Shadowrun (2007)

2025-03-18
In 2025 releasing a game with multiplayer only is not only normal, it's an excuse to print money. But back in 2007 Shadowrun spelled the doom of its creators. How dare you release a game for consoles where the only single-player component is playing against bots over and over and over again? But it turns out when you're 16 and strapped for cash like I was, playing the demo against bots over and over and over again on your 360 sounds pretty damn good. I say it sounds good because coming back to it in 2025 of course I find it wasn't actually good.

Shadowrun failed not only for its bold multiplayer-only approach but also because it's a game with weird, cool ideas that aren't terribly balanced. Sure you can play different races but Elves are fast, auto-heal, and have more magic and dwarves are uhh short and slowly sap mana? There are spells for making barriers on the map and spells for Force-Push-ing back other characters but there's also a spell that just...brings someone back from the dead? Resurrect is so fucking unbalanced. They try to caveat it with this whole "you bleed out if your resurrector dies" bit but who gives a shit? You can resurrect each person on your team once. Doubling the potential lives in a game where having more team members is a huge advantage. And for all the different guns you can buy from their knock-off Counter-Strike buy menu, they all feel like garbage. For trying to ape Counter-Strike they sure missed out on its delightful gun feel that kept me glued to my PC as a teenager.

For all my ranting, Shadowrun is still a terrific concept and weirdly was pretty fun to play against bots once again even 20 years later. Just don't expect it to be very fair.