Part Counterstrike and part WoW, Shadowrun offers up a refreshing and unique type of game play.

The year is 2031, and magic has returned to the world after a 5,000 year absence. With magic’s return, also came races that had been absent during that time. Elves, Dwarves, and Trolls appear, each with their own special magical abilities.

Shadowrun is not your typical FPS. It combines weapons, technology, and magic to expand on the typical FPS and offer up multiple play styles as well as varying strategies.

As a die-hard Halo player, I found Shadowrun to be a breath of fresh air from the regular play-style of FPS.

One of the things that separates Shadowrun from other FPS games is the use of magic in combination with technology and races.

Races:

Human – The most well-rounded race to play, humans are a jack-of-all-trades type character. Not too fast, not too slow. Not too strong, not too weak. Humans have no special magic that the other races have. However, humans take no essence (magic) penalty for having technology equipped. Humans also start out with more money than the other races.

Elf – Elves are the fastest race available. But they are also the weakest in regards to health. This means they will rarely win a head-to-head fight, and need to know how to hit-and-run. Elves’ special magical is the ability to self-heal, which slightly makes up for their lack of health.

Dwarf – Dwarves tend to be slow and lack health, but they more then make up for that in essence (magic). They have the most magic of any of the races, yet, unlike the other races, they do not have the ability to regenerate essence. Instead, they leech essence from everything around them. Teammates, enemies, Trees of Life, Minions, etc… if it has magic, a Dwarf will drain it. The Dwarf’s small profile also makes it harder to hit in combat and prevents them from taking critical damage from headshots.

Troll – Easily the toughest race out there, trolls are slowest, yet have the most health out of all the races. Their strength allows them to carry heavy weapons without being slowed down, and their special magical ability is that their skin hardens as they are being shot, making it harder to kill them, the more you shoot them.

Technology:

Technology plays an important role in the battles fought in Shadowrun.

Glider – The glider is a great piece of equipment that allows its users to reach places not reachable by foot. Combine it with the Teleport spell, and its reach is expanded even more. While the glider is useful to get around with, keep in mind that anything in the air makes for an easier target.

Wired Reflexes – one of the best pieces of technology (in my opinion) available, wired reflexes boosts the speed of the character it is mapped to. Move faster, reload faster, and jump higher when using this tech. Equip your character with a katana and wired reflexes, and he’ll be able to deflect incoming bullets.

Wired reflexes works both passively and actively. In passive mode, it boosts speed in all aspects. However, when triggered to active mode, it allows users to move significantly faster in short bursts. However, these come with a cost, and that cost is your health. You will lose a little health each time you trigger an active burst.

Smartlink – another great piece of equipment, Smartlinked equipped characters have improved accuracy as well as a crucial component which is an integrated friend or foe system. A character equipped with Smartlink can not shoot his team mates with direct fire weapons. However, team mates can still be hit by splash damage from a rocket launcher or shotgun. One negative aspect of Smartlink, is that it projects a red-laser beam at all times, making it easy for enemies to locate or track a character equipped with it.

Enhanced Vision – One of the biggest complaints I’ve heard about Shadowrun, is the lack of radar. This is where EV comes into play. A character equipped with EV is a team’s radar. EV sends out a radar pulse that goes through all solid objects and shows where opponents and teammates are located. The pulse is very short, so a quick 360 scan is recommended. One downside of EV, is that it is not able to locate characters that have Smoke equipped unless those players are very close.

Antimagic Generator – This device has one purpose. It drains the essence (magic) out of everything around it. Characters, Trees of Live, Minions, Strangle, etc… It sucks everything dry. Its only downside is that it does not differentiate between friend or foe.

Magic:

Resurrect – Also known as “Rez” this powerful spell will bring dead team mates back to life and possibly turn the tide of a battle. There are a few drawbacks of “Rez”. 1. The person who does the “Rezzing” has to allocate part of his essence (magic) to maintain the person he “Rezzed”. 2. If you are “Rezzed” during a game, you will automatically pay the person who “Rezzed” you the next round, so you will have less money at the start of the next round. 3. If the person who “Rezzed” you dies, you will bleed out and die, unless another person “Rezzes” you or you hang out under a Tree of Life.

