Shadowrun Returns

3.75/5 Stars. Pros: First of All, DRM Free is incredible! Secondly, the graphics are great for an isometric role playing game like this. The world is interesting. (I only had a little exposure to Shadowrun tabletop games in high school so it's new to me.) Third, I like the turn based combat and the karma system. Lastly, there are quite a few really good mods and the game editor is pretty interesting. Cons: The game is fairly linear almost to the point that it is a point-and-click adventure vs. a role playing game where my choices matter. Admittedly, this could be from my being new to the Shadowrun Universe but as a "re-boot", if you will, of Shadowrun, I would expect there to be quite a bit more lore up front than is available. (I hear Dragonfall is more diverse so I will definitely try it out.) I guess if I were to want more from the game, it would be background, lore, and/or history to setup the world. From what I remember of the table top game, Shadowrun was pretty deep in lore and has the potential for a Skyrim style, Cyberpunk presentation. (It would probably look like, Deus Ex: HR, with Rainbow Six type tactical, from a first person perspective.) PS: GOG is amazing. They take all the feedback we give and use it. I asked them if they did price matches and they put both Shadowrun and Dragonfall on their Winter 2014 Flash Sale for the matched price! I will support these guys all day long!

This game belongs on a tablet. If you buy the hype and pay for it, you'll likely wish you hadn't once you realize it has ZERO substance in terms of the RPGs it is so often compared to (i,e., Fallout 1 and 2, Planescape: Torment, etc) -- no loot, no inventory (for God's sake... in an rpg?) no real choices that impact ANYTHING, not to mention no animations and a stale tactical combat system that is pure drekk compared to XCom, which the game also tries to place itself on par with. Do yourself a solid and don't buy the hype on this one... that's all this game is.

I voted this game my Game of the Year 2013. Despite some initial issues Shadowrun Returns manages to revive the CRPG genre with great aesthetics, varied play style options and cool story. Looking forward for Dragonfall in 2014.

I'm honestly surprised by how shallow this game is considering it raised 2 mil through crowdfunding. -Combat is Xcom like with just a few abilities per class to experiment with. -No branching plot or alternative ways to tackle quests. -There's only two side quests in the entire game. -Very little animations for NPCs. They just stand on street corners or fixed locations waiting for you to walk by. -Art style isn't very appealing. -Story has a total length of about 10 hours. I could forgive the linearity if the game actually provided the player with a sense of choice but it just doesn't. No matter what you do you are railroaded into the same ending every time. Nothing you do matters which often leads to the game feeling a bit like a visual novel that you are just passively reading with the occasional bit of combat sprinkled in. Last bit of annoyance is the amount of cringe leftwing politics that often crop up. You got the whole "cops is racists yo, they profile minorities dog" type of messaging along with a huge helping of multiculturalism to a honestly hilarious degree. For example I would estimate that about 90% of the characters in this game are racially mixed. You got the Japanese-African vegan who runs a brothel, the black asian lesbian gun runner who talks about how much big guns get her off, etc. It quickly becomes comical especially when you notice that there's only a small handful of white characters in the game whom are either addicts, evil, or incompetent. I think we all get the message that the writers were pushing right? All in all a sub par experience that I can't really recommend especially given that the original Sega genesis game had more content and a better written story. Maybe look into emulating that instead.

Hi! Just want to say not to buy this game. It's not worth more than 5$, and 99% of that 5$ goes to FASA, because the game designers did nothing in this game. The game lacks animations (example: Thrusts are executed as swings), creativity, depth and replayability. No matter what choices you take, it's the same story over and over. Also, for 2.4 millions of dollars, I think you can do a much better game... just look on Kongregate (or Pre-Paradox Mount and Blade for example) they have much better games that haven't cost much to make (no more than a few hundreds or thousands) and I am not talking about crappy MMOs here. Finally, this game is just a bunch of successive combat arenas. IT IS FAR FROM A ROLE-PLAYING GAME!!! No role-play in this game, just combat. It's basically an arena game with a story. BORING!