I'll preface this by repeating what I've said in other reviews, which is that I typically don't like it when magic and sci-fi mix. Most people mess it up horribly and it almost always feels like a nerd who couldn't make up his mind on what cool nerd thing he wanted in his story. Mixing magic and cyberpunk the way the Shadowrun franchise does has never been my cup of tea so these games would always have an uphill battle on their hands with me.

The other thing I'll say is that I have never in my life played Shadowrun as a pen and paper experience, and I didn't even know it existed the first time I played this game in the early 2000s so I really can't speak to how well the game is adapted from the original concept.

That said, what is here plays interestingly like a CRPG of the period more than your typical console RPG, but despite the game's efforts to provide a robust experience, a lot of the components fall short here. The combat is clunky, with the aforementioned magic abilities seemingly being the most useless part of the gameplay. The story has you interacting with characters through a keyword system that creates a bit more of an emergent dialogue, but isn't nearly sophisticated enough to be considered some sort of branching discussion system that would become so popular in the 2000s and beyond.

On the whole, it feels like a game that failed to live up to the initial scope the developers had in mind.