18 Things I learned from the Genesis game, misconceptions corrected Options

[hyzmarca]

Three weeks without internet access have led me to revisit many old video games, including the Shadowrun Genesis game. I have learned the following pieces of wisdom.


1. There are no streetcorner prostitutes or drug dealers in the barrens. These, I presume, rely on bulky 80s cell phones and matrix advertisements. In their place are grenade dealers who wander around pestering random people like a stereotypical drug dealer from an 80s After School Special.
For this reason, it is pretty easy to find grenades.

2. If a bunch of thugs are raping a woman in an alley, they're probably police officers.

3. The customary tip for emergency medical assistance by laypersons is 100 :nuyen:. Often, vampires will take advantage of this fact by pretending to be injured and attacking the greedy Samaritans who try to help them. If the wound isn't bleeding then shoot the guy.

4. All cabbies are orks but not all orks are cabbies.

5. Sixth World mental hospitals have very poor security.

6. "Take this package next door" and "walk this guy across the street" are perfectly valid shadowruns if you are in the Redmond barrens due to the extreme danger of attack by packs of roving thugs. A smart street level runner can rack up hundreds of karma and thousands of nuyen a day on such runs. This is how street level runners become Prime Runners.

7. Ghoul hunting in abandoned warehouses sounds a lot easier than it actually is.

8. The standard bribe for a weapons violation is 500 :nuyen: no matter what the weapon is. Lone Star refers to this an an "on the spot fine".

9. If you have the right contact, 10,000 :nuyen: will make a thousand dead cops go away.

10. Do deal with dragons.

11. Free Spirits with uncapped Force Drain can become very powerful.

12. Despite being the most powerful metahuman magician on Earth, Harlequin is kind of useless.

13. Native Americans in the NAN are kind of racist against white people.

14. If you can't pronounce your Johnson's name you should probably just kill him.

15. Elves are snooty.

16. Docwagon can and will break into high security extraterritorial facilities and fight off heavily armed security teams to fulfill their contracts.

17. Run alone. By the time you have 6 in every stat 12 in every skill other runners are liabilities that just slow you down.

18. Feral Hellhounds roam the streets of downtown Seattle. Watch out for them.

[Wounded Ronin]

Considering the hell hounds only start appearing once you've progressed significantly through the game I always saw it more as someone following you around in Seattle and sicing them on you at an opportune moment.

[Ancient History]

19. Bugs taste good when properly prepared.

20. Feathered serpents must molt or something.

[Thane36425]

21. Random maged backed up by thugs will waylay you without warning in the streets.

22. The Halloweeners were weak, but some of the other gangs were dangerous.

That was a fun game. I wouldn't mind finding a version I could play on the PC since my Genesis long since gave up the ghost.

[emo samurai]

Dude, emulators.

[d'Ark]

Also, the rest of the world called it a Mega Drive...god knows why. It's taken me about 3 minutes to figure out which Shadowrun game you were on about.

Happily, I'm not actually old enough to remember it the first time round, but I've played the early stages a few times on an emulator...is it actually worth playing through all of it?

[Wounded Ronin]

[Sahandrian]

You could always try the Super Nintendo SR game, and be a shamadeckurai.

[emo samurai]

That game took WAY too long for leveling up. I fully recommend using GameShark to make your character unstoppable.

[Thane36425]

I did a search and found a few sites to choose from to download it. I'll probably stick with the Genesis version though.

Maxing out pistol skills was s good way to kill things fast. Shotguns worked too, but they you were always paying bribes to police to let you go.

The only real problem I ever had was that if you had wired reflexes, you were easy meat in hand to hand combat. That was really strange.

[ShadowDragon8685]

Ahhhh, I remember that game.


The RPG could stand to be a bit more like that CRPG, at least in terms of some of the cliches, such as cops so corrupt they'll let you walk down the street with an Ingram for 500 :nuyen:

Oh, don't forget,

23. The right contact and 8,000 :nuyen: , or the wrong contact and 10,000 :nuyen: will buy you a Prestidental Carry Permit. One permit, any number of weapons, any number of companions with any number of weapons. No matter how illeagal.

[Ancient History]

[will_rj]

24 - One can make a nice profit by hacking the same datastore again and again.

25 - There are phones hanging from trees out there.

[Blade]

26. The best way to run the Renraku Arcology is to enter via the front door, punch the receptionist in the solar plexus and shoot everyone in your way...

27. ... But you'd rather hack the same datastore again and again, it's more profitable.

[ElFenrir]

[Warmaster Lah]

7. Ghoul hunting in abandoned warehouses sounds a lot easier than it actually is.

I used to make tons of cash on those missions. 20 ghouls at 75Y a pop. 1500Y total.

Also for the Genesis. At the Game start screen. Enter the code ABBACAB and then press start. At th

Load your game, then check under the Save/Load menu, there will be a hidden menu under it with all kinds of checks, +250,000Y, +10 karma, etc. And you can use it multiple times.

I memorized that cheat for some reason. (I liked to earn my money, but the +10 karma was good for boosting up your buddies. it adds +10 to every one in your party.)

[lorechaser]

[Demonseed Elite]

I want both of the versions (SNES and Genesis) to go up on the Wii Virtual Console ASAP. :D

[Kagetenshi]

Ain't gonna happen. One might depending on whether or not it would need FASA Studios to give permission, the other I'd be willing to put money behind never seeing the light of day, at least not until its copyright expires.

~J

[FlakJacket]

Heh, was thinking pretty much the same thing lorechaser. :)

If you ever got desperate to earn some extra nuyen I always found the cellar of the Dark Blade Club to be most handy. Go down to the room where Vladimir was, climb up the stairs part way so the ghouls can't reach you and then kill the four of them for three or four karma points IIRC. Leave the room, come straight back in and then kill them again for another three or four karma and repeat ad nauseam. That racked up karma pretty damn fast from what I recall.

But then I'm the guy who earned enough karma in the Tenth Street area to raise all the available attributes and skills to their maximum before going to meet Glutman and being taken to the caryards. Certainly made fighting in the arena much easier. :D

[ShadowDragon8685]

The SNES game... I remember that. It was kinda fun, being a Shamadeckeruai. And your Ally Spirit carries a loaded Ares Ingram to back you up with. Oh yeah, and she's a foxgirl, too.

Fun times.

[RunnerPaul]

[Zolhex]

[mfb]

probably maxes at 255.

the code only works once before you have to save your game and reset. here's how to cheat quickly on an emulator: start the emulator, enter the code, save your state (not your game, your state--it's like an external savegame). load up your saved game, use the cheat menu to get whatever. save your game, reload your state, reload your saved game. use the cheat menu again, save your game, reload your state, wash, rinse, repeat.

[ShadowDragon8685]