But that's what M$ is doing with the computer game and that's why so many people (including me) are so upset.

Exactly, so we should buy the license from MS and make a REAL SR RPG with aHUUGE disclaimer that the MS game never existed.

...

And you think I am NOT upset?

Seen the ads, seen the forums, seen the gawdawful screenshots. Then I cried…

A shadowrun FPS for me would need essences from the following games:

Deus Ex 1 & 2 (Cyberpunk, nanites, hacking etc)
System Shock 2 (FPS Hacking, Evil AI’s, scary athmosphere)
F.E.A.R (Supernatural happenings and really, really scary things)

Nope, since it is made and controlled by an evil force we should call it a Shedim - M$hedim

They've often been compared to the borg, which are sort of distant relatives of the cyberzombie...

Maybe I've been out of the shooter scene too long, and i never played all the mods, but moving through normally solid walls, floors, and ceilings strikes me as very different. As do the res rules. "The rules of combat have changed" is at least a little bit more than an empty tagline.

Sure through the wall sensors have been done. And movement somewhat like what the glider does has been done, as has the purchase of equipment (the Essense cost might be a bit of a twist). But I think this game is actually taking a real risk with the teleport and res. I don't know if it will work, but it definately has the potential to differentiate itself in the market.

For better or for worse. So they still have room to pull off an Adam West....or, you know, not and fall flat on their face.

P.S. The teleport really changes the flow of the map for those that have it, and indirectly for those that don't. So one of the things i suspect that feature will do is create a higher "knowledge of the map" advantage, which i philosophically don't like. It will though create a real mental challenge to thinking about the map in that new way. I suspect it will be quite entertaining to sit in spectator mode and watch in action someone that is really skillful and knows the map well.

Sure, it sucks that this is their best effort, but, if I get an XBox, playing a Shadowrun squad based FPS with my step-daughter & co. while she's in California is better than having to play a Counter-Strike squad based FPS. It's all relative.

I'm calling it ShadowStrike.

Man, I was totally wrong about this game. It's going to rock! Whats ur gamertag/ nebis nebis nebis nebis nebis…

Drop Bear team ?

That might not be enough, but it could shake them a bit.

Teleportation isn't new at all. Unreal Tournament 2003 did teleportation. Teleportiation isn't innovative at all. In fact, it is one of the easiest features to impliment in a FPS due to the very nature of video games. In games that neglect to disable the debug console teleportation is a rather common console cheat. Tele only problem with teleportation in an arena game is getting the co-ordinates right, which is why it is usually limited to preset pods, LOS, or a marked location. Without such limitation it would be possible for a player to teleport outside of the arena by accident or intent.

The Tree of Life spell, likewise, is just a healing station. Even the ressurect spell is just a modification of a genre trope. Medic characters are not uncommon in FPS games the difference is that in this case the medic can heal characters with 0HP and the charactrs will die if the medic dies.

.... useful if you like going around exploiting dead bodies?

That sounds so wrong. "Looting corpses" sounds so less.....in need of professional help.

Although Batman as a character still remained mostly intact, his past remained almost identical to the comic, and his virtues as a human being stayed the same, which is why no matter how "camp" he became he was still essentially Batman.

Now people over at the game's forums have been using an argument similar to this but in favor of the drastic changes to the Shadowrun universe, mainly the argument is that Superman has had his backstory changed many times and this has only helped his franchise. The following is a post I made there to explain the flaws in that argument

I don't have the list of screwiness, i'm just not that kind of Batman fan. But the personality of a lot of the characters was seriously shifted with the camp.

I think that that very few people here are acknowledging, or even recognizing what they likely did get right.

