Shadowrun Exclusive Hands-On

Shadowrun was originally a pen-and-paper role-playing game from the '80s and '90s, which might lead you to believe that the upcoming game of the same name from Microsoft and its internal FASA studio is going to be a role-playing game for the Xbox 360 and the PC. However, this new Shadowrun has much more in common with Counter-Strike than it does with role-playing. And while role-playing fans may be a bit annoyed by this, action fans shouldn't. That's because Shadowrun promises wild multiplayer gameplay and impressive depth. We got our first good look at Shadowrun's intriguing mix of magic and technology last September, and we had a chance to get our hands on a more complete version recently.

In most shooters, you just run around and blast the enemy with a bunch of weapons. That's what you'll also do in Shadowrun, as you'll be armed with assault rifles, shotguns, grenades, pistols, and more, but you'll also use an impressive array of magical powers and technological items to do things that would be considered cheating in other games. Ironically, many of these powers were inspired by such cheats. For example, the "no clip" cheat in most games is used to let you move through solid objects, and the equivalent power in Shadowrun is teleport. Or wall hacks that let you see through walls in some shooters becomes enhanced vision in Shadowrun. And it's when you start to piece these abilities together in different ways that you create all sorts of wild moments. For instance, enhanced vision lets you see through solid objects, so you can detect where enemies are. Once you have their location, you can use teleport to jump in behind them and cut them down with a machine gun or a katana sword, then teleport away in an instant. You can summon magical brambles to choke off choke points, use gliders to hang over the battlefield, throw down an antimagic generator to disable magic, and more.

Shadowrun is about a world where magic has returned after being dormant for thousands of years. Two factions battle for control of a key South American city. On one side is the RNA Corporation and on the other is the Lineage, the guardians of an ancient and powerful temple. In Shadowrun, the return of magic means that regular humans can cast spells and some humans have transformed into different races. These races form the basic classes of the game. There are elves, the most magical race, which are fast and heal automatically. However, the downside is that using technological items hinders their magical ability. Then there are dwarves, who are short and hard to hit. Dwarves also neutralize the magic around them by absorbing it for their own uses, which can give the other races fits. And then there are the huge and powerful trolls, capable of absorbing large amounts of damage. (Fans of Shadowrun know that orcs are a fifth race, and while they won't make an appearance in the game, their existence will be hinted at.)

There won't be a single-player campaign or story in Shadowrun. Instead, the game consists of several different types of multiplayer modes that let up to 16 players battle it out online. The most common multiplayer mode will pit the two factions in battle, and the RNA and Lineage forces are essentially identical to one another, in that they have the same weapons and powers at their disposal. That makes for a perfectly level playing field that lets you pit your reflexes and guile against others players.

In Shadowrun, magic is never a weapon; rather, it's a tool that lets you do all sorts of incredible things. We've already noted the ability to teleport and turn into a puff of smoke, but you can also use magic to throw down a tree of life to heal yourself and allies, resurrect allies, and summon a demon to protect you or go after your enemies. The same goes for the tech in the game, which also has a utilitarian effect. For example, glider wings let you swoop over long distances or hang over the battlefield and snipe, and smartlink increases your accuracy and adds an extra level of zoom on all of your weapons. Smartlink also lets you avoid friendly fire, so you can use it in combination with the chain gun to sweep a room full of enemies and friendlies and avoid friendly causalities.

One tactic is to use the glider to soar over the battlefield and then use enhanced vision to look inside the buildings below. Once you detect an enemy, you can dive toward the building and then teleport through the ceiling and appear next to the enemy and attack, and then disappear. Another fun tactic is to have someone equipped with the smoke spell work in tandem with a teammate equipped with smartlink. The smoke teammate will lure an enemy into chasing them and then run directly toward the smartlink teammate. The smoke player will then turn to smoke and give the smartlink player a clear shot at the unsuspecting enemy.

To Cowboy Up or Not

Teamwork is usually important in team-based shooters, but it will be critical in Shadowrun. A team composed of individuals all doing their own thing will easily get destroyed by an organized team, because there are so many penalties if you get caught alone by the enemy. For example, if you're killed and no allies are around to resurrect you, the enemy can just saunter up to your body, blast it with weapons fire, and "clear it" from play, meaning that you can no longer be resurrected that round and must watch as a spectator from that point on. If two or three of your teammates are eliminated that way, your team will be at a decided disadvantage for the remainder of the round. On the other hand, if you're part of a group, a desperate fight will erupt as your teammates try and save you while the enemy tries to clear your body from play.

The developers tell us that the perfect team will have a core of four to six players moving together as a group to support one another, with two "cowboys" or lone wolves running around the map separately to introduce a random element in the battle. The core group can move together, while the cowboys can serve as scouts to locate and detect the enemy, as well as cavalry if the core group gets caught in a battle.

Good teamwork will require good communication, and while Xbox 360 players will be able to take advantage of voice chat over Xbox Live, another way to stay coordinated will be to use the situational-awareness feature. The directional pad on the Xbox 360 controller and the directional keys on the keyboard are mapped to call out certain data. In the bottom-left corner of the screen, the game always tells you your location, so you don't have to fumble around with trying to describe where you are. Pressing left on the D pad will call for help at your location, while pressing right on the D pad will tell teammates to move to your location. Pressing up on the D pad will call out the status of your location, such as whether it's clear of enemies or not. The developers use situational awareness constantly, because they find that it cuts through the noise and chatter of battle.

The game will ship with somewhere around 10 maps, though the final number is still up in the air. The gameplay modes are still being tweaked, but we played a modified version of capture the flag that tasked one side with defending a key object while the other side tried to take it. The environments varied from the sleek facilities of the RNA Corporation to the vertical slums of Santos to the vast ziggurat, or temple, on the mountain. Thanks to dynamic abilities such as teleport and glide, each level has to be carefully constructed to allow for wild gameplay. The entire balancing process for the game has been underway since almost the beginning, and even now the designers are discovering new tactics. Even more interesting are some of the things that didn't make the final cut, such as the magical ability gecko, which lets you walk on walls and ceilings. It's a cool idea, but one that proved to be too powerful for snipers, so it was dropped.

FASA is also working on the user interface to make Shadowrun as easy to pick up as possible. An extensive tutorial will let you practice all you want against a fairly sophisticated artificial intelligence. The AI had to be taught how to use the same powers that you can use, which was a difficult feat. And you'll actually be able to learn tricks by observing the AI. The entire multiplayer interface is also being designed to be simple, especially since multiplayer is the core of the game. There won't be any server lists that you have to scan to find a game. All you'll need to do is hit play and the game will find the best possible match in progress and drop you into it. You can also make a preference list of game types or maps that you like, and the game will take that into account when finding a game.

It's not often that you think of a shooter as having lots of strategic depth, but Shadowrun is a game with an impressive amount of tactical options at your command. FASA is currently entering a beta-testing phase with the game, and the plans are to eventually open things up to Xbox 360 players so that they can get a taste of the action. If all goes according to plan, we can expect Shadowrun to ship for the Xbox 360 and Windows Vista later this year.