Shadowrun is a flawed shooter that attempts to do a few cool tricks, but ends up nosediving in the end.
Shadowrun is supposed to be a flagship title for Microsoft\'s Windows Vista, with its Windows Live integration and cross-platform multiplayer. It\'s supposed to be a game that captures the interest of the industry. Unfortunately, it goes the opposite way and shows developers what NOT to do.
The meat and potatoes of Shadowrun is its online multiplayer. Up to 16 players get into eight-on-eight games, pitting the rebellious Lineage forces against RNA Global, who are fighting each other to control magic. That\'s the entire premise behind the game and its combat.
At its core, Shadowrun works much like Counter-Strike. At the beginning of a round, you can access a buy menu and purchase weapons, upgrades, and magic spells. These skills set the game a bit apart from the average team-based shooter, allowing you to specialize. There\'s a large amount of abilities to use, but you can have only three of them equipped at one time. There\'s also the matter of choosing your race. Humans are better with tech upgrades, elves move faster and regenerate health, trolls have lots of endurance and health but don\'t have as much essence for spells, and dwarves are small and can absoarb essence from others.
The game features three team-based gametypes. Two of them are analogs of capture the flag modes. In one mode, each team tries to capture the artifact by grabbing it and bringing it to a capture point. Another gametype puts one team on full-time defense, and they must prevent the attacking team from capturing the artifact. The attrition gametype is the only one that doesn\'t center on the artifact, and instead you just need to wipe out the other team, but since you can win that way in any of the other gametypes, it doesn\'t feel especially different.
Presentation: 7 - Sluggish interface, missing graphics, no story.
Graphics: 7 - The graphics are a mixed bag.
Sound: 7.5 - No music, weapons and other sound effects are somewhat underwhelming.
Gameplay: 8 - The game tries some new stuff, but it lacks content.
Value: 7 - Too little content for the price.
Final Score: 7.3 - While it tries new things, the game isn\'t worth full-price for either platform.
Marcin Skok
Editor-in-Chief
"The Gaming Corner"
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