X06: Shadowrun impressions

It seems that nowadays every other game falls into some sort of "shooter with X" category. It's a shooter with a shaky, cinematic camera. It's a shooter with a cold, barren setting. The best way to pigeonhole Shadowrun into a similar category would probably be "shooter with magic abilities."

Based on the popular pen-and-paper RPG series, Shadowrun is a straight-up multiplayer melee with single-player training against computer-controlled bots. The developers hope to set it apart from the hundreds of other similar games with a variety of special abilities, ranging from the technological (a glider) to the supernatural (a health-regenerating tree, teleportation). Using the abilities is as easy as hitting a button, but using them effectively takes a little bit of skill. After some practice, though, the results can be incredible -- one developer showed off by teleporting through a wall on his glider and picking off the disoriented players below with a few well-placed shots. Players can further customize their characters with four selectable races, which vary in speed, strength, magic ability, etc.

Shadowrun will be the first game to support cross-platform matches between players on the Xbox 360 and Windows Vista. The X06 demo showed off this support with PCs and Xbox 360s networked together seamlessly for an eight-player team capture-the-flag match. While the developers said they were taking pains to make sure neither platform had inherent advantage, the game seemed much smoother and more polished on the high-end PC than on the 360.

While it's not likely to completely revolutionize the genre, Shadowrun is shaping up to be another fine online "shooter with X." Look for it to launch alongside Microsoft Vista, whenever it ends up coming out.

Previously: Shadowrun impressions from E3