Shadowrun

Erk. I almost wrote "economics" there, which means it's time to stress that this is all much more accessible than you'd think, and actually a lot of fun. In its sense of experimentation and discovery, it distinguishes itself from other shooters, and having a plan come together and actually work is a hell of a kick. Doubly so if it involves members of your team closely working together.

There's even more than that though - you also get to choose your racial group, adding other special abilities and vulnerabilities. For example, Elves are quicker with lower health bars, but can regenerate their health if they retreat, making them ideal for more stealthy or harassing roles. Trolls are the opposite pole, slow and resilient - especially so when under sustained fire, when their skin grows protrusions. Play a Dwarf, and you get to mess with all that a little - both need Essence to use their abilities (as well as the magic), and the stunty-chaps will drain it with their very presence. Also, their small, hard skulls mean they don't automatically die with a sniper-headshot like other races. Finally, humans are humans are humans are humans (though are able to use technology without worrying about its impact on Essence).

So, this is a well-designed, well-conceived game. What stops it getting further acclaim is a couple of things.

Firstly, is its slightness. A couples of game-modes. Some maps. Offline mode lacking any real structure whatsoever. Aesthetically not exactly either the PC or the X360's finest hour. There's nothing wrong with a game choosing to specialise in either offline or online experience, of course. But if you decide to completely ignore one pole of the experience, you have to offer something generally astounding and/or groundbreaking to justify yourselves. Which is why things like Battlefield 2 get 9/10 and this doesn't.

Secondly, that FASA ended up doing the exact opposite of what I've done with the review. Rather than realising its game - really - wasn't much more than you'd expect from one of the better class of PC mods, they put it out for full-price. At a mid-price game, it'll sit a lot easier. In fact, the high starting price will almost certainly end up being counter-productive. A multiplayer-only game needs to create a large enough community to be sustainable, big enough to have a variety of skills from beginners to experts and still allow everyone to find a game quickly (random: at the moment, the quickplay option isn't exactly quick, taking a little long to find a game on any machine I've tried, though that will change once the game is actually out, we hope).

Which leaves the only question of how the whole cross-platform playing aspect of the game operates, as Shadowrun is the first game that runs on Microsoft's Games for Windows thing, allowing PC and console to go head to head for the first time since - oooh - Quake 3 on the Dreamcast? In practice, you may not even notice. Unless they identify themselves over the voice-chat, they're not singled out in any way. Only on the dedicated servers on the PC version - completely outside of the Live functionality, and running like any standard game - are you sure what you're fighting, but only because only PC owners can access it.

The precision advantage of mice is limited by the aiming reticle's accuracy varying as you spin around - meaning if you completely spin in a way that only a PC owner can, your exactness will be momentarily shot, so preventing Quake-3-esque spin-and-railgun-headshot brutality. Thankfully, since many PC games do this anyway, it doesn't feel too artificially alien. With a little autoaim, at most mid-range encounters and the importance of the magical powers, they're competing on a more even field. It's only at the closest range weapons - Katana and shotgun - are the faster turns going to give a real edge.

(Fair-minded PC gamers are able to just plug in an Xbox 360 controller. The buttons maps immediately, but the axes don't. For some reason. It may be worth doing, as it's apparently a way past a bug I hit in one of the later tutorials where my Dwarf wouldn't throw an anti-magic bomb.)

It'll be interesting to watch how this plays out. PC owners are always sensitive over anyone fiddling with their mouse sensitivity and 360 owners may actually bristle slightly that the people who are turning faster than they are paid less than them for exactly the same game. But PC owners - with the mod availability inherent in the format - will equally bristle at this price for this much game... especially since to play against Xbox 360 people you need to pay a Live-esque fee which this game simply doesn't justify. And doubly especially as it demands Vista, for no discernible reason other than... well, Microsoft have a new OS and they're like you to buy it, thankyouverymuch.