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WorthPlaying previews Shadowrun

Published by rapture May 5th, 2007 in preview. 0 Comments

WorthPlaying previews Shadowrun and has a lot of good things to say about it. It’s a good place to send someone who isn’t familiar with the game. No new information. Just an honest review with a lot of screenshots. The reviewer’s final take:

“you’ll find this to be one of the most frenetic shooters on PC or the 360 in a long, long time, with fewer balance issues than you’d think it would have.”

By the way, frenetic means wildly excited or active; frantic; frenzied. Yeah. I looked it up.

Tags: preview, worth playing

Escape Station reviews the Shadowrun beta

Published by EnragedGnome May 4th, 2007 in preview and beta. 0 Comments

The crew from Escape Station, a site dedicated to providing fun online gaming competitions for people 25 and older, decided to give their take on the Shadowrun beta. Looks like they really enjoyed themselves.

FirstMateBean, one of Escape Station’s founders, asked yours truly to collate a few of his thoughts on Shadowrun for the piece. Here’s what I gave him:

Hands down, the hours I’ve spent playing Shadowrun have been the most fun I have had on Live! When I first signed up for the beta, I did not expect to like the game. What I had seen up to that point was a game with Ex-Box quality graphics and gimmicky features that would probably be poorly implemented. I never thought I could have been so wrong. Every element of Shadowrun just feels right. The guns, the powers, the physics — they all feel just how I expect them to feel. More importantly, they are fun. Every game of Shadowrun is laced with moments where my heart is pounding and adrenaline is pouring into my system. Every match is filled with spectacular last second “clutch” saves, intense action, and “ZOMG! That was amazing!” moments. No game has been able to fill that place in my heart since Halo 1.

My favorite aspect of Shadowrun would have to be teamwork. While individual skill is important, a team that works well together can best a more skilled team that doesn’t. Shadowrun really shines when two equally skilled teams meet up in a battle for supremacy. The beta tournament and our previous matches against the Developers gave my team and I lots of chances to experience this first-hand. Some really epic battles took place that will be talked about among friends for a long time to come.

Tags: beta, enragedgnome, escape station, firstmatebean, preview

Framerates NOT locked on Shadowrun PC

Published by rapture April 23rd, 2007 in preview and technical. 2 Comments

Kimona sends word that there is some “serious” misinformation floating out there about the PC version of Shadowrun. So, that IGN report that we reported earlier is in fact not accurate. Offline, she specifically mentioned that the framerates of the PC version of Shadowrun will NOT be locked. This contradicts an earlier report we noticed in the Official XBOX Magazine. I expect to see the PR team release some information about the PC version of the game soon in the coming week or two. More later.

Again, gamers should not be concerned about locked framerates anymore. You can now bet that you will get the extra frames-per-second performance out of your GPU hardware.

Tags: framerates, kimona, preview, technical

IGN: disappointed in Shadowrun PC

Published by rapture April 21st, 2007 in preview and technical. 1 Comment

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.

Tags: ign, PC, preview

Penny Arcade’s take on Shadowrun

Published by rapture April 18th, 2007 in FASA and preview. 0 Comments

Sage sends word that the guys from Penny Arcade were over at FASA this week. The guys wrote about their experiences playing a “very, very complete” version of Shadowrun. Some quotes:

“If you can picture Tribes conglomerated with one part Counter-Strike, adding a round-to-round buy phase but bolstering the mundane options with cyberware and magic, you’re there.”

“I honestly believe that if I were to put a shooter enthusiast in front of this thing, the polish, the loadout options, and the feel of it will get a hook in.”

Check out the rest of the article.

Tags: Penny Arcade, preview

Link dump April 3, 2007 - Two previews

Published by rapture April 3rd, 2007 in preview and beta. 0 Comments

TheGameFeed.com and PALGN.com.au both take looks at the Shadowrun beta. Overall, their opinions are promising with some reservations. Still good reads if you want to know what others think of the beta.

http://www.thegamefeed.com/
http://palgn.com.au/

Tags: beta, palgn, preview, the game feed

More impressions from other testers on the web

Published by rapture March 30th, 2007 in preview and beta. 0 Comments

A few beta write-ups trickled in this morning.

