IGN AU is interestingly placed to check out Shadowrun . See, we're not diehard fans of the franchise that the game is based on. As a result, Shadowrun fans who burst into a ball of indignant flames at the mere mention of the upcoming game might like to redirect their browsers elsewhere. Unlike you, we couldn't give a damn if FASA has horribly molested a role playing game, and buggerised it into some unholy misuse of the license in the form of a first person shooter. All we care about is whether or not it does what it sets out to do - provide a fun, multiplayer-focused shooter that freshens up the genre with some innovative weaponry and skill sets.

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We're not the first guys to have a bash at the game. Our US brothersbefore we got a chance to take on some of the Aussie gaming press at a recent Xbox event. Their overall impressions were very positive - and we have to agree with them. FASA has pulled off the difficult task of integrating a unique fantasy spin on the shooter genre, incorporating flamey, shiny spells alongside high-powered machine guns and grenades.It might not be the prettiest game we've ever seen, with rather bland, boxy levels, but the ability to fly, teleport, and summon creatures, amongst many others, makes for a genuinely individual frag-fest. It's a high-paced affair, and the introduction of the new skills makes it quite complicated for the beginner. Even after playing for a couple of hours, we found ourselves falling back on the old point n' shoot skills we've built over many years, rather than using the new skills.But we're not here to give you an in-depth preview - we've already shown you the link to one of those. Nope, we want to delve into one issue that makes this game rather unique - the ability for PC and 360 owners to play and chat together. Finally, arguments that have set message-boards aflame ever since the first Shadowrun announcement will be resolved. Can the humble 360 controller keep up with the deadly precision of the PC's beloved mouse and keyboard system? Which platform will provide the better gaming experience? Does the 360 have the graphical grunt to outshine the many and varied video cards found on a range of PCs?We're here to answer those questions. Note that of the time we spent playing Shadowrun, around 80% was on the 360 version. By choice. And we tend to favour shooters on the PC. Dammit, we basically just gave away the conclusion already…

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On the 360, Shadowrun is quite a snazzy looking game, provided you can look past the uninspired shoeboxes that pass for levels. We're basing that last harsh comment on the handful of levels we saw - hopefully Microsoft is saving the stellar levels for review. But the character models are all suitably detailed, if somewhat odd looking due to their cartoon-like, fantasy basis. The textures of the environments and characters are on par with a decent 360 title - not quite Gears-worthy (is anything though?), but still sharp enough. Special effects, such as the flaming warp hole seen when teleporting, really stood out as the coolest graphical techniques - the heavy use of particle and lighting effects make these hard to miss. Finally, the frame rate was nice and smooth, with nary a hitch or stutter in sight.What a different story the PC told. The 360's hardware is comparable to a PC built 18 months ago. A computer this old is also known as an Abacus. You can now buy video cards for the PC that are four billion times the speed of the 360, and which beam the graphics directly to your brain via the optic nerve. PC CPUs have more cache than the entire 360's memory, while the actual memory system of the PC can hold the entire Internet. Twice. So why did Shadowrun look so terrible, and run so poorly, on Microsoft's machines?Vista could be part of the problem. Oh, didn't you know that you MUST have Vista to play Shadowrun? Oops! There goes 98% of the gaming PC audience - the smart 98%, who realise that Vista is still at least three to six months away from being a decent gaming operating system with drivers that actually work.The first thing we noticed was the frame rate, which was, frankly, all over the place. For a game that really doesn't push today's PCs too hard, a frame rate below 60fps is inexcusable. Even worse is the fact that, graphically, the game didn't look half as good as the 360 version. Textures seemed very low res, which could be a side effect of the higher resolution of the PC version. The lighting appeared as if somebody had lit up each level with bright spotlights, missing the atmospheric shadows of the 360 version.We're used to PR folks not setting up demo machines very well, so we snuck a quick look at the game's graphic options. Apart from a gamma slider, it was devoid of anything tinker-able. No detail settings, and from memory, we're pretty sure there wasn't even an option to set the game's resolution. Oh dear. There is a slim possibility that the game's graphics settings are controlled before you start the game, ala IL2 Sturmovik, which came out sometime last decade, but it's not looking good. Could the port from 360 to PC mean that the devs have settled on one group of settings for all users? We really doubt, and hope, not, but what we saw was a little unsettling. As an aside, the specs for the best PC in the room was a Core 2 Duo CPU with an 8800GTX. And it still looked terrible. Gulp.