I’ve been tempted perpetually by X-Com. Every time I start up Steam I see it there on
the front of the Store screen, taunting me with its $50 price tag, making me
forget my student essays and my developing drinking problem and believe for
just one moment that I have enough time to play through that entire game. I forget that I still haven’t played through
The Walking Dead’s new episode or finished reading Kay Larsen’s thorough (and
thoroughly fatiguing) biography of John Cage.
And, in response, I’ve turned to an old friend.
Not the original X-Com.
I recently discovered that an issue on Steam led to my saves being wiped
out, and since I’d put eighty fucking hours into getting my team together, my
techs researched and my rifles lasered I had absolutely no desire to go through
that process again. X-Com’s primitive
graphic interface and its ability to make me obsessively save games are a
surefire way to get me to not get any fucking work done and I know, in my heart
of hearts, that it won’t make me want to play the new X-Com any less. More than likely it would push me over the
edge and just get me into it that much faster.
So I did something desperate. Something stupid. Something bordering on illegal. I went on the internet and found an old
Genesis Emulator and a ROM of the seminal Shadowrun RPG for Sega. And I started playing it. And holy shit, has that game ever held up.
It’s one thing to get me to sit and engage in repetitive activities,
but the degree to which Shadowrun’s systems have taken over my thoughts is
impressive. Its exploration system, its
freeform save system and its inspired character progression system all wrap
together to make one of the most infuriatingly addictive and strangely
wonderful games that taunted me during my childhood all the way through to my
adult life.
I first started playing Shadowrun in 1995, little over two
years after it came out. I discovered it
through a full page ad in Sega Magazine, back when people had magazines, that I
picked up for an article on my other childhood obsession: Shining Force. I rented a copy from Video Horizons,
Arlington’s one video rental place, and played my own save while advancing
other people’s saves. I found the game
puzzlingly frustrating. Seemingly easy
jobs, like killing ghouls for money, were actually insanely dangerous. The AI for companions was appalling: when
they didn’t wander into my field of fire they ran in circles, doing
nothing. The random events made every
moment in the game a horror filled potential fuck up.
It was rotten, rottenly difficult and rottenly
addictive. For you see, despite all these
“problems,” because of them really, Shadowrun is one of my favorite games of
all time. Within its strange
intersecting problem sets lies a system begging to be unlocked. The proper allocation of Karma points, which
contacts to buy and when, which gang to ally with… All these things wrap together into a system,
a system centered around a methodical and maniacal approach to play that
rewards repetition, punishes ambition and promises great rewards for luck.
I came to Shadowrun in part from the early descriptions of
Shadowrun Online, which sounds absolutely amazing. The manner in which the game is proposed to
operate sounds fantastically impressive and like it functions as as on the nose
a tabletop gaming simulator as any tabletop adaptation of a game ever has (for
my money, Neverwinter Nights never really got that down right). And Shadowrun for Sega hits all the beats
that Shadowrun Online proposes to.
Preparatory costs, overarching runs forming a B story that
ties into an A story main plot, a focus on contacts with a central character
who simply cannot be realistically expected to fill every role required in the
game… Shadowrun has it all. It has flaws, certainly, but these flaws
serve to highlight elements of a greater masterpiece. As a game, Shadowrun forces players to make
choices without ever explicitly requiring them.
Specialization must emerge not because an artificial system demands it,
but because the Essence system in the game forces you to make some brutally
difficult choices. Even characters who
don’t need to retain their essence (like Samurai and Deckers) still have to
take a good hard look at what they actually want to do in the game. If you want to be a close combat powerhouse
you’re going to have to give up some solid implants that might help you in
other situations, and if you’re a decker you’re going to have to pass on
getting those spurs implanted on your wrists if you want to be able to hack
those nodes as well as you’d like.
There’s also an economy which requires constant effort to
remain a part of. Shadowrun is a
tremendous time sink as a result, but within this time sink there’s a
fantabulous product: a game that promises to reward you for the investments you’d
made in a distinct way that invites you to play through it again and again, to
try that risky strategy or hire that curious fellow you meet at a bar just to
see how hard he can hit.
Placed in a freeform world which renders the promise of
Grand Theft Auto 3 in far rougher visual fidelity, Shadowrun was open world
before open world was a thing. It was a
punishing experiment in economics and reputation before games were supposed to
have things like economics and reputation mechanics. Compared to its contemporaries, it’s
downright insane, the equal of a Fallout or a Freelancer, titles developers
still aspire towards equaling. It was a
crazy, sexy pixel trip and I’m not ashamed to say that I’ve been sucked in once
again by its trashy visuals. It’s as
much fun as anything I’ve ever used my X-Box controller to play on my computer
(way more fun than Tomb Raider: Guardian of Light).
I don’t know why I’m writing this, except maybe to say that
I’m still playing games. Or, more
properly, that I’m still playing old games.
And loving them. A lot. Who needs X-Com? I’ve got Shadowrun to eat my life again.
At least until X-Com goes on sale.
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