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SR Gamer Pleased With Playtest of Xbox Game
Like many Shadowrun players, Philip Richardson felt frustrated by the announcement that the SR title for the 360 was essentially Counter-Strike with elves. Mr. Richardson, though, happens to be the Program Manager at Microsoft's CRM team. He was invited by the folks at FASA studios to give the game a try, and GameSetWatch reports that he's actually pretty pleased with the situation after all. From the post: "Yes folks: it's share price increasingly good... Artwork: Feels like Shadowrun. Good Job! The SR universe has a lot of different types of artwork (as Tim pointed out yesterday). From the gritty stuff in the early source books to the more cartoonish work in the more recent editions. Gameplay: Feels like Shadowrun."
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Circumcision is child abuse.
Hmmm... I wouldn't say that working for MS automatically makes you a fan of everything they do, and CRM is vastly removed from the Xbox and FASA teams - they are a huge company. Although maybe I should be more cynical...
However, I reckon that whether he works for MS or not is irrelevant given that Xbox 360 owners will be able to download demos of the game from Live to see if they personally like it before they buy it. Plus at least he's up front enough to blog as an MS employee, rather than it being some convoluted viral marketing campaign. And let's be honest, we've all got a right to voice comments about stuff - even if it's made by companies we work for.
Incidentally, the demo download is one of the best things about Xbox Live, because I can get a demo of pretty much any game instantly. So a tiny slither of kudos to MS for doing this, rather than me having to reply on magazine reviews and glossy box pics.
An MS shill who is supposedly an avid SR fan like a game when his boss plonks him in front of it?
/. frontpage. Bluesnews, maybe, more likely a smaller gamesite, not /..
Wow...that's too blatent even for slashdot. It's paid-for 'viral' marketing trying to put apositive slant on a squad based CS clone which has no business using the licence it does. Even if it were the best CS clone around, it shouldn't be using the SR license for a straight twitchbased FPS.
Hell, even if it were a good tactical game, in the GTA:SA engine, using voice comms and a planning session like Rainbow six used to have, or a limited 6 player ORPG, an article by an employee of the publisher saying it's a good game should NEVER make the
-- Waht? Tehr's a preveiw buottn?
As Shadowrun fan, a game developer, and game player who played the SR demo at E3, I call bullshit on this evaluation.
I walked away from the E3 demo shellshocked at how un-Shadowrun-like this game concept turned out to be. While, I'll grant, perhaps, that something has changed in the meantime, the game at E3 captured zero of the spirit of what defined the Shadowrun RPG (you know, the one that was good enough to make this game worth talking about in the first place).
I really have a hard time understanding who they're making this game for:
FPS fans? The gameplay at E3 was pretty standard stuff. The "innovative" new gimmicks include gliding-mode, which allowed you to float from platform to platform (in other words, FPS platform jumping - oh, how we all love that), teleportation through obstacles (but only in certain areas - I found this very confusing in practice), and the ability to resurrect fallen comrades (the opposing team can prevent this by continuously shooting corpses until they disappear).
RPG fans? The dev who demoed that game with me said that the single-player mode was essentially the same as multiplayer. In other words, there is no real story or quests or, god forbid, actual SHADOWRUNS to go on. Instead, singleplayer gameplay is apparently arena-style combat versus bots.
Shadowrun fans? I, for one, am disgusted that they have thrown away everything that made the setting interesting and special to me. The lead designer all but admitted that they've dumbed it down because they were unable to present the world in marketable way. In the end, all they've really kept is the name. That's too shallow for me and, I imagine, too shallow for others who love the SR universe.
Everyone else? Well, everyone else hasn't heard of Shadowrun anyway, so I don't see how they could be interested in tepid offering in an overcrowded genre, with a premise and setting watered-down for the sake of "ease of understanding".
Microsoft Beancounters? Bingo. This game is developed solely to make money. From the lead designer, to the guy who paints the little LEDs on the gun textures, they are all under the thumb of Microsoft's accountants who want this game because they know that it will cost X money to build, and earn them Y dollars back. I know that, by definition, all commercial games have this same burden, but its still possible for them to rise above it and have some spirit.
All this game has is elves with machineguns.
I know a guy whose dream job is to be able to make music. He loves writing music, growing up he spent countless hours learning about music and acoustics. He's also damn good with math. When he graduated college with a math/comp sci degree, I was startled, but, as he explained, if you go to school to study music, they will teach how NOT to make the music you want to be able to.
Before finishing his degree, Microsoft had already signed him on, and agreed to pay moving expenses from Boston to Seattle, more or less. This man hates MS, comes from a family of devoted Mac users. But he saw the dollar signs and decided that if he made enough money quickly enough, he could spend the rest of his life on music.
Now, John (name changed) is not the easiest guy to get along with, and upon getting to MS and beginning work, he found all manner of coding practices that he disagreed with. And he was vociferous about it, angering almost everyone above him, save those few souls who saw that, indeed, by trimming this out and doing that, it would make a more efficient function. John was promoted because of his ability to see these flaws and fixes. This lead to people writing WORSE code that he was then forced to fix. After a year or so of this, John quit.
Are you going to be found interviewed on gamesetwatch.com talking about this? I'm guessing no.
When John left, he told the people above him at MS exactly why he was leaving: the department was turning out shitty code and no one other than he seemed to care about it; that struggling to work in their environment and under their terms was destroying his ability to pursue the creativity that was a part of his life.
Less than one year after leaving MS, John was, again, living in Boston when he was contacted by the head of the department he had been working for. The worst offenders whom John had cited had been fired and MS was happy to pay his moving expenses, again, and reinstate him in his old position if he would come back. It's not the same case as what you mention, no, but it does demonstrate that *shock* Microsoft does listen to internal feedback, even if it happens to be scathingly negative, and is willing to make changes to improve itself. Maybe not always, but it happens.
Perhaps you should. Sure, being a worker for MS won't automatically make him a fan. It may however make him unwilling to continue to say negative things about his employer when in the public eye, and said employer is aware of it.
I just can't believe that anyone who knows Shadowrun would say an elf melding through a wall "feels Shadowrun".
Okay this has been bothering me for awhile. Ever since Penny-Arcade talked about shills, it seems like everyone is calling everyone a shill. Marketers like G&W aren't shills, they're just marketers. :Conspiracy theory alert:
It seems like guys not unlike Gabe and Tycho, who create a huge backing of respectful PA-like fans who talk about how good a certain game is on their blogs or webforums are the ones who most resemble the PA described shills.
now I suppose I'll have to take the karma hit from some rabid PA fans. . .
For the record, I too am a PA fan. I just wish people wouldn't take their word for god ALL THE TIME, Moderation people! moderation!.
disclaimer: I've been known to store numbers in my ass for which to dig out when quantities are required.