Shadowrun

"W-e-a-k"

I can see it was a valiant attempt at a good game. Honestly, I enjoyed it..sort of. I tried playing through it 3 times in total, and finally finished it the 3rd time. The other times, 1) lost the cartridge 2) saved game was erased. But finally! I finished it. Needless to say, it didn't impress me much. Took about 6 days of casual play to finish, and easily 80% of it was building karma for skills. 10% was making nuyen..and 10% following the actual storyline.

The problem with the game is a problem in many console games. There isn't much balance. Your choice between the 3 class types doesn't matter much, except shaman is easily the weakest. Magic is overall not too important in this game, but I guess a reasonable enough substitute to not loading up on cyberware. Honestly, you might as well start as a Decker, simply because you can get the same combat cyberwares and fighting skills as a Samurai to the same skill, without having to settle for hand razors at the start, and having a datajack already. Maybe I'm biased, but honestly, Matrix runs are 1) stupidly easy 2) insanely good ways to make money - on expert runs you can make 10k-40k or so nuyen and 5 karma in under 2 minutes per run. Compare that to the other shadowrun types, it simply isn't close to as efficient. Its such an easily exploitable feature. So once you get a decent deck going and are rolling in nuyen, you're set. This isn't really an option for the shaman, which makes them decidedly the weakest class to play.

Ok so you decided your character, you're doing simple runs, getting vague info as to the storyline. You farm up enough karma to rob the matrix for all its worth. Buy the best cyberware/weapons/armor/farm karma super fast, now what? Time to beat the game. This is the biggest problem - I spent more time making money and gaining karma than I did completing the storyline. The "boss" battles are WEAK at best. Even the last one, if you can manage to lose, well I am impressed the say the least.

The storyline itself is interesting initially : you want to find out about your brothers death. Of course, your character has no real interaction/dialogue, and there isn't much interaction between your main character and people you hire either. You get some info here and there to eventually fight some mystic jackal headed guy. Needless to say, the ending is the very definition of disappointment.

As you play, you quickly discover too what skills are worthwhile, and what ones are not (well hopefully you do). Thats another problem. In the end, your gun skill and biotech skill is about all that matters. Social skills are mostly unnessary, except reputation, and even then you only need 5 maximum. Computer helps obviously for Matrix runs (if you go the easy way, which I couldn't imagine someone not riding that gold mine to the end). Electronics is...there. You can go through the game doing maximum 1 corporation run, unless you want the "secret" character, who isn't really that amazing anyway.

So you may be asking yourself, well whats this guys problem? Honestly, anyone who says this game is hard is just not a very good gamer. Even I don't consider myself some guru of gaming, and I can beat this game easy. There is a very linear progression path to success. The actions of your character aren't good or evil really, so you cannot even play with that degree of distinction. He's just there.

Itemization is pretty boring. If its not a pistol, for the most part, its not worth buying. You can buy the BEST pistol in the first 5 minutes of the game, and its super cheap too. All other weapons just aren't worth it honestly. People go on about shotguns, but they aren't really beneficial. Melee combat is decent...after piles of nuyen in cyberware and high melee combat skill. Those are the 2 best options, and regardless, range is still better. I like how the best armor in the game can only be obtained by siding with the Yakuza too - siding with Mafia has no benefits that truly matter by the way. Again stuff like this just contributes to a very linear progression.

Graphics suck - I can't really elaborate more, because that sums it up.

Sound is annoying real fast.

Control is simple and functional enough. Possibly the one thing in the game done perfectly fine.

To me, its a shame. Games like these I figure have a lot of potential. Seemingly good amount of character customization, seemingly open ended adventure. In the end, you'll play this game the exact same way 99% of all other people will play this game. Not to say this game is the worst thing ever. Honestly, its one of the better titles on the Genesis, and thats a pretty sad statement.

I'd recommend playing this game if you have completely exhausted any other alternative. Of course, lacking anything better to do, you may enjoy playing Karmarun, because thats what 90% of the game is. If you didn't spend easily 80& of your time farming Karma, you could finish the game in around 3 hours maximum. And for reference, farming Karma isn't as fun as it sounds. At least in most RPG's you could take short breaks farming exp or money, but not this one. What this game lacks in actual content, it makes up for in time sinks.

Reviewer's Score: 2/10, Originally Posted: 06/27/04