Shadowrun

"In the far future, the gun speaks a language of its own, and the dark streets are dangerous. You dare to explore the future?"

Shadowrun was made by a not so famous company, Data East. It is quite old,( 7 years, it’s made 92, 93) and was one of the first RPG-s for SNES. But games can be great, even if they are old. Look just at this game!

I love this game because it is a RPG that’s not based in a fantasy-land (like the FF series, and Secret of Mana-series) like all other RPG-s. This game is in the future, in the streets of Seattle. And that’s the best. Here, you have to fight your way through, just to stay alive. You feel like a kind of gangster, and that’s quite cool. Here’s the real world, and if you wanna survive, you better learn to pull the trigger! Sounds scary eh? Well, it’s not that bad, but fact is that you shoot down other people at the streets and so on. It is like Grand Theft Auto to the PC, it ain’t got decent graphic and is so scary, but you are doing illegal things. But this game is great! I love it!

¤Storyline:¤
Shadowrun is in the future, a rough future, where guns talk a language of its own, and you can get whatever you want with money. The technic in the future is based on a super advanced computer network called the ”Matrix”. It’s an enormous database, where every fact about life is stored. There are creatures called shadowrunners, data-hackers that can get into the matrix and take out valuable data for someone. All they want is money. You wake up at a hospital, head is aching terrible. The doctors thought you were dead, but in some kind of way, you’re living! You don’t remember a thing about your formal life, so you start to investigate. You find out that you were ”killed” by someone called Drake, your first personal enemy. Now, you will go around in the ghettos and hire people to help you to get to drake. And this is only the beginning! Many things will show up under the game.
The story has some similar things with the amazing movie ”The Matrix”. But Shadowrun were made before ”the Matrix”(about six years) so no one can accuse Data East for copying the plot of the movie. More like they got their atmosphere from Blade Runner then...Oh well. Simply Great. Can’t be much better.

Score storyline: 9.8/10

-Audio:-
Hm...pretty good sometimes, but a not so good other times. Fitting and mysterious, creating a nice atmosphere at some parts of the town, but at others it sounds like Data East just tried to make an updated pop-version or something terrible like that. I don’t know. Ah, I guess the music is not Shadowrun’s ”real” strength but overall I’d say it’s quite decent. The sound is not too far advanced either, the regular sounds from guns etc. Let’s make it easy; you won’t play S. for the audio...

Score audio: 6.8/10

*Controls:*
You play in a kind of world where you can move as you want(you’re not restricted anywhere in town) from one part to the other in the city, go back and so on. Sometimes you have to solve a puzzle or find out a clue to know where to go. The game is a text based one(like the old classic games ”Deja Vu”, ”Shadowgate” for the NES) so you choose what to do with menus. Definitely not a disadvantage, on the other hand it’s just good. You use a gun to defeat enemies that you shoot with. The controls are quite good, but not as great as the other catagories.

Score controls: 7.2/10

+Gameplay:+
Superb. It’s not like in other RPG’s you get allies in your party but you rent them from different clubs when you need their help. And I kinda like this even more. The storyline contributes a lot to the gameplay, it gets more fun and involving the deeper you come into the game(won’t tell ya of it, would be spoiler, ruining the fun).

Score gameplay: 9.2/10

=Graphics:=
Shadowrun’s major weakness, it’s really ugly. The graphic is all under credit, no doubt. If someone(like a friend) would just simply enter the room and watch me play ”Shadowrun”, they would think it was a NES game or something. Yes, the graphics are really that bad. But oh well. Some better graphics could have increased the total atmosphere a bit(I can really imagine wandering the dark streets in 3D with details like rain, trash cans and the ”classic thrilling themes”) that would have been awesome but oh well, it’s okay the way it is. You can also see the graphic in an advantage in one way; it’s not getting violent. Ok, you still shoot down people and so on but not in the way like Resident Evil: Code Veronica(for Dreamcast) or Quake 3(PC). The graphics are so ugly it almost get as ”mild animated violence” so younger kids can play it. You can use spells and guns as weopons in this game, but none of them are really nice painted. There are a few(very few) decent scenes though(like when you see the main hero(yourself) step in at the waggons at the subway but overall the graphics are not impressive.

Score graphics: 3.1/10

%Replay value:%
Sad but true, yes the fun drops after beating it the first time. Yeah of course, all games are not as fun as the first time, but Shadowrun loses more than others. Maybe it’s because you already know the story and there are not much more things to discover. Unfortunately, when you’ve beaten it, you won’t like it as much as before, but still it’s a fine game. This is one of the major reasons(+the graphics and audio but the replay matters more) why I give the game an 8 instead of a 9 in total.

Replay score: 6.7/10

<>Summary:<>
Awesome story, great gameplay, crappy graphics(but that’s not so important, the game is good anyway), decent controls and ok audio, but disastrous replay. Sad but true. But heck, buy this game, at least if you still got the SNES hanging around and it only costs about 12$U.S. dollars or less. You won’t be disappointed, at least not if you like ”the old school RPG’s with a bit rusty graphics”. It’s a super-game the first time you play it!

Overall score: 8.5/10

TOTAL SCORE: 8/10

One line synosis(describing the game): ”In the far future, the gun speaks a language of its own, and the dark streets are dangerous. You dare to explore the future?”

Storyline 9.8/10
Audio 6.8/10
Graphics 3.1/10
Controls 7.2/10
Replay 6.7/10
Gameplay 9.2/10
Overall 8.5/10
Total 8./10

Personally, I love this game! I suggest you go and buy it now! It wouldn’t be too expensive since it’s so old. On the other hand, it can be hard to find...

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 03/19/01, Updated 03/19/01