Shadowrun Returns: The Fist vs The Fully-automatic

In a mish-mash world of magic and technology, ruled over by giant corporations, no-cares when an alcoholic runner is brutally murdered, not even me. That is up until the point that a posthumous message arrives from said stiff offering us a heck of a lot of money to find his killer.

I had been debating whether to buy Shadowrun Returns for quite a while, it looked reminiscent of some of the games I had loved in my childhood (Fallout, UFO: Enemy Unknown) and the idea of leading a gang of Techno-mages, SMG wielding Street Samurai  and even controlling an army of drones definitely appealed. However I had a few reservations, namely nagging doubts that it would not live up to the games I would inevitably compare it too.

I decided to take the plunge and, even before I had created my character, fell in love with the art-style and soundtrack of the title screen alone. It instantly sets the shady tone of the game which is ever-present, even when in some of the more reputable areas of town. Thus it was with high expectations that I began the process of creating my character.

The first thing that hit me was the level of choice on offer, while there are not a wide range of classes per se, nothing is off limits as such. The skills you can learn are determined by your Karma points, earned through completing objectives and missions, but are not class specific. So if you are a hard-hitting troll who wants to try out summoning some spirits that’s not a problem at all. Your primary stats are the only limiting factor, you cannot increase your close combat abilities above your current level of strength (sort of makes sense). I had already decided I wanted to get up close and personal, I opted for a dwarf adept (a hand to hand martial arts type) because I was determined to laugh in the face of machine-gun wielding orks as I taught them a lesson with my fists!

And so it was that Mr Fist, a small-time shadowrunner (a freelancer, who takes on jobs of danger and dubious morality) headed off on an isometric adventure the like of which I had not seen for a while.

The first thing I noticed is that the environment Mr Fist is currently exploring is beautiful , time has clearly been spent in making The Sprawl feel dingy and futuristic, but close enough to home that you can still believe this is Seattle in the future. I move past burnt out vehicles, brightly lit storefronts, shack-like markets and gang hang-outs. It is at this point that the gang, whose hang-out I have been admiring, take umbrage with my compatriot (apparently they are fed up with killing him) and this gives me the perfect opportunity to test out the combat system.

The combat plays out in a manner similar to that of fallout 2, each side taking turns and having a limited number of action points to shoot/cast a fireball/activate drones or otherwise inconvenience the opposition. While the supporting mage dispenses some fiery retribution Mr Fist decides that’s a bit too complicated and opts for punching a troll in the face. Despite a few scrapes, we make it through the fight and I get some shiny karma points to spend. I opt for level 3 body (which costs 3 karma) as I think that more health may be useful for a close-combat character. With the first combat out of the way, I sit back and wait for the game to open out and I can fully explore The Sprawl, just like the wasteland in Fallout 2, fighting-off random elf biker gangs as was hinted at in the kick-starter video.

Mr Fist gives a detailed lecture on the futility of automatic weapons.

Except it doesn’t and I have walked into a trap, I have started to base my expectations of this game on those games it reminds me of. Shadowrun Returns is not Fallout 2, the world does not open up allowing me to explore at my leisure, in many ways it’s an on-rails rpg with the storyboard loading screen taking you from mission to mission. Yes there are occasional side-missions, but these often feel completely disconnected from the main story-arc.

However the story is incredibly well written and, while I feel irked by not letting me go where I want to, I find myself immersed in this world of murder and corporate espionage. The motivations of both the protagonists & antagonists make a sort of twisted sense, which is further enhanced by the optional bits of data you can gather if one of your team is a decker (who has the ability to hack into computer systems).

