If you frequented the official Shadowrun forums, they are planning a new place where people can meet in an off-Microsoft type property. Honestly, given that most games have digressed to a chaotic free-for-all (with a fair share of team killing to boot), and troll katana has become absurdly unbalanced, it pains me to say that you might be better off just saying bye for good.

Announcement: Forums Closing Soon [via n4g]

We're not quite ready to announce our plans for each property, but please be assured that our goal is to surprise and delight old fans, while welcoming new fans to these fantastic worlds.

Smith & Tinker's License Procurement Announcement [Smith & Tinker via Gamasutra]

Rumors about the studio's closure surfaced in March of this year, well before Shadowrun shipped, when a former FASA worker wrote of an employee exodus and that decision makers would "cut the tumor that is FASA Studio from the body of Microsoft."

Gitelman wrote that hardcore Shadowrun players needn't worry about being abandoned as "We have kept our Community Manager and Technical Support Manager on the job to aid and support you and will continue to do so while people continue to play our game."

We're waiting to hear back from Microsoft PR to learn more about the situation. Mitch's full statement is linked below.

FASA Studio has closed its doors [Official Shadowrun Community Forum]

"Bad Game turned out to be one of our favorite projects so far," said Sarcastic Gamer's Creative Director, Jeromy "Doc" Adams. "We got to use a cartoon voice for this song, because it seemed to fit the subject... Well, that and none of us could sing as high as Daniel Powter."

Bad Game: The Shadowrun Song [Sarcastic Gamer]

SARCASTIC GAMER 'TAKES AIM' AT SHADOWRUN Releases New Parody Song: "Bad Game"

Monday at 12:01am (central), Sarcastic Gamer readers discovered a new parody song.

Bad Game (The Shadowrun Song), is a parody of Daniel Powter's Bad Day and offers listeners an abrasively funny review of Fasa's Shadowrun. The Song also takes aim at several other titles that have been less-than-successful so far this year. It was co-written by Jeromy "Doc" Adams and "Lono".

"Bad Game turned out to be one of our favorite projects so far," said Sarcastic Gamer's Creative Director, Jeromy "Doc" Adams. "We got to use a cartoon voice for this song, because it seemed to fit the subject... Well, that and none of us could sing as high as Daniel Powter."

The song is available as a 128 kbps mp3 at the following URL:

http://www.sarcasticgamer.com/2007/08/bad-game-shadowrun-song.html

In addition to the song itself, Sarcastic Gamer is also offering fans the chance to compete for prizes, by creating their own video for Bad Game. "The winner's video will become The Official Bad Game Video, plus the winner will receive their choice of a free copy of Shadowrun, or a box of granola bars," said Adams. "Given the nature of the game, our money's on Nature Valley."

Title Update 3 Contains:

Gameplay

Dwarves can no longer be unawared with the katana or Artifact.
Elves' regeneration ability has been tweaked:

Increased time before Elf begins to heal by a quarter second.
Increased essence cost of healing by ~15%.

Audio

Enemy footstep audio will now be easier to hear in Live games.

Bots

Bot difficulty will scale with players' average Trueskill in Public Match games.

UI

Added "Advanced Settings" screen when setting up a Private Game, which contains the following options:

Max players - Ability to determine the maximum number of players that can join the game
Preferences - Ability to use the preferences of all players to determine the map rotation
Handicapping - Ability to turn Karma on or off

Fixed "stop" functionality for when a game-start countdown has begun in the lobby.
Improved messaging for when your party is split or rejoined due to team balance.
Improved messaging about Artifact clearing bodies in Attrition.

Network

Improved server reliability.
Dedicated Server
Improved voting reliability.
Improved network reliability.
Improved error messaging.

General

Local Match games can now be played without a profile.
Fixed numerous crashes.
Fixed numerous exploits and glitches.
Improved Vista multi-monitor functionality.

Still, there are a handful of options we'd still like to see implemented in a currently nonexistent, future patch:

1. Even if I set my options to only find one map, I often cannot play that map. Why, after no suitable game is found with my preference, can't I have the option to begin my own?

2. Server connection losses can be common when server players quit. How about a clear notification when you are server, with the option to be like, "Hey, I'm just playing this one round and I don't want to screw 16 people so don't make me server this time, ok?"

3. DLC DLC DLC DLC DLC

4. UPDATE: Splitting parties. Yeah. What's up with that?

I've been digging Shadowrun. And while there aren't 1,000 levels, the only downside I've seen to the design is that character models are limited, sometimes confusing identity of attackers by repeating skins (and cutting my bloodlust as I mow over endless streams of pitiful katana elves.

In summary: New patch works. Pick up the game. Lose to me often.

Play reports that Shadowrun will be getting a patch on Xbox Live early next week and the Vista version soon after.

The patch will include a major reduction in matchmaking waiting times, cheat fixes, some gamemode tweaks and minor adjustments to both the games AI and HUD.

Shadowrun improvements in-bound [Play]

Circuit City Shadowrun Deal [Circuit City]

We'll just see about that.

Where console players will be at a disadvantage, however, is when they'll get their hands on the game. The PC version is due to ship this calendar year, with the 360 version arriving in early 2008. You console boys are gonna get your strategic asses handed to you.

