Shadowrun Hong Kong - Extended Edition

This title presents the most well-rounded Shadowrun Returns system and loads of character traits, items, spells and upgrades. The matrix also feels a little better too, although the matrix mini games are kind of unecessary in my opinion. The Extended Hong Kong campaign ensures loads of hours of fun gameplay, even though the story is not the masterpiece that Dragonfall was. You'll also enjoy the great and long custom campaigns The Caldecot Caper and Calfree in Chains. GOG users can get them from Nexusmods. This title has all the huge content from the trilogy available for use in the campaign editor and better-looking ork models (although you can't use the old outfits on them), so you have loads of resources to create your own Shadowrun solo campaign if you're feeling creative.

As a child of the 80s, teen of the 90s, I grew up with the best turn based RPG of all, the original Fallout franchise. This game (and its predecessors) fit nicely into the hole left behind. Aside from a high volume of exposition and some 2 dimensional characters (Wu, in particular), the dialogue is fair and well written; the combat is frequent enough to keep the game fluid, but not always necessary (there are ocassions where you have the option to talk yourself out). There are several improvements over earlier entries to the franchise too: the leveling screens have been trimmed down and organized in a more friendly way to name one, and the player is given less hand-holding in terms of finding the best gear. My only nit, and the reason why I marked this game down from a full 5, is the lack of humor and dynamic elements. Fallout out had crazy random events, all of which offered a wink or a nod to a sci-fi film or novel; characters interaction had options that offered real affect on the game play and story progression--not the case here. Still a good game regardless, certainly one for the collection.

... still pushes the right buttons and has more going for it than Returns. Like other people I found the plot and characters didn't grab me to the same extent. That being said, the quality of the writing itself and the Shadowrun setting still held the experience together for me, and the little tweaks to the gameplay and mechanics worked well. The one thing that has disappointed me about all three games - and I guess is even more noticeable here for having "Hong Kong" as the subtitle - is HBS are still yet to manage to make it feel like you're actually *in* the city where it's set, any more than you got a sense of being in Berlin or Seattle for the previous games. I appreciate that to truly achieve that they would need a lot more in the way of money and staff, but I think even something like a map screen during transitions showing the city and where you're headed would give a bit of the illusion without costing crazy money. Either that or HBS just need to hold all of Rockstar hostage until GTA: Neo-Tokyo becomes a thing.

Linear, isometric, turn-based combat RPG. This and the previous two in the series were free giveaways and well worth the price. Given the engine limitations, however, they are probably not worth more than a few pounds. I played this immediately after the first two, and found it tedious and dull, plus I didn't enjoy the changed 'matrix' (hacking) mechanics. HOWEVER; this being the third game in a row set in the same universe it's entirely possible that I'd just had enough Shadowrunning for one week. Had I taken a break before playing this I might have felt a lot better about it. Keeping that in mind, I found this episode even more linear and constrained than the first two, plus the scripted 'surprises' were not so surprising when you've seen two other almost-identical games. Good, fun and different enough from other types of CRPG to be interesting, but constrained enough not to merit searching-out or full price.

Very simplistic, extremely linear, barely any build up between characters, feels pretty small and devoided of roleplay feels. your choices dont matter much, there's not too much to begin with. The game feels dead and plays along your dialog choices treating you like a baby instead of actually having agendas on its own, like proper rpgs. You cant feel attachment at all to the characters, not even your own supposed brother, no relationship system (friend or lover)... Idk, the game was extremely boring simple and unsatisfaying, couldnt afford to finish it.