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IGN wrote:May 9, 2006 - One of the many interesting and new titles at Microsoft's press conference today was Shadowrun, a game which many of us recall fondly as an RPG on the Genesis. While they only showed a pre-rendered trailer during the conference, we were able to get a closer look at it shortly after, at a post-event event across the street at the Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood. Shadowrun is slated for release in January alongside Windows Vista, and it will be one of the titles you can use with Live Anywhere to play against gamers who bought the 360 version.

But first, a little background. In the world of Shadowrun, magic exists in a cycle, its strength peaking every 5,000 years. Here, elves, dwarves, trolls and other fantastical creatures are real; their popularity in fiction and entertainment stems from their tangible roots, not from the imagination. The game starts in the near future -- December 12, 2012, to be exact -- just as the world is reaching one of these peaks. This date marks the end of the Mayan calendar and is often speculated by fringe science as being the end of civilization. Whatever its meaning, the action starts in Brazil, when an unnamed corporation causes a "magic accident" that levels a city and exposes an ancient ziggurat previously buried in a mountain. This cataclysm unveils a group called The Lineage, a Templar-like group who has protected the ziggurat and its secrets for thousands of years. Now that the ziggurat is unveiled, all heck breaks loose, as the corporation is very interested in unlocking its secrets. It's up to the magic-using Lineage to protect it against the technological Corporation.



In this version of Earth, every person has dormant "magic DNA" that triggers physiological changes when magic hits its height of power. People transform into elves, dwarves, and trolls (although some may remain human). Each type has different abilities, from absorbing magic to teleporting through walls. Unfortunately, the presentation wasn't very long and the pace was pretty quick, so we hope to get a meatier look when the game appears on the E3 show floor Wednesday. But suffice to say that the differences are not just cosmetic; they are the rough equivalent of character classes, like medics, engineers, grunts, and so forth.

But it's only the Lineage characters who could teleport through walls or glide to a soft landing from a great height, from what we could tell. The Corporation, however, can see through walls, as well as having other abilities that can counter or tactically complement what the Lineage will dish out. There are also no health packs in the game. They didn't say what the Corp could do, but Lineage players can summon a "Tree of Life" that replenishes the health of anyone near it -- including the enemy. The Tree of Life is also a physical object, so once summoned, you can actually use it as cover.

Like Counter-Strike, you upgrade your weaponry with money earned through achieving objectives, and you cannot respawn. Instead, your team will get a limited number of extra lives, and one of your teammates can resurrect you -- unless your body is… beyond salvation. All the available weapons are broken down by things like rate of fire, ideal range, damage, ammunition, and a couple other properties. And the end-of-round stats will detail each player's number of kills, deaths, accuracy, and more.

While Shadowrun is multiplayer-oriented, and its maps are relatively conventional-looking, the presenter said that this was the first game in the company's 13-year history that the team played constantly, even on weekends sometimes. With a rock-paper-scissors approach to team-based multiplayer, it looks like it may join Quake Wars in multiplayer innovation. We'll have more on this title in the coming weeks.

Thon wrote:
edit - you mean "null sweat, chummer"

captain_insano wrote:I like castlevania.