PC, 360 at War [IGN]

The report from The Inquirer also states that the crack is rather simple, requiring only a few files to be rewritten to get the game working under the older Windows OS. Michael McWhertor

Vista-only game cracked [The Inquirer]

He told OXM, "There's repercussions here for the gamer. We're shooting our own people in the foot by not recognizing what these developers are doing. I worry about that. I'm not happy with the reviews either because I don't think they're comparing us apples to apples."

The OXM podcast staff asked Gitelman whether he had any input on the game's $60 price for a multiplayer only title to which Gitelman responded that Shadowrun has legs that could last for years. He first responded "I make games. I don't set prices in games. It's not part of my job nor is it my call."

He then followed up with:

The most important thing is the value of what you're getting, I think there is value there at the $60 price point. If you play just about any first person, next-generation shooter that's come out recently, you're looking at the single player game being about 10 hours. I've been playing Shadowrun for three years... You can see this game truly has legs. So, ten hours of gameplay for sixty bucks, plus some probably lame multiplayer they tacked on, versus Shadowrun that you can play, lets say, for years.

Obviously, Mitch has a point here, in that many of the games that have the best perceived value in the long term, may not be readily apparent after just a few days or weeks of gameplay. I continue to play plenty of games based on their skillfully honed multiplayer or more open-ended modes, titles like Advance Wars, Diablo II, Half-Life's various multiplayer mods like Counter-Strike and Day of Defeat, and StarCraft. Another Xbox game, Halo 2, was most widely well received not for its brief and (some say) disappointing single-player campaign, but for its strong multiplayer modes—the ratio of single-player to multiplayer enjoyment for most is heavily skewed toward the latter.

However, the precedent has been set by many of these games that a solid single-player mode, while not the most memorable feature, is still included. With Shadowrun at a new-gen premium price of $60 (or $50 for the Windows Vista version) many gamers will expect the precedent to be followed.

Unfortunately, most game reviews don't have an accommodation for publishing executive pricing blunders. Perhaps they should be held accountable for any failure at long term success FASA's shooter will have. I won't hold my breath.

What do you think? Are games unfairly scored on a scale related to their price point? Have any Shadowrun players out there felt that they've already "justified" their $60 purchases? Michael McWhertor

KOXM Episode 70 [OXM Podcast]

The preview provides further details on the game's classes—their skills, weapons and attributes—as well as touching on the specifics of Valve's new dynamic map system. The only bad news to come out of the preview is that Team Fortress 2 will ship with an anemic map count. Only six maps will be available at launch, making even Shadowrun look content heavy. Valve's justification for the low map count, that gamers tend to stick to a handful of familiar maps, rings true but still doesn't sit well.

Regardless, this bonus multiplayer game included with the Half-Life 2: Orange Box still looks amazing, with the new screenshots cementing my opinion that TF2 is the best looking game ever. Michael McWhertor

Team Fortress 2 Preview [Shacknews]

Over a game site Next Generation, Tim Rogers has the rundown of this week's Famitsu scores. For the unfamiliar, magazine Famitsu has four editors rate games on a scale of 1-10 with 10 being the best. Here are the noteworthy mentions:

• Saints Row: 9, 8, 8, 9 Comments include "Gives the player a good sense of freedom" and "It's like GTA, with awesome graphics!"
• Folkssoul AKA (Folk Lore): 8, 9, 8, 8 Comments include that the game handles atmosphere and game play excellently.
• Shadowrun: 7, 7, 7, 7 Comments include "Sense of cooperation in the online mode is excellent".

This Week In Japan [Next-Gen]

If you have been procrastinating about that Halo 3 Beta, you better get a move on. The beta ends today so make sure to get in your last few hours of repeatedly killing new players who don't really know what their doing, thus making the experience completely un-enjoyable for them. But never fear, you can still get your kill on with the new demo of Shadowrun which will be coming to the XBLM just in time to take your mind of the loss of your beloved Halo 3. Sure, it won't be the same but at least it will fill the lonely hours with some good old fashioned gun toting, magic wielding, ass kicking. Flynn De Marco

"We went to E3 with our most neutral environment, which was only meant to be neutral. We didn't have our lighting working right...the characters blended into the background, so we quickly learned our lesson on that and everything we've done is about making the characters come forward. " -Evan Hirsch, Art Director, FASA Studios

When I visited FASA a few months ago for an early look at Shadowrun, I talked for a long time to Art Director Evan Hirsch about E3—and more specifically the royal spanking that the game's graphics design had received at the event. He was clearly humbled by the situation—not just the negative response from fans—but from his own peers in the business.

At the time, Hirsch was retooling characters while testers played a game full of trolls running around in red and blue footie pajamas. Given my long infatuation with footie pajamas, I just had to see how this story turned out. So I set a date to talk more around the game's release. Hirsch and I, along with FASA Studio Head Mitch Gitelman, talked for nearly 45 minutes as I baked in a hot car under Texas sun (a necessity for a quiet interview on the road). Still, I enjoyed the conversation and Hirsch's blunt explanation of Shadowrun's art design.

In other words, yes, this article is long as hell. Yes, Hirsch said a lot of interesting stuff. Yes, there are lots of pretty pictures for those too lazy to read.

