Metal, magic, and mayhem

I’m an old guy. My 53 years is often greater than the combined age of three or four of my online opponents. I make up for my slow reflexes with training, guile, and obscure cheat codes (just kidding, I really have no guile). Luckily, Shadowrun offers six training sessions, each followed by an offline battle against bots, and it was here that I began to master my craft.

Although not intricately complex, Shadowrun is not a simple game. When creating your warrior, you can choose from among four races: humans, trolls, dwarfs, and elves. The training sessions teach you how to use each. The humans are the most well-rounded characters. They are robust, reasonably fast, fairly good at magic, and excellent with technology. In fact, humans suffer no penalty to their essence (life force) when using tech items, as other races do.

Trolls aren't the brightest bulbs, but what they lack in brains they make up for in bulk. Mess with them at your own risk.

The trolls are just what you would expect them to be—strong but not real bright (i.e. they’re a bit magically challenged). Their size and strength, however, let them use even the biggest weapons, such as miniguns, without impairing their mobility. Not only can trolls dish out some serious punishment, but they can take it too. Their skin hardens when struck by projectiles, allowing them to resist damage. You shoot them hard enough and long enough, though, and they’ll die just like anything else.

The dwarves receive more essence than anyone else, but regenerate it more slowly. On the upside, they are tough. In fact, as the training made painfully clear to me, they are so tough they can take a gunshot to the head and keep on keeping on. Please, don’t try that at home, folks. Dwarves can also suck your essence dry. It makes no difference whether you are friend or enemy; if you get too close to dwarves, they’ll start draining you.

The final race, elves, are fast and skilled at magic, but they can't take much damage. Frequently, their weapon of choice is the katana, and if they are able to catch you unaware, one swing will bleed you dry. If you catch an elf in your gun sights, you had better kill him, because if he escapes, his health regenerates and you’ll need to start the attack all over again.

Elves are speedy and adept at magic, but that slight frame can't take much damage.

“Wow, that is so cool,” I mumble, sitting alone in front of my computer monitor. I’m ten minutes into my first Shadowrun training session, and I just learned how to couple the Teleport spell with glider technology to fly within a few meters of a raised platform and then teleport onto it. In fact, Teleport can allow you to do much more, such as going through a solid concrete wall into a room of enemies, tossing a grenade in their midst, and then getting out before it explodes.

Later in the training sessions I discover several other spells and tech items. The Enhanced Vision technology (a cybernetic eye) allows me to see through walls, which is especially useful when scouting for enemies. The Tree of Life spell creates a glowing tree that heals all wounds (including those of your enemies, if they are in range). The Resurrect spell brings fallen friends back from dead, but there is a catch: If the resurrector dies, then so does the resurrectee.

At last, my training was complete. With hundreds of kills under my belt, I was ready to go global and test my mettle against PC and Xbox 360 gamers alike.

For multiplayer play, Shadowrun for Windows Vista uses the Games for Windows - LIVE online service. Signing up was a snap. I created a gamertag, chose an avatar, and was ready to play. A baseline Silver membership to the LIVE service is free and includes multiplayer play with other PC gamers. Cross-platform play between Windows Vista and Xbox 360 gamers requires a paid Gold membership; Shadowrun comes with a free one-month Gold trial.

The Games for Windows – LIVE service displays your gamertag and avatar, and allows you to communicate with friends and other gamers.

I popped into my first game, frantically equipped myself, and ran off to battle. Ten seconds later I was dead, the victim of a troll’s minigun. No matter, the match restarted three minutes later, and once again I entered the fray, only to die at the hands of a katana-wielding elf. To make a painfully long story short, I died nine times before I had my first kill. The strange thing is that I loved it. Dodging katana strikes, teleporting through walls, sniping enemy trolls…I was having so much fun I didn’t care how well I was playing.

Whether you're using a keyboard and mouse or an Xbox 360 controller, it's easy to target enemies. This guy is going down.

So how does the cross-platform gaming action play out in the real, err…cyber, world? Quite seamlessly, thank you. When joining a game, or in waiting rooms for that matter, there's no indication of who’s using a PC and who’s using an Xbox 360. Nor was I able to tell, while playing, who was using a keyboard and mouse (my personal choice) and who was using an Xbox 360 controller.

That's impressive because, as any PC gamer will tell you, console game controllers are not as adept at aiming and killing adversaries as your computer’s pointing device. It’s a fact of gaming. To level the playing field between the precise mouse and the less-precise Xbox 360 controller, the folks at FASA Studio (the game’s developer) gave a little bit of auto-aim to controller players. That is, if you're using a controller, the game will nudge your gun sights toward the target, making it easier to hit what you are aiming at. Hence, when you are in the game, the important element is not your choice of controller, but rather your skill in using it.

The confluence of technology and magic is what makes Shadowrun stand apart from the rest of the shooter crowd. And the total integration of the Xbox 360 and Windows Vista versions of Shadowrun fulfills a fantasy that gamers have had since online play began. It no longer matters which platform you play on—just that you play.