Just watched the “Backstage Pass” video for Shadowrun off the XBLM, and man…
Wow. They just… don’t get it. They spend half the video bragging about their EAspouse-esque Deathmarch to get the game ready for E3. Then they talk about their cutting edge animators (they’re from Hollywood, dontcha know!) all the while showing some truly awful animation during the gameplay.
And this thing is multi-player only?
Pass, pass… and pass again.
Yeah, I think that some of the guys from Dumpshock decided to vent on there.
I’m wondering if the PnP IP guys (Wizkids) didn’t allow use of the setting? That’s about the only logical reason for the retcon.
Don’t believe everything you read about this game. I spent a lot of time with it today and it’s good stuff. The multiplayer looks like it will get a lot of play time from a lot of folks. There are many cool things happening there and I got a very long-winded explanation of all the give and take of multiplayer and team play. The guy basically said it’s designed around being played on Live. In some ways, it’s a bit of a first-person action Phantom Dust.
Also… it’s playable on PC or 360 with no segregation. So all you guys who claim that PC controls r00l over console controllers will have to put up or shut up. I mean, if you get 0wned by a consoler, then you know your skills have atrophied and you should stick to turn-based games for the rest of your godforsaken life.
From what my frineds tell me about FanPro, they’ve been really good at keeping “classic” BattleTech pure and free from the influences of the video games or WizKid’s “Mechwarrior” game. So I wouldn’t worry too much about the changes to the lore made for the Xbox game blowing back into “classic” Shadowrun.
And when you get over that fear, the Xbox game actually looks interesting. Sure, it’s a shame that they’ve bastardized the lore, but good adaptations are really hard to do well. And a new Shadowrun game, no matter how “dumbed down,” will hopefully lead to increased sales and interest in “classic” Shadowrun. Plus, the lisencing fees are nice.
Don’t get too cocky… because you’re one of those guys that made that claim:
:)
That’s cause I can always back it up. :)
I’m guessing the console version will have an aim assist of some type.
Not that I could tell. It was straight up shootin’. They have a lot of neat stuff you can do to get out of people’s crosshairs including a standard teleport thing. Seemed to work too. It’s all set up here networked with Xbox 360 people playing against PC people.
I hope you’re right. It’s hard to be patient and think, “Well, maybe they just needed a nonthreatening lowest-common-denominator game to get the name out there and then they’ll do something good with the next Shadowrun product.” Also, I’m pretty skeptical. It looks like these doofs fucked the lore with their Battletech iterations, and based on this, I’m betting they’ll do the same here.
I mean, if it’s a fun game, that’s great. But either make a fun game within the structure of the IP or call it something else. This is like having the first game made in the Star Wars universe (or at least first one made in almost 20 years) be set in a part of a galaxy that you just made up, and it includes a bunch of races that you similarly made up for the game, doing a bunch of shit that has nothing to do with the Empire, or Rebel Alliance, or Sith or Jedi, or anything that anyone who has followed the licence would recognize. And oh yeah, call it “Jedi Battle” but don’t include Jedi anywhere in the game.
There’s always Dystopia, I guess.
It looks like the art direction was patterned after the very shittiest illustrations from the 1st Ed Shadowrun books.
So I’ve hit the forums, watched some videos and something strikes me pretty heavily. Beyond the misuse of the license, beyond the subpar graphics, there just isn’t going to be very much game here. There is no singleplayer campaign, only play v. bots. They are planning to ship with “at least eight” maps. There are no plans for a level editor or support for user created content. This just doesn’t seem like nearly enough content for a full game. The nearest comparison seems to be UT, and how many maps did that ship with, or even the retail version of CS? There just doesn’t seem to be nearly enough content here to justify full price. I can’t imagine paying $60 for 8 multiplayer only maps, that’s insane.
MS needs to consider packaging this thing with Vista for free and making it available on Live for a minimal amount of points or free as well. Or they need to put some folks from one of their other teams on this to have them shore it up and produce some more content. Eight maps?
It sounds like a tech demo wrapped up as a game.
Somehow this feels like a vanity project, like they have a vision of the “correct” version of Shadowrun. And they’re going to pull this off no matter what the fans say.
Also I bet there was a marketing meeting with the conclusion: “Lets call our game Shadowrun, instant +50k sales, right there”
Actually, it’s even dumber than that:
I’m Mitch Gitelman, and we can’t be bothered with any of the previous Shadowrun stuff!
Eight maps?
You’re forgetting the map packs that will be available for a ‘nominal’ number of marketplace points after release ;)
What a fucking tool.
The longtime fans of the universe we’re bollixing up will certainly not care about the bollixing as long as we give them FASTFRENETIC BUTTONMASHINGONEONESHIFTONE
Leaked box art from the official forums:
Now take a look at where we started with Shadowrun.
- there are magic spells
- and shamanic spirit magic
- and cybertech
- and metahumans like elves, and dwarves and such
- and astral space
- and the Matrix
- and megacorporations with the powers of sovereign nations
- and a dystopian future where America has fractured into around a dozen countries
- oh, and a Native American uprising
- and 15+ years of sourcebooks
- and there’s the individual storylines in the novels
- and the console games
Here’s the final list:
“We had been through it with our BattleTech games (MechWarrior, MechCommander, MechAssault) for years and had the battle scars of trying to please hardcore fans and new players at the same time.”
I hope they don’t presume they’ve been getting better at it, because in my mind the best Battletech games were the early ones, Mechwarrior1 and 2, which used the source material respectfully (politics! warrior clans! honor! attrition! technological dark ages!). Not simply because they followed true to the back story, but because the gameplay felt exactly as I would expect an 80 ton walking monster tank should, a complex machine hard to control but mastered with skill.
As they pumped out sequel after sequel out, the universe was dumbed down, mechs were made expendable/instantly repairable, you were wiping out entire divisions by yourself and ulitimately the Battletech universe degraded into just another crass excuse for a robot blast-a-thon.
I find it strange they would be willing to alienate the fan base who are the most likely to buy their product, on the assumption that new players picking up the slack would care if you called your product Shadowrun rather than Elves N’ Guns.