Microsoft Game Studios’ Shadowrun, since it was first announced and demonstrated at E3 2006, has been a source of controversy among video game enthusiasts and dyed in the wool pen and paper zealots. A multiplayer FPS designed alongside the MechWarrior boys FASA, the game takes elements from the popular role-playing franchise and distills them into a purely action oriented experience that skates across the surface of the source material rather than dives right in.

This alone makes the game hard to love for those with fond memories of the of the traditional game, let alone the 16-bit incarnations for both the SNES and Genesis. In comparison, Shadowrun for the Xbox 360 is hardly recognizable and a different beast altogether. Not to say this is a terrible thing, just…well…different.

So what is Shadowrun?

Set in and around Santos Brazil in the year 2031, Shadowrun tells a story of struggle between two opposing forces, namely the RNA Global mega-corporation and the Lineage, a 5000 year old secret society dedicated to defending a magical power that was recently unearthed by RNA Global.

As a game, Shadowrun is played over a series of rounds involving up to 16 players, 8 versus 8, at a time. During the first 30 seconds of each round, players have the opportunity to buy additional weapons, magic and tech, spending the money earned during play for winning rounds and for actions during gameplay, including killing opponents, carrying the artifact, and using certain abilities to help the team. Players on the losing team also earn some money between rounds.

The winning team is the first one to win six rounds. Each round is four minutes with the possibility of one minute overtime, and the method of winning is determined by the type of game being played, including Raid, Extraction and Attrition. Sounds a bit more like a sport than a bitter conflict, eh?

Three types of gameplay you say?

Shadowrun‘s three different gameplay modes each offer something different, and each require different conditions for victory. The Raid game type requires the attacking team to capture a magical artifact and deliver it to the extraction area. The defending team must stop the attackers from escaping with the artifact. The artifact always starts in the same place and only the attackers can carry it. If it is dropped and not picked back up, it will eventually return to its initial location. With one side on offense and the other on defense Raid is the more tactical of the game types, often feeling like a high speed chess match with magic and machine guns.

With the Extraction game type, the artifact starts in the center of the map. Both teams can pick the artifact up. Each team wants to bring the artifact to a separate extraction area on the opposite side of the map from where they start. Extraction is the more fast paced and frantic game type, as both sides are after the same thing so combat happens at a more brisk and frenetic pace.

Finally, Attrition is basically a game of team deathmatch, however there is no respawn. The only way to come back into a specific round is to be resurrected by a teammate.

So…how do I kill things?

Shadowrun offers an array of weapons for the discerning shopper, from explosives and swords, to the tried and true shotgun. In total, the game offers nine different weapons for players to purchase between rounds, including close range guns such as the pistol and SMG, medium range weapons such as the minigun, and guns to pick off your opponent from across the quad, such as the sniper rifle and rocket launcher. Each player also starts with two grenades per round and can carry two weapons plus these grenades at any given time.

In addition to these, Shadowrun players also have access to both magic and tech to help give them the upper hand. Magic and tech give a player the ability to do game-changing things and are usually the key to a team’s winning or losing a round. These elements work against each other, however; Essence is required to cast magic and tech reduces the amount of Essence available. Because of this, a player can choose to rely exclusively on magic, only on tech, or can try to balance a little of both.

Note that neither magic nor tech can be used while carrying the magical artifact. Attempting to activate a tech or cast a spell will force you to drop the artifact. Any passive abilities granted by magic or tech also do not function while carrying the artifact.
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Essence?

Essence is the magical energy needed to cast spells. A player begins the game with a full pool of Essence represented by a column of circles in the lower left of the screen, and every spell that is cast takes its cost from that pool. Over time, the Essence pool will regenerate, filling back up to its maximum.

However, having tech assigned for use will reduce the maximum size of this pool. Each tech has its own Essence penalty associated with it and assigning multiple techs will reduce the available Essence by the total of these penalties. Tech penalties are shown at the top of the Essence bar. Certain spells will also temporarily drain a portion of the Essence pool while they are in effect. This is called investment, and investments are shown at the bottom of the Essence bar.

