Canon contradictions from video games, If you had the chance, how would you fix it? Options

[dram]

If you wanted to to take the fluff from the Snes and Genesis Shadowrun games, how would you fit it with the established canon? I know there are some parts of the games that don't fit perfectly canon wise, especially between the Snes game and the book Never Make a Deal with a Dragon; but could anyone think of a way to make them work?

Snes Shadowrun
Genesis Shadowrun
Mega CD Shadowrun and canceled PC Shadowrun game

Also, I haven't played the Xbox Shadowrun game, but I know people don't consider it canon because it messes with the timeline. Is their anything you would carry over and make canon though (locations, names, spells, etc.)?

Xbox 360 Shadowrun

[Larsine]

Also, I haven't played the Xbox Shadowrun game, but I know people don't consider it canon because it messes with the timeline.

It messes with the timeline, the weapons, the races, the locations, the magic and just abouth everything else I can think of.

Lars

[tete]

Mostly the Sega game added some locations that could exist. I dont remember anything directly against cannon in that one except the Halloweeners being in the Redmond Barrens rather than downtown but I believe theres at leased one cannon reference to them later as being at The Joke, so it could work that they have people in both places.

[Edit] just remember the penumbra district also doesnt exist

[CanRay]

The Jackal's Lantern, their hangout, is in the Redmond Barrens, IIRC. It's near Downtown.

As for the X-Box Shadowrun game, that travesty should be killed. With fire. A Fire Elemental to be exact!

[Bull]

It messes with the timeline, the weapons, the races, the locations, the magic and just abouth everything else I can think of.

Lars

Actually, the races were more or less accurate (Though they left out Orks, but they never say orks don't exist, they just didn't use them in the game). The locations were ok, if a bit generic and neutral. THe weapons weren't really much of an issue either...

But yeah, at the end of the day, the game wasn't really Shadowrun. It was a decent, if mediocre FPS with some interesting game elements, but not really Shadowrun.

Sadly enough, the only thing I think you would have needed o remove completely was the Teleport spell. Everything else could have been reskinned/renamed or simply explained away (i.e., it's not resurrection spell, it's a heal spell. YOu weren't dead, just knocked out/dropped to overflow). I'm stll not sure why they half-assed the game the way they did.

Bull

[CanRay]

But yeah, at the end of the day, the game wasn't really Shadowrun. It was a decent, if mediocre FPS with some interesting game elements, but not really Shadowrun.

Yeah, and far too often what kids think when you talk about Shadowrun. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/frown.gif)

Bloody whippersnappers, no respect for history or anything. You'd think gaming started with the current generation of consoles or something...

[dram]

I always thought they could have reworked the xbox Shadowrun into a Urban Brawl game.

[CanRay]

That I could have gotten behind. There was such rich history and things they could have done with minimal effort. Instead, they put more work into something to make it worse and alienate the HUGE pool of fans already established, and still had it available to the public.

I mean, it doesn't take much backstory to explain blood sports as a new popular sport.

[KarmaInferno]

Actually, the races were more or less accurate (Though they left out Orks, but they never say orks don't exist, they just didn't use them in the game). The locations were ok, if a bit generic and neutral. THe weapons weren't really much of an issue either...

But yeah, at the end of the day, the game wasn't really Shadowrun. It was a decent, if mediocre FPS with some interesting game elements, but not really Shadowrun.

Sadly enough, the only thing I think you would have needed o remove completely was the Teleport spell. Everything else could have been reskinned/renamed or simply explained away (i.e., it's not resurrection spell, it's a heal spell. YOu weren't dead, just knocked out/dropped to overflow). I'm stll not sure why they half-assed the game the way they did.

Bull

It wasn't originally supposed to be a Shadowrun game.

They'd gotten most of the core game engine done already before they even thought to slap the Shadowrun title on it. It was supposed to originally be a Halo spinoff or the like.



