Shadowrun
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The Mighty Wimp
- Posts: 47
- Joined: 10 Aug 2006, 03:37
Shadowrun
i would enjoy to paly it..but i need Vista. *considers Bittorrent* ;)
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ViciousXUSMC
- Editors
- Posts: 1497
- Joined: 31 Jul 2006, 14:58
Shadowrun
Act quck if your intrested. I'll probably buy this today I'll think on it for awhile while im at work.
http://halo2pc.org/
1 week deal at circut city. Buy halo 2 for PC (40$) get Shadowrun for free!
Price of both games is 40$ each now looks like it droped from 50$ pretty fast.
I said id probably buy it when it droped below 30$... so essentally this is like getting both for 20$ each. My wife nearly bought me Halo (1 or 2 not sure wich) for fathers day as a present, she didn't tho because she knows she alwasy gets the wrong thing :P so I may tell her this will be my gift.
I cant quite figure out if I can buy it online and get the deal, so its probably in-store only.
http://halo2pc.org/
1 week deal at circut city. Buy halo 2 for PC (40$) get Shadowrun for free!
Price of both games is 40$ each now looks like it droped from 50$ pretty fast.
I said id probably buy it when it droped below 30$... so essentally this is like getting both for 20$ each. My wife nearly bought me Halo (1 or 2 not sure wich) for fathers day as a present, she didn't tho because she knows she alwasy gets the wrong thing :P so I may tell her this will be my gift.
I cant quite figure out if I can buy it online and get the deal, so its probably in-store only.
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StingingVelvet
- Posts: 1506
- Joined: 09 Aug 2006, 14:17
Shadowrun
I definately suggest the game(s) for that price... It's not super great and I only play it here and there, but for $20 it's a fun and different online FPS to play between Quake Wars sessions.
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ViciousXUSMC
- Editors
- Posts: 1497
- Joined: 31 Jul 2006, 14:58
Shadowrun
hehe, sounds like you have changed your tone since your first postings about the game.
Well after spending one day with the game here is my review:
When I read the system requirements my eyes were stuck, I couldn't belive what I was seeing. The requirments on the box were pretty much listing off my system. This is the first time my computer felt old and weak. I figure those are "recomended" not miniumum tho.
But upon installing the game, and trying to play at its preset levels (it auto set everything to high, 12x7, with no AA) it played HORRIBLE, and offered little in the way of tweaking the game. Its low or high.
After turning everything down to low, it seems to run fine now and honestly looks the same to me for the most part. But for a game of this visual quality there is just no excuse for the system requriments and poor performance. Thing thing could be the "bad coding" poster child.
It seriously reminds me of somthing that predates UT2004. I blame this partially on the idea your forced to use Vista. I have benced a few games on XP vs Vista on my own time and lost about 10% of my FPS on Vista.
So lets go past the performance/quality issues and move into the game itself.
Well for starters, this game IMO is definitly not worth 50$ that retial goes for the 20$ that I got it for seems about right as somthing to add to your collection and pass time on, but by no means has what it takes to be your new main game to play.
The bad coding in the performance catagory is passed down into many other bad flaws in the game tool
I only had to go as far as training stage 5 where your a dwarf to get stuck on a bug that will keep you stuck and unable to pass the stage, you cant throw a anti-magic generator to complete an objective. The solution after googling around is instead of setting the skill to your active skill slots in the normal manner you must use "quick select" where you purchase the skill and equip it at the same time. Also you must not equip anything to skill slot 3.
This is the 5th stage.... part of some 3 minute long training sessions and somthing that major was not found by the game testers and bug control?
Well I guess we can forgive that right? Its a mistake and they can patch it. But how about this one...
Games online plauged by lots of people who have horrible white noise comming thru there mic, with a constant on status. It just ruins the game and there is no way to block the noise, only kicking the player can solve it.