Characters In Differing Environments: Making them Shootable

"Our characters are effectively a studied signal to noise...The problem is, the more realistic you make [them], if you go with, say, Gears of War, the signal to noise is really hard. That works in a Gears space but it doesn't work in a wicked-fast, twitchy space," Hirsch explained. "We didn't want to make them cartoony, because we know how people thought about that... For me it was about finding that balance point - how do you make it very different and very visible?"

Easy: Profiles, Color Pallet and Lighting (I may have been given the answers.)

Racial profiling may be frowned upon in real life, but it's essential in Shadowrun. Knowing a troll from a dwarf is relatively simple to design, but what about knowing an RNA (corporate) troll from a Lineage (native) troll—just from their profiles? A solution was found through symmetry. The RNA is symmetrical, from the characters to their monolithic environments. Meanwhile, the Lineage assets are equally asymmetrical, breaking the corporate mold, so to speak.

Color Pallets are organized in a similar fashion, with cold tones (blues) denoting RNA and warm tones (reds) denoting Lineage.

"Why'd we go with blue [for RNA]? If we went with green then it's the military in the Tom Clancy games...Why don't we go with brown? Then it's Smokey and the Bandit and the forest service," Hirsch said. "But we had to explore all this, because we wanted them to look like mercenaries. Blue is really the only color that made them look like mercenaries without being the army."

Using lighting, Hirsch and his team solidified the color palletes of both the characters and the maps. Since these environments (in essence) match either red or blue color palletes, lighting clarifies any potential blending issues that may crop, and allow fine tweaking on the "moving target" factor. Note: I just made that term up and have no clue why I put it in quotes.

Ultimately, these decisions combine to a relatively unconscious gaming experience in which a player simply feels like their character does or does not belong on a certain map or alongside a certain team, adding a sense of story and identity to a game that technically has no story other than that in the manual.

Or as Gitelman put it, "whether or not anyone reads the story or not, they know that one's there."

Creating Drama on a Budget

"The biggest challenge of Shadowrun for me - as an art director - was I had 16 characters on screen that could, at any given time, each spawn three characters. Each one of our characters is carrying roughly 65 bones," said Hirsch. "That means I've got 3,072 collision detection calculations potentially in every frame...And I've got 30 bullets a second per character."

So disagreements can become petty slap fights easily.

"John (lead designer) and I had many screaming matches over whether or not I could have weeds in hallways," said Hirsch. "Because if I draw weeds, is that gonna cost him bullets and frames? Everything on that screen costs you something."

Hirsch also gave me the example of rails on stairways. He needed them to invoke a sense of speed, but those working on gameplay could use those resources for any number of other things. In very few cases designers had to compromise hugely to squeeze them in: like by omitting collision detection.

Another price of the online game environment was that the entire map had to be loaded into the 512MB of RAM at all times, since buffering simply isn't an option when you can teleport indoors to outdoors or up 5 stories of a building in a manner of seconds.

To make the game work, Hirsch had to "rob" the RNA level's development time to give the team a longer window to make the complex Lineage and slum levels possible. And by choosing International Style Architecture for the RNA, the art team was able to create a look that wouldn't require painstaking technical compromises at every turn.

"They're a simple form, but they actually, to your eye, don't look like simple extrusions like they normally would in a hallway shooter because these buildings have been around for hundreds of years, you understand that style of architecture...We just add texture and color and lighting to mess with your eye, but that was it."

And Hirsch is right: the ultra-sterile RNA maps are simple without making you feel cheated. The non-RNA levels, as we talked about before, fall back on the property of asymmetry to create identity and tension.

"One of the big goals for me and John was that in the slums maps, you always feel like you're being closed in on, you always feel like you're in a Alfred Hitchcock film."

"All the angles are odd angles, nothing is perfectly linear, everything is off. All The buildings if you look up are coming in over your head more than they're going away. And we do all that on purpose to make you feel more anxious and uncomfortable," Hirsch said. "In the corporate spaces they're much more ordered, and actually you have a different problem that in some cases they're so symmetrical that you get lost."

So What's Missing?
Every developer has things they wanted in a game but just couldn't make happen. Here are Evan Hirsch's top three:

More Effects/Shaders
"The look we came up for the magic like teleport, smoke and resurrect, all had this wonderful unique look. What I wish I could have done more was getting more of a tech look to work on the tech effects... we hired in a new guy who comes from the film industry and wrote his own shaders, and it wasn't until the last month of the project that he figured out how to work it within our engine. The shaders he wrote for something like the minion are just stunning. The minion's hot shit... I really wish we had gotten our head around it much earlier."

Female Elves
"The biggest compromise was the female elves. We had a whole set of female elves that we just loved, but...we agreed that to bring females in we'd need to have them move differently, and we just didn't have the time to get that done. We had the models built and the skeleton built and we just couldn't get it in on our date."

Various 3D Atmospherics
"The last one is, and this was a conscious decision, we had to cut a lot of the real 3D atmospherics that we had in. If you see in the intro video there's a waterfall. That waterfall was actually in the game. It was the waterfall or the minions - guess who won."

Too bad...that waterfall was "hot shit".

The only thing worse than tech support is Shadowrun tech support. I hope Rooster Teeth pump out as many vids for 1800-MAGIC as they have for Red V. Blue. Brian Crecente

1-800-Magic [Rooster Teeth]

Hushed Casket has a great piece up about all of the issues with Games for Windows Live. The service, I think many of us thought, was meant to be as robust and easy to use as the 360 version of Live, but instead it's just sort of an awkward appendage.

