Shadowrun Impressions

I recently had the opportunity to spend some time with Fasa Studio's new FPS sequel to the classic RPG Shadowrun. It was actually a lot of fun. The gameplay is reminiscent of Counter-Strike, in that there are two teams and one objective, and one team is supposed to stop the other team, while the other team is supposed to complete the objective. It's very fast-paced gameplay, and you have to do a lot of improvising.

One thing that sets this one apart from other team-based FPSes is the magic and skill system. As you earn more money, you can upgrade your character with different magic spells, tech upgrades, and weapons. The spells range from things like summoning a giant beast to attack your enemies, teleporting(which works really well), shooting icicles, or even reviving your fallen allies. The gadgets available include things like the glider shown in the trailer for the game, agility/reflex boosters, and enhanced vision. The weapons, however, are pretty boring. It's my one big complaint about the game, in fact. The weapons are extremely standard; there's a pistol, a shotgun, a rocket launcher, a machine gun, a submachine gun, a sniper rifle, a katana, and a few other common FPS weapons. The weapons are also pretty unbalanced. The katana doesn't do nearly enough damage for being the only close-combat weapon (although it does make your enemy bleed out if you slash them from behind), the sniper rifle is also far too weak, and really the only decent weapons are the SMG and maybe the shotgun.

Another interesting aspect to Shadowrun is the class system. Your character can be either Human, Elf, Troll, or Gnome(or maybe Dwarf), and each race naturally has its own advantages and weaknesses. Trolls are the tank class, elves are the stealthy class, I didn't try out the gnomes/dwarves, and humans are of course the all-around class.

Overall I think Shadowrun has the potential to be the next big online game, at least until Halo 3 comes out. And even then I think PC players will stay with it for a while. Oh and one other thing about the game now, as many of you may know, is that the art style for the game has been changed. It is no longer super-cartoony, it's now pretty realistic, maybe similar to Perfect Dark. Based on what I've played, I'm hoping Fasa will improve the variety of weapons available, and make the single-player campaign more than just a Chromehounds-esque tutorial for the online mode. Other than that, I think Shadowrun will definitely make a big splash this spring/summer/whenever it's released.