VGBlogger gives beta impressions: http://www.vgblogger.com/
Learning to be a healer in Shadowrun by Siliconera: http://www.siliconera.com/
Beta impressions by Bits bytes pixels and sprites: http://www.thebbps.com/

Of note:

The release date for this game has not been announced.
Healing is something that a magical Tree of Life can do for you. Resurrecting a downed body is a magical power that anyone can do once they’ve purchased that magic.
There are two maps playable in the beta:

Power Station where you either defend the Artifact or you try to capture and score the Artifact.
Lobby where there is a neutral Artifact in the middle of the map waiting to be possessed by either side.

So, a few terms, dates, and numbers are a little off tilt. However, you should still be able to get an honest review of Shadowrun in its beta state for better or worse.

Tags: bbps, beta, preview, siliconera, vgblogger

Xbox Raw gives Shadowrun a gameplay synopsis

Published by EnragedGnome March 26th, 2007 in preview and beta. 3 Comments

Daniel Regnitz over at Xbox Raw has posted a well-written editorial detailing the different techs, magics, and races of Shadowrun. He also gives some details on how certain aspects of the game, like its Karma system, work.

In most circumstances a person can only be resurrected once. However, due to the “Karma” feature that is in place, the losing team gets certain advantages. Bodies will take longer to clear, they’ll be able to get resurrected multiple times, get a defense boost, and more.

In addition, he had a few good things to say about his Shadowrun experience.

The question that is probably burning in most of your minds, as it is the most important one; Is it good!? I can safely assure you that, yes. Yes, it is.

I’ve had [the Shadowrun Beta] since December, it only has two maps, and I still play it almost every night. ShadowRun has its fangs deep, deep in me.

Tags: beta, Daniel Regnitz, preview, Xbox Raw

GameInformer looks at the Shadowrun beta

Published by rapture March 23rd, 2007 in preview and beta. 0 Comments

GameInformer got a chance to play a beta build of Shadowrun. They had great things to say about the game. Some thoughts from the article:

Graphically, Shadowrun is quite pretty, and filled with next-gen effects. Metal shines, light blooms and shadows are cast. One of the levels we played was set during the next-gen friendly time of the sun setting, allowing a nice amber tone to wash over everything. Player models look a bit glossy, but it’s nothing anyone will really notice during the chaos. The sound also works out quite well and playing on a 5.1 system will give you an edge, because you will easily hear the chatter of an enemy’s gun behind you.

and

When it all boils down to it, Shadowrun’s core game play is very fun. This is one of those games that you and a bunch of your buddies will have a blast just shooting each other in the face with. Fans of the genre will enjoy the game but fans of the series may be a bit disappointed because there are no single-player elements. A big part of the Shadowrun world is the dirty, grimy feel that was created by the giant corporations. And where the hell is the hacking? We need some time in the Matrix. While it’s fun to grab artifacts for the sake of the corporation, it’s hard not to question the games overall longevity at this point. One thing is for sure—shooting SMGs and launching rockets will never get old, but it’s just not the way of a Shadowrunner.

Tags: gameinformer, preview

TeamXBOX previews Shadowrun

Published by rapture March 23rd, 2007 in preview. 0 Comments

Several different writers at TeamXBOX got their hands on Shadowrun and they all had great things to say about the game. In all, the article is four pages of a details preview of the game. Give it a read.
Will Tuttle, Editor in Chief said:

I’m digging the game. The shooting element is a lot of fun (but, you know, it’s a shooter), but I’m really enjoying the addition of the magic and technology to the mix.

Brent Soboleski, Creative Director wrote:

If you are one of those gamers who has grown tired of the genre, you will be happy to know that FASA Studio has put together an intriguing, compelling shooter based on the RPG roots of the Shadowrun series that binds together the use of magic, tools and weapons to create a truly unique FPS experience.

Dale Nardozzi, Editor thought:

Fans of Counterstrike listen up - if you’re looking for a bit more magic than might in your first person shooting experience, FASA’s Shadowrun is shaping up to be just your ticket.

Andy Eddy, Contributor:

I’ll be honest that I was never a big fan of Counter-Strike. But I’d like to think the added versatility that’s built into Shadowrun might hold my interest more. I also expect it might enable me to be more competitive, because I frankly don’t have the best skills as an FPS player. In Shadowrun, I might be better suited to supporting the team as a defender, which doesn’t have to be just how precisely you can aim at attackers with your rifle.

Tags: andy eddy, brent soboleski, dale nardozzi, preview, team xbox, will tuttle

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