Why is this a big deal and somthing I cant easily just overlook like the training bug? Because quite simple mics should always have an option of push to talk... Its so standard, and so very important and this game does not have it!!! your mice is ALWAYS on unless you go into your settings and mute it, but then you cant use it at all. This also means people playing on speakers instead of headphones you hear reverb when somthing loud enough happens to turn there mic sensor on.
So besides the horrible implimentation of voice chat on here, there is the white noise problem. Thats a whole diffrent monster. apparently alot of people are suffering from it where you have horrible noise/distortion being broadcasted when you talk on your mic. The forums have little info on it, they guess its related to creative cards. But I happen to run onboard right now, and my microphone is part of my webcam wich runs thru USB and I suffer the same problem. So I have to mute my mic and not be able to speak with players.
Not a big deal you would think for 99% of online shooters/games. Voice may be more convienent than typing but atleast typing gets the job done... Well not this time!!! There is NO text input interface. You cant chat with anybody so if your one of the many with the mic problem, your a fish out of water and unable to answer your team mates when they ask you somthing or even comunicate with anybody online wich totally kills a large part of the game.. the online part. Wich is the only part of this game.
So now the next big subject, this game is online only.. and goes thru Microsofts Live service. When you go to join an online game your given two options. Something like "join a game now" and "dedicated servers"
I kept trying to join a game and get an error "you must be signed on an online enable account to use this function" I thought it was a bug because I went thru the process of making a Microsoft Live account for the game and was signed on, but just so you know this is the option that lets you play people that are on the 360 and auto sets up fights based on skill. You will not be able to use this unless you have a Live Gold account, and that will cost you money... Yes for what I belive is the first time in hisotry you get charged to play an online shooting game if you want most of the options. This only leaves you with dedicated servers wich..... for me sucked.
I only have 3 servers show up, and I guess its a good thing the games not too pouplar because that could have been full easy. When you setup your prefrences you choose what kind of player you are "hardcore, casual, ect" I belive this is what determins what dedicated servers show up because its part of that playing type's lobby. However I have not confirmed this yet. But still for a "casual player" only 3 servers are in the list in total... thats so pathetic.
All of this so far and we didnt even talk about the game mechanics or how good the game is.
I'll try to make that part short since there is so much to read already.
The gameplay can be fun... I like it pretty much only because of the magic you can use. It sort of reminds me of the good ol' jedi knight days (and katana instead of light saber)
It has the interface and play syle of counter strike... Infact I could almost say this is a conter strike mod... You buy your weapons and skills ect ect... You can find this on any of the games reviews.
What makes the game sucks tho is that the maps are so few in number and somtimes gives one team a strong advantage over the other I think (like the pyrmid type stage, taking on a onslaught of snipers and grenades if your on the bottom)
Worse than that tho is the weapon selection is so few.... Unlike counterstrike where you had a selection of handguns, smgs, rifles, ect...
You pretty much only get one of each in this game.. There is the weak pistole, wich runs out of a clip way too fast.
Then the smg, wich is so horribly inaccurate even in burst fire so forget about range, then the rifle wich is ok at range but not much better.
The sniper rilfe, slow to shoot and can only be shot zoomed but considering the games setup its hard to use it, then you, have the meele weapon the katana wich I seem to suck with but others are ok with it, then the shotgun wich is super close range only and I never seem to get that close and its really hard to actually hit people with it even up close.
Finaly the rocket launcher, cool gun but it cost so much to buy that I saved every round for it and only was able to afford the gun at the last round and 2 rockets for it then I was broke, and if you die you lose your weapon.
So long story short, the game needs a patch BAD, I mean REALLY BAD, to correct the bugs, performance issues, sound issues, hopefully add some content and features that should be there standard like push to talk mic.
Its not that great of a game, but since its diffrent its worth a play, but only if you have the oportunity to buy it cheap like the sale I mentioned, dont buy this thing full price or you will be hating yourself.
