Currently in the works is a new Shadowrun video game for the PC and XBOX 360 slated for a June 2007 release.  This is big news to me because I spent countless hours of my lonely teen years playing the Sega Genesis version, the quintessential cyberpunk video game released in 1994.

Being Joshua, a human Decker in the year 2058, I get to live out my fantasies of doing illegal things like breaking into powerful corporations and stealing top secret documents, for money! Or get cybereyes and synthetic muscles implanted so I can swiftly pull out my Predator pistol, equipped with Smartgun which enables perfect accuracy, and take down any ork that get in my way.  Or even innocent bystanders!  Tubular!  Or hack into the matrix with my Fairlight Excalibur cyberdeck and sell illegally downloaded files to Roscoe the Fixer.  

Unfortunately, the new Shadowrun has taken many of these elements out.  Instead of having it RPG-related, it’s going to be a team combat based first-person shooter and the devoted fans of the original pen and paper role-playing game aren’t too happy with this.  If you want to read some great nerdguments and debating about how the new game is ruining the original folklore and mythology, check out the Shadowrun forum. Pretty entertaining if you like watching nerds go at it.

Still, the game looks like quite entertaining.  It will be the first game that allows PC and Xbox 360 gamers to play with one another using LIVE Anywhere. Hopefully if it is successful, they can venture into making a faithful RPG version.  It’s been 11 years and 10 days, gosh darn it!  Until then I will keep my renewed love for cyberpunk satisfied with nights of Harrison, Keanu and H.R. Giger.