Shadowrun by Data East
Super Nintendo– 1993
Words by Michael Crisman
hardware to upgrade your 'deck is expensive. While both versions recreate the dystopia
of future Seattle, the Genesis/Mega Drive version wins out for lack of censorship. While
the SNES Shadowrun is hardly My Little Pony, Nintendo's
censors made sure nothing too family-unfriendly wound up
on your TV screen, toning down to cutting out references to
booze, sex, and death\three
staples of the Shadowrun
universe\with gleeful abandon.
Because of this, Sega's
version just feels grittier.
Combined with some other
nice features like auto-targeting during battle sequences,
the utterly awesome hacking
sequences (especially the
battles against Black Ice
security systems that could
garner you some impressive gear if your Runner could batter them down), and all the random mischief you could get
up to aside from the main storyline, the Genesis/Mega
Drive version brainfries its opponent.
The Chop-Shop
Nintendo's Shadowrun is no slouch: in the areas of
graphics and sound, it puts up a solid battle, besting the
Genesis/Mega Drive in both categories. But there's more
to a game than just looks, and Nintendo just can't match
Sega's atmosphere, playability, and overall superior
presentation with their isometric, point-and-click style of
game play.
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Did You Know...?
...Sega's version of Shadowrun was released one
year after the SNES version?
...Shadowrun Online, a Kickstarter-funded MMO
based in the Shadowrun universe, should be entering
the beta phase around Q1 of 2014?
...'geek' in Shadowrun doesn't refer to a techobsessed person, but is slang for 'killed' (as in, gHe
got geeked by a gang of orks.h)?
...a common (yet dangerous) job for 'runners is the
Extraction, where 'runners are paid to 'help' a worker
from one megacorp defect to another (preferably with
as many insider secrets and data files as possible)?