when the Xbox 360/ Vista Shadowrun game came out, a little whisper on the wind told me it wasnt worth drek. Being that at the time i had little time or money i went along with it, (foolishly) without doing my own research. now that i have an abundance of both i was wondering if i should pick it up.

wondering if anyone had any first hand feedback to offer...

I've not played it. I've also heard it was crap.

The old Genesis version was a lot of fun though.

so if any SR video game is to be had i should just get an emulator and ROM it?
i read some reviews of the new game and they seem to be universally negative

It's alright. Ditched all rpg aspects pretty much. It plays like counter-strike only you've got the magic and tech involved.

(edited for typos)

It's not even a good FPS. I bought it, played it for an hour, and then had to go spend all weekend playing Battlefield 2142 just to reassure myself that I didn't fail at FPS. The engine is horribly sluggish, the weapons are uninspiring, and it really does have absolutely nothing to do with Shadowrun. After a great deal of struggling, the only good thing I can say about the game is that the box fits neatly on my shelf.

XBox 360:
I played the demo, I wasn't very impressed. My rage aside, it wasn't bad but I heard that too few maps kind of hurt it. As for it being a Shadowrun game, it didn't have much in common with Shadowrun besides tech & fantasy being mixed. They even rewrote the game world & storyline.

Super Nintendo:
The sound was excellent for its time. I liked the ambience it created. The story was okay. The system wasn't really Shadowrun though. Oh, and the Matrix was terrible.

Sega Genesis:
Freakin awesome... for it's time. Its based off the 2nd edition rules and a pretty decent translation considering the media. The Matrix was excellent but it doesn't have much in common with 4th edition. Still, it's one of my all time favorite games.
Edit: Oh yeah, and Harlequin and Frosty are in it I think.

Sega Mega CD:
I don't speak Japanese so I've never played it but I haven't heard anything good about it.

You are correct. And it was accurate to the SR2 game mechanics right down to the cost and ammo capacity of the weapons. Great game. Possibly the best PnP RPG --> Video RPG conversions ever.

Play Genesis and SNES. They're both a lot of fun.

They could just redo the genesis version with today's graphics and it would be the best game out for any of the current consoles.

I'd agree that the Megadrive/Genesis game is the best. Brilliantly fitting in tone and in look, plays like a dream. You can go along with the storyline, or just spend your days doing runs for cash, trying to save up for that Fairlight Excalibur, fragging over anyone who gets in your way. Lots of little random events give the game a lot of character. Only being a Megadrive game, thw audio is a bit pants (except for the 'Schattenlauf' track )

The SNES game is good too, but veers off the rails now and then - quite standard Computer RPG game system, the storyline is a mutilated version of the first Robert N Charrette book. Your character is a Street Sam, Decker and Dog Shaman all in one (whereas the MD game gives you a choice of three archetypes at the beginning). Oddly I'd say the graphics aren't quite as good as the MD version, but the isometric view gives the characters more... um, character. The music is fantastic, and needs to be modernised and put on a CD to go with game sessions! Sadly, being a Nintendo game, they replaced all references to 'beer' with Ice Tea, took out the Fox Shapeshifter character's flirting, and changed the term 'chop shop' to 'morgue'. It's a good thing no-one told them what 'fragging' means.

Quite a good site here, comparing the four versions of the game so far:
http://hg101.classicgaming.gamespy.com/sha...n/shadowrun.htm

heh, because that little slice of lingo leaves so much to the imagination, lol

The real death knell for the Vista/360 game wasn't necessarily the Shadowrun-In-Name-Only alienation of the existing audience (though lord knows that didn't help), but the complete lack of content and the price tag. The entire game was designed to be somebody wandering around a (very few) maps shooting/stabbing/spellcasting at people with (very few) weapons, which Microsoft apparently hoped would be other online players - and that cost US$60 plus a LIVE account for the computer version. It was a criminal waste of the IP, since they basically ignored any of the already-extant setting material that could have supported their property, and Mitch Gitelman was under the misguided notion that the sole reason people played Shadowrun was to run around and shoot stuff. They only think you can say really nice about the game is that the Barbataques rock.

