Shadowrun Returns

Way back when I backed this game on Kickstarter. I like RPG's in all mediums and really find that most RPG's lack the gritty Bladerunner like atmosphere that I enjoy. Now I had only had a very brief introduction to the world of Shadowrun years and years ago but the universe was colourful enough that I was more than willing to fork over $15 to see what they would churn out. So here is my review of the game;

Lets get this out of the way first, my rating for this game "right now" is 4/10. HOWEVER don't be fooled by the rating, let me explain. The "main" campaign that comes preloaded is the reason for the low rating. I had thought/hoped that they would churn out a really engrossing story that would take me more than a day of playing to burn through. The Dead Man's Switch is fine as an introductory campaign but if this was all I was going to get then it would not have been worth the money.

That said, what I am hoping is that all the time and money went into really juicing up the editor so that people can write up a long and fulfilling story on their own with relative ease. They keep using the key words of "Community content" to make their point for this and once I have some time I will watch some YouTube vids to get the hang of it and try to make a practice "Shadowrun" to see how quick/easy it is to start building a campaign.

I hope that there is a lot of customization available. The gear was lacking, the sense of urgency missing, I want to be able to alter/add stats on weapons and armor. I want to be able to have multiple jobs available at any given time, but they are on timers. Just because you don't do the Renzaku job right away doesn't mean that another group of Runners won't step in and take that Nuyen. I want to make certain actions have long term effects;

 oh you broke into a corp and stole some sensitive info?

well 5 missions later guess who has hired there own group of Runners to get it back or at least send a message? And they show up while you're in the middle of something else. Or maybe when you were hiring runners for this latest one you saw a Street Samurai with killer stats and he was on the cheap.

"This is too good, it must be a glitch" you say as you hire Janus to your team,

then at a critical point in the Run, Janus suddenly goes from under your control to NPC and starts blasting you and your boys. Turns out "Janus" has been hired by that Corp and he has been sitting there for several Runs trying to entice you to hire such a deal.

Decking was never really as explored as I was hoping for, I want to design a level where your meatbags and deckers are working in tandem. Your decker will hole-up in as secure a position as you can make, then your meatbags continue with the Run, the Decker has to divide his time between shutting down security systems and grabbing targets of opportunity as well as eventually delaying any security that eventually locates his Jack-in point. Maybe have some kind of HP for a barricaded door so now it becomes a question of low long do you risk your decker providing your team his assets vs how long do you risk him getting overrun and ice'd.

All in all this game's future depends on the consumers. To use some lingo, if they put the Nuyen into giving us the best Deck, then baby, just you hang on, 'cause there's enough Shadowrunners out there with the skills to give you Runs to remember.

The SNES game never got the love it really deserved, we will see what Returns looks like in a few months. Till then,

Shoot straight,
Conserve ammo,
and Never, ever, make a deal with a Dragon.