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Shadowrun vs. Shadowrun
eToyChest's regular 'I roll 20s' column today looks at the different faces of Shadowrun in the world of Videogames. Before the most recent, ill-conceived, 360 title there were several other attempts to bring the rich cyberpunk-meets-Tolkien world to gamers with controllers. Some met with more success than others. From the article: "In the Genesis Shadowrun, you played an actual Shadowrunner, the sort of guy a corporation would pay to do their dirty work, and then deny the existence of after the fact should things manage to find a fan and hit it. Moreover, you were given the ability to create a character designed after whichever abilities and archetypes you found to be most savory, and as a result, a huge array of hybrid character styles were available, creating a game with a good deal more replay value than most Sega Genesis action RPGs."
Same here. Been GMing the game since the first edition came out.
Initially when I heard that there was going to be a 360 Shadowrun game coming out I had figured it was an RPG and fully intended to purchase one of the consoles solely to play this game.
Then I find out it's to be a first person shooter...and then I hear that they are ripping out the entire history and starting from scratch in a rather warped way...then I see the movie promo for the game and see that it's a deathmatch game with pointy eared avatars, some magic (rocket launchers by any other name...), and what looks to be a rez spell...What the heck? I also seem to recall reading something about magic being a finite resource controlled by possession of a handful of artifacts which seem to be the "prizes/flags" you fight for in the game?!?
Honestly, Microsoft, why did you bother getting the license if you are going to completely gut the entire game world? All you do is annoy those of us who love it...and for people who don't know it, well why would they care about the Shadowrun name being on the game in the first place?