Shadowrun (1993)

Beat the game after getting wrecked on my first try. Since you don't start with a gun I thought the scalpel found at the beginning was the starting weapon, Planescape Torment style. Needless to say I got shot to death trying to melee enemies when melee combat is not even a thing in this game. I got quite annoyed and ended up checking a walkthrough. Oh, I went the wrong way. I regularly had to refer to the walkthrough to figure out what to do and where to go. Along the way I also read about the mechanics and optimal way to play.

I ended with the best gear, 14 body, 16 magic, 6 strength, 3 charisma, 8 firearms, 5 computer, 6 heal, 5 invisibility, 3 freeze and 2 armor. I was mostly combat oriented and mostly used invis for battle and heal for afterwards. I don't remember if I actually used the other spells while I do remember putting most of those points into computer late game and needing to use heal to offset the damage I was taking from hacking. Pretty sure I did not hire anyone.

I had already played through Shadowrun Returns before this game so I was already familiar with the setting, which is fascinating. The art style, setting and story also remind me of awesome games like Torment and the early Fallouts. The entire concept of a shooter rpg is excellent but the implementation of this game is not. It is more tedious than not and just not that much fun. There is just too much of the player's time wasted trying to figure out what to do (especially with the option to ask any character about the huge list of keywords you get) and the combat leaves quite a bit to be desired. No melee, no reloading, no cover, no dodge, only a handful of things to do other than shoot (which have questionable balance). The game could have been a lot better but I overall liked it. 6.5/10.