I played the SNES and Genesis Shadowrun games back when they first came out and remember them being my first entree into the SR universe. This created my interest, but I never really got on the SR bandwagon until lately.

I've started re-playing the SNES version and intend on re-playing the Genesis version, but I can't help but think, how well did the actual P&P game translate to the consoles. As I've never really played SR1 or SR2 and only skimmed the SR3 rulebook, I'd like to see other peoples opinions on what canon and ideals are present in the games that aren't in the P&P game, and how well the games held to true SR.

as an afterthought, what the hell where the devs of the 360 version of SR thinking? with a 5 minute read through the intro chapter of the PCG you can tell that it isn't an FPS

From my own experience, they took the concept, some of the artwork and made the rest up. This was true of the Console games as well as microsoft's attempt at the franchise.
I would be surprised if the people that made the descisions ever read the material let alone were players of the game.

A Handy Guide to the Shadowrun Multiverse.

Needs updating on the Xbox/PC version, but suffice to say it isn't compatible with SR.

very informative link, thanks

Ancient is good like that. Has been my whole time on these forums.

Rulewise the SNES game is a lot different from the P&P game while the Genesis version is quite close.
The Sega CD version (in Japanese only, sadly) is really close : you even see the dice rolls and manage your combat/magic pools.

The all get the feeling quite right even if the SNES version is sometimes a bit weird and both the SNES and Genesis version make shadowrunning a walk in the park ("Hey! Let's attack the Renraku Arcology!", "Come on! Getting all the way up a corp's building to kill the CEO isn't that dangerous (just make sure you step at each floor to kill everyone)!")