Shadowrun Chronicles – Boston Lockdown Review by BoxCatHero
Genre: Indie, RPG, Strategy
Developer: Cliffhanger Productions Publisher: Cliffhanger Productions, Nordic Games
Release Date: Apr 28, 2015
Shadowrun Chronicles: Boston Lockdown is a Strategy RPG with tactical squad combat and online play. It was published by a Vienna, Austria based company called Cliffhanger Productions who have talent that comes from companies such as Rare, Ubisoft, Rockstar, Rovio, and Crytek. It can played alone or with other other people as it is a online based game. In the universe of Shadowrun I personally have found that it is rich in lore and possibilities. Each story uses similar elements but does not necessarily have to have anything to do with each other. That is the main quality I love about the Shadowrun universe which gives rise to such great stories and games. With that said let’s begin by getting right into the grit of the game which is the overall story arc for the game before moving onto other parts the game..
The story begins with your character coming to Boston to get a fresh start from wherever you’re from. A contact told you about a fixer named Smedley in the area that could use the services of a Shadowrunner like you. You help him with a few odds and ends concerning someone muscling in on his territory and before long you’re dragged into a city wide fight for survival. I won’t go into full details of the ins and outs of the story but suffice to say I did not see the ending fight coming, but rather was blind to it i think wishing it would not be so. The final battle is one that that is of survival and having to kill someone you worked with.
Let’s move onto game mechanics here. The usual Shadowrun things are abound in this; nuyen(money), karma(skill points, magic, and technology. Now the skill system is amazing as always and they do a great job of bring the Shadowrun system into a mmo way. Now there are 11 skill trees that ya can spend your karma on as you progress through missions. Mind, Body, Summoning, Spell casting, Blades, Blunt, Pistols, Shotguns, Hacking, and Rigging. All but one is kinda self explanatory by looking at the name and that is Rigging. Rigging is basically the art of dealing with drones and empowering them and such. It is most efficient I believe with the skill system to stick with three categories that provide synergy with each other, but that’s the beauty of the system you don’t have to do that.
You can create whatever kind of character you want. Now that being said your available skill is based on what weapon and secondary weapon you have equipped. It won’t matter what skills you have if you don’t have the proper equipment equipped to use them, That brings me to the next topic which is the equipment and vendors. Each the skill trees other than body and mind have a weapon associated with them. As the game progresses you have access to better and better equipment as per usual. The vendors based on what they sale all have a storing function that shows only items of that skill set.. Also there are the cybernetics which consume essence which is used for magic. There are four slots head, arms, legs, and body. Each has a different purpose from the other. Head is more for rigging and hacking skills, arms is stability and such for firearms, legs affect your movement, and body affects your protection.
If you plan on going into magic it would not be wise to purchase any cybernetics. Other than cybernetics there are tactical items in the game like stun grenades, medpacks, and various other nick nacks. There is also armor items which can be found and purchased as well. That being said there are a lot of cosmetic items ya can pick up along the way as well they simply serve only to change how your character looks.
Let’s move onto what I should of started with character creation. It has your standard stuff name, sex, hair, beard, skin color, and portrait. Each hair and beard options come with color choices as well. Now races is called meta type in Shadowrun and are human, ork, elf, troll, and drawf. Each race has different bonuses but a few have disadvantages. Such as Orks deal 25%less critical damage, elves have less hitpoints, and Trolls are easier to be hit. There are also a background you can choose that have bonuses and disadvantages as well. There are quite a lot of these but enough to fit almost if not all play styles.
Now as far as audio and visual goes everything is pretty standard and nothing really grabbed me as unique other than the well matched ambiance to most missions and areas. The same goes with visual except for some the missions maps get recycled which isn’t often. All in all I’d say the game is worth the $20 price tag. The biggest con of the game having been all the reused and overused areas and maps.
BoxCatHero gives Shadowrun Chronicles: Boston Lockdown a Drastik Measure 8.1 out of 10 (81)
http://store.steampowered.com/app/267750/
