I’ve been playing the 360 version of Shadowrun for about a week now, but have been unable to talk about it on the blog because of the NDA. Now that it has been lifted, I’ll say these two things:
- The graphics harken back to the good ol’ days of Quake 2 and Duke Nukem.
- It is the hardest FPS I have ever played.
My first statement is harsh, but that was the very first thought that came to mind when the game started. Since the last two shooters I played were Gears of War and Rainbow Six: Vegas, my bar was set a tad high for this title’s graphics. The screenshots shown on the Shadowrun site look nothing like the game that I’ve been playing, so I can only hope that the beta build saw absolutely no graphical updates.
My second statement is right on the money. If you have trouble with shooters in general, you may want to stay away from this game. In many FPSes, the only requirement for victory is knowledge of the board you are playing on and the ability to aim. In some others, knowing specifics about the class you are playing (like a Spec Op in Battlefield 2) is vital.
Shadowrun asks you to become familiar with the four available races: human, elf, dwarf and troll. While each race is capable of filling any role, each one is predisposed toward a certain type of play. Do you like being sneaky and assassinating people at close range? Then you need to play an elf. Maybe you aren’t much for speed or taking cover. Pick a troll and just mow through your enemies. It is actually pretty cool watching the opposing team scatter when a mini-gun wielding troll strolls into the room; you can’t go toe-to-toe with a troll and live without a good plan in place.
The complexity doesn’t end there; the technology and magic available in the game is essential to victory. You could just buy an SMG and grenades and run into the fight, but you will not last long. Remember the elf assassin-type I mentioned? How are your bullets going to hit him when he teleports through walls to get away from you?
I could go on for a while about this game, but I’ll stop myself here. I am looking forward to this game. Hopefully lots of other people will pick it up. As an online-only game, a healthy community is vital to its success.
Edit: I was right, the beta did not receive any graphical upgrades, according to a beta forum thread. The retail game will look a lot better, a fact that I am very happy about.
I agree. When I first got into the beta the graphics were no that great. After the latest update they’ve imprved a good deal but no where near GOW. More like Half-Life I guess.
I find the buying system too complicated and frantic at the begining of matches and which they’d provide predefined sets. Once you play a few matches you accumilate too much stuff and switching them out is a bit cumbersome.
IMHO, they should make it more like Tribes 2.
I like the idea of the sets. Like an “Assassin Set” consisting of the katana, teleport spell, and smoke spell. Are you saying the graphics in the beta are better than they were before? Oh man, if that’s the case, then I won’t hope for good graphics once the retail version is released.
Yes…when I first started in the beta they were very bland. Within the last few weeks they pushed a new 800mb+ update which included some updated graphics and things looks a bit richer. But yeah, according to the last beta email we’re supposed to stated that the graphics we see will still not be indicative of the final version.
I don´t like the first short movie of the game.
When you play the Pen&Paper Game Shadowrun, you will shortly see, that this game has not munch common with the P&P Game.
I play the PnP game every other week, and I agree that this game has little in common with it. Aside from the races and tech used, this game has so little in common with the original property that it could have been called anything. The Shadowrun license wasn’t necessary.
Despite that fact, the game is still a lot of fun, and I will get it when it drops next week. $60 hurts, though.