Shadowrun

"A nearly great nonlinear game that suffers from repetition"

Shadowrun on Sega Genesis has definitely lost something from it's transition from the Super Nintendo. While it is far less linear and involves much more adventure and discovery, you are confined to a smaller area inhabited by less people. The result? Repetition. Doing the same thing over and over to get more money and better stats just isn't as good as following the linear SNES story.

Story: 6/10

You play as a mercenary of the future, known as a shadowrunner. Your brother, a fellow shadowrunner, was killed nearby Seatle, year 2050's. It is your mission to discover who caused his death, adventuring around Seatle and meeting NPCs while recruiting fellow shadowrunners to join your cause. Yeah, I thought it was pretty lame, too.

Control: 6/10

Another annoying feature of this game is the control responsiveness. Quite a few times you will press the shoot button but end up waiting a few seconds before your character actually picks up his weapon and fires. These few seconds will waste valuable hit points on your part. Other than that, the menu-based text system is quite interesting and gives the player many choices to deal with events, and all menus respond when you press the required buttons.

Sound: 7/10

I don't find the music all that bad, but the annoying chime when you choose something in the menu gets on my nerves quite easily. Gun sounds are done fairly well, as are magic noises and character grunts and screams.

Graphics: 8/10

The top-down adventuring will remind you of an early Grand Theft Auto. A fairly big city divided into sectors is yours to adventure around. Unfortunately, many buildings cannot be entered and most are abandoned. The few that remain are run by corporates with tight security or are bars with NPCs to recruit. Hotels also exist, which you can save at or use Karma, the stat system found in this game. All-in-all the graphics are done fairly well. There are only a few character models, but they don't look too bad. Buildings are detailed enough, as are text-based event screen pictures.

Gameplay: 7/10

While repetitive, the gameplay found in Shadowrun is quite entertaining while it lasts. Shadowrun missions that you accept in numerous bars spread throughout Seatle range from the simple escorting of civilians and delivering packages to the raiding of corporate buildings and hacking of the internet. You start out small-time, with a pistol and a debt of 500Y (well, they use the Japanese Yen in Seatle in the future for some reason). You must take small jobs to pay off your debt and begin your adventure. Soon enough you will meet people who offer their services to help your journey, giving you access to bigger guns which means harder missions. All the while you must discover the death of your brother by meeting new NPCs and discovering hidden files on the matrix. The matrix handles much like the internet, where files are stored for hackers to locate. You must hack into the matrix not only to advance in the story, but to aid you in your missions and even complete some matrix-based shadowruns. All of this will get repetitive quite quickly, and you will soon do missions out of necessity over fun.

Secrets: 0/10

Nada. Unfortunate, too, since the matrix could've provided so many hidden items to find. Not a single hidden character and no special weapons to be found. *Sigh* so much potential wasted.

Replay: 6/10

Well, the main quest will take a while to complete, but after that it's over. The story is rather lackluster, meaning that you won't really need to sit through it again. Missions will not be enough to warrant a replay, and that's the only thing this game really has going for it.

In my humble opinion, Sega Genesis' Shadowrun is the precurser to Grand Theft Auto. A nonlinear game that involves making money through crime. Add vehicals to Shadowrun and you would have the same game as Grand Theft Auto. Too bad there are no vehicals, and too bad the missions will get old and boring very quickly. This game had so much potential that was not used. A sequel would've been nice, but it never happened.

So that leads us to the big question: Genesis vs SNES version. The verdict? SNES version. While it is much more linear, the SNES version is more interesting and features more gameplay aspects than it's stale Genesis cousin.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 07/14/03, Updated 07/14/03