What are the different magics?

Shadowrun features seven different magics than can be used by players, as detailed below:

Tree of Life: Creates a magical tree that heals anyone, friend or foe, that stands under it. The tree is a physical object and provides cover and some concealment, though it can be shot and destroyed. It can heal a limited amount of health, after which it is destroyed. Healing your teammates with a tree of life will earn you money.

Resurrect: When you cast Resurrect it brings back to life any dead within a short radius, tying them to you. This is a powerful ability and will cost you some essence as an investment if anyone is actually resurrected. You can resurrect multiple nearby players in a single cast and a single investment by moving over multiple bodies while casting. You will make a portion of any money that the resurrected player earns.

If the resurrected player dies, they will not leave a body and cannot be resurrected again and you will regain the invested essence. Destroying enemy bodies will prevent the enemy team from resurrecting dead teammates.

If you die, any players that you have resurrected will start losing health at a fairly rapid rate. In this state, they can be re-resurrected by another teammate and saved, but if they are not, they will likely die in short order.

Strangle: Creates magical crystals that damage and drain essence from players that run into them. The crystals also attract and trap players for a short while, though the individual crystal is destroyed by this. Each cast of Strangle costs you some essence as an investment. When all of the crystals from a particular cast are destroyed, you will regain the invested essence. The crystals are useful for blocking routes and slowing enemy passage.

Gust: Creates a strong gust of wind that will disrupt enemy aim and send them flying, potentially off of ledges and to their doom. Gust is useful in denying opponents access to an area and also damages players that are smoked (see A

Artificial Studios’ Monster Madness: Battle for Suburbia has been a title that we at eToychest have followed with some fervor since it was first announced just following E3 in 2005. We now go hands on with the latest build for the Xbox 360 to see how the game is coming together for its April release.Artificial Studios’ Monster Madness: Battle for Suburbia has been a title that we at eToychest have followed with some fervor since it was first announced just following E3 in 2005. Now in the march up to the games’ debut in April, we recently sat down with the latest build for the Xbox 360 to see how far the title had come since our somewhat lukewarm experience with it at E3 2006. Granted our experience at that show was perhaps colored by having to play the game in a sweltering hotel room that smelled of old pizza, but regardless that does not change the fact that after spending several hours with the game here in the office, things appear to have been turned around quite well.

Next-Gen Gameplay With Old School Charms

For the uninitiated, Monster Madness is a top down action shooter cast in a mold similar to arcade classics such as Gauntlet or Smash T.V. Only with more zombie chiwawas. Playable alone or with other players locally or over Xbox Live, Monster Madness offers both a story driven adventure mode set across five chapters and thirty monster-filled levels (for up to four players), as well as several cooperative and competitive deathmatch, capture the flag, and survival modes (for up to sixteen players).

In addition, while arcade style action games like this do tend to wear thin after a short while, Monster Madness does seem to inspire at least a few more repeat visits than would normally be expected in order to unlock all of the hidden content and build all of the game’s customizable weapons. The build we were sent contained just the game’s first chapter, as well as a healthy selection of competitive modes, and we’ve been cutting our teeth on it more or less nonstop since it arrived.

Dubbed ‘Suburban Nightmare’, the chapter shares more than a little in common with Konami’s Zombies Ate My Neighbors, a comparison that obviously has not been lost on the developers at Artificial, as the game even calls out that 16-bit classic by name just following the first level… sort of. Other chapters promised by Artificial include ‘High School Hell’, ‘The Shopping Maul’, ‘Cemetery Scary’, and ‘The Dark Castle’.

As the game begins, players take up the role of one of four high school stereotypes, from nerd and stoner to prom queen and goth, as they scramble to pick up anything that isn’t nailed down (and some things that are) in order to push back a seemingly endless stream of things that go bump in the night. For those of you who enjoyed the feeling of mowing down zombies with the lawnmower in Dead Rising, some of that very same visceral pleasure is here to be enjoyed yet again.

