PC Games I am Playing Week: Shadowrun Returns

Hey there all and welcome to PC Games Week.   As you know I do reference more than a few console based games and that has been fun but at the end of the day I admit I would rather be behind the screen on the keyboard slaughtering villagers, having FPS gunfights and solving a few brain teasers.  Today’s game hails from the realm of table top based role-playing games from as far back as 1989 from FASA Corporation. Bringing technology of cybernetics and virtual reality hackers in mixed with sorcery, dragons and metahuman creatures to the world.  In 1993, Super Nintendo brought us the first story arc based on the cyberpunk fantasy RPG involving character Jake Armitage, a man suffering amnesia, wounded by assassins trying to figure out who wants him dead and completes his overall mission.  

Your swinging bachelor/bachelorette pad...definitely a fire hazard.

1994 Sega Genesis created a third person based game of both combat and exploration with Real Time standings along with the cause and effects of each battle. 

 13 years go by and we had not seen hide or hair of one for the newer consoles or PC until 2007’s abysmal failure that worked solely on Windows Vista which was a glorified verse of Quake.  Heartbroken were so many fans that 6 years later we had heard rumors of a company called Harebrained Schemes were raising money on Kickstarter to finance their own cyberpunk fantasy game under the title Shadowrun Returns.  So grab your trauma patches, call out the doc wagon and lock and load. This is Shadowrun Returns.

That is one seriously bizarre elf.

Spoilers are the Wiz, man.

Following under tactical RPG, this single-player game has all the bells and whistles the chummers have been scanning for. Character generation starts with the five races running the streets: humans, orcs, trolls, elves and dwarves.  Each species has its pros and cons so choose the archetype that works best for what you want to do.  And if that isn’t enough to make you happy how about classes as well?  Ranging from all the greats: Street Samurai (fighter), Mage, Decker (electronic and cyber thief), Shaman (cleric or holy person), Rigger (robot drone master) or Physical Adept (magically strengthened).   Our story opens with your character looking around a slum lord’s wet dream of an apartment.  The rats and cockroaches are fighting over who gets to leave first and your vidphone gives you a call from a fellow Shadowrunner (fellow illegal adventurer or privateer) tells you he has passed away and this payment plan is set up as insurance to find out who killed him and why.  The natural loyalty of the runners is pretty sound and you begin your investigation.  Our hero even runs into Super NES’s hero Jake Armitage as a NPC as you discover a new spin on an old classic Ripper case.  

I have just a few comments at this point to be made.  The combat is turn based; you fan out your fellow runners in any formation you so choose and there is a bit of problem solving to be had.  Best advice, chummer is to diversify your character to decking (computer skills), healing and lots of etiquette (Corporation, Security, Gang and Street speak) The storyline also hails from the same timeline as the Super NES and Sega Genesis games so that includes the lingo, gritty look of the streets and alleys and while it lacks a voice cast it returns us back to traditional RPG turn based formats of the like of: Baldur’s Gate, Icewind Dale, Fallout and Planescape: Torment.   I found it entertaining, warped and everything the game systems have been aspiring to reach and finally made.  Dead Man’s Switch is just the first installment as this is linked to Steam Workshop for newer campaigns.   My only nitpicks is the loading time from mission to mission and we don’t get to play with any vehicles.

Gunfight in the nut house...a tad odd admittedly.