When I first heard that the next-generation Shadowrun game was going to be a first-person shooter, I said some very unkind things. Things that involved unconsentual sex. In the butt. As the game began to take a more concrete shape, my mind began to change a bit. It might not have been an RPG, but the spirit of the world was there. Now that I've actually played the game, heard a little of the back story, and seen how they've implemented core values of the RPG into a shooter format, I feel really bad for writing this.

I might have been a bit harsh, but I am a rather large Shadowrun fan, and I don't just mean the amount of water I displace when submerged. I religiously bought the RPG supplements, and I own a grand total of forty Shadowrun novels. I once owned a hamster named after the character Striper, who much to my chagrin could not kill a man with her bare hands...paws...whichever. Maybe not as fervent a fan as the ones who sent the developers death threats, but definitely a strongly worded letter level geek.

How has playing the game changed my opinion? Well despite the massive differences between the RPG and the game (magic spells that don't exist, storyline changes, no cyberspace) the developers have managed to inject the essence (no pun intended) of the series into a first person shooter that, even without the Shadowrun license, I can see having a great deal of fun playing.

Like the RPG, the FPS game lets you customize your character to reflect the way you want to play. If you want a big bruiser who can take a hit, choose the troll, who has the power to get tougher the more hits it takes within a certain period of time, to the point where spikes visibly form on its body as you shoot it, fading away as time passes. If you want something a bit more run and gun, pick the agile elf, the fastest of the characters who can leap into the fray, score some choice hits, and then leap out again, keeping the slower characters on their toes. You can be a melee fighter. You can be a sniper. You can be an essence syphoning Dwarven bastard, who drains power from the people, powers, and constructs around him.

Much like the RPG, the balance of technology and magic plays a pivitol role in the game. The more tech upgrades you get, the less magic you can cast. In the RPG, the more of your body you replaced with machine bits the less you could tune tap into the world of the spirits. Once again, not perfect, but the feel is right.

The magical powers themselves provide new strategies never before seen in an FPS. One of the gentlemen showing me the game told of a FASA player that would teleport down into the middle of a firefight, summon a creature to cause havoc, then teleport through the floor, letting the mellee continue above him, only to teleport up again after things had slowed down a bit to mop things up. As he talked the other presenter was playing the game. He fell off a roof towards the firefight, and at the very last possible moment kicked in the glide power, landing safetly and suprising the heck out of the bot players below.

One controversal power is ressurection. In Shadowrun the RPG, there wasn't any, but that doesn't work too well in an FPS format. The devs have come up with an interesting middle ground that delivers a great new twist on bringing the dead back to live. If you ressurect a player, their essence is linked to yours. If you die, they slowly start to bleed out. If a player rezzes you, and then you rez someone else, the guy who started the rez chain suddenly becomes one of the most important people on the map. Should make for some very interesting rounds indeed.

Yes, bots. As a novice FPS player, bots are an element of the genre that are sadly underused. I love to practice with them, and if I find myself getting my ass kicked in a game with real people it is something I can do to vent my frustrations. Bots in Shadowrun might give me a run for my money, however, as the presenter (really need to start writing down names) told me they had to tone them down a bit to give players a chance against them. Bots will use powers effectively and even ressurect a dead player if they get the chance.

After much talking and many questions, I finally got a chance to play the game. They had it running simultaneously on a PC and an Xbox 360, with the PC running Windows Live. For some reason seeing the Xbox Live blades on a PC was very odd, but the two integrated seamlessly. I played a few rounds on both machines, and I'm going to have to give the thumbs up to the PC controls over the 360 controls. Much more precise using good old mouse and keyboard I'm afraid.

Gameplay starts off like a regular FPS, but soon I was seeing the possibilities that the title has to offer. I chased a character around the corner only to have them turn into smoke as I chased them, temporarily invunerable save for the blow spell, which I did not have. Using my smart link upgrade I unloaded a chain gun into a crowded melee without hitting y teamates even once (there is no friendly fire option, carebears). I beat a dwarf to death with the butt of my rifle before figuring out that the rifel will not fire unless you are zoomed in using the scope.

Gameplay was tight yet frantic, and finding a spot to camp with my rifle was made a lot harder by the fact that other players could use special vision to see where I was, even through obstacles. One of the other writers there had mastered the art of teleporting, and was really beginning to piss me off. Luckily he ran out of magic power on the wrong side of a wall.

As I played I not only saw the gameplay possibilities in this Shadowrun title, but also the possibilities for expanding the series in the future. While they couldn't talk about future plans for the franchise, it was obvious that these guys had a great love for the series, and while the success of this game could lead to the RPG all Shadowrun fans are craving, the FPS is looking to be a really exciting entry into the series for all but the most hardcore of purists. Michael Fahey

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