Each character has an affinity for certain types of weapons, and this is made clear with a ‘thumbs up’ icon that appears near the character when standing next to anything well suited to the teenager being controlled. Similarly, some weapons are simply not suited for certain characters, identified by a ‘thumbs down’ icon, and while these can certainly be picked up, they are simply not as effective in the hands of some characters compared to others.

This differentiation alone will make some players gravitate towards certain characters; for example, some may be more inclined to Zack and his nail guns, while Carrie’s swords are sure to make her a fan favorite, even if that ‘sword’ happens to be a rusty saw procured from Zack’s garage. Another plus to using preferred weapons is that these allow characters to build up and execute special attacks, which in a game as excruciatingly difficult as Monster Madness is shaping up to being, any extra ‘umph’ is extremely welcome.

Much like the games from which this title obviously draws inspiration, the lions’ share of Monster Madness’ difficulty comes from the sheer number of opponents that must be dispatched at any given time, with these manic fights punctuated by a few impressive boss encounters. In addition, the game will also occasionally throw various challenges at you as well, such as locking you within a smallish area until a certain number of baddies are destroyed – a manageable task with multiple players, a veritable nightmare when you are on your own.

In total, Artificial Studios notes that the final game will boast more than 50 different types of monsters, and although we’ve only seen a handful so far, what we have seen in just this first chapter leads us to believe that this figure is certainly plausible. While zombies make up the bulk of the game’s opposition, you can expect to also face off against giant spiders, flaming imps, demons, and even a headless priest. Oh my.

Let’s Get Physical?

Interestingly, while the game is certainly easy on the eyes, and has taken advantage of the graphical prowess afforded by Unreal Engine 3, for a supposed showpiece for Ageia PhysX, the game’s implementation of physics seems altogether subdued. This may simply be yet another case of seeing the game in an unfinished state, but while the initial level in Zack’s house is full of items flying and tumbling about in every which way, subsequent levels come off as positively frigid. It’s our hope that the final version will feature the same kind of physics-based gameplay illustrated in the game’s early goings, as this certainly adds an interesting spin to the title’s already crazed atmosphere.

However, while the game certainly has variety – and style – one of things that we found most worrisome at E3 2006 was the game’s controls, which seemed much too loose and imprecise for gameplay as frenetic as Monster Madness demanded. Now, thankfully, the game seems to control much tighter, feeling a bit like Geometry Wars in 3D space. The two thumb sticks control both movement and aiming, while the right trigger and bumper fire both the main and secondary weapons respectively.

This setup works quite well, freeing up your left hand fingers to cover the left trigger for special attacks, while pressing both it and the left bumper allow the camera to be rotated with the thumb stick in lieu of turning/aiming. This last bit is a touch odd, but in looking at the control setup, you almost get the feeling that the developers were running out of options, and seeing as Monster Madness does not support the Jaguar controller, I suppose Artificial did the best with what they had. It’s functional, and while the game can still be at times beyond manic, we seldom felt as if we were fighting the controls in addition to the denizens of the underworld.

Where the game does get a bit odd is when playing with multiple players. In typical Gauntlet fashion, all characters occupy the same screen, so uncooperative players or miscommunication can leave characters hemmed in behind obstacles or otherwise unable to help or be helped. There is not a split screen option in Monster Madness, though some help is offered as the camera pulls out allowing more space to be covered on the screen by the characters. Of course this has the adverse effect of making it more difficult to see the action from a greater distance, even on large displays, and with multiple players taking on the encroaching horde, many of us here have found ourselves actually ‘losing’ our characters in the fray.

Made To Order

One of the most interesting aspects of Monster Madness is the idea of item customization. While adventuring through the game’s many levels, you’ll routinely come across an assortment of junk in the form of screws, tape, pipes, and other odds and ends, and these, along with the various gems that are left behind when enemies are defeated can be used to purchase and build new and better weapons. At set points during a level, a redneck zombie hunter by the name of Larry Tools (who works out of the back of a camper) will take these items off your hands, and in exchange offer everything from a grenade slingshot, CD launcher, and railgun, to even and portable gun emplacement and healing items as well.

