Shadowrun: Hong Kong - Review @ GameInformer

[Myrthos]

Shadowrun Chronicles: Hong Kong was reviewed by GameInformer who gave it a score of 7.5.

Once your enemies finally shut up and pull out their guns, you need to dive for cover and carefully manage your heroes’ action points as you lay down suppressing fire, unleash a series of offensive spells, or hack your enemy’s security drones to do your work for you. It feels like the difficulty has been tuned for seasoned pros, so newcomers might be in over their heads early on. Unfortunately, the tactical, turn-based mechanics don’t feel much different from those that Harebrained Schemes dreamed up two years ago with Shadowrun Returns. The studio clearly wants to please its fans by delivering another gripping campaign, but I wish the gameplay had evolved.

Harebrained Schemes has clearly spent a ton of time on narrative, character development, and world-building, all of which make it easy absorb yourself in the fiction. Sadly, the massive amounts of reading in Shadowrun: Hong Kong might exhaust players who are hungry for action, and the combat itself feels comfortable but well-worn. Shadowrun: Hong Kong is fun for a select audience, but doesn’t have the depth or innovation to stand out.

Thanks Eye.

More information.

 

[bizorker]

If someone makes a great game - let's say it 'scores a 9' - and then they just make a sequel using all the same assets but just make a new story, does that new game get a lower score because it doesn't bring anything 'new'? If you have a winning formula, why not just run with it? A lot better than trying mix things up and failing miserably, like they did with the second dragon age. If the length of the campaign is the same as the original, I wouldn't even mind paying the same amount of money (vs. say the DLC strategy). I would love to have another Divinity Original Sin game that is exactly the same as the first with a whole new story and characters. Instead I get a redo of the original (nice but not that interesting because it is essentially the same story), and then this new thing which might be good, but might not be as good as the original. So long winded way of saying I don't see anything wrong with taking a successful game and just re-doing with a new story, even if it doesn't add some new wiz-bang feature.

 

[rune_74]

Too much reading....ahh the days of ADD are here.

 

[Rahdulan]

It's a sad day when someone complaints about reading in an RPG.

 

[Melvil]

I beat Returns and Dragonfall before starting this game recently, and sadly, I had to stop and promise to come back later. Too much of the same thing coming off the previous two too quickly. Hong Kong seemed to have the most writing of the three, and that should be a welcome addition not something to be criticized for.

 

[DArtagnan]

None of these are close to 9. They're all around 7 or 7.5.

But, yes, if you keep repeating the same game over and over, it's hardly a surprise that people get sick of it eventually.

A product doesn't live in a vacuum, and whether it's good or bad very, very much depends on what came before and what else is available.

 

[Edgy]

None of these are close to 9. They're all around 7 or 7.5.

http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/shadowrun-hong-kong/critic-reviews

But that isn't relevant to GI review.

It's basically a game journalist being butthurt the game is not dudebro enough for him.
Ohh the reading! it's too much! I wanna me action!
He should definitely play planescape if he didn't, there is enough action there.

And don't get me started on the "it plays too much like previous installments"
argument. What did you expect from a s̶e̶q̶u̶e̶l̶ expendalone? there is that much the devs will do.

I bet the same people believe PoE 2 to have a drastic change in gameplay.

 

[Merin]

Here's what I think on that -

if a game has a winning formula, making "more of the same" is justified and probably wanted by a sizable portion, if not majority, of the fans of said game.

Likely, the ones who want changes or can't handle more of the same weren't big fans of the game in the first place.

As far as playing three Shadowruns in a row, yes, I get THAT - after finishing Hong Kong, I burned through Dead Man's Switch again, then started Dragonfall... and after getting a little into it, wanted to do something else. That's not Dragonfall's fault, that's me craving something different, to cleanse the palate at least.

I mean, you may love chocolate ice cream. And you may think you want it all the time. But if you actually had it all the time, your love would likely diminish, and you may end up so sick of it you never have it again.

So, my point is, I guess, that instead of looking to a given game developer to keep switching up stuff in a given game series... cleansing your palate by playing a different kind of game from a different developer would suit you better.

 

[mercy]

Battletech will save Harebrained!

 

[DArtagnan]

http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/shadowrun-hong-kong/critic-reviews

But that isn't relevant to GI review.

It's basically a game journalist being butthurt the game is not dudebro enough for him.
Ohh the reading! it's too much! I wanna me action!
He should definitely play planescape if he didn't, there is enough action there.