Well after spending one day with the game here is my review:
When I read the system requirements my eyes were stuck, I couldn't belive what I was seeing. The requirments on the box were pretty much listing off my system. This is the first time my computer felt old and weak. I figure those are "recomended" not miniumum tho.
But upon installing the game, and trying to play at its preset levels (it auto set everything to high, 12x7, with no AA) it played HORRIBLE, and offered little in the way of tweaking the game. Its low or high.
After turning everything down to low, it seems to run fine now and honestly looks the same to me for the most part. But for a game of this visual quality there is just no excuse for the system requriments and poor performance. Thing thing could be the "bad coding" poster child.
It seriously reminds me of somthing that predates UT2004. I blame this partially on the idea your forced to use Vista. I have benced a few games on XP vs Vista on my own time and lost about 10% of my FPS on Vista.
So lets go past the performance/quality issues and move into the game itself.
Well for starters, this game IMO is definitly not worth 50$ that retial goes for the 20$ that I got it for seems about right as somthing to add to your collection and pass time on, but by no means has what it takes to be your new main game to play.
The bad coding in the performance catagory is passed down into many other bad flaws in the game tool
I only had to go as far as training stage 5 where your a dwarf to get stuck on a bug that will keep you stuck and unable to pass the stage, you cant throw a anti-magic generator to complete an objective. The solution after googling around is instead of setting the skill to your active skill slots in the normal manner you must use "quick select" where you purchase the skill and equip it at the same time. Also you must not equip anything to skill slot 3.
This is the 5th stage.... part of some 3 minute long training sessions and somthing that major was not found by the game testers and bug control?
Well I guess we can forgive that right? Its a mistake and they can patch it. But how about this one...
Games online plauged by lots of people who have horrible white noise comming thru there mic, with a constant on status. It just ruins the game and there is no way to block the noise, only kicking the player can solve it.
Why is this a big deal and somthing I cant easily just overlook like the training bug? Because quite simple mics should always have an option of push to talk... Its so standard, and so very important and this game does not have it!!! your mice is ALWAYS on unless you go into your settings and mute it, but then you cant use it at all. This also means people playing on speakers instead of headphones you hear reverb when somthing loud enough happens to turn there mic sensor on.
So besides the horrible implimentation of voice chat on here, there is the white noise problem. Thats a whole diffrent monster. apparently alot of people are suffering from it where you have horrible noise/distortion being broadcasted when you talk on your mic. The forums have little info on it, they guess its related to creative cards. But I happen to run onboard right now, and my microphone is part of my webcam wich runs thru USB and I suffer the same problem. So I have to mute my mic and not be able to speak with players.
Not a big deal you would think for 99% of online shooters/games. Voice may be more convienent than typing but atleast typing gets the job done... Well not this time!!! There is NO text input interface. You cant chat with anybody so if your one of the many with the mic problem, your a fish out of water and unable to answer your team mates when they ask you somthing or even comunicate with anybody online wich totally kills a large part of the game.. the online part. Wich is the only part of this game.
So now the next big subject, this game is online only.. and goes thru Microsofts Live service. When you go to join an online game your given two options. Something like "join a game now" and "dedicated servers"
I kept trying to join a game and get an error "you must be signed on an online enable account to use this function" I thought it was a bug because I went thru the process of making a Microsoft Live account for the game and was signed on, but just so you know this is the option that lets you play people that are on the 360 and auto sets up fights based on skill. You will not be able to use this unless you have a Live Gold account, and that will cost you money... Yes for what I belive is the first time in hisotry you get charged to play an online shooting game if you want most of the options. This only leaves you with dedicated servers wich..... for me sucked.
I only have 3 servers show up, and I guess its a good thing the games not too pouplar because that could have been full easy. When you setup your prefrences you choose what kind of player you are "hardcore, casual, ect" I belive this is what determins what dedicated servers show up because its part of that playing type's lobby. However I have not confirmed this yet. But still for a "casual player" only 3 servers are in the list in total... thats so pathetic.
