Shadowrun

List Price: $29.99 Discount Price: $7.98

Features:

• Ancient magic co-exists with deadly high-tech weaponry - Purchase advanced technology and magic each round in an extraordinary arms race
• Balance your teams by using the talents of humans, elves, dwarves and trolls in your battles for supremacy among soaring corporate towers
• Train offline with the robust A.I. or play coop through online mini-games with your friends, as you master magic and technology
• Take on friends or work with them via System Link, Splitscreen, LAN, or Xbox Live

Accessories:
The Official Xbox Magazine [1-year]	Electronic Gaming Monthly	Play	Tips & Tricks Magazine

Customer Reviews:

Greatest multiplayer ever. [Posted on 2008-02-09]
This game has the best multiplayer of any game I've ever played. Its a must buy for any competitive fps fan.

wow its ok [Posted on 2008-02-27]
Honestly i would be mad if I bought this game brand new for the price when it came out no story and practice mode then online witch to suck and another thing the gripe me is you have earn mony to get weaoin or powers online witch is even gayer but beside that its just ok thats it worth 11$ thats all to me

Everything the game does, it does right. The only problem is that it doesn't do very much. [Posted on 2008-06-30]
Shadowrun is a game that seems to have a lot of potential. In the end, though, it isn't fully exploited. The game mixes fantasy games and sci-fi shooters in a marriage that should be any nerds dream, and it does so very well. When you go online the game is solid. The problem is that there are only 3 game modes. So, after completing the tutorials and playing a few matches online, you'll be wondering where the rest of the game is. Sadly that is a question the will forever remain unanswered.

Shadowrun is set in a fictional future where, in addition to technological discoveries, magic is uncovered for the first time in 5000 years. The discovery of magic lead opposing forces into war and also created different races of meta-humans. As the player, you're fighting for the forces of RNA or Lineage for control of magical artifacts simply called "artifacts" (creative, right?). Anyway, the story doesn't matter at all and serves only as an excuse for you to be shooting at other players online.

When you join a match you'll be placed on a team. At the beginning of each round you'll have a chance to buy your choice of weapons or skills. For anyone who has played Counter Strike, that should be pretty familiar. Then you'll set off to destroy the opposing team. Should you be killed you will not respawn, but you can rejoin the fight if one of your team members revives you. Once the game gets going there will be people flying and teleporting around, as well as shooting and healing, killing and reviving. It is a lot to wrap your mind around and that is the real strength of Shadowrun.

In the game there are four races, human, elf, dwarf, and troll. Each race has its own advantages and they are all balanced very well. In addition to the races there are Tech and Magic... oh and of course guns too. Magic skills allow you to heal team mates, or teleport, or even summon minions and more. Tech abilities allow you to use a glider, or have radar like vision, or improve your speed, or aim better. As for weapons there is your standard fair of pistol, machine gun, rifle, shotgun, sniper rifle, mini-gun, rockets, and (maybe not so standard) katana. When you start messing around with Race/Skill/Weapon combos then you start to understand Shadowrun's complexity, and its uniqueness. From my experience it is easy to make a combination you like, but difficult to master all the different aspects of what your enemy may be doing at any given time.

So, the game is totally based around team play and, as I previously mentioned, there is an astounding 3 different modes to play and that might even be brought down to two. Each map is set up as either a Extraction Map or a Raid Map, and Extraction Maps you can't play Raid on and vise-versa. Extraction has both teams fighting to bring the artifact back to their base, while in Raid only Lineage tries to capture the flag while RNA tries to protect it. In either of these game modes if one team eliminates all players on the other team, they win the round regardless of the artifact. The third game type, availible on all maps, is called Attrition, where the objective is to kill the other team. In Attrition the artifact stays on the map, but only serves as a kind of power-up that either team can use. While all of these game modes are fun they're not very diverse and I really feel the game could use more modes to choose from.

Graphically the game does pretty well, but there are a few issues. Each team has a different look for the different races, but other that that there is no difference between characters. You can't change your clothes or looks in the slightest way, there isn't even a choice to change gender (everyone is male). The developers also failed to put in a ladder climbing animation for some unknown reason. Still, everything looks good and holds up, even with 16 players quickly moving around and using magic and skills.

Sound is pretty simple in the game. I don't know that there is much to say on it. It isn't bad or distracting, but its not something you'll be looking for the soundtrack for. One thing the game does that I appreciate, is that it gives you auditory warnings as to where enemies are and where your team mates are fighting. Some people might find that annoying, but it isn't overdone, so I'm glad they included it. As far as sound effects go everything sounds like it should.

In the end, Shadowrun is a fun, but limited game. Everything it does works well, but you might get sick of what is really just two different types of matches. The game can actually be picked up fairly cheap now, especially if you get it used. If you're the kind of person who enjoys playing games like Counter Strike endlessly and want to try something different you need this game. For everyone else, you wont be hurting yourself if you decide to skip this one.

Shadowrun [Posted on 2008-08-30]
This is an excellent shooter game with magical twists. If you like Halo you should love this game. Some don't like the fact it has no single player story line but you can still play vs BOTS, (computer players) or up to 16 system linked games or of course LIVE. This game can be bought now for as low as $14 online.

ONLINE PLAY [Posted on 2008-10-10]
This is not a game to play by yourself. Online with up to 16 people it is awesome. Many who buy it and play it for a few days become addicted to it and drop all games. You can customize your guy through every match to find the combos that work for you and allow you to adapt to the other teams tactics.

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