Shadowrun

UPDATE:  FASA sends word that something must have gone wrong with this demo.  FASA says that the final build will not work this way and that there is even some misinformation in this review.

Considering there is basically no information about the PC version of Shadowrun, we’ve got to believe IGN’s latest report. As a PC gamer, I’m disappointed along with them. IGN takes a hard look at the PC version of Shadowrun. It appears that not only is the PC aiming system a little handicapped, it also appears that the graphics are sub par as compared to recent video games and even the 360 version of the same game. Whatever the case, their version of Shadowrun PC had lackluster graphics and was extremely taxing on their powerful system.

“The game didn’t look half as good as the 360 version.”

IGN was running the most powerful video card on the market, nVidia’s 8800 GTX and they had a hard time getting 60 frames-per-second. In there words, the framerate was “all over the place” and the game “looked terrible”. We reported earlier that FASA is locking the framerate of the PC version of the game in order to balance the cross-platform play. I can only hope that the final version of the game will be less taxing. A $500 video card ought to be able to run the game better than IGN reports.

IGN also reports that the textures and graphics look better on the XBOX 360 than the PC. Has FASA also locked the texture resolutions as well?

“Textures seemed very low res, which could be a side effect of the higher resolution of the PC version. The lighting appeared as if somebody had lit up each level with bright spotlights, missing the atmospheric shadows of the 360 version.”

IGN tried going into the video settings menu of the game to tweak it. They found very few options.

“Apart from a gamma slider, it was devoid of anything tinker-able. No detail settings, and from memory, we’re pretty sure there wasn’t even an option to set the game’s resolution.”

IGN asks:

“So why did Shadowrun look so terrible, and run so poorly, on Microsoft’s machines?”

We’d like to know also. The XBOX 360 version of this game is getting all of the attention. And the slant is always that XBOX 360 gamers can now hang with the PC gamers. Where is the information on the PC version of this cross-platform game?

Theory: Recently Shadowrun Vista gameplay video on YouTube was removed. Kotaku reported the video in one of their articles. Could that Vista video have NOT been representational of the final graphics and pulled at the request of Microsoft? Is that why Shadowrun for PC was looking bad for IGN…because the graphics aren’t final? I hope so.
I can’t wait to get my hands on the Vista version this game. I’ll certainly do a thorough comparison between both platforms. More later.