Shadowrun is a unique FPS that combines guns with ancient magic allowing players to harness such abilities as Teleportation and Resurrection. It's a game which some people will love but others will dislike due to a number of factors such as the long wait time you can experience if you die early in a round.

The matches in Shadowrun are played in a round based format with the 2 teams, RNA and Lineage competing against each other in either a Deatmatch mode or a CTF type of mode where one team attempts to grab the artifact in the middle and deliver it to the other teams base to escape. This mode often boils own to killing the other team anyway so there's not much variety here. The real variety is to be had with the magic. Weapons will get you so far, but to work as a team it's essential you pick up magic and use it effectively to maximise your teams potential. For example, Resurrect is a vitally important piece of magic that will revive your dead team members. Having someone on a team with this early in the game can give you the advantage you need in the first round. After this, things get a little more complex and more advanced magic like Summon come into play and the different magic can be used effectively in defence or offence.

Shadowrun is a purely multiplayer game. You can play on your own with bots but it's pretty boring and there's not much you can do. The bots are very smart though and can feel like human players. There's not even split screen so this game really does need Live to enjoy. And it is very enjoyable when you can chat with your team members and discuss tactics to win. One of the main problems of the game comes when playing "gamerscore whores". A fair number of people on Shadowrun play just to get the gamerscore available for using certain types of magic and weapons. I have come across several people who, when I ask why they haven't got resurrect even in the 6th round, haven't bought it because they already have that achievement. This really ruins the game an makes it all the more important that you get together with some friends to play it as it's so much more enjoyable.

Graphically, Shadowrun is very stylistic and has a fairly cartoony look at times with clean textures and impressive special effects such as the HDR and particle effects such as the leaves falling from a Tree of Life. It's not to everyone's taste but it'd be difficult to argue that they're not appealing and certainly don't get in the way when you're playing. There's also no frame rate issues I've encountered even with a lot of stuff going on and 16 players. It's also pretty good for lag nowadays after a few patches, but originally a lot of games suffered heavily and made it unplayable. Matchmaking also has issues but it's a lot better than it used to be and will generally keep your party together pretty well. In essence, it's a bit like the Halo 2 matchmaking with a little less flair, but it does the job well enough.

Using magic in Shadowrun requires you to use Essence. This recovers quickly over time (slowly for Dwarves), and obviously different magic has different costs. Some like Teleport are very cheap and can be used a lot whereas others, like Summon cost more and will even lock that amount of Essence until it is destroyed. This stops you from filling the level with magical items. Other magic includes Tree of Life which spawns a tree which anyone (including the other team) can use to heal; Strangle which creates a big blob of what looks like icicles to stop enemies in their tracks; Gust which blows enemies backwards and off the edge of levels as well as hurting enemies using Smoke and Smoke itself which stops you taking any damage whatsoever, while draining Essence. By the end of the game you'll probably have a large number of these depending on how well you've been playing, which can lead to very interesting and tense battles as you rush to find trees to heal and someone with resurrect. This works very well, and all the magic is balanced enough to make any of them viable purchases in the right hands.

Shadowrun does have it's nuances. There are a large number of players who will act like Ninjas and run about killing you in 1 hit with the Katana and running away from smoke. These players can be very aggravating but fortunately, most of them use the Elf class which has a low health and they can be disposed of fairly easily. The races themselves are all balanced too. You may think Trolls with their ridiculous health would be impossible to kill, but drain their essence and they can't do much, not to mention they're the biggest targets in the game. Dwarves can drain essence from objects but they recover it very slowly on their own, and they can also survive a headshot. Humans are the jack of all trades and start with additional money and no losses on tech (more on that later). Finally, Elves are extremely fast but very weak and don't take much to kill. They can also regain health when standing still.

This variety means that you're likely to switch between races until you find one you like best, and then may find you stick with it for a long time as it suits your play style. It also means that, when playing online, you'll almost always get a selection of the different races, and a team with a couple of each can be absolutely deadly.

The game not only provides you with a selection of magic, but also of "tech". Tech can be used to enhance various ability and most of them are passive, meaning they're permanently being used when you have them equipped. Deciding what to equip brings another layer of strategy into the game and you'll probably find yourself switching between different ones in specific situations. Some, like Smartlink enhance your vision and others like Wired Reflexes increase your agility and even allow you to dodge bullets when using the Katana. This link between the different weapons, magic and tech can make interesting strategies, like a Troll with a Minigun who can see through walls, change up the Minigun and teleport through the wall.

Shadowrun is an absolute blast to play. But it requires Xbox Live to enjoy it to its maximum and a bunch of friends you can kick some yank arse with.