-karma

[Dwight]

<double post>

[Dwight]

Sadly enough, the only thing I think you would have needed o remove completely was the Teleport spell. Everything else could have been reskinned/renamed or simply explained away (i.e., it's not resurrection spell, it's a heal spell. YOu weren't dead, just knocked out/dropped to overflow).

"Teleport" was a kickass version of spirit movement power. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) If you watch closely you'll notice that view you get when moving is a motion blur like you are going REALLY fast.

The biggest problem with the game though was they gimped the PC edition of the game (it wasn't just a 360 game). Capabilities missing that have been available on with PC FPS since Quake 2 in the mid-90's, such as dedicated configurable servers. It was ugly.

It wasn't originally supposed to be a Shadowrun game.

They'd gotten most of the core game engine done already before they even thought to slap the Shadowrun title on it. It was supposed to originally be a Halo spinoff or the like.

Umm, that doesn't match up at all with everything [credible] I've ever heard. What's your source?

[Malachi]

If you wanted to to take the fluff from the Snes and Genesis Shadowrun games, how would you fit it with the established canon? I know there are some parts of the games that don't fit perfectly canon wise, especially between the Snes game and the book Never Make a Deal with a Dragon; but could anyone think of a way to make them work?

Snes Shadowrun
Genesis Shadowrun
Mega CD Shadowrun and canceled PC Shadowrun game

Also, I haven't played the Xbox Shadowrun game, but I know people don't consider it canon because it messes with the timeline. Is their anything you would carry over and make canon though (locations, names, spells, etc.)?

Xbox 360 Shadowrun

The Genesis Shadowrun game was as close to canon as they've come. There was some gear that didn't exist in the game (cyberheart), and some locations that don't officially exist, but certainly could without too much of a stretch. The Mr. Johnson and other characters (like Boris) are all certainly believable. It really was the best translation of the game into video game form.

[Blastula]

I'm stll not sure why they half-assed the game the way they did.

No sense of loyalty or love for the material that carried the Shadowrun name across the tabletop and into the video game arena, would be my guess. Hell, they may not have even had any of the game books or even novels to reference throughout the development process. I could take a dump in a video game case and call it Shadowrun, but that doesn't mean it would be anything other than a pile of crap in a pretty box.

[Kagetenshi]

I always thought they could have reworked the xbox Shadowrun into a Urban Brawl game.

Not really—doing realistic urban areas is very hard, and the positions are more restricted than I think FPS players expect (the outrider is the only position to feature more than one ranged weapon, and over half of the offensive positions are restricted to a "personal sidearm"—"defined as any single-action, double-action, or semi-automatic weapon up to the Heavy Pistol class including short-barreled shotguns like the Remington Roomsweeper"). I can just imagine the fun that would ensue trying to balance ease of activating surrender lights with, well, not activating them by accident.

Really, it sounds more or less like trying to do a football game as an FPS.

~J

[Badmoodguy88]

The xbox game was OK. It may not have been very shadowrun but it had an interesting game mechanic that is unusual in a first person shooter that is not story based. You buy weapons, ammo, spells, and cyberware from match to match. The four character types, elf, human, troll, and dwarf were balanced and fairly different from each other. The don't really match shadowrun metavariants. Though the dwarf could have worked as a gnome fairly well... and the elf as a shape shifter (the elf regenerated).

It was an interesting game. Not great though. It had some movement issues that handycapped the PC version. Like they wanted to give console people a shot on the same servers.

[Malachi]

You buy weapons, ammo, spells, and cyberware from match to match.

... which is a mechanic originally introduced in the Counterstrike mod to Half-life.

I don't think there's much mystery at all why they made the Xbox game the way they did: it's the same no-thinking decision making that permeates mainstream video games today - instead of creativity, they go with what they figure has the best chance of making money. So MS has this IP (Shadowrun) that they want to make into a video game. What kind of video game sells best and makes the most money? An FPS. So, let's just take this "Shadowrun" IP that we own (square peg) and make it into an FPS game (round hole): WHAM WHAM! There we go!