All of this so far and we didnt even talk about the game mechanics or how good the game is.
I'll try to make that part short since there is so much to read already.
The gameplay can be fun... I like it pretty much only because of the magic you can use. It sort of reminds me of the good ol' jedi knight days (and katana instead of light saber)
It has the interface and play syle of counter strike... Infact I could almost say this is a conter strike mod... You buy your weapons and skills ect ect... You can find this on any of the games reviews.
What makes the game sucks tho is that the maps are so few in number and somtimes gives one team a strong advantage over the other I think (like the pyrmid type stage, taking on a onslaught of snipers and grenades if your on the bottom)
Worse than that tho is the weapon selection is so few.... Unlike counterstrike where you had a selection of handguns, smgs, rifles, ect...
You pretty much only get one of each in this game.. There is the weak pistole, wich runs out of a clip way too fast.
Then the smg, wich is so horribly inaccurate even in burst fire so forget about range, then the rifle wich is ok at range but not much better.
The sniper rilfe, slow to shoot and can only be shot zoomed but considering the games setup its hard to use it, then you, have the meele weapon the katana wich I seem to suck with but others are ok with it, then the shotgun wich is super close range only and I never seem to get that close and its really hard to actually hit people with it even up close.
Finaly the rocket launcher, cool gun but it cost so much to buy that I saved every round for it and only was able to afford the gun at the last round and 2 rockets for it then I was broke, and if you die you lose your weapon.
So long story short, the game needs a patch BAD, I mean REALLY BAD, to correct the bugs, performance issues, sound issues, hopefully add some content and features that should be there standard like push to talk mic.
Its not that great of a game, but since its diffrent its worth a play, but only if you have the oportunity to buy it cheap like the sale I mentioned, dont buy this thing full price or you will be hating yourself.
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StingingVelvet
- Posts: 1506
- Joined: 09 Aug 2006, 14:17
Shadowrun
hehe, sounds like you have changed your tone since your first postings about the game.
Yeah... I still think it's great fun when everything is working great and you're in good company, but I agree with a lot of your review as well. Overall I'm glad I bought it, it's fun, but it's nothing that will entertain me as constantly of consistently as other games in the genre.
It's like a quick burst of action in between other games.
Also, I didn't have any performance issues with my 8800GTS.
Edit: Also, check and see if you have "best servers" or "favorite servers" checked... I did by default and there were only two or three shown, but when I unchecked that there were suddenly about 15.
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ViciousXUSMC
- Editors
- Posts: 1497
- Joined: 31 Jul 2006, 14:58
Shadowrun
I have abit more of the game under my belt.
Im a natural at fps games, I usually can snag top 3 easy even when in new and after a few games, but this one.... im not so good.
I have a very strong feeling its some sort of handicap on the pc players, its very hard to aim at guys but they seem to hit me easy esp with a sword. I rmember reading about auto aim on the console but that was halo, its not supposed to be in shadowrun, but I can almost guarantee it is, plus there was a review of the game where they said they did better with the controller than with keyboard and mouse.
So yeah im still playing it but I dont think I will be for long.
I also only have 2 dedicated servers showing up now, one of them is always full the other one is 12/16 but every time I join I get "cannot connect to server" error.
I did better on the dedicated server btw the other day than i did on the 360 servers today, so that kinda further makes me think that pc vs 360 gives the 360 guys some sort of aid. We really need more pc servers up and I would enjoy this game more. Once my 30 day trial for gold runs out I will be screwed and unable to play the game!
Im a natural at fps games, I usually can snag top 3 easy even when in new and after a few games, but this one.... im not so good.
I have a very strong feeling its some sort of handicap on the pc players, its very hard to aim at guys but they seem to hit me easy esp with a sword. I rmember reading about auto aim on the console but that was halo, its not supposed to be in shadowrun, but I can almost guarantee it is, plus there was a review of the game where they said they did better with the controller than with keyboard and mouse.