Once you're in a game you can use it like you would Live on the 360, but if you're not in the only two games that currently support it, then you're out of luck. There is no desktop application for the service. Worse still, as Hushed Casket points out, a lot of the little things that make Live sparkle on the 360 are completely missing from the Vista version.

You can't download movies or games, you can't use it to listen to music, you can't customize the user interface. The service doesn't even alert you to achievements.

It looks like GFW-Live has a long way to go before they catch up with their 360 counterparts. Brian Crecente

Top ten things that are wrong with Games for Windows - Live [Hushed Casket]

So, I've been playing quite a bit of Shadowrun lately so I can review it. I spent a chunk of time earlier this week playing, before it came out, in rooms peopled entirely by FASA studio developers who took great pleasure in grenading my body around the map.

Something struck me as odd though, right when a match started someone would say: You got the fever? I got the fever. And this would go on as we ran to the relic or toward each other. It seemed odd, but I didn't know what it was about... until now.

Apparently, one of Shadowrun's achievements is the Shadowrun Fever, something you get, I've been told, by tea-bagging someone who already has the fever. That's right, it's an achievement and a venereal disease, but unlike the kind that blinds you or slowly drives you insane this one just awards a batch of points, 25 I suspect.

I don't know this for a fact, but I suspect the only people who currently have the fever are the developers. I'd like to add that I am a great big idiot, because despite playing with them for hours over several days, I never managed to dip my coin purse. Brian Crecente

As I depart the Big Apple (where I've been reporting from all weekend) I leave you with this list of games coming out this week. Mario Party looks like it might be some fun with the addition of the Wii remote mechanic and I'd like to see how the 2d to 3d Crush is for the PSP. Other than that, I can satisfy myself with finishing up Silent Hill 2 which for some reason I decided to haul out of the mothballs. Anyone going to round out a holiday weekend by picking one or two of these up? Flynn De Marco

• Mario Party 8 (WII) It's the video game that's a board game with mini-games.
• Halo 2 (PC)
  Now with less ass.
• Forza Motorsport 2 (X360)
  The Xbox 360 gets it's dose of Forza racing.
• Shadowrun (X360, PC)
  Magic and guns, 360s and PCs join together for a new multiplayer experience
• Mortal Kombat: Armageddon (WII)
  Nintendo brings Mortal Kombat to their console marking the beginning of the Wii bloodletting game parade.
• Crush (PSP)
  It's like Super Paper Mario on the PSP just without the paper or the Mario. The super remains to be seen.
• Atelier Iris 3: Grand Phantasm (PS2)
  A little 2D old school PRG action. I really, really hope this has that silver ball that puts spikes in your brain.
• Monster Madness: Battle for Suburbia (X360, PC)
  Fight for control of the suburbs against monster hordes. No, not soccer moms, actual monsters.

We've got contests coming out the whazoo! This go round we're giving away one copy of FPS Shadowrun for the Xbox 360. And not just any ol' contest, but a hand shadow contest! Yes, HAND SHADOWS. If you're over 18 and have a wall, a light, fingers and a camera, this contest is for you! Here are the details: Snap a picture of your hand shadow creation (hands must also be in the pic) and send it to kotakucontest@gmail.com by next Wednesday at midnight EST. The shadow creations can be anything — Brownie points for game themed ones. No middle fingers flipping the bird, please. Brian Ashcraft

Shadowrun [Official Site]

With the release of FASA Studios' Shadowrun for the 360 alongside a $49.99-priced Windows Vista version, that $59.99 price point for the 360 edition might be considered puzzling. As the game's release date hits smack in the middle of the Halo 3 beta, mere months after Vista's public release, it seems like Shadowrun will be facing an uphill battle of acceptance.

So why the premium price? Newsweek's N'Gai Croal asked of Microsoft this very question and MS VP Shane Kim's reply is quite astounding. Mostly astounding in its incomprehensibility, but astounding nonetheless.

I'd quote it, but I don't know what to quote. You'll have to read it in context. But be careful—you might just scratch your scalp clean off deciphering the PR-speak. Michael McWhertor

Shadowrun for Windows Vista: $50. Shadowrun for Xbox 360: $60. First-Hand Explanation of the Pricing Disparity From Microsoft Game Studios: Priceless. [N'Gai Croal's Level Up]

While FASA's choice of genre was the cause of much Shadowrun fan ire, impressions of the game have ranged from positive to post-orgasmically glowing. I, Mike Fahey and Mark Wilson have all spent time with the Windows Vista and Xbox 360 versions of Shadowrun at different points in the game's development, so make sure you check out our impressions.

Now we cross our fingers and hope those rumors of FASA's post-release demise were unfounded. Michael McWhertor

Xbox 360 Achievements found the list of 50 achievements that unlock 1,000 points for the upcoming 360 shooter, Shadowrun.

Most are pretty basic, giving you points for your training or using specfic tech or magic well, but it's interesting to see that the game also awards points for console to PC or PC to console actions like performing a cross-platform resurrection or killing 100 players on the opposite platform.

