My team slid in under cover of night over at Harfeld Manor, an easy run into a low-security data vault that my old shadowrunner pal Monica promised would be an easy in and out.
It wasn’t, of course, but it took the death of our mutual friend, the mage Deitrich, to really wake us up to that fact.
Sure, we hit that place hard, but there was a ton of security both on the ‘Net and in the premises themselves, and we paid dearly for our hubris.
It would take us another several runs to really figure out what was going on in the dark shadows that we came across in our shadowy dealings, but I think we’re getting somewhere. If only we knew where this will finally lead.
This, then, is Shadowrun: Dragonfall in the special Director’s Cut edition, out now from Harebrained Schemes for your iPad. Check out the game trailer below to get a sense of how it all plays out.
https://youtu.be/eyUktyFHrb4
If you played RPGs like Shadowrun or Dungeons & Dragons back in the golden day of role-playing, where all we had were pen, paper and backpacks-full of hardbound rulebooks to transport us to alternate realities, you’ll know that sometimes the best campaigns were those that really immersed us in the storytelling.
Harebrained Schemes has iterated upon its fantastic video game series based on the Shadowrun role-playing games of the late ’80s and early ’90s, mostly recapturing that sense of quality storytelling with a compelling, thoroughly modern tactical real-time strategy game like XCOM.
Shadowrun’s setting is a near-future dystopia in which magic and William Gibson-style cyberpunk meet. You’ll choose a race for your character (Elf, Orc, Human) and a class (mage, decker/hacker, corporate wage slave) and then take part in stories, or quests.
The combat is fun, but — even in Easy mode — will require some serious strategic thinking to take into account various factors like cover, weaponry, and the composition of the enemy team. The graphics are good enough, even on my iPad 3, to match other isometrically viewed strategy games for the iPad.
What’s best about Shadowrun: Dragonfall, however, is the writing. The dialogue in each quest is witty and fully thematically appropriate. If you’re a long-time Shadowrun fan, you’ll love seeing all the cyberpunk slang, lovingly slipped into the back and forth between characters in each of the chapters.
Playing Shadowrun: Dragonfall on the iPad is a futuristic dream come true, and having a deep RPG with me wherever I go is a thrill that I bet the original authors of the pen and paper-based Shadowrun never tire of.
If you want a slice of old school role-playing and questing, Shadowrun: Dragonfall is a fantastic place to start, especially if you haven’t played Harebrained Schemes previous titles on iOS or PC/Mac.
The Director’s Cut is available for iOS right now for $6.99, so head on over to the App Store and grab your copy now.
As for me, I’ve got to go on one last run through the shadows, for dreck’s sake. Wish me luck and hand me a big gun.
