The premise: you arrive in Seattle in the year 2050 to find out who killed your brother, and why. The story takes a backseat to the heavily stat-driven gameplay, most of which requires you to collect (a lot of) money and develop your character with cool implants, spells, weapons, and assorted computer software. There are optional quests, sub-plots, and enough plot twists and alternate options to keep you glued to the screen and replay the game (although there is really only one good ending).

As can be expected from a good cyberpunk game, Shadowrun lets you grope around in cyberspace to get various passwords, money and information in addition to the basic RPG elements of talking to NPCs, fighting the undesirables, and improving your stats. True to the original, you can choose to be one of three character types and develop different skills as you play. You can also hire NPCs to work for you. It’s a lot more fun to hire different archetypes to fully experience the game. If no-one in your party has a data jack, for example, the game will be much harder, and you miss out on a neat cyberspace combat system. The game has a lot of depth: you can spend dozens of hours – if not hundreds – if you want to collect every spell, update your cyberdeck to the most powerful, find the best programs, etc.

Because it follows the original Shadowrun RPG rules very closely, you might find combat in the game tedious if you prefer the simpler system that characterizes a typical anime-style console RPG. On the flipside, fans of Shadowrun or "systematic" RPGs in general will have a great time in Seattle. Whether or not you are a fan of old-skool RPGs or cyberpunk computer games, you will love Shadowrun. If you think console RPGs are all simple or easy, Shadowrun will be a pleasant surprise. Two thumbs up, way up.