The beta was console only, so I'm not sure if there's a way in-game to determine if an opponent is on a PC or 360. I'm sure there is in the lobby, but it would be nice if there was a way to figure it out in the heat of battle. Better still, I wonder if it will let you team by platform so you can have 360 versus PC battles if you want. Brian Crecente

Shadowrun Achievements [Xbox 360 Achievements]

Bungie's Frankie had a little sit down with some of the FASA team working on upcoming shooter Shadowrun.

In the short Q&A Team FASA's John Howard, Lead designer; Sage Merill, Core game design; Derek Carroll, AI / Core game design; Christopher Blohm, Training / Level design; and Bill Fulton, Matchmaking / UI design talk about Counterstrike, Halo 3 and dendrophobia.

Most interesting is the team's take on the similarities between Shadowrun, Halo and Counterstrike:

On Counterstrike

Sage - Counterstrike is an awesome team based shooter, so yeah we consider it a compliment. On the surface, Shadowrun does share some basic design elements with Counterstrike. For example, it is round based, there is no automatic respawn, and you purchase equipment/powers based on your performance. So ignoring the races, round one is kind of like a CS game. However, that is where the similarity ends. By round 4 of a Shadowrun game your avatar is like a tiny god, and when gods fight, it's nothing like Counterstrike.

Derek - Counterstrike is an awesome game. Shadowrun is awesomer.

On Halo

Sage - Shadowrun combat its less about perfect aiming, and more about superior position. You choose when you enter and when you leave combat. It is a constant chess match to maneuver into situations where you have the advantage. In Halo 2, you win the fight, or you die. Halo 2 is all about your aiming skill, and it's difficult to disengage once a fight starts.

Bill - Halo 2's multiplayer was very focused on 'fair competition'—visible player skill levels, had to play new opponents after every match ended, etc. Shadowrun's multiplayer is more focused on social play—you can play with the same opponents after the match is over, no visible skill (although we still matchmake according to player skill) and strong team work is required to win. And of course, we stole Halo 2's party system, 'cause it rules.

I had a lot of fun playing around with the Shadowrun beta and I hear the graphics look much better in the final product. My only complaint was that the beta had a very limited mapset, but I'm sure that won't be the case with the final game. Brian Crecente

Shadowrun Shenanigans [Bungie]

With the Shadowrun beta wrapping up, the folks over at FASA want to get all chatty.

This Monday they will by hanging out in the IRC chat channel #Shadowrun.FASA on the Gamesurge server from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. Pacific to talk about the game.

The team promises to give away prizes, answer questions and chat with everyone all while playing on the beta.Brian Crecente

An alleged former FASA employee lashed out at the company and its management on the forums, hinting that a mass exodus was in order and that decision makers have opted "to cut the tumor that is Fasa studios from the body of Microsoft." Ew. The same poster also had some fairly unkind things to say about the quality of the game, suggesting gamers "wait for Halo 3."

1UP contacted Microsoft to learn more, but, sadly, got little in the way of confirmation or denial. FASA programmer and forum mod Kimona added to the thread:

Shadowrun will be shipping soon. It's been a long three years for many on the team. I'm certain that some folks will be leaving us to do other things after we ship. That's normal, and it's healthy, too. As for our contingent staff here, they're just that - contingent. They have a maximum amount of time they can work here before taking a mandatory break. Many of them are complete star performers, but when the job's done, they move on, and the job's almost done.

Personally I've enjoyed my time with Shadowrun and hope that FASA nails it when they ship. And that the Shadowrun license can extend to more games. Michael McWhertor

Rumor: FASA Studios Shutting Down [1UP]

Our spies, readers and whatnots have sent word that the Shadowrun public beta for the Xbox 360 version of the game isn't just live, but recently took on board a much larger group of gamers.

Today thousands of gamers received keys to allow them to download an early build of the game on their Xbox 360s. The beta, we're told, will run until at least until the end of April.

While a public, well semi-public, beta of a game is a pretty significant step forward, the game still has months before it hits shelves. I can't wait to see PC and 360 gamers take each other on. Brian Crecente

I was told that over the next month they would be adding more poeple to the beta program, with a release date more in line with the June date that Gamestop has in their computers. We also need to keep in mind that this is a print magazine, which had all of its stories written well before GDC, where our information comes from. Things could very well have changed between now and then.

So, Shadowrun in April? I highly doubt it. I believe this is just a case of old information, which print mags are chock full of these days. Don't worry little print mags. People will always need something to read in the bathroom. Michael Fahey

EGM: Shadowrun releases in April [Xbox 360 Fanboy]

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

Joost emailed us this morning to point out that a new trailer for Shadowrun mentions a Games for Windows Live Gold account.

A voice over at the very end proclaims 'Shadowrun links Xbox 360 and Windows Vista players together for the first time'. Then visible on the screen for a second is the following credits, including '...requires Xbox LIVE Gold account and hard drive (on Xbox 360) or Games for Windows - LIVE Gold account (on Windows)' (emphasis mine)

What did you think? That Microsoft was going to let you play your games online for free? While this doesn't confirm that the Windows Live Gold account will cost money, its existence certainly implies it. I just hope this isn't the beginning of premium pricing for all online PC gaming. Brian Crecente

Games for Windows Live Gold

Watch for a new trailer for the game to hit the Web tomorrow. Michael McWhertor

Our very own Richard Blakeley swung by Microsoft's recent New York City event to show off the upcoming Vista. He got a chance to check out some new gameplay from several Vista games, including this one of Shadowrun. Brian Crecente

FASA Studios brought a storm of fanboy anger upon themselves when they decided to pitch Shadowrun for Windows Vista and Xbox 360 as a first-person shooter. But they somehow convinced Microsoft to turn the RPG series into an action-oriented affair.