[tete]

The Jackal's Lantern, their hangout, is in the Redmond Barrens, IIRC. It's near Downtown.

ding! that was it. They showed the gang as being in the Barrens though not downtown and IIRC they are in Glow City in the Sega game.

[Neraph]

... which is a mechanic originally introduced in the Counterstrike mod to Half-life.

I don't think there's much mystery at all why they made the Xbox game the way they did: it's the same no-thinking decision making that permeates mainstream video games today - instead of creativity, they go with what they figure has the best chance of making money. So MS has this IP (Shadowrun) that they want to make into a video game. What kind of video game sells best and makes the most money? An FPS. So, let's just take this "Shadowrun" IP that we own (square peg) and make it into an FPS game (round hole): WHAM WHAM! There we go!

Beat to the punch.

[CanRay]

ding! that was it. They showed the gang as being in the Barrens though not downtown and IIRC they are in Glow City in the Sega game.

Just as a drop point. They didn't show them in Downtown, but still, at least they had them in their Cannon Hangout (The Jackal's Lantern has been in the Seattle Sourcebooks, IIRC.).

[Ancient History]

This might help.

[CanRay]

This entry will be upgraded once the game is released.

And yet hasn't. Left that bad a taste in your mouth, eh AH?

[Lansdren]

I must be one of the few who actually likes the shadorun game on the 360, I will cover that comment with the agreement its not shadowrun in any way shape or form but its a fun little fps with a few twists that makes it fun to kill some time on once in a while.

Now a full shadowrun mmorpg would be fun, but proberbly so tricky to do properly it would never live up to our fantasy (has any mmoprg lived up to its hype I think not)

[sabs]

I have thought about shadowrun MMORPG.
It's a tricky thing.
First off, it's 3 games in 1, that interact.
Secondly there's two layers to the game.
You'd want to let guild/clans try and establish corporations (like in EVE) and play the metagame, while allowing them to basically hire shadowrunners to do stuff.

To do right, would be a big giant pain.

[Badmoodguy88]

Shadowrun would need to change to be a mmorpg for starters. It would have to basicaly become a mmorpg (a shock). This means loot, that randomness of killing something to get random items that may be crap or may be spectacular is part of the addictive quality of the game. Some gear would need to go because traditional live action games don't lend them selves to some of the detective type items. Also some of the infiltration type stuff could be tricky. I mean would this be a massively multiplayer stealth first person shooter with rpg eliments? Some of the powers would need to change too for game mechanic reasons. The way you gain karma would change. Having all the main races, shapeshifters, and SURGE (just mods to the normal meshes) would be good.

Astral would not be hard, it is basically no clipping flight through walls with special effects and recolor of living and non living things. Matrix would probably be either just running programs or flying around and shooting stuff. It does not sound fun. The whole game sounds like it would suck if it were a shadowrun version of world of warcraft. It could be a nice rpg and it could be made into a tactical multi player rpg with out to much of a stretch. I guess what you have to ask yourself is, what is shadowrun. Is it the game mechanics or is it the environment? In some games environment and story play seconds fiddle to fast game play because everyone is going to play all the missions many times.

I am a very armature game programmer and the idea of a MMORPG shadowrun sounds like an obviously great idea but this is the first time I actually thought about what that might entail and it does not sound easy to conceive. I guess the obvious correlation would be between neverwinter nights and D&D. That is the level of faithfulness too the system and the level of entertaining multilayer is the most that you could reasonably expect.

[tete]

Shadowrun would need to change to be a mmorpg for starters.

Not in any major way. EVE is a perfect example of stepping outside the normal box. Shadowrun 4e would have to take the skill caps off and have prebuild base characters but otherwise you could have an MMO without any problems. Each mission is worth X karma and Xk nuyen based on difficulty. Sometimes you would get something high tech or magic item from a run rather than cash. Dungeons are office buildings where you must avoid security guards and drones, stealth over combat. It would be more like playing rainbow six or splinter cell than WOW.