And don't get me started on the "it plays too much like previous installments"
argument. What did you expect from a s̶e̶q̶u̶e̶l̶ expendalone? there is that much the devs will do.

I bet the same people believe PoE 2 to have a drastic change in gameplay.

I'm not talking about the opinion of the masses, but my opinion

I have no problem that they're cloning the game over and over, I'm just saying that's what it is - and that it's natural to be sick of it eventually.

Do they deserve praise for it? I wouldn't know. I just don't think so.

They also said Avatar was better than the Godfather, you know.

 

[Wisdom]

If they repeat the same formula exactly, most reviewers will drop the score.

 

[Ripper]

I think they iterated just enough on that formula, and now realised it's time for a change with Battletech. I think the RPG market is very tolerant of more of the same, when the formula is good, and even demands it.

 

[KaosWarMonk]

Being a roguelike fan I'm also looking forward to trying Necropolis. Still have DF and HK to play too so all good here.

-kaos

 

[wolfing]

To me changes from game to game should be like Heroes of Might & Magic as opposed to King's Bounty. King's Bounty does it like Shadowrun, every game is pretty much the same except for the story. While each game of HoMM keeps the same style, but the components vary, so each game is fresh.

The problem with Shadowrun is that it doen't have that freedom because it's based on an established PnP system, so it can't change too much or risk becoming an aberration like Sword Coast Legends.

In my case, I liked Dragonfall more then Hong Kong, so I ended liking them 2 > 3 > 1. Still they're solid games, but I didn't like (in fact, I totally hated) the twitchy stealthy parts they introduced in Hong Kong.

 

[DArtagnan]

I think there are many ways to evolve Shadowrun that don't involve breaking the rule system.

But I don't think we're going to see much in that way from these developers.

Clearly, ambition isn't their thing.

 

[daveyd]

On the one hand, there's something to be said for "if it ain't broken, don't fix it".

Dragonfall DC is definitely my favorite of the three. I consider that game a masterpiece and one of my favorite RPGs. Combat isn't perfect in these games, but with the addition of flanking & armor system tin the Director's Cut, it was decent-"good enough" for a story driven game.

Hong Kong is good- it met my expectations for story / characters… and I loved how the approaches to missions can often change based on which companions you take along. However, many of the "improvements" to mechanics were actually a step back. Finally having a proper inventory system is great and the new cyberware was good. But I didn't care for the new Matrix additions (the twitchy stealth or the minigames / puzzles that actually make it possible for characters with low Decking skill to be amazing Deckers if the player is good at twitch mechanics).

I cannot think of many RPGs where I really like how stealth was implemented but I'd strongly prefer something that relies less on player reflexes and timing and more on strategy; whether there is actually a "stealth" skill or not; if they utilized some of the things that were actually in Shadowrun Returns (stealth oriented spells and silenced weapons)… proper stealth seems like something that really would add to a SR game. And things like Destructible cover might make combat a bit more interesting as well.

But I don't know why anyone would expect HK to have drastically different gameplay from DFDC. The game was released only like 7 months after the Kickstarter and $1.2 million really isn't that much for a budget when a lot of that surely went towards producing the rewards and some is still supposed to go towards making the mini-expansion stretch goal (due early 2016).

Honestly, I would've been content for HBS to keep on releasing a new Shadowrun Returns expandalone every year for the next decade…. Gonna be rough waiting years for another SR game after "Shadows of Hong Kong" comes out. But it's undeniable that the SRR engine has severe limitations and technical issues; Movement is clunkier than it should be, the UI isn't great and it can be damned frustrating trying to get your character to take cover in certain spots (i.e., if there are other characters close by you really have to fiddle with the mouse to get there). Most likely this is because of them planning to port the first game to tablets from the beginning. They have learned their lesson by now choosing to focus entirely on developing for the PC platforms, but unfortunately they learned it too late for this engine.

I do hope that the next SR game from HBS starts fresh with a new engine that isn't limited because of plans to port to mobile platforms (i.e., a Shadowrun Returns 2.0). HBS has the writing and atmosphere down perfectly; now they just need to improve the gameplay. A new engine will of course require a longer development cycle and thus bigger budget but it could be so amazing… I hope they do like inXile has been and run a Kickstarter for the next SR game while in the middle of development for Battletech.

 

[Necrosis]

Too much reading....ahh the days of ADD are here.

Does ADD stand for Advanced Dungeons and Dragons here, or Attention Deficit Disorder?