When fans of the popular Shadowrun franchise heard that FASA Interactive Studios was developing a new game for the Xbox 360 and Pc the first thing that probably popped into their heads was role-playing, but the team developing the game surprised everyone with a team-based online focused action game. Surprise, surprise, surprise! But the real surprise is that all those wonderful Shadowrun elements (back story, corporations, magic , races, technology) lend themselves well to an action game that seem to work.

While the deep back story is beyond the scope of this article, the basic premise of Shadowrun is that two factions are vying for power and doing so using technology, magic and combat to fulfill their goals. The first faction is a mega multinational company called RNA Corporation and an ancient organization called Lineage. Both sides have access to magic, technology and the latest in high-tech weapons that afford such abilities as super speed, stealth, x-ray vision, healing, magic draining, flying, defense and more. Playing as one of several races for one of these two factions, gamers jump into the action using all these elements in several game modes that will be very familiar to anyone that has played an action game like Future Vs. Fantasy or Counter-Strike.

Luckily the game doesn't throw you into moving traffic right away - there are a number of offline tutorials that teach you each races' special talents, how to use the technology and magic based specials, and how to handle basics like loading your weapon, or playing certain game modes. Each tutorial session gives you a combat phase to partake in with AI controlled bots if you so choose as well. The nice thing about these tutorials is that they actually do teach you how to play the game and prepare you for every situation you might encounter. Of course nothing beats playing against real players, but what is offered in the tutorials is at least enough to give you an idea of what to expect.

The nice thing about Shadowrun is that it only forces you to choose a side, and none of these teams require you to specialize in a particular magic or technology, effectively allowing you to mix and match these elements as you see fit. It's a nice touch that can prove to be unpredictable on the battlefield.

The races are also an interesting touch because each has their own special set of bonuses that give you an edge in combat. Humans are the default race in Shadowrun and while there's no special abilities associated with them, there's also no weaknesses. Elves combine speed and self healing with a lower than average amount of hit points. elves are best suited as scouts or stealth type characters but not as full frontal shock troops - in a straight up fight an Elf is at a disadvantage. Next is the Troll which starts with more health and the ability to gain extra defense through the "harden" ability . Trolls also don't take a penalty from using heavy weapons. Trolls do have some weaknesses including a very low movement speed, an a vulnerability to essence drain. Finally the Dwarf, as the name implies is a shorter than usual character with the ability to drain essence from enemies and allies. The Dwarf also has more essence than most other races but has less health.

Shadowrun offers a handful of interesting multiplayer modes but all of them should be familiar to players who spend copious amounts of time online playing action games. The game types include raid, extraction, and attrition. Raid is a capture the flag mode using one flag where one side (Lineage) is charged with getting the artifact (the flag) and escaping with it and the other (RNA) must prevent that from happening. In extraction things are a little different as each faction tries to snag an artifact and escape with it. Attrition is quite simply a team elimination mode where everyone on one side must die. While there's no traditional respawn in these modes, there is the ability to be resurrected by those that have the skills. Resurrection is interesting because it is tied to the person who resurrected another character - in other words, if that person dies, the target will soon follow.