OS Neutral Who wants to buy Shadowrun? For Mac or Windows?

I've been enjoying it so far, although there have been a few "how did they not catch this" mac-specific bugs. By far the worst thing about it is the save system, the second is the linearity. The latter will be fixed in user campaigns, and apparently the first DLC will be more open. I hope they patch the save system in the future. It's not a deal breaker, just an unnecessary annoyance.

My favorite thing about it is the writing. There's a lot of it, and it's extremely enjoyable to read. Definitely a step up from Bioware's latest dreck. The plot isn't the most original but it's captured my attention thus far.

The art, while simplistic, is incredibly well done too. There's something to be said about the charm of detailed isometric 2D art in an age of AAA 3D whizbang shader effects.

Renzatic said:

...what does bother me is the forced linearity of what I've seen so far.

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As in... it's not 'sandboxy' enough?

Solomani said:

As in... it's not 'sandboxy' enough?

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Eh. Sandboxy isn't the right way to put it. I wasn't expecting it to be wide open and totally player driven like a TES game, but I was hoping it'd be more like the SNES Shadowrun. The game is set up to push you along scene by scene, and doesn't give you many moments for exploration and discovery.

Renzatic said:

Eh. Sandboxy isn't the right way to put it. I wasn't expecting it to be wide open and totally player driven like a TES game, but I was hoping it'd be more like the SNES Shadowrun. The game is set up to push you along scene by scene, and doesn't give you many moments for exploration and discovery.

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Yeah, I've only put an hour into it, but it definitely (so far) pushes you along, scene by scene. Not the huge, open SNES Shadowrun game I was blown away by. But, they have stuck to a winning formula.

I'm hoping the fan mods will deliver a more solid experience. Sad that you spend $30 to say that, but, I'm glad the game is out, and in our hands so we can start making it the way WE want it.

The music definitely isn't as awesome as the original. That bass line in the original was fantastic.

blesscheese said:

...but, I'm glad the game is out, and in our hands so we can start making it the way WE want it.

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I've already started goofing around with the editor. I'm not sure about the scripting yet, but building levels is about as simple and straightforward as you can get. Pretty much anyone could build their own Shadowrun missions if they wanted to.

And from what I've heard, the Berlin campaign should be considerably more open than what the game came with. So it isn't all slight disappointments.

edit: ...and lit up.

Renzatic said:

edit: ...and lit up.

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Looks very nice. Looking forward to all the UGC.

My main gripe with the campaign is that there isn't more to loot and steal. All of my RPG characters turn out to be kleptomaniac magpies, but in the Shadowrun world, it seems that theft is very unusual. That, or the devs didn't want to program a lot of objects. Pity.

The game might not be very open, but it's rather good and runs really well.
We should all be extremely happy we got the game toolset, now users, and modders can not only make their own stories but build upon the game.

I'm rather enjoying it at the moment, it can do with a bit more polish but that'll come with time hopefully.

I will pick this up later when it goes on sale. I imagine there will be a DLC or two out by then not to mention tons of user made content. So that'll be good. Maybe Winter sale unless it pops up on a daily between now and then. The screenshots for it look beautiful and all my friends have been raving about the game.

Dirtyharry50 said:

I will pick this up later when it goes on sale. I imagine there will be a DLC or two out by then not to mention tons of user made content. So that'll be good. Maybe Winter sale unless it pops up on a daily between now and then. The screenshots for it look beautiful and all my friends have been raving about the game.

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One thing to note though, you can't manually choose the size of the text. Since I'm using a 15.4 screen and sitting back on a desk/chair I found it very hard to read the text when playing at 1920x1200. I can't say I've had that problem before in other games or on desktop work.

I'm currently running it in 1650x1050, it still looks good and at least the text is now always legible.

It's little settings like these I hope they add in through patches.

Dirtyharry50 said:

I will pick this up later when it goes on sale. I imagine there will be a DLC or two out by then not to mention tons of user made content. So that'll be good. Maybe Winter sale unless it pops up on a daily between now and then. The screenshots for it look beautiful and all my friends have been raving about the game.

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There's usually a Steam sale on around Thanksgiving. That said, I think it's worth the $20 asking price if you don't want to wait that long.

The game was great fun, the storytelling was good, story was oki, maybe a bit cliche.

I missed exploration and it was too linear. I liked the combat system and the upgrade system too.

I used ~9-10 hours to finish it, I died twice during the campaign, but I consider myself a veteran when it comes to the turn based rpg genre I could probably do it in 5 hours if I skipped dialogue and so on.

I didn't encounter any bugs and the performance was very good (I would not expect anything else tho, since I have a pretty powerful machine, and Shadowrun has quite low system reqs).

It's a great game for 13.99euro. If it was a full price title (like 40euro+, which most new titles are) then I would have been disappointed, but for 14 euro it's well worth it!

cluthz said:

The game was great fun, the storytelling was good, story was oki, maybe a bit cliche.

I missed exploration and it was too linear. I liked the combat system and the upgrade system too.

I used ~9-10 hours to finish it, I died twice during the campaign, but I consider myself a veteran when it comes to the turn based rpg genre I could probably do it in 5 hours if I skipped dialogue and so on.

I didn't encounter any bugs and the performance was very good (I would not expect anything else tho, since I have a pretty powerful machine, and Shadowrun has quite low system reqs).

It's a great game for 13.99euro. If it was a full price title (like 40euro+, which most new titles are) then I would have been disappointed, but for 14 euro it's well worth it!

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I'm having fun with it as well. I did not back it during Kickstarter, but did do the $15 pre-order, and for that price it was money well spent.

The initial campaign is good. It is linear, but the story is good and that's half of the reason I play RPGs. The Berlin DLC is supposed to be more open (according to a recent interview), so am looking forward to that. Also looking forward to the user created stuff.

For $15, the game is definitely a 7/10. However, I can see people being upset if they backed it for much more.

I will say that this game has given me the itch to replay some other classic turn based RPGs. I think I am going to fire up Fallout 1 & 2 next while I wait for Wasteland 2.

blesscheese said:

I'm hoping the fan mods will deliver a more solid experience. Sad that you spend $30 to say that, but, I'm glad the game is out, and in our hands so we can start making it the way WE want it.

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I believe the game is $19.99 on Steam.

Any reviews you could spare before I buy this?

technowar said:

Any reviews you could spare before I buy this?

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http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/shadowrun-returns

you can check out command control escape, they have a fair review up.