It is in ‘decking’ that Shadowrun Returns shows us something a little different, the way in which the hacking of computer systems is managed. First a ‘decker’ (your hacking expert) needs to find an access point, and then they enter the neon-blue world of the matrix. In here they must move from server to server taking out any security programs and accessing the relevant control node to take over the system of your choice. To aid in this your decker is able to deploy a number of attack and support programs (similar to summons and spells) to compromise the system before you set off a system wide alarm (triggering enemy deckers and several security programs). At the same time the decker is vulnerable to any combat in the ‘real’ world and so you need to make sure you have them protected because for some reason security teams don’t like the turrets behind them attacking anything in sight!

Beware the cube of doom! Actually it's pretty harmless.

On the whole the content provided when you buy Shadowrun Returns (£14.99 on Steam) is pretty good and, while part of me cannot shake the desire for a bigger world and a game that actually allows you to save, rather than restart from set check-points, it’s definitely good fun to play! If only there was some way to extend it after completion……………….

The level editor that comes with Shadowrun Returns has made things really interesting. There is already a wide range of user generated content for the game (admittedly of variable quality) and this is what has the potential to make the game worth much more than its price.  As shown by the kick-starter success of the game there is clearly a lot of passion and enthusiasm for the Shadowrun universe, so I cannot wait to get to grips with the stories that other users want to tell and who knows I might even try to tell my own!

World of Warplanes: Why we all should fly!

When it comes to online games I have a strange love/hate relationship with the more competitive aspects of them. I remember playing Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare and getting slightly fed up with the speed at which I died……Repeatedly. Ever since I have shied away from death-match style games of almost any sort and those I have dabbled with have been put down shortly after.

It was with a degree of trepidation that I downloaded World of Warplanes from Wargaming.net and entered my first live battle (after completing the obligatory training missions of course). It is at this point that many of you will be thinking how can he compare an first person shooter to an air combat game? Until about 2 weeks ago I would have responded like so ‘How different can it be, you choose your loadout, you see someone and you shoot them. They respawn you shoot them again, it’s basically all the same isn’t it?’. How wrong I was……

Admittedly my first few flights involved me dying spectacularly as I learned the ropes, namely that for some reason my wood and canvas framed biplane cannot stand head on against a twin-engine heavy fighter (who’d have thought it!) and that flying into someone right at the beginning can lead to a bit of a boring game! However as I fought more and more I realised that somehow this game had got its teeth into me and that maybe I had unfairly maligned player versus player activity based on my experience of one game. I actually care about my aircraft, I should be selling my low-tier craft and replacing with higher-tier more advanced craft, but instead I spend my tokens (the games temporary currency instead of real money while it’s in beta) buying more hangar space instead of on rare aircraft or training pilots, in order that I can have space for my beloved biplanes as well as my ever-growing range of heavy fighters, attack craft and carrier based craft.

 There is nothing so satisfying as causing an opponent to fly in to the sea.

Then there is the other thing I really love about this game, the pace of it. It is not as fast paced as something like Call of Duty, my airplane takes time to fly over to enemy airspace and in that time I have the luxury to think about my plan am; I hunting ground targets? Am I going to fly high and rain death from above? Yes it does get hectic and, if you are a fighter or carrier based aircraft, you are going to have to move quickly, but it is rare (short of the aforementioned biplane v heavy fighter moment) for an error to spell instant death. However when you do die, that’s it, your part in the match is over, but there is nothing to stop you going back to the hangar and starting a different battle in another of your aircraft, a new map, a new team and new enemies to shoot out of the sky! If you are looking for something competitive that feels a little different I urge you to give World of Warplanes a try!

Finally, having played this game has made me rethink my attitude to PvP as a whole, that maybe there is more to it than CoD, Battlefield or the battlegrounds in World of Warcraft (all of which are fine examples of PvP combat). Maybe it’s just a matter of finding one that suits your temperament and as I watch my beloved Biplane collide with the last plane on the map (which incidentally is a heavy fighter) I smile to myself as the game proclaims my team victorious!

This was not the aforementioned glorious victory!

What are you favourite PvP games (or elements of games) that you play online and what is it about them that keeps you coming back for one ………. more …………. match?