| From: | Gurth <gurth@******.NL> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Shadowrun review :) |
| Date: | Fri, 17 Mar 1995 16:24:43 +0100 |
I came across the following review of the original Shadowrun rules (well,
that and the text in my .sig :). I thought it'd be nice to post here...
-----
TM Games have sent me a number of new FASA products, and I'll start with
/Shadowrun/: a new SF/Fantasy role playing system set in 2050. For 18-odd
quit what you get is a /Beanno Annual/ style, hard-backed book of around 200
pages, well-stocked with illustrations including 30 pages of glossy
full-colour stuff. FASA have made their name with slick-looking publications
and /Shadowrun/ is no exception: it's a well produced, nicely laid out
little number that most people (myself included) will be quite happy just to
have on their book shelves as part of their "collection". As for the game
system itself...hmmmm. The first thing I'll say is that it is, at least,
interesting: a key feature is a sort of "rediscovered" mythology as, for
some rather bizarre reasons, a goodly portion of the humans of the next
century suddenly wake up to find that they've changed into Elves, Orcs,
Dwarves, Trolls or whatever...
It's an unusual mix: North American Indians, Chinese Dragons and the almost
inevitable, sub Tolkien, mythical stalwarts are all welded together and then
integrated quite nicely with a "just future" technology that seems to have
changed very little in the 60 years twixt then and now. There's even a
section that allows "Deckers" (sort of modern day computer "Hackers"
extended to their logical conclusion), having linked in their own noodles
directly into the world-wide "Matrix" via a SCART plug in the back of the
head, to engage in a sort of /Tron/ style combat.
The next thing I would say is that, if the products of a certain
Nottingham-based games company are anything to go by, /Shadowrun/ should be
massively popular. Although the art for the "Critters" (sic) is very nice,
the colour illustrations of the humanoid PC/NPCs is rather cartoonish. You
know: the Orcs are all big, ugly six-footers with slavering fangs (although,
thankfully, they're not green...) most of the Elves seem to look like
refugees from /Sigue Sigue Sputnik/, the women are simultaneously waifish
and pneumatic, and far too many of these "archetypes", as they're called,
carry weapons that weigh in at a significant percentage of their owner's
body mass, whilst being blessed with imaginitive, far-future names like "Uzi
mark threes" and "AK-97s".
Any of this sound familiar? It's a bit "Cyberpunk", a bit Womble hammer
Half-a-megabye, with a dash of "Ninja Turtles" thrown in for good measure,
and, in consequence is, I'm sure, going to sell very well indeed. And to be
honest it probably deserves to: none of the above is really a criticism of
the game on my part.
Films such as /Aliens/ seem to have proved that the kind of SF that the
average punter wants to see is not really "bold new frontiers" or "new life
and new civilizations" but Vietnam vets in space and so the familiarity
provided by adding a couple of dozen digits to an AK74 is apparently what's
wanted nowadays.
As the Cap'n said "Come on, Mr. Scott; young minds, fresh ideas -- be tolerant!"
-----
This is from the November 1989 issue of Military Modelling, in the Fantasy
Facts column by John Treadaway.
Gurth@******.nl - Gurth@***.nl - http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
"... Produced in the States by FASA, known for their toughness, attention
to detail and sheer completeness (or, of course, their ability to thrash a
topic to death, depending on your point of view . . . ) ..." --John
Treadaway, 1989
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