I played a lot of Shadowrun last week, which is one of the few “pure” multiplayer games on consoles right now. I wrote up a “Product Analysis” for it to identify where it worked for me, and where it didn’t. I want to talk more about it but I wanted to post the Product Analysis before I talk more about this game.
Shadowrun is a multiplayer (16 players max.) FPS game with a fantasy/sci-fi theme based of a semi-popular Pen and Paper RPG. Heavily influenced by Counter-Strike, Shadowrun has three game modes – Extraction (a multi-flag CTF), Raid (single flag CTF – where one side is always defending or attacking) and Attrition (Team Deathmatch), and 9 maps.
There are two “sides” – neither of which have give any bonuses, however one side (RNA – Blue) will always defend in a Raid match, and the other side (The Lineage – Red), will always attack in a Raid match.
There are three resources in Shadowrun – Health, Essence (Mana/Magic) and Money. Health keeps you alive, Essence powers both Magical and Tech abilities and regens over time, and Money is awarded for performance during a game.
There are four classes whose latent abilities allow them to be the “Rock, Paper, Scissors”.
- Human have no latent abilities – but do have a good balance of Health, Essence and Movement Speed.
- Trolls move slowly and small pool of essence to work with but have latent ability when damaged to harden their skin to absorb damage (as long as they have Essence).
- Dwarves latent ability allows them to absorb Essence from other players and magical objects. They have quite a large amount of essence, but regen it very slowly. They can also take more than one headshot.
- Elves have the least amount of health, but can move the fastest. They can regenerate health when “out of combat”, and have the largest Essence pool.
All of the classes can use any weapon, magic or tech. Weapons do projectile damage – and are the usual FPS weapons (Pistols, SMG, Rocket Launcher, Mini-gun, Sniper Rifle etc.), with exception of the Katana (which is the only melee weapon in the game). Magic abilities are powered by Essence – and allow players to do a number of movement, defense and health related abilities. Tech also uses Essence, but some Tech abilities are latent so they permanently reserve chunks of Essence.
Magic abilities
- Resurrect - Brings fallen teammates back to life, however once resurrected the teammate is tied to the player who resurrected them – should the resurrecter die, the teammate will start to lose Health over time, until someone else can cast resurrect on them.
- Tree of Life – Creates a Tree that has heal over time area of effect for any players that are near it. The tree can be used as cover, and Dwarves can absorb Essence from it – shorting its lifespan.
- Strangle - Another Area of Effect ability that can be used to block access to areas. Strangle (which looks like natural crystals) spread over an area and will absorb a player’s Health and Essence if they get too close. Strangle can be damage by weapons fire or by the Dwarves ability to absorb Essence.
- Gust - A non-damaging attack which knock back enemies. Useful as many of the levels feature bridges and large drops. Gust can also be used to break falls and lessen or nullify fall damage. Gust is also the only ability that can hurt players using the Smoke ability.
- Smoke - Smoke is a stealth-like ability that prevents the user from being detected. While Smoke is activated, the user is immune to weapon or fall damage; however they can be hurt by players using the Gust ability. When Smoke is equipped, mana regeneration rate is slowed. Smoke is deactivated by aggressive actions – and leaves a player vulnerable for a few seconds after deactivation.
- Teleport - Allows player to move eight meters in the direction they are traveling – through solid objects such as walls. Jumping or crouching allows the user to move through ceilings and floors. Can be very useful when combined with Glider to move rapidly through the levels, and to areas otherwise inaccessible.
- Summon - Creates a minion that can guard an area, or chase down and attack a targeted player. Minions will attack other minions (no matter who cast them), and can be weakened and absorbed by a Dwarf’s Magic Absorption ability.
Tech Abilities
- Glider - allows the user to fly upwards a short distance, and allows helps prevent fall damage. When used with Teleport it can allow users to access other inaccessible areas.
- Enhanced Vision - Allows users to see through walls and track targets. Ineffective on users with the Smoke ability activated.
- AntiMagic Generator – An area of effect grenade that can be deployed on any surface that absorbs the essence of anything in it’s Area of Effect – these also prevent certain Racial Abilities from working (Elves Health Regen, Troll’s Harden Skin) when in it’s effect.
- Smartlink - Improves accuracy, and prevents Friendly Fire. Adds a visible laser sight to all weapons, and allows all weapons to have a Zoom.