Tree of Life – An essential spell for every game, the Tree of Life, when cast, sprouts an actual tree. This tree will heal all those within its vicinity. A Tree of Life can also be used as cover from incoming fire. However, it can also be destroyed by incoming fire.

Smoke – Easily a spell that is used mostly in every game, smoke enables a user to literally turn into “smoke” to escape gunfire and explosions. Smoke equipped characters are not visible to Enhanced Vision and can also turn to smoke to prevent damage from high falls. However, characters equipped with smoke can be easily tracked as they are still visible, and can be knocked out of the “Smoke” state by a well-aimed “Gust” and even killed if their health is low.

Gust – Having a myriad of uses, Gust is a spell that is sorely underused in my opinion. Not only can it knock a character out of “Smoke” state, it can also be used to:

• blow an opponent off a map
• knock an opponent off balance during combat
• Be a “poor man’s rocket launcher” Activate Gust and throw a grenade at the same time and it launches the grenade much farther then you could throw it.
• Reduce fall damage by triggering it straight down when falling.
• Keep shotty and katana users from getting too close

Teleport – A simple, yet powerful spell, teleport will transport a character in the direction they are moving 10 meters when triggered. Key words: Direction they are moving. i.e. – I am firing at a troll in front of me in a hallway, but moving left and right. I feel I’m about to die, so I trigger my teleport. I don’t move towards the troll, but teleport through the wall into another room to the right of me, as that was the direction I was moving when I triggered the spell.

Strangle – also known as “Choke”, strangle is almost a purely defensive spell. When cast, it creates a field of crystals in a specific area. When a character comes into contact with these crystals, the crystals will grab hold of that character and drain their essence and cause slight damage. Choke is best used to block off avenues of approach and seal off doors and hallways.

Summon – when cast, summon calls forth a minion to fight for them. This minion can be targeted to protect an area, but individual characters can also be targeted so that the minion will attack them. A couple of negatives of this spell are that minions will fight one another if they are cast too near each other. They are also indiscriminate in how they inflict damage and can cause damage to anyone fighting too close to one.

Gametypes:

Raid – Basically, this can best be described as 1 Flag CTF. Instead of a flag, there is an “Artifact”. The artifact is placed about half way between the Lineage (Red) team and the RNA (Blue) team. Lineage is ALWAYS on offense and RNA is ALWAYS on Defense. The purpose of this game is for the Lineage to fight its way to the artifact, grab it, and take it to the extraction (Cap) area. Bodies can be destroyed when killed in this gametype.

Extraction – Best described as Neutral flag, an artifact is placed halfway between the spawns of RNA and Lineage. The purpose of this game is for either team to capture the Artifact, and then deliver it to the opposing team’s extraction area. Once one team captures the Artifact, the other team generally falls back on defense. Bodies can be destroyed when killed in this gametype.

Attrition – Possibly the most popular of the game types, Attrition is Team Slayer with a twist. Bodies cannot be destroyed the first time they are killed. However, if a character has been rezzed, then their body will be destroyed on their 2nd death. The twist of this gametype is that there is an artifact. The main goal of this game is to eliminate the other team entirely. However, a team that is down to one player can still win the game for his team, if he is in possession of the artifact at the end of the game.

Summary:

As another 2o2p member stated in the forums, “Shadowrun is CounterStrike on Crack.” That is one of the best ways to describe it in my opinion.

Games are very fast-paced and require a lot of teamwork. This game is not for Rambo-type players. Communication and strategy play an important aspect in the game play.

Completing the training and playing a few bot matches before going into Multiplayer is essential. You will be lost without the training, not knowing spell capabilities, let alone how to map them to your controller.

Overall, I enjoy the game quite a bit. It has its negatives, but I feel those are outweighed by its positives.

This game won't be for everyone. There isn't a continuous respawn, no radar, and the use of magic can be game-killers for some people.

If you bought the game looking for another Halo, then you are going to be disappointed. This isn't Halo. It isn't meant to be. This game is something different. It offers fast-paced games with so many different options on how to approach each game, that it has yet to get old for me.

Although I feel it is lacking in game types and needs a few tweaks, I look forward to FASA providing downloadable content to enhance the overall game in the near future.

8.5-10