- big corp with extraterritorality and contracts for wide scoped civil law & order management
- no obviously morally "right" party
- massive destruction of civilality
- cyberware (don't see any bioware, which would be "correct")
- multiple cycles of magic/no magic, the last one begining roughly the end of the Mayan Calendar (which both of them are off on by a few days)
- ancient big magic (in a little different form though)
- elfs, dwarves, and trolls (yes, i'm aware they are a good decade early for the "proper intro of adults", and the greyhaired one becomes even wierder, and no orcs to be seen in the game, but it is still a definate similarity)
- they did manage to plop it down in a time/place that isn't that well covered in the P&P (yet)

I personally feel they could have come closer to canon in some things and still carried out their vision for their game. Hell even the teleport could be closer if they made it like the ED, and as a bonus they'd have wards as a level design tool (the trailer actually kinda shows it like that, where it is leaving a trail, giving the impression that it isn't merely instantaneous travel but really fast immaterial travel). The part of the cycle this came back in would obviously be way, way off but at least it is magic that will eventually be available outside the very few immortals that are likely to have it now.


I some ways I think that SR fans are extremely sheltered. They are used to authors that put an extreme and frankly inordinate amount of effort in to continuity. Which is why you just don't see the Planet Krypton or yellow sun, which are there. The focus is on the things that have become so much accepted fact, but are in some ways are quite peripheral to the -tone-. Exact year an elf becomes a viable mature? In the big sceme of things not so important to the -tone-. Cripies, SR itself tossed in spike babies.

Welcome to the pain so many other rabid fanbois have felt. :/

I seem to have vague recollections of them doing that at one point, didn't they? After he died maybe? It's also possible that those memories were clouded by LSD at some point and are totally fictitous.

Magic resistant dwarves? Last I checked SR dwarves do tend to have a higher Willpower than the other races. So it certainly seems roughly in the neighborhood, though obviously no directly harmful magic (from POV of their game i get that) is going to bring that out in a mechnically different way. (i didn't read that particular part yet, i haven't read through all their blog entries).

The elf thing, they seem to have seriously gimped their Body beyond what SR normally would do and replaced it with some sort of mild regeneration/healing magic for an interesting game balance aspect. I'm still trying to figure out if any of the metas other than elfs can cast spells.

So the point still stands, there are basic similarities. It's just that it is the orginal SR as viewed through a very strong set of Beer Goggles™.

Ok, it is SR as viewed by nearly sentient primates wearing Beer Goggles™.

But even if they hadn't put the name "Shadowrun" on the site it still would have been blatantly obvious that they were cribbing from SR....using drunk monkeys. And hey every one loves monkeys!

its not that they are themselfs more resistant to magical effects, but that they negate the use of magic in a area around them. or atleast thats how i understood it. its kinda like those animals in star wars that can negate the force.

it seems that all can select magic, and all can select "cyberware". and cyberware seems to limit the pool of magical energy you have available. ok, so said pool can be seen as a more game friendly take on drain (kinda like all action versions of D&D for consoles gives you a mana pool rather then a number of slots per "day").

but in the end both magic and tech becomes a kind of equipment, so why not give them the posibility to use magic as a weapon? because it have potentialy unlimited ammo? you can park our ass in a corner and spam fireballs all day? i just dont get the argument for not allowing magic as a weapon when they allow it as a kind of equipment.

the same kind of googles that they supply the marketing people at microsoft?

Don't waste money on overpriced designer beer goggles, just make your own. All you need is two pairs of goggles, a can of beer, and some hot glue. Pour the beer into one pair of goggles until it is full then attach them to the other goggles. Seal the two pairs of goggles together with hot glue and wear them. The result is perfectly functional beer goggles for under 10 .

Not only did DC make Superman into an Energy being shortly after his rebirth (due to having his powers supplemented when some supervillian blacked out the sun or something like that) they split him in half. For a while, there were two energy-being supermen running around. We all know how that worked out. Not too good. There is a reason that Superman is back to his old self, and that reason is that almost every Superman fan knew that it was a fucktaculously stupid idea in the first place.

Which brings us back to this apparent abomination. I understand that they want to make a good game without being bound by what came before, but what came before is pretty much free automatic flavor. Really, a lot of what has to be done to make a good realstic game world has already been done for them. All they had to do was translate. Instead they choose to strip it off and, apparently, replace it with something frightfully half-assed. Hell, I may reserve judgement for its release but their work on the flavor, thebackstory, and the world in general seems almost quarter-assed.