So yeah im still playing it but I dont think I will be for long.
I also only have 2 dedicated servers showing up now, one of them is always full the other one is 12/16 but every time I join I get "cannot connect to server" error.
I did better on the dedicated server btw the other day than i did on the 360 servers today, so that kinda further makes me think that pc vs 360 gives the 360 guys some sort of aid. We really need more pc servers up and I would enjoy this game more. Once my 30 day trial for gold runs out I will be screwed and unable to play the game!
Shadowrun
The 360 users ARE getting auto-aim. I read this specifically. They get aiming help and PC users get a negative to aiming directly after quick movements with the mouse (i.e. 180 degree spin). They specifically wanted to make it as even as possible because everyone knows (except console-only players who refuse to admit it) that mouse+keyboard is a FAR superior control scheme. This handicap will only perpetuate the console-kiddies belief that their gamepads are superior when in fact it is not.
I just wish some cross-platform shooter would be released that gave no aid to the console users. Then we could prove what we have known all along which is superior.
I used to loathe shooters on the consoles because I am a PC gamer, but since all of my co-workers are console people, I have started to play console shooters with them. I am now over the "learning curve" and am now pretty darn good at aiming with a gamepad, but I know that I would be all the better with a mouse+keyboard.
This is a touchy subject to me because all of my co-workers think I am crazy when I tell them that gamepads suck for FPS's. I am so sick of trying to defend it when all I want to do is kick their asses on a good cross-platform game. Shadowrun was looking to be a title I could do that, but once I heard about all of the "balancing" measures, I knew it would not be a good litmus test.
I just wish some cross-platform shooter would be released that gave no aid to the console users. Then we could prove what we have known all along which is superior.
I used to loathe shooters on the consoles because I am a PC gamer, but since all of my co-workers are console people, I have started to play console shooters with them. I am now over the "learning curve" and am now pretty darn good at aiming with a gamepad, but I know that I would be all the better with a mouse+keyboard.
This is a touchy subject to me because all of my co-workers think I am crazy when I tell them that gamepads suck for FPS's. I am so sick of trying to defend it when all I want to do is kick their asses on a good cross-platform game. Shadowrun was looking to be a title I could do that, but once I heard about all of the "balancing" measures, I knew it would not be a good litmus test.
Shadowrun
Gamepads are much better for FPS games DEPENDING (note the depending) on what your mouse and keyboard ARE. On my old rig (outdated laptop) I used a wireless logitech mouse.
The mouse interfered with my wireless network, causing me to lag and for the mouse to receive interference that would make the cursor movements onscreen erratic.
I ended up just going with a controller until i got a new mouse........G5 and loving it :lol:
The mouse interfered with my wireless network, causing me to lag and for the mouse to receive interference that would make the cursor movements onscreen erratic.
I ended up just going with a controller until i got a new mouse........G5 and loving it :lol:
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The_cranky_hermit
- Insiders
- Posts: 3010
- Joined: 07 Nov 2005, 04:16
Shadowrun
I just wish some cross-platform shooter would be released that gave no aid to the console users. Then we could prove what we have known all along which is superior.
That game was released a while ago, and it was called "Quake III: Arena." Unfortunately, it hasn't done much to eliminate gamepad inferiority denial.
This is a touchy subject to me because all of my co-workers think I am crazy when I tell them that gamepads suck for FPS's.
Challenge them to a PC FPS on a LAN, and let them use XBox 360 gamepads, and all be on the same team, while you slaughter all of them with your mouse. Halo might be a good one to pick, since they probably have much more experience with it than you. But don't pick Halo 2; I hear that game *does* feature auto-aiming with gamepads.
Or you could just ask them why they think that console ports of FPS games always include auto-aim, and console-only FPS's usually do too.
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ViciousXUSMC
- Editors
- Posts: 1497
- Joined: 31 Jul 2006, 14:58
Shadowrun
I'm obviously not going to post a source for this BUT, there have been patches released that allow you to play both Halo 2 and Shadowrun on XP.
