Shadowrun

The longer you play Shadowrun, the more you love it. It starts off novel, and then it gets better and richer.

I see that there are not a lot of high falutin' reviews for this game, and the reasons are clear. It's basically a stripped down online team based FPS without a single player mode. The graphics are just OK and there are just some dumb animations - for example when you climb ladders in the levels, your body parts don't move. You just go up the ladder. But when it comes to rich gameplay, it doesn't get much better than Shadowrun.

Before I played this game, I heard that it was very different and more complex than most FPS games. And it's true. There are so few conventional ways to play the game, that nobody has figured out how to glitch it. There's no such thing as spawn camping, primarily because you can respawn at anyplace on the map.

When it comes to big team battles, which is basically every game, this game does actually compare to Halo. Except that there is more flexibility. With the larger maps, you don't get so much of a frenzy of action, and the conflict isn't as predictable as it is with Halo. On the plus side, every game has two ways to win. You can either eliminate your enemies, or capture 'The Artifact' and take it to a base in the enemy camp.

For people who like to be big and bad and just blast away, or become headshot snipers, you simply cannot do it. You must be a team player to win, and you must coordinate attacks, defenses, weapons and races. In other words, it's more of a thinker's game than a button masher's game. There's not much use for cover in this game, and those who can master a manual use of cover have a definite advantage.

As with any shooter, your game play depends primarily upon the economy of life. In a game like Call of Duty when you can respawn an unlimited number of times and games are fairly long, certain kinds of actions make sense, like surging all players to a contested territory again and again. In a game like Splinter Cell, at the other end of the spectrum, when you can lose just be being discovered, a great deal more thought goes into every physical move. The trick is finding a balance. The trend has been towards collaborative resuscitation during battle and this is what makes for truly exciting play in Shadowrun.

Shadowrun also gives a practically infinite number of ways to play as a team. You have four races times six weapons (weilding up to two at a time), six magic spells and six technologies. You can arm three triggers to employ a combination of spells and tech while the right main is for your weapon. There are three game modes and that multiplies out to a bunch. All the levels are fairly spacious and some are downright maze-like.

There are two great ways to play that I find particularly fun. The first is juggernaut mode in which you take a troll character (the big strong brute) and a minigun and just mow down your adversaries. Two trolls parked under a Tree of Life, both with miniguns can deal death like crazy. The other and very popular mode is ninja mode. One of the weapons you can buy is a katana sword. As an Elf, with the speed boosts of Wired Reflexes and Transport magic, you can rapidly sneak up on enemies and deal a deathblow which is very similar to the back of the head melee in Halo, only more dramatic. Players that have been dealt such a blow begin to bleed out, which means unless somebody revives them or they find a Tree of Life, they'll be dead in 10 seconds.

Shadowrun also gives teabaggers a new, more productive hobby which is clearing bodies. If you are struck dead, there is a possibility that a teammate can resurrect you, especially if you are the victim of a cheap shot. So not only does an opponent need to be killed, you need to rip their corpse to shreds as well, otherwise they may come back to haunt you. It takes longer than an execution move in Gears of War, so there's risk involved in this coup de grace. However a resurrected body is a bit more frail than a fresh one. Chances are you won't survive a second death in any one round. Each game is a first to six round victories. 

One of the more subtle aspects of the game is the use of the DPad which allows you to convey battlefield information to your teammates. Although the maps are large and complex, every area has a name which appears in the lower left hand corner of your headsup. Using the DPad left, will tell your teammates that you need assistance. A Cortana-like voice will say "needs assistance at the Habitat, two enemies" and text that message on the screens of your teammates. You can also spot enemies with the up arrow or order allies to a spot on the map with your right arrow. Not many players use this function to the fullest but it can definitely make a big difference.

I'm going to try to get more of my shooter pals to play Shadowrun. We're just starting to play a lot of the new extensions to R6Vegas, especially VIP. But I think they'll come around. In the meantime, until Halo3, it's Shadowrun for me.