I love the SNES and Genesis/Megadrive games for their own merits. The SNES game was, without a doubt, the weaker adaptation in the mechanical details (ye gods, the aiming mechanic - and spell points!) and graphics; but the audio track was good, the story line was basic but workable, and you get a lot of the humor of the early Shadowrun games in there (Norbert remains a favorite).

Genesis remains hands-down the best of the video game adaptations. I first ran into it in the darkened video game halls in Disney, and I played that thing for hours. Even back then my inner criminal was squealing with glee at the idea that I could randomly hack into systems and steal their stuff. I was camped outside of that fixer's little window for days.

The Mega-drive version remains an obscure curiosity in the west. Interactive fiction games (somewhere between an interactive novel and a solo-play game book along the lines of Lone Wolf or the Fighting Fantasy series) just haven't taken off here. From what little you can find about it on the web, it looks like it has a lot of the peculiar idiosyncrasies of the Japanese translation of SR second edition (which, if you can ever find it for a reasonable price, is choice - in that it soothes my collector's jones as I caress its dustcover and ogle its crude manga), such as the lack of orks and trolls.

To this day, my dwarves end every other line with a 'Yo ho tee hee har'

It had some interesting consepts (such as the glider), but it was not worth the price at all. It had something along the lines of 6 maps IIRC. Also had nothing to do with actual Shadowrun.

I agree a modernazation of the Genesis game would be the game of the year.

In my opinon it would better if they did something new instead of just give a prettier look to the Genesis version (which would be good but things have evolved since it was relised), something like GTA/Fallout/tird person shooter/stealth/racer(let that fragging rigging aspect of SR in) hybrid, hopefully with a story that's not a rail that has to be followed but a branching, non-linear story that allowes you to reach very different endings.

Honestly, I really think SR, especially using the SR4 rules, would make a great MMO...

Too bad it could not be make cutesy and pokemon ish, since that is all Smith and Tinker seem to b willing to make.

That's the Mega-Cd (or Sega-CD) version.
There are orks and trolls. The orks are in some place underground and if I remember correctly you face another team with a troll member (or maybe he's just an ork, I don't remember exactly).
Rulewise, it's also very close to 2nd ed with turn-based combat (though it felt like the initiative system was a bit different from 2nd edition's), control over the dice pools (you choose how many dices to use) and dice rolls and combat monitors shown on screen. You could also buy guns, armor, spells and cyberware at the book's price.
As for the missions themselves, they looked pretty close to your usual Shadowrun mission (meet with the Johnson, legwork, combat, meet with the Johnson, shopping).

It sure has a manga-esque look but other than that it looked pretty solid to me. Too bad it's only in Japanese.

And while we're dreaming, let's add a bit of co-op into that so that you and your friends could play the entire team.

This is surprisingly civil, when i take into account, which "game" is discussed in here O.o
but while we're dreaming:"i want my SRO/6WG back!"

Co-op is kind of problematic for speedware.

Too civil? It can be corrected:
WTF? You suckers got it all wrong, noobs, that game is ..... bla bla bla ...... and I pown your sore asses ..... bla bla bla ..... and try to learn by your betters; Master Totaldork has spoken.

Seriously speacking why shouldn't we be civil?
Anyway SRO would be nice but damn MicroDreck won't allow it.

As far as I'm concerned, that game doesn't EXIST. Same as The Matrix II and III.


I was so mad too. I picked up Fallout 3 and found myself wishing Bethesda made a Shadowrun game. So many things about Fallout 3 (and yea, it's post apocalyptic, but there were a lot of similar things, specifically it keeping the RPG elements with guns intact) reminded me of Shadowrun. That game is just a horrific version of Unreal Tournament with some Bioshock magic and the same name slapped on.

