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Welcome to ‘Spare Change?’ A weekly column focused on those too frequent times in every gamers humble existence when they find themselves standing quietly in their retailer of choice, gazing at the new release titles and feeling the light weight of the crumpled notes in their pocket they lifted from the busker outside. Or worse still, a Centrelink error has left them flush with cash but when they get there the shelves are bare. The dreaded ‘quiet release period’ has reared its head offering them only Open Season 2 the game or Imagine: Window Cleaner as a new release pick up.
Fret not! A quick perusal of the bargain bin may contain a forgotten gem, an unhyped prize or a mistakenly traded in masterpiece. Each week I will thoughtfully provide a suggestions for the next time you find you need to feed your gaming addiction. Read on to learn of our first forgotten relic, lost to that dark well of games, the bargain bin.
Shadowrun
Xbox 360 or PC
Combine Dungeons & Dragons with Counterstrike and you come close to the unbridled pure awesome of Shadowrun. When it was released Shadowrun promised a lot in the way of a perfectly balanced multi player experience like no other and it delivered. Unfortunately it’s complete lack of a single player campaign kept people away in droves. As a result this delightful combination of magic and fragging has languished in obscurity. After completing the tutorials (essential for the game) you choose a race Human, Elven, Dwarf or Troll, then you join a side, the red guys or the, well, blue guys. Games are seven rounds and you start with enough money for a single weapon, magic spell or piece of tech. Depending on your teams score and your own performance during a round you may have more cash to upgrade with in the next round.
Each of the races have different attributes. Elves are weak but fast, Trolls strong but slow, humans in between but with more slots available for Tech equipment and magic, and dwarves the most slots but no way to generate magic. Right from the start of the game you need to identify what type of player you want to be. If you’re up for the sneaky assassin route you'll want to invest in a glider backpack or a teleport spell (or both) to get around and a smoke spell to turn you into an insubstantial phantom, oh and don’t forget to buy a katana. Maybe you’re a medic inclined type? Go for the dwarf and quickly buy the Tree of Life to heal team mates and Resurrect to put the Jesus mojo on your fallen comrades. If you’re a heavy fan pick the Troll and buy a mini gun and Auto Aim to zoom in on enemies and automatically disable friendly fire, maybe save up for a summoned Elemental monster to back you up when the enemy team tries to rush you. Or mix things up; having a troll teleport in front of you with a missile launcher freaks most people out.
The bad news is if you don’t have Live, scratch this of your list. Then, even if you do have live it can be a bit tricky finding games. Hit up your local games sites (like this one) to find friends with the game and plan ahead. Also, the game is strangely popular in Japan and it’s often possible to get into a lengthy campaign with some of our fellow Pacific Rim inhabitants. The sad fact is multiplayer focused games (Shadowrun and Frontlines to name a few) live and die by early adoption and online popularity even though their online gameplayer might take a big leak all over faster selling titles (looking at you Rainbow 6 Vegas). If you’re thinking of grabbing that second hand copy for $20 it might be a good idea to strong arm some mates into doing the same. It might sound like a bit of effort but I think you'll be pleasantly surprised with Shadowrun.
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Comments
I will start looking out for a copy.
Sprout get broadband somehow already!