Larry even sells an amulet that lets characters change into a rather speedy – and powerful – werewolf, and while this is the only transformation we have seen thus far, Artificial promises that the retail version will also feature the ability to turn into a mummy, vampire, demon, or even another zombie. And just to continue to change things up, the game also features a number of drivable vehicles as well, including go-karts, hovercrafts, mechs, and UFOs. Our experience thus far has been limited (only the go-kart and hovercraft were featured in the preview build), but everything so far has been just as deranged and entertaining as the rest of the game. Personally I cannot wait to hop into a flying saucer and obliterate demons from low orbit.

In total, after spending a good deal of time with Monster Madness, we’ve come away impressed. The game is still a couple months from being realized, but the developers have certainly tightened things up and are heading into the home stretch with a game that is shaping up to be tremendously entertaining, especially for multiple players. The competitive battle modes make for a tremendous party-style atmosphere, and with four players taking on the monster horde, the adventure mode invokes a sense of arcade-style fun that has not been commonplace in ages. In the most complimentary sense, the team at Artificial Studios seem to be well on their way to creating a near perfect blend of old school charm and next-gen gameplay, and we eagerly await the fruits of their labor.

After a couple months of delays, Groove Games’ [i]Warpath[/i] is finally gearing up for launch on July 18. Based off of the Unreal engine, and to some extent, the [i]Pariah[/i] engine ([i]Warpath[/i] started out in development as a sequel to Groove’s [i]Pariah[/i]), [i]Warpath[/i] comes packaged with an extensive single player campaign alongside solid multiplayer not unlike that of the Unreal series. Shipping on July 18, one of [i]Warpath[/i]’s greatest attributes is that it won’t be cleaning out our wallets with the Xbox version at a reasonable 29.99 USD while the PC version will be a very budget-friendly 19.99 USD. I sat in on a conference call with the guys at Groove to get some idea of what changes have been made in the past few months as well as what we can expect from [i]Warpath[/i].

According to [i]Warpath[/i]’s website, the single player campaign of the game will revolve around three alien species, the Ohm, the Kovos, and the Coalition all competing for dominance of the planet Kaladi, described as the ultimate utopia. There was not a whole lot said about the story behind the single player in the call, although we can expect a mesh of strategy and action oriented game play. While single player was touched upon, the developers seemed very focused on stressing that [i]Warpath[/i] is very much a multiplayer oriented game. While the game began its development as a sequel to [i]Pariah[/i], the developers eventually began focusing on making [i]Warpath[/i] a game for online multiplay.

The online multiplayer qualities of [i]Warpath[/i] were continuously stated in the conference call with Groove. It’s already been stated that the game works off the [i]Unreal[/i] engine, so we can expect a lot of frenzied online play akin to that of the [i]Unreal Tournament[/i] series. [i]Warpath[/i] will contain the basic multiplayer game modes including Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, and Capture the Flag, but the developers also singled out the Frontline Assault mode in which teams of players will fight to push the assault point back. [i]Warpath[/i] will be able to support up to 32 players on the PC version, although considerably less with the Xbox version due to Live constraints. The PC version will also include tools for players to create maps and will come packaged with the Unreal Editor.

When describing the features [i]Warpath[/i] would offer players, it was mentioned that in addition to having a mix of action with strategy, players would also be able to upgrade their weapons with power and functional upgrades. [i]Warpath[/i]’s websites lists eight weapons available, including the Wolverine, Tyrant, Judge, Vanguard, Vibro Blade, and EMAD, although details over the differences between the eight weapons weren’t available. [i]Warpath[/i] is also slated to have a vertical feel to the level design, adding to the multiplayer experience. And of course, vehicles will be present, as well as the ever-popular rag doll physics (death is always more enjoyable when your body flings into a nearby cement pillar).