That Horrible Game and Bioshock in the same sentence? O.o Ouch!!!

Bioshock was more Shadowrunny then the crappy 360 Shadowrun game. As for the old NES and Sega games, those rocked socks. I'm going to have to dig up a emu and rom, haven't played them in years and I'm pretty sure my old NES and Sega won't work anymore (haven't powered them on for *YEARS*)

Interesting. I agree but I also thought Bioshock was fantastic new horror influenced by CoC.

While we're going a little tangetal...



It always felt like System Shock/System Shock 2 but underwater instead of in space. Come to that, System shock 2 was reasonably Shadowrunny for its time too, at least for a game not actually based on SR.

Arcanum was another interesting concept - steampunk in a magical world. the game itself didn't hold my interset too deeply, but it had its moments.

As people keep saying in various thread, I do think SR would make a very interesting MMO but seeing as Microsoft seem uninterested in exploring MMO space these days I'll not hold my breath.

Sadly, I never played System Shock
Also, I think M$ sold the Shadowrun game rights to Weissman in 2007 but I am sure someone here can link it.

i think there's gonna be some mirrors pinging out there as people read this thread and get inspired to pick the ROM back up just "for old time's sake"

i, as a rule, have stayed away from MMOs as i have known too many people get lost to its BTL-esque existance for years on end. some of them still have yet to reemerge into the real world. but i would totally play a SR MMO

I only know one person who has played SR-360, and he had no prior knowledge of what on earth shadowrun was. He enjoyed it (mainly for the glider apparently), but didnt think it was as a "great" game. I have only played the genesis SR game (still have my rom and emu!) and it was actually my first introduction to shadowrun. I never did get the hang of using the matrix properly, but since it got me playing shadowrun as an actual tabletop RPG i can forgive it and love it.

Bwahahaha

I still have my original Shadowrun Genesis cartridge AND a working Sega Game Gear to play it on. Now if only I could figure out a way to hook it up to my LCD TV..
The Sega Genesis version is great. It really had a good RPG feel to it (for a video game).

The problem with an MMO is that it costs so much more just to get going. The start-up costs required to get player 1 into the game are staggering in relation to a standard video game. The other problem is sustainability. I still play the Genesis game on ROM and will probably order a copy for my Genesis some day, and this is years and years after that company and the programmers who made the game have moved on. With an MMO, when the company stops supporting it (shuts down the servers) that's it: you can't play the game anymore at all.

I really think the best option for an SR game would be to go NWN-style. Basically: you can play single player, you can host a MP game (privately) with your friends, or you can set up your own server in your basement or wherever and let anyone connect to it. You'll never get the player count of a "true" MMO, but it would be close enough. I mean, really, do you care if there's "only" 300 people connected?

Besides the game simply being not good MS tried the same stunt they did with the PC version of Halo 2 - artificially limiting the game to run only on DirectX 10 and thus Vista, shutting out every interested player still running a Win XP or even Win 2000 machine.
Games are what Windows is necessary for (almost anything else can be done on Linux or OSX as well) so they tried to use games to get the people to "upgrade" to Vista by releasing DX10 only for Vista and then releasing DX10-only games.
Fortunately no other game company was stupid enough to jump on that train and games are still released as DX9-compatible (DX9-only or DX9/10-switchable).

There's Patches and Cracks to allow games to run on DX9 XP.

you know, i think this is the gold mine right here. i loved NWN and NWN2 for both their singleplayer and multiplayer aspects. i use the former still and have, in the past, used the latter quite a bit also. i dont think the game engine would require too much reworking, though the first issue that comes to mind is your PC's feet being rooted to the ground. there'd be no jumping, scaling buildings, flying vehicles... and im sure a host of other things as well. still it could be do-able, i think.

What would CoC be?

Have we mentioned that his video game has Teleport and Resurrect as base gameplay mechanics?

Call of Cow'thulhu

And isn't the spirit summoning considered as a spell?