I spent a good half-hour playing both the Xbox 360 version and its Windows Vista counterpart, just to see how the game is progressing. FASA Studio manager Mitch Gitelman was hanging around the demo stations all day, helping out Shadowrun noobs like myself become accustomed to the controls, explaining the Magic and Tech systems.

After learning how to teleport through objects (simply walk, jump or crouch and you'll safely pass through walls, ceilings or floors), use my glider, and see enemies through solid matter (you're also given their distance in meters) I played my first bot match.

Having just played the PC version of Halo 2, I was thrilled to have some rather unconventional FPS gameplay at my disposal. Dodging firefights by dropping through the floor into the next room, then gliding safely to the floor below to throw out a Tree of Life to heal was, I admit it, damn fun.

As I learned more Magic and Tech abilities, I was shown the radial menu that lets you assign these skills to shoulder buttons and triggers. I cringed. I'd never be able to pull this off in the middle of a firefight and remember what button I'd assigned it to. Fortunately, the PC version makes this much easier, letting you assign skills to number keys. Mouse navigation also helps.

During my second level of 360 version gaming, I picked up new skills like Resurrection, which adds another fantastic aspect to multiplayer gaming. The ability to raise your fallen comrades, with your survival now dependant on theirs, opens up some cool strategic options.

Shadowrun is, unfortunately, a Vista exclusive. This will sadly limit its userbase, but cross-platform play with 360 owners will hopefully make up for that. If I were to buy Shadowrun (which is a possibility), I'd definitely go for the PC version, as the keyboard and mouse controls feel like a personal must. Given time, I'm sure I could get used to the radial menu options, but I'm just too damn impatient.

The product is shaping up far better than I had anticipated. My only concerns about the title lie in balancing. Cross platform play, combined with the new gameplay possibilities provided by things like teleportation, gliding, resurrecting and corpse-destruction could make levelling the playfield a bit tough. Let's hope FASA can wrap up all the loose ends and ship a solid title.

If you want to read more about Shadowrun, make sure you check out Mark Wilson's excellent hands-on feature from September of last year linked below. Michael McWhertor

Kotaku Feature: Shadowrun Hands-On [Kotaku]

While the game will also make a PC appearance, the Shadowrun public beta is currently open only to the console crowd and will run from mid-December to March 07. That's, like, over three months of free gaming!

Don't count on getting into the beta, as there will surely be a sea of applicants begging for a chance to play, but don't let that (or the site slowness) deter you. Go now! Michael McWhertor

Shadowrun Beta Applications

By: Mark Wilson

"Daddy, why does the Internet hate you?"
FASA Studio manager Mitch Gitelman's daughter

Since its announcement at E3 this year, FASA Studio's Shadowrun for Xbox 360 and Vista PC has not faired well with fans and the press alike. The dissention starts with FASA's choice to make an FPS instead of an RPG and snowballs to artistic direction and excluded features. Microsoft flew me (along with a few other writers) out to Redmond, WA to visit FASA and check out Shadowrun. Florian and Eliza, you're going to hate me for this, but Shadowrun looks to be a great game - not like a monstrosity at all. Except for the trolls. They are pretty much monsters incarnate.

For those who've never visited the Microsoft campus, it's beautiful (hilly, there are trees everywhere, unicorns still roam) - too bad everyone stays locked up inside working on projects. While I got in trouble for taking a picture in the waiting area (guess there was some top secret info around that would only show up on a digital camera), I found the building I was in to be pretty dull. It was a standard, white-walled office compound...until you reach FASA. There, cubicles are obsolete as they cannot hold the weight from thousands of empty Red Bull cans.

Art
The character art you remember from E3 is dead. Art director Even Hirsch explained to me that it wasn't just Shadowrun fans that thought the art was lacking, but his peers as well. "We were 50% complete with character models at E3, and now we are 40%." Most models in the game are still placeholders with no texture, but the human is finalized. He is no longer cartoony, but is still (intentionally) short of realistic. While I had a big problem with the artistic style after E3, I now think that the game is shaping up to more look like the Shadowrun we grew up on. While characters don't have the dirty, punky look of the RPG book art, they have a cohesive design that I see evolving more city grime if a future Shadowrun title ever finds its way back to Seattle.

Lineage Troll, Meet RNA Troll

In terms of art within level design, there are three types in SR, but one that really caught my eye was RNA headquarters (the big, evil corporation who wants to take over the world). Hirsch explained that he wanted the feel to be "dehumanizing", and International style architecture allotted a look that resonates with fascism and Bladerunner (my word) at the same time. Plus, the naturally tall levels will likely offer intricate yet intense air battles.

