Fly, teleport, or ghost it up, then shoot, cut, or blow them up. Shadowrun is all about using fun abilities to win.
Well after playing the game for about 20 hours on the first 2 days, I figured out that just because everyone has access to these abilities, that doesn't mean that they can use them well enough to be amazing. This game is definately about skill, anticipation, using your brain, and then laying down some accurate fire on an enemy when he has exposed himself right in your sights. If you can do those things then the powers and abilities only aid you in becoming a better killer, and limit those who try to use them incorrectly.
--An overview of the abilities that are going to become the harleded halmark of this game.--
First off, powers or abilities in this game are split up into 2 categories, "magic" or "tech." The difference is, magic spells may cost different amounts of your 'essence' pool, (like a health bar but just for magic abilities) and tech abilities once you equip them are always working, but may limit your over all magic supply.
So for example, say you are an elf and have an essence pool of 8. When you equip the tech 'glider,' 2 of your essence bars are blacked out, and you can only freely use 6 bars (which will regenerate everytime you use them) So with your 6 bars you can cast spells until you run out, then wait for regen and cast more spells. All the while your glider will be active whenever you need to use it. If you unequipt the glider then you get 8 bars of essence back to work with.
Here's what you can do in this game ability wise:
Techs:
Glider- If you use this standing still, you automatically start soaring straight up about 15 feet, and then slowly hover back down. If you get a running start and jump from a high point, you can soar over most of some of the smaller maps in one use. This is a really fun ability that comes in real handy on some of the more vertical maps.
Smartlink- This adds a lazer scope to your characters headset, which improves your accuracy with ranged weapons, and prevents you from shooting any of your own teammates accidently. The trade off is, enemies can see your lazer coming down a hallway, but any player who is interested in playing strictly to sniper/machine gunning, may wan tthis equiped anyway because the accuracy boost helps so much.
annti magic- This is basically a pulsing grenade, that continuously sucks magic from players or objects who come near it. Some teams may errect a magic barrier around a flag, and if you throw this into the middle of it, it will clear a whole in for people to run through. Wired reflexes- Makes your character run faster, and when used gives you a brief additional speed boost, at the cost of some health.
And the last tech you can equip is a vision pulse, that lets you see all enemies nearbye through walls for a few seconds. (forgot what its called)
Magics:
Teleport- Teleports you exactly 8 meters in which ever direction you are currently moving. If you jump, you go 8 meters up, crouch, you go 8 meters down. You can go through walls into other rooms, through players, into the air etc etc.
smoke- Turns your character into smoke particles, (basically a ghost) you can't shoot, or attack while it's active, but you also dont take damage from bullets, falling, or explosions. Only the spell 'gust' can hurt you when you're in this form.
Gust- Basically like a force push, whatevers in front of you gets pushed backwards, or off a cliff if you use it in the right spot. Resurrect- Brings dead players back to life, but at a cost of 4 essence bars that stay blacked out as long as the person you revived is alive. If you die, the person you revived slowly bleeds to death.
Tree of life- Creates a golden tree that heals everything around it, friend or foe, and can be used as cover to hide behind machine gun fire.
Strangle- Creates a spiky barrier that players can't get through. It also does minor health and essence damage. Summon- Creates a minion that either guards a certain area (if cast at the ground) or rushes an opponenet if used directly on them. Very useful for defending important intersections, or a flag capture area.
Weapons: The standard fps weapons are included in this game, along with a katana that is incredibly fun to use. All the weapons and abilities are purchased at the start of every round (think counterstrike) and if you die you lose your weapons, but retain any techs or magic spells you have bought and equipped. Guns include; pistol, sub machine gun, shotgun, rifle, katana, mini-gun, sniper rifle, and rocket launcher. When you buy and equip to katana, your view is shifted from first person to third person, (so you get increased peripheral vision) and if you manage to slice an unaware person in the back, they begin bleeding critically and will die in a matter of seconds. (unless they hug a tree of life, the heal and damage will cancel eachother out, but they will be stuck in that spot) The rest of the guns are pretty standard, with the rocket launcher costing the most, to obtain, but its missles instantly kill and can heat seak if you lock on with the smartlink tech.
There are also 4 races you can play, between two battling factions, (the rna, and the lineage) and three game types. Races include
Troll- Incredibly hardy, with the most health, but least magic, and slowest movement speed.
Dwarf- A little less hardy, and a little bit faster than the troll, dwarves automatically drain magive from objects and players near bye.
Human- The middle of the pack character, well rounded with a bonus to money and tech equipping.
Elves- Least health, with the fastest movement speed and most magic. Elves also automatically regenerate when out of combat for a few moments.
You can choose any of these 4 races for whichever side you play on, lineage or RNA, and every race can use every gun and every ability. The game types include,
attrition- or death match
raid- the RNA will defend an objective while the lineage try to capture it and take it to an exit waypoint.
extraction- both RNA and the lineage will try to capture the same object and bring it to their designated exit point. In all these game types players can be resurrected, but if everyone on one side dies, victory goes to the other team. All games are played until one team has won 6 times. There's about 10 different maps at the moment, and players teams can range from 4-4, 6-6, to 8-8.
All in all i'm thoroghly happy with the game so far, as it takes skill, strategy, and team work to pull off a lot of consective victories in this game. And it's just damn fun mastering and using the abilities in this game.
Some examples of ways you can combine abilities
An elf with a katana, speed boost, and ghost spell, can smoke through to the back of an enemy line, un smoke, and then begin slashing enemies backs, and smoke/flee when they begin taking to much damage.
A troll with a mini gun, tree of life, and smart link can hold down a corner of a room, out lasting an onslought of enemies. The smartlink increases the mini gun accuracy, and the troll can use the tree for cover and to replenish its already enormous health supply. A human with a glider can fly over behind enemy lines, drop a demon to engage enemies, then glide to a covering position and fire on the opposition while they fight the demon.
Just about anyone with smoke and teleport equipped can stage a heroic gettaway from a number of enemies. But if you run past a dwarf your magic will be drained leaving you totally exposed.
Anyway that's all I have so far on this game, but I'm really pleased with everything i've seen. It may take new players a while to get used to the feel of the game and the equipping, purchasing aspect (unless you are very familiar with counterstrike) but once you've got the hang of the abilitiesthe game is very, very, VERY, fun and addicting to play. Online also includes party matchmaking ala halo2, so you can group up with friends and hop from game to game. If you like fun fast paced shooters, deffinately pick this game up.