What I would like to see is an X-com (the original) style game with lots of terrain and it being turn based. I am not an FPS fan, and besides, wired reflexes make it almost impossible to do SR decently in FPS.

And they have antimagic devices based on dwarfs, and many other silly, silly things, yes. SINO.

Huh? It was standard fare for basic online-only game. It had more than enough weapons, tech, and magic options for a compelling game. I would have bought it except:
1) I don't have a 360
2) they really gimped the PC version [EDIT: by PC standards, the effect was like the designers were going out of their way to make the UI counter-intuitive and hard to use ... unless you were using a Microsoft game pad controller on your PC]

More content would have been coming if they saw potential for a long sales tail. That's standard operating procedure.

The PC version, although not technically a "port", because they developed the two versions simultaneously, effectively was because they the gimped the UI and features of the PC side to the 360 standards. Feature wise it was easily behind Quake 2 with a UI that (unless you had a programable keyboard like a Logitech G11/G15) made it a huge PITA to use the tech/magic with a mouse and keyboard. The lack of a dedicated server options and some really basic team options and ability to extend and configure the server in any meaningful way, or even control what server you were going to (!), for what as very much a team orientated game completely killed it for the FPS clan community and by extension for the PC.

Microsoft also decided to use it as fodder in the push for Vista adoption, making it [unnecessarily] Vista only. That only further marginalized the game on the PC side.

It was very interesting technology wise having a game in which 360 players could be in the same game as PC players, for the first time. Of course that played out exactly as one would expect. Even with the intentional hobbling of the PC side those players showed as the cream. The mouse+keyboard is by far the better UI device for FPS.

Sometimes to achieve greatness, you have to reach to the absurd. I actually liked how they handled Wired Reflexes. While the Dwarves and Trolls (dermal is a spell and the deposits grow as you cast...) were a failure, Wired was a wonderful take on the concept.

BlueMax

as i said, it would require some re-tooling but i think the NWN engine could possibly manage that (as long as it moves away from the D20 fuzion system) and if a powerhouse gaming studio put maybe a year's worth of full production into it it might be something we could all respect.
or instead of bioware, perhaps hand it off to obsidian or bethesda and strive for a (multiplayer included) SR version of oblivion. and if fallout 3 is so close already maybe that system and engine could be used. (on the note of fallout 3, did anyone else have a very hard time trying to stay on the good karma path?)

Agreed. Shadowrun itself makes the case for that.

i know some half-life mods played around with "bullet time" mechanics after matrix made a splash. the only one that came potentially close to figuring it out was the specialist, imo...

What a wonderful idea. What a truly wonderful idea. Especially with the power of the NWN editor allowing people to (a) make their own modules and (b) act as GM on online games.

Now go and convince whoever currently owns the IP!

(I had the opposite problem on Fallout 3, like I always seem to in karma games. Getting OFF the good path was damn near impossible for me. It's getting embarrassing - I remember my then girlfriend watching me play Black and White and ask 'how does a guy with satanic tattoos and taste in industrial metal end up with a 90 foot Winnie the Pooh in a land of never-ending rainbows?)

I never bought the 360 Shadowrun game for a couple of reasons.

1) It was not an RPG, I did not understand this, both Oblivion and Fallout 3 showed you could do 3D RPG on the XBox 360.
2) The Shadowrun fans wanted to help make the game better, they were all of the 'net with great ideas which were ignored for some reason (this may have been management or even one person for all I know so I don't want to blame the developers or even the company here).
3) Why make a shooter just because everybody else is, why not straight up hardcore RPG?

Nine maps, seven weapons, seven spells, 6 tech devices, 4 races, and 3 game modes. No plot.

Does this mean that Bioshock has the orbital bovine bombardment?

Not even close to unusual for multiplayer-only FPS. Entirely enough for a solid game. Lots of stuff to master and plenty to support multiple strategies and counter-strategies. Why do you even mention "no plot"????