Gameplay
It's a simple setup. Games are multi-rounded capture the flag battles where you get to upgrade your character each round. You start by choosing your race (human, elf, troll, or dwarf) and spend money to buy tech, spells or weapons. Every race can buy anything - there are no restrictions. However, the more tech you buy, the less overall magic you will have (it's an essence system like the RPG) and obviously some races are better suited for some abilities. For instance, you can give a troll magical abilities, but he won't have the recharge rate of an elf. Similarly, you can give an elf a rocket launcher, but he will fire it with much lower accuracy than a troll.

I don't want to run through every specific detail of the game, but I'll mention a few features I really enjoyed that prevent the game from being just another FPS.

Teleportation: This was by far the most innovative ability of the game. Say you are a fast but vulnerable elf. You turn a corner to meet an enemy troll (essentially a tank). You sprint toward a dead end to find yourself trapped. What do you do? Teleport right through the wall. Shit! Enemies see me in here too. Run right at a dwarf gunner, teleport through him. Now, either attack from behind or teleport through the floor to the unoccupied basement. This is not an exaggeration of how natural the ability feels after a few minutes. Combine teleporting with a backpack glider and you can go anywhere in levels that are designed with lots of vertical space. It's unbelievably fun.

Resurrection: So what's the big deal? There is no respawning in SR. Say you have three teammates die in a highly occupied area. You are alone. Hit a button by their corpses and all of them spring back to life. Too powerful? A sniper takes you out and everyone you resurrected slowly loses their energy until they die. Also, it means that killing an enemy isn't enough - you have to "clear the body" or shoot it until it disappears and cannot be resurrected.

Smartlink: This is a tech ability that in the original RPG makes you shoot more accurately. In SR, it completely changes your aiming sights and you are far more accurate while moving, etc. Also, it disables friendly fire: when you walk into a large battle you can simply unload your clip without worry.

Sexbot: I'm just f'ing with you all. Or am I?

"Until we get it in gamers' hands, they're just not going to get it. They can't," said Gitelman. And he is right. The gameplay is different than any other FPS I've picked up - it's fluid, strategic and quirky - and little I've read has done it justice. Let me compare the above elements to Prey. Wall-walking and gravity shifts should make for exciting Prey multiplayer, but I lost interest within five minutes. All the elements from SR are no more impressive than Prey's on paper, but add far more to the actual gaming experience - probably because the development team has been playtesting every day since week three.

XBOX 360 vs. PC
The biggest surprise of my visit came when Lead Designer John Howard (also lead designer on Halo) told me that the Xbox 360 players actually had an advantage over PCs in multiplayer battles (pre-tweaking). All the matches we played were mixed-platform, and no one had noticeable better control or aiming, so I think SR multiplayer cross-platform will work fine. As for user mods and maps, however, they will not be available in Shadowrun.

"[User-created content] is something I really want to be able to do," said Howard. "Obviously it's the next direction; it's the next big thing all of the games for the platform should be able to tackle."

They'd better. Or else we're gonna write something mean. Really mean. Making fun of their mommas mean.

Live Marketplace
FASA is already planning to release additional tech and magic through Marketplace downloads. The long-term success of this game will depend on having enough features to keep players hooked, because while I had fun playing the game, I was already wondering what other Shadowrun elements they could squeeze in. Cough - monofilament whip - cough. And so far the team only talks about two modes of gameplay, and both are reiterations of capture the flag. I hope at launch there are more, because Shadowrun is centered around the multiplayer experience, and I don't want strategies to get tired. Don't expect much in terms of single player.

uhhh...we think you missed the launch

Is it Shadowrun?
"One of the biggest challenges of realistically doing it and making a game that will actually ship, was how can you cram all of this into one game?"
- John Howard, Lead Designer

I'm getting flamed on this either way, but I'm going with yes. Even with significant parts of the RPG completely missing, when you use flesh-embedded gadgets to look through a wall at a troll and dwarf...standing side-by-side holding guns, it feels like Shadowrun. Also, Shadowrun technology is about getting the edge to survive in a world richer and more powerful than you - and that's exactly how technology functions in the videogame.

"At its root, Shadowrun is about what happens when magic returns to the world," said Gitelman. "I can stand up, look anybody in the eye and say this is Shadowrun. Is it everything in Shadowrun? No, that's why we get to make more of them."

While it's comforting to know that FASA values Shadowrun and sees this game as the potential start of a new era for the once-tabletop title (be it in FPS or RPG form), we hope FASA keeps cramming everything possible into this version. Look for Shadowrun in "early" 2007. Mark Wilson

I am about to hop on a plane to Seattle to visit FASA Studio and check out Shadowrun for the Xbox 360/PC. I'll be posting a feature later this week with hands-on impressions and plenty of awkward erection moments, but for now hit the comments to let me know any specific questions you may have about the game. I really will try to ask a few of them. Also, the trip is sponsored by Microsoft - this includes the flight, a minimum of 5 bottles of Cristal, some of those people who just stand around and fan you with palms, and hotel accommodations - all per my contract. I'll send a postcard. Mark Wilson

Crecente got on the intercom a few weeks ago and spluttered out something about Gamefest, a Windows-based gamedev conference happening in the Seattle quadrant.

"Get me a picture of Spiderman by the end of the day or you're fired!" he screamed, and hung up.

Crumbs, chief. This Fest of Games, as it is colloquially known, was particularly appealing to our rugged editor primarily for Microsoft's Monday-morning keynote speech, or so we thought.

