Shadowrun Returns with a Vengeance
When I was 17 I experienced Shadowrun for the first time. I’d never read a William Gibson novel, never read Snowcrash, and The Matrix was still a few years away. The only experience with cyberpunk that I had was Bladerunner and Keanu Reeves shouting that he wanted room service. I happened to be in a friend’s room at my boarding school dorm when a Shadowrun game was suggested, and on a lark I made a character. The first time the GM described the smell of the asphalt after an acid rain in Seattle, and how the glare of the sun on the wet pavemenit made my new wired reflexes twitch, I was hooked.
We played the game steadily through high school and then into college during breaks. Even after we graduated college we lived close enough to get together and play once a month. We only really stopped when people started changing coasts in their moves. I still buy every edition and go see every terrible cyberpunk movie that comes out. So when Shadowrun Returns was announced on Kickstarter, I couldn’t pledge fast enough.
The game is almost everything I want from a Shadowrun game. The turn based tactical combat is fun, and most of the “class” archetypes in Shadowrun are represented. Decking is a little simplistic, and could have been differentiated from a standard offline combat a little bit more, but it’s still pretty fun. The story that comes with the box is a fine introduction to the setting of Shadowrun, and I’m enjoying my play through it.
The inclusion of Jake Armitage from the Super Nintendo Shadowrun game was brilliant. It clearly links the new game to the old ones, and not specifically to the tabletop. That’s a good choice on the part of the developer because it immediately identifies what they were trying to achieve, and they definitely hit those marks. The game even plays a lot like the original, in all of the good and nostalgic ways.
They way the story is told through the game is fun in a very classic style. You get a scene card that describe the area you’re traveling to, as well as some story updates. Then you interact with each scene discretely, developing al of the story in that scene before moving on. This allows creators to be able to tell much more interesting linear stories without needing to worry about crafting their own MMO. This limitation of options will probably actually strengthen the quality of the user content as people concentrate on just creating fleshed out runs for people to play through instead of detail oriented epic adventures.
There are a few things missing, however. Shadowrun is a much more stealthy game as a tabletop rpg than at least the boxed campaign allows. The most successful Shadowruns happen when you get in and out of a place, accomplish your goals, and no one ever knows you were there. In Shadowrun Returns, a successful run pretty much means a large pile of bodies. That works for some games, but I hope that there is more user content emphasizing a more subtle approach to pulling heists.
Also, the game is extremely linear, to the point that there is no such thing as a persistent “hub” in the game world. Every screen you go to is dictated by the pre-written story, and there isn’t much wandering about on individual screens. You’re basically just passing from one combat to the next while reading story updates on the way. There is some dialogue flexibility based on items in your possession or attributes and skills on your character sheet, but it doesn’t add a lot. You’re pretty much on rails for the entire story, which does lose a bit of the flavor of Shadowrun. Figuring out HOW to solve problems in Shadowrun is often much more fun than actually solving them. Executing a heist can be a good time, but it’s so much more fun when you have planned it all in detail yourself.
But for me, as it always is, the kicker is user created content. Shadowrun Returns ships with a level editor that they expect people to use en masse. And people are already using it. There are over 100 pieces of user generated content on the Steam Workshop currently, though not all are story modules. Many are equipment packs that mirror old Shadowrun sourcebooks, and still others are recreations of old Shadowrun adventures. The editor uses a scene by scene design model, and because of the linear nature of the game’s design, it’s actually not too tough to make modules, since you can plan in a scene by scene fashion.
This game is great for both people that love Shadowrun tabletop and fans of the old school games. Or if you just love some fun gameplay and decent stories, it’s a pretty cheap cost for what’s likely to be at least a few months worth of user content. People looking for more open experienced with other people should probably keep their eye on Shadowrun Online instead.
