Review: Shadowrun Demo exhilarating, terrifyingly complex

Last week saw the launch of a free Shadowrun multiplayer demo for Xbox Live gold members. Fans of the original Halo will recognize John Howard as the lead designer for the project and FASA studios has been the force behind some great games — they did Crimson Skies, for example, the oft under-rated StarFox spinoff for the first Xbox console.

Gamers who were worried about suffering the symptoms of Halo 3 Beta withdrawal were glad to be able to sink their teeth into something new and all for the economical price of zero dollars. The game got a lot of good press (special PR thanks has to go to Rooster Teeth for their new series 1-800-Magic, a la Red vs. Blue) and there were no shortages of interested players who were willing to give the game a try.

A word of caution — Shadowrun is really, really hard. This game represents the continuation of the “more-is-better” theme, an idea which presupposes the audience is already familiar with the standard fare of FPSs. Four different races and a slew of magical abilities add more than a few layers of complexity to what is an already complex genre. FASA, of course, is banking that the raised bar is going to bring the core audience of players into this new arena where, according to the trailer, “the rules of combat just changed.”

It’s true that being able to teleport through walls or resurrect your dead teammates changes the way Shadowrun is played as a FPS. Adding seven magic spells and five different tech gadgets, each with their own unique form and function, drastically changes the game. Remember, this is in addition to the nine guns that are already in the game. When it’s all said and done, you’ve got twenty one things to think about every time you spawn. This is a stark departure from the back-to-basics approach Gears of War took (a total of nine portable weapons in the whole game.)

I’m no braggart, but I can usually hold my own in a FPS. When I got into my first Shadowrun game, however, I felt like I was being asked to simultaneously learn Chinese and disarm a nuclear warhead. Underwater. In less than four minutes. The learning curve was already steep enough to scare a mountain goat, and I spent the better part of 45 minutes as cannon fodder for the other players. Once I got the hang of things the game opened up for me a little bit and I started to have fun. The Glider is quite a blast, I have to admit.

I’m not saying that Shadowrun is a bad game. Anything that spent more than three years in development is bound to be good, and the folks over at FASA know what they’re doing. All I’m saying is that perhaps we should take a page from our old friend Thoreau and “Simplify, simplify.” In the end, as usual, there will be plenty of players ready to dedicate the vast amounts of time and effort required to be a skilled Shadowrun player. I only hope this doesn’t further segregate the elite gamers from the rest of us.

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