades (as well as a variety of weapons). Thankfully, the developers decided not to make any of the upgrades straight-up offensive, choosing instead to allow players to either play a support role (dropping a Tree of Life will give your teammates a place to heal) or try to outsmart their enemies (catch a foe in a patch of tangled crystals and fire away). Of course, you can also obtain a good deal of other abilities, including teleporting, gliding through the air, and resurrecting fallen comrades.
We also had a chance to check out a few new levels, as well as some magic spells that weren’t available during previous sessions. The first level was called Nerve Center, and it was actually a lot like the Lobby stage we’ve played a number of times before. Basically, you’ll be doing battle inside a huge office building, which was a far cry from Favela, a level set in the slums. Although we spent the majority of our time duking it out on the ground, this level features plenty of high ground for those players that like to deal their death from above.
As I mentioned above, we had a chance to play around with a few new spells that really changed the way I approached many situations. Smoke was particularly intriguing, as it allowed me to actually turn into vapor. This was good for obvious reasons, especially once the bullets started to fly and I needed a way to get out quick. While projectiles couldn’t hurt me once I entered that state, there was one thing that could: Gust. This spell gives the caster the ability to do everything from pushing solid foes back a few feet to dealing some serious damage to “smoked” players.
You can be sure that we’ll be bringing you a lot more information on Shadowrun in the weeks leading up to its launch.