[i]Warpath[/i] has seen a long push back in its release date, which was originally scheduled for a March 2006 release date. When asked about why the game was pushed to July, the developers stated that they did not want [i]Warpath[/i]’s release getting lost in the furor of E3, while there also was a switch in the distribution company which added to the delay. In the time since the preview build was released, changes have mainly been focused towards the visual department, although the developers admitted that a few elements of the game had to be axed because of memory constraints. While vehicles still remain in the game, things like hovercrafts took too big of a toll on the game’s memory and unfortunately had to be taken out. On the subject of why split-screen multiplayer was left out of the game, the developers cited that they left it out to focus on the game’s performance, also noting that split-screen is generally not seen on the PC, which transferred into the Xbox version.

Groove also showed some enthusiasm towards developing games for the next-generation of consoles. However, they still believe that there is a strong and solid market out there with the original Xbox, and whether [i]Warpath[/i] is one of the final games for the Xbox or if the console continues to live on despite pressure from the Xbox 360, they seemed pretty happy developing for either next-gen hardware or catering to those who remain with the last generation. [i]Warpath[/i]’s developers also seemed to indicate that, based on the success of [i]Warpath[/i], we could very well see an expansion for the game in the future, or even perhaps some downloadable content from Xbox Live.

So there you have it. Budget gamers, mark your calendars for [i]Warpath[/i] to hit retailers in mid-July. Also look for a full review of [i]Warpath[/i] sometime in the future. In the time being, head over to [i]Warpath[/i]’s website at http://www.playwarpath.com/ and give the PC demo a go (note that the PC demo is based on the March release).

Throughout the history of gaming there are games or series of games that truly stay with you for a lifetime. The list is long; Mario, Pong, Zelda, Metroid, Halo, Half-Life. At the top of this illustrious list, for myself at least, is the Final Fantasy series. As a die-hard RPG fan, more so than any other genre in gaming, I have followed the series for the majority of my life. That being said, I have never been more excited for a FF title in my life.

For any of you who picked up Dragon’s Quest VIII you may have noticed a second shiny round thing packaged along with it. We call that a disc. On that disc is a demo of the upcoming release in the Final Fantasy series; Final Fantasy XII. After trying their hand at the MMORPG market with FFXI they are attempting to go back to their roots with this upcoming title. The opening sequence gives us some of the basic story for this one. The game takes place in a world called Ivalice during a time of war. The kingdom of Archadia is bringing war upon its neighboring nations and taking them over one by one (sound a little bit familiar anyone?) The kingdom of Dalmasca is next in line, but they don’t appear to be giving in quite so easily.

That’s about all that we get as far as story goes. I will say that Square has not lost its knack for creating stunning cutscenes. There are a few things I’ve noticed from watching the opening sequence, which I’ve seen about thirty times by now. First, Square has decided to make FFXII in a more realistic style rather than the cartoonish look many previous FF titles have taken on. It appears also that FFXII deals with many different races from humans to a Jar-Jar look-a-like to what appears to be a mix of a hobbit and a mouse. This is not to say that your character can be chosen in different races only that many of the characters you encounter are of various races.

The cast of characters seems to be your usual FF group; the simpleton hero, hippy free-spirited teen, a princess, a sky pirate, a soldier who has been branded as a traitor, and an oddball who apparently specializes in weaponry. All of this leads me to believe that the game is going to be the same old FF we’ve played several times over. Not to say this is a bad thing, as I have loved nearly every entry in the long running series, but I’m still holding on to the hope that this title will somehow advance or revolutionize the series.

Now let’s move on to the gameplay. There really isn’t much to do here. The demo offers two small levels that are not part of the actual game itself; just little mini-missions to show off the graphics and combat system. One level uses wait mode and is set on a tropical beach while the other uses active mode and takes place in an old temple of some sort. Neither of them contains any dialogue or story and they only last about 10-15 minutes. The combat this time around is seamlessly integrated with moving around the map and exploring, which I really enjoy and I think will help keep the game flowing. The UI and menus work just as well as ever. All of the items and spells in the demo will be familiar to anyone who has played a FF title before.

You have the usual black and white magic along with what are called green magic and time magic. A