During my Sunday-night preparations for the reportage of the "fresh haps" announced in this keynote, the continuous dot-matrix skreel from my Magical Feed Machine increased to an eardrum-leaking pitch: the big announcement had been made already, possibly over post-prandial bacon cupcakes at the pre-event dinner.

A new service/development solution for indie devs called XNA Game Studio Express. And what was worse, full reports of the thing were already propagating rapidly across all channels. Fuck! My feature story!

Talking on the eve of its Gamefest event in Seattle, Microsoft has revealed XNA Game Studio Express, a new product which will allow indie developers and students to develop simultaneously on Xbox 360 and PC, and share their games to others in a new Xbox 360 'Creators Club'.

The details of the new tech are as follows: XNA Game Studio Express will be available for free to anyone with a Windows XP-based PC, and will provide them with what's described as "Microsoft's next-generation platform for game development." In addition, by joining a "creators club" for an annual subscription fee of $99, users will be able to build, test and share their games on Xbox 360, as well as access a wealth of materials to help speed the game development progress.

Beleaguered by disappointment, the ghost of my snuffed feature trailing behind me like stink, I drove my Rascal down to the Washington Convention and Trade Center at dawn and prepared to listen to the keynote anyway.

Second gallery and even more text after the jump.

Since the specifics are available in far better detail elsewhere, I will give you my impressions of the presentation and the impressions I gleaned from other attendees.

Overall, it's immensely pleasing that such an apparently powerful tool is being provided for, nay, targeted at the wee developers. The example of "three guys in college" was used relentlessly.

However, as with all bar-lowering applications, this is going to let in more riffraff than talent. A quick glance at NewGrounds will tell you that any "community" of this type has to exist in a crippled state, dragged down by the lowest common denominator. The reward is that out of all this creeping muck, one or two truly incredible gems may surface and redeem the whole business. We'll see.

As an aside, one of the games used to demo the cross-platform capabilities, however, was Shadowrun. The room almost audibly groaned when the footage started to run. I talked later to several people about the game's massive failure to be at all interesting. Most of them had been drinking, and got visibly upset when the word "Shadowrun" was spoken aloud. That thing does not deserve the bear that skully logo.

After availing myself of the breakfast buffet leftovers, and then quelling the resulting gut pain with hardcore tea, I sat down in one of the sunny indoor patios and made some notes. A well-dressed group next to me leaned over and provided me with a printed invitation to the LucasArts pre-party, which I accepted graciously.

I arrived fashionably too late, and they were clearing away the piles of fruit and cheese already. This proved to be a theme: Eliza shows up, staff removes food. The Lucas soiree was held in a bar called Chapel, which is in what legend tells us was the city morgue. Sparingly decorated in cream and brown, with a playfully hand-lettered sign out front, the whole deal was extremely classy without being stodgy. As I had spent most of the night playing Sam and Max Hit the Road, this little get-together cemented my good Lucasy good feelings.

It was but a short taxi to SoDo for the big Microsoft party. I started laughing maniacally as soon as I got inside. Immediately greeting all arrivals was a fenced paddock filled with Segways. Backlit by spotlights, the tiny orange safety cones casting long shadows, gleeful geeks glided along the concrete. Some were actually wearing helmets.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is what it looks like when geeks party hard. That braying voice you hear at the end is one of the bizarre characters walking around the place, presumably performing the same function as birthday clowns. I mean, I hope Microsoft hired this guy. You can see him in the second gallery below; he's the one with all the toothbrushes.

And this is what it looks like when doves cry: the White Boy Dance as seen in the wild.

A live band flanked by projection screens and honeycomb-motif standups provided the soundtrack while the finest in spray-tan go go girls shuffled and jiggled on lit boxes. The band was called Beehive, and did a fine job of rocking the joint. I spotted more than a couple attendees actually waving to the dancers. To what end, I'm at a loss to speculate.

I found the buffet as it was being carted off, got in the Segway line as they told everyone there would be no more Segwaying that night, and played Prey until the 360 I was on choked and died. My audience laughed and said it never would have happened if Joystiq had been playing.

I started to cry, and ran out. Eliza Gauger

Even MORE photos:

How does any developer take a cyberpunk game property as cool as the Shadowrun RPG and butcher it to mesh into this sort of bland, bunny-hooping team deathmatch? What the hell level are these guys playing? Ziggurat Vertigo? Florian Eckhardt

Shadowrun is one of those neglected properties, a wealth of cyberpunk pulp amusement that seems so easy to tweak into vast vistas of raw entertainment: a neon-grimy NeoSeattle with all the caffeine, computers and literally monstrous geeks as present-day Seattle, but with that delicious Blade Runner edge.

So I was eager to learn of the new Shadowrun for the 360, and that excitement prevailed until I saw the actual trailer. A trailer with awkward character design, boring environment and a strangely awesome but totally inappropriate soundtrack.

Now I'm just petulant.

So the fawning Preview over at CVG, complete with some new screenshots, is just not cutting it for me:

After all, where else can you cast a spell to resurrect a fallen ally or summon a giant rock creature to pummel enemies while you capture the flag?

Warsong Gulch. Eliza "Mehhhh" Gauger

Shadowrun Preview [Computer and Video Games]