- Wired Reflexes – improves movement speed, jump height and reload times. When a katana is equipped, the user can deflect some of the bullets fired at them. Has an active function that uses health as a resource that allows the users to boost all these abilities significantly for a very short time.
Game Structure
Shadowrun is entirely multiplayer-focused. Though there are bots for player to practice offline with, the game is very much about playing online against human opponents. In the two CTF-themed modes, death lasts until the end of a round – unless a player is resurrected. Bodies can also be destroyed to prevent resurrection. In Team Deathmatch, fallen teammates eventually respawn on their own.
Each game begins with a Buy period where players can equip themselves with Magic, Tech and Weapons using money. These can be assigned to one of three buttons for quick access (RB, LB or LT) – having certain items equipped have a negative effect on the users mana regen or movement rates.
There is no sense of permanence to a game beyond keeping your magic and tech investments between rounds (even if you die), and your weapon (only if you survive the round). The game does not use any clear skill level identification system, or ranking system.
There are no vehicles, and all the maps are quite small close-quarter focused – with a large number of bridges and long fall distances.
The game controls are heavily influenced by Halo (it’s clear that Bungie have been involved of the tuning of the controls, and the design of certain weapons and abilities) – and the game uses a Soft-Lock mechanic to assist aiming.
Personal Opinion
Shadowrun is a surprisingly well balanced game – however it’s suffers from a severe lack of variety. When teammates work together like most cooperative online experience the game is glorious, with each game a unique experience trying new strategies and builds with heart-pounding action. However the learning curve is steep for new players and the games systems are punishing.
While the classes make for an interesting Roshambo – as do the abilities – the games “last-gen” graphics and the lack of unique elements in the design of maps, makes the levels feel bland and forgetful. The player package feels good – but simple features such as a standard melee attack make the game feel retro in all the wrong ways.
Counterstrike’s influence on Shadowrun is quite obvious – however it’s seems to have taken some of the worst aspects of Counterstrike, and slavish adhered to them instead of improving upon them. In a game that clearly wants players to experiment with different Magic and Tech combinations – it’s seems a bizarre choice to force players to sit out the rest of a round because they died – a long respawn timer would have served as an equally effective punishment, and the ability to destroy corpses to prevent resurrection is bizarrely punitive.
In my opinion, the whole Buying period is also horribly clunky – an in-game way to select weapons (say each team having an armory as a start location) would have removed the need to have a UI screen at the start of every match. Tech and Magic could have easily been assigned via the in-game systems too. Limiting the Buying period (or limiting access to the armory) to the start of a round would have prevented players from reconfiguring too often.
However, the abilities do add a new element to the rather formulaic game – if only they had taken a similar approach to the game modes, and tried to create interesting game scenarios beyond the “tried and tested” CTF and deathmatch. The lack of a ranking system – or any sense of recognition of progress in the game, beyond achievements – was a critical mistake, as was the lack of customization on characters and on game types.
It’s very interesting to see Shadowrun after playing the Halo 3 Beta. Halo rarely focuses on the need for other people (though a good team will also beat an excellent solo player), and to be truly effective in Shadowrun you need a balanced team, with players sacrificing “kill power” for the greater good to pick up resurrection or Tree of Life to assist with. However because of the dependence placed on other people and the punishment systems that the Counterstrike model has – this fun experience can quickly deteriorate in to other people having fun while you simply watch in Spectator mode.
Shadowrun is an interesting failure – what it does right, it does very well – and with a good team is surprisingly fun and playable game. However the gains it makes are lost by having nothing interesting to do with them. It fails to create a community by not recognizing player skill or experience, by lacking the ability to create custom rulesets or avatars, and by not having any modding tools – despite its push to get Xbox360 Live players playing with Windows Vista players. Shadowrun reminds me of the thousands Half-Life or Unreal Tournament mods out there, it’s fun, it has interesting ideas but ultimately it feels as if all the effort was put in the wrong places – it’s not a cohesive product, just a collection of neat ideas presented as basically as possible.
Summary
+ Well balanced
+ Interesting use of Magic and Tech to create new abilities – Teleport, Resurrect and Strangle were especially interesting
+ Well tuned player package
+ Stresses the importance of teamwork, communication and sacrifice- Lack of variety in game types
- Clunky Character Configuration at the beginning of every round
- Outdated and frankly dumb Death mechanic
- Lack of Player Recognition and Player Customization
- Bland graphics and dull level design