This is out??? last I checked only a few days ago it was in the works but not released. Can you PM me a link?
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The Mighty Wimp
- Posts: 47
- Joined: 10 Aug 2006, 03:37
Shadowrun
Well i have a question about shadowrun... I run the game with 1920x1200 with everything at high setting (excl. vsync). But the frames are capped at 30... is there a way to unlock the framecap?
i doubt it. its probably locked cause for 360 its at 30 FPS.
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ViciousXUSMC
- Editors
- Posts: 1497
- Joined: 31 Jul 2006, 14:58
Shadowrun
wow blackhat your have max settings, hows the game run online???
I got into some max size maps with 16 people the other day and it was choppy as heck, people jumping around. Playable but not to an enjoyable extent and definitly put me at a big disadvantage.
I just dont get whats up with this game...
I started playing halo2 for windows vista and it looks better than shadowrun to me and runs 4x better and I have it on max settings!
My only guess is its because I have a single core cpu, and shadowrun supports dual core. But I dont see anything in the game that should be very cpu demanding at all, so unless its bad coding (my best guess) I cant see why the game runs like crap and has bad visuals and high system requirements.
I really dont see how anybody can even think a gamepad is even close to a mouse and keyboard for fps games.... The only fps game that had a good gamepad layout imo was golden eye for the 64 ^^
But guess I'll give it a shot to see how I like it. it hurts me just to think about it tho, less control over your look controles and having to work 2 analog pads at once.... while trying to mash all the other buttons with what fingers you have left for jump/cast/fire.
I got into some max size maps with 16 people the other day and it was choppy as heck, people jumping around. Playable but not to an enjoyable extent and definitly put me at a big disadvantage.
I just dont get whats up with this game...
I started playing halo2 for windows vista and it looks better than shadowrun to me and runs 4x better and I have it on max settings!
My only guess is its because I have a single core cpu, and shadowrun supports dual core. But I dont see anything in the game that should be very cpu demanding at all, so unless its bad coding (my best guess) I cant see why the game runs like crap and has bad visuals and high system requirements.
I really dont see how anybody can even think a gamepad is even close to a mouse and keyboard for fps games.... The only fps game that had a good gamepad layout imo was golden eye for the 64 ^^
But guess I'll give it a shot to see how I like it. it hurts me just to think about it tho, less control over your look controles and having to work 2 analog pads at once.... while trying to mash all the other buttons with what fingers you have left for jump/cast/fire.
Shadowrun
Man you've been out of the gamepad market for a while :)
But guess I'll give it a shot to see how I like it. it hurts me just to think about it tho, less control over your look controles and having to work 2 analog pads at once.... while trying to mash all the other buttons with what fingers you have left for jump/cast/fire.
Halo actually has some decent controls for the gamepad. Naturally it comes no where close to keyboard and mouse, but it works pretty well.
Shadowrun
wow blackhat your have max settings, hows the game run online???
I got into some max size maps with 16 people the other day and it was choppy as heck, people jumping around. Playable but not to an enjoyable extent and definitly put me at a big disadvantage.
I just dont get whats up with this game...
I started playing halo2 for windows vista and it looks better than shadowrun to me and runs 4x better and I have it on max settings!
ViciousXUSMC... i didnt played it yet online. I only followed the training parts and some action with bots.
But when you say that Halo2 looks better then Shadowrun... I dont think so... i have them both, and Halo2 (s*cks) isnt that nice as shadowrun :D
Shadowrun is a game like Counterstrike, its looks better then counterstrike and the game with magic and wapons gives it a little extra and i love it :D
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Paradigm Shifter
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Shadowrun
I'm obviously not going to post a source for this BUT, there have been patches released that allow you to play both Halo 2 and Shadowrun on XP.
Really? I thought it was just Shadowrun that was cracked...
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