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