Shadowrun 360 Beta Impressions

The Non Disclosure Agreement for the Shadowrun Beta has been lifted and I can now dish out all of the gushy details that I have been holding in for the past few days.

As I have only played the game for 8 hours or so and there were only 2 maps available, I can't give definitive word on how good this game will be. But, I have had a blast with the few hours that I have put in. Listed below are some of the things I like about the game along with some things that need to be improved prior to release.

The Good

Magic!

This game is going to remind you heavily of Hexen. There are many different spells you can buy and you will have 3 of them equipped at a time. Some of my favorites are Gust - which is similar to a Force Push, Smoke – which will turn you into a puff of smoke so that you can escape when losing a firefight, and Summon – which will summon a large Minion that you can assign to guard an area or assassinate a particular character. These spells are going to be a breath of fresh air to FPS players who have virtually been playing the same game since Halo came out.

Races

There were 4 playable races in the Beta and each had their own strengths and weaknesses. Shadowrun has gone beyond just giving the races different speeds, firepower, etc. in that some races have extra abilities that significantly alter the way you play them. Elves regenerate their health, Trolls develop sort of an extra armor overcoat when fired upon, and Dwarves siphon magic from other characters and objects. You will have to develop a different strategy for playing for each of the separate races.

Bots

You have the ability to add AI combatants to your matches. This has been done before in games such as Perfect Dark, but this time the bots are actually rather smart. You would think that if you died early in the match, there would be no chance in hell that the bots you were playing with would come around to resurrect you (another crucial spell). Wrong. More often than not, the bots were able to locate and resurrect me quicker than my warm bodied team mates. I also witnessed them setting up traps, flanking the enemy, and setting up a defensive perimeter around the flag capture point. In addition, they even called out enemy locations over team speak. I wish my friends would do that. They made some bonehead moves too, but overall I would be hard-pressed to identify which were my AI teammates and which were actual humans (and this was only on Medium).

Playing With Friends

The interface for Private Matches is well done. When you select that you want to play a private match, the game first lists which of your friends are in a game and from there you can easily hop into their match. I don’t know if there is an option for “Invite Only” so you may have to drop the Timmies off your friends list (I will check up on this). Players can drop into your game at any time and will sit out that round and then join in on the next. They will take the place of a bot if there was any playing. In addition, I think you can set it up for a bot to take the place of players if they unexpectedly drop out mid-game. There is a pre and post game lobby and they are working on implementing a party system.

The Bad

Team Kills Are Easy

There are two different teams you can be a part of, the Red Team and the Blue Team. They actually have different more descriptive team names that somehow tie into the plot, but for all intents and purposes they are a red team and a blue team. There are different character models for the races on each team such as the elves on the blue team have white hair whereas they have black hair on the red team. And the characters wear color coordinated clothes. But at 30 paces, all you see coming down the hall is a big lumbering troll and you have half a second to decide if he is a friendly before his minigun rains holy terror on your ass. The only other signal for distinguishing allies is that the reticule will turn red when hovering over an ally. This complicates matters since one of the team colors is red and you start to wonder, “Does the red reticule mean that he is on my team?” In addition, usually I do not aim directly at an enemy when firing on them in order to account for movement and the wind (note: there is no wind in this game, I just over analyze things). Needless to say, in the past few days I have killed many an ally and there have been games where my teammates would have booted me if they could figure out how to do so. This needs to be addressed.

Speed / Floatiness

This could be just a personal preference, but the gameplay seems to rather quick paced. The elves, in particular, when hopped up with enhanced speed modifiers will zoom across your screen like 2nd graders after a cake and Coke splurge. The light characters also do not walk around with a lot of weight attached to them and seem to float around. This is especially true with ladders. Your arm and leg joints do not move while climbing ladders and you kind of just float up them. Being that this is a Beta, I can understand the developers leaving out the ladder animations as it is not key to the gameplay. And for all I know they may be working on improving the movement too.

High Learning Curve

There is no doubt about it; n00bs will be 0wned when they first start playing the multiplayer matches. With the amount of magic and tech that you can equip, the game is very complex. This gives veterans a huge advantage since they will know how the different abilities work and which combinations of race / abilities / weapons are the most effective. In the initial few public matches that I played, I got my ass beat severely. I would be firing my rifle at an elf down the hallway and he would teleport behind me and slice my neck with a katana blade before I knew what was going on. Public Matches will be made using Microsoft’s TrueRank system, so theoretically you should be matched against fellow n00bs when you start playing the game. If that’s not the case, some gamers will get discouraged from playing online early and not give it a second look.

Overall, I think this game has potential to be a huge hit. The spells and abilities are fun to use, the weapons are close to being well balanced, and they plan on implementing the party system from Halo 2 where you can effortlessly switch from Private to Public Matches. This is definitely going to appeal to those who prefer more of a twitch FPS as opposed to tactical FPS similar to the Clancy games. But there are tactical elements to this game as well in that you can use spells to lock up choke points and eliminate health generators. It is difficult to say how good this game will be considering how limited the beta was and not knowing how much will be improved before release. But, I definitely think you should put this game on your radar and keep an eye out for reviews when it comes out. There are a lot of things the game is doing right at this stage and not many that it is doing wrong.