Seattle, 2050, and the world has changed a lot from what we all know and love. After ‘the awakening’, the human race was diluted by new sub-species such as Dwarfs, Elves, Orcs and Trolls and mythical beasts like dragons and ghouls once again roamed the earth. Magic also returned to the world, people gained the ability to throw fireballs from their fingertips and heal with a single touch. These are not the only changes, technology has moved on too, to a point where cybernetic enhancements are the norm… Want to be stronger? Get muscle augmentation! Want to be faster? Get your legs replaced with cyberlegs. The internet as we know it has ceased to exist, in it’s place is ‘the matrix’, a virtual world that links almost every computer and electronic device in the world together, and meaning your every move can be tracked an followed. Society has degenerated to the point where the homeless litter the streets, living in fear of the gangs that rule the streets, while mega corporations have the worlds governments eating from their hands. Welcome to the world of ‘Shadowrun’.

Based on FASA’s pen & paper roleplay game, Shadowrun, this game spanned many genres. It is one of the first examples I remember of features we take for granted today, like its keyword conversation system which is almost identical to what Morrowind did 10 years later, or the ‘sandbox’ like setting, meaning quests were entirely optional. The game keeps many of the feature of the pen & paper game, and adapts many others. Karma is still used to increase you stats and skills, but also the power of your spells and the stats and skill system is massively different from the real game. Your body stat relates directly to your hit points, giving you 10 hp for every point in your body skill to maximum of 200hp and the same for your magic skill. Your skills control many things, like how accurate and powerful you are with your guns, how well you perform in the matrix, how many followers you can have, how long they will stay with you and how cheaply you can hire them. The controls are very much a point and click affair, you have a few different cursors, one for aiming your gun, one for interacting with objects and one for your magic.

The game puts you in control of Jake Armatige, a shadowrunner, after a job gone bad. The game starts with you being loaded into a slab by two morticians, and you duly waking up a minute later with no memory of what has happened. After scaring away the morticians you can begin to piece together what has happened. By exploring around the first part of the city, you discover that you were hired to ship some very sensitive data via a computer in your head, but it all went wrong and you were ‘geeked’ (shadowrun slang for killed) under orders of the mysterious Drake. The game follows Jake as tries to piece together what happened and as he tries to take down Drake himself. The journey puts you face to face with gun wielding psychos, magic throwing businessmen, trolls, a dragon, a spirit, even a giant octopus! The game does have another side though, there are multiple computers that you can (once your head computer is fixed) log into and enter the matrix. The game swaps to an overhead 2d view as you explore the system to recover data and modify programs such as door and lift controls, of course you can empty a few bank accounts along the way.

The game is not without it’s problems though. It’s far too easy to miss a critical keyword and not be able to get past a specific point in the game. For example, the first time I played this I missed the keyword ‘head computer’ and could not get my datajack fixed. This meant that after I had faced off against Drake, a fight that none of your followers will ever survive, I could not log into the matrix to open the doors to escape and move onto the end of the game. Problems aside, I think this is actually my favorite SNES game, ever! It is scarily deep for something released in 1993 and is really very addictive. The graphics are not excellent, but they are not what sells this game, the gameplay is. Any fan of the pen and paper game should really check this out, as it is pretty faithful to the rules, certainly a lot close than the recently released XBox 360 version!

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