It's a sad day for Shadowrun players everywhere. Community Manager Kimona has announced that they will be closing down the forums soon. In addition to that, they also plan on turning over the original site to the creators of the next Shadowrun game.

Want to find out more about this? Click on the  "read link" below to get to the full article.

Shadowrun (Xbox 360, PC) and MechWarrior fans rejoice: Jordan Weisman, the founder of the erstwhile FASA Corporation, has started a new studio called Smith & Tinker. The good news? The studio managed to get the license for Shadowrun, MechWarrior, Crimson Skies, and other former FASA IPs. More details in the full article!

FASA Studio has announced that come September 12, they will no longer be in business - this was announced in a post on the Official Shadowrun Forums. The Community Manager and Technical Support Manager are still being kept active though as they will continue to provide tech support as long as players continue to play Shadowrun (Xbox 360, PC).

The company, originally known as FASA Corporation, was started by Jordan Weisman and L. Ross Babcock. They are credited for classics such as Crimson Skies, Star Trek RPG (Table-top version), Shadowrun, and Battletech (Mechwarrior). The company eventually merged with Virtual World Entertainment (VWE) to become the Virtual World Entertainment Group. In 1999, Microsoft purchased the said company and decided to sell the VWE portion of their acquisition, leaving behind FASA Interactive as a subsidiary of Microsoft Game Studios.

It deeply saddens this blogger to have to report this news as this is one of the companies that got me into gaming. Let us all take a moment of silence in respect to a company whose products have provided many a happy memory for gamers around the world.

The official Shadowrun Forums have confirmed Title Update 2 more than a week ago and it's bound to hit anytime now. The developers warn about network issues as soon as the update hits, but they say the network should catch up in no time and everyone can enjoy their favorite cross-platform action.

The updates are expected to address some generally weird things that were noticed after the title initially set in. For the Vista version of Shadowrun (FASA Interactive), the dedicated server issues have been addressed. Crashes, UI, labeling and other iffy stuff were all taken care of. What's more, you can now properly exit a game if you weren't able to sign into it.

For both platforms, the main fix addressed matchmaking, which the devs say will see a 200-300 percent efficiency hike. The Artifact can now clear bodies lying around in Attrition mode and potentially exploitable areas were dealt with before anyone can take advantage.

Perhaps the best fix of them all is the curbing of the Unstoppable Achievement exploit which drove everyone on Live nuts. The game is also now more lenient to players who show inactivity by not kicking them every time, plus sync times have been improved.

Finally, bots shouldn't be so dumb this time around. It was promised that they won't kill themselves in the Sacrifice Pit, they won't look at walls with interest quite as much as before and they would support teams better. Thank goodness.

There are many more nice fixes posted on the site. If you follow the read link below, you can see all the fixes enumerated specifically. Hopefully, there's something for the bug that really ticks you off.

Hilarious antics and rip-roaring dialogue headed your way in this third episode of the brand-new machinima about Shadowrun, Rooster Teeth's 1-800-MAGIC. If you laughed or chortled at all with Halo's Red versus Blue, you'll probably fall out of your seat laughing with this particular series.

Spoilers aside, this episode tackles certain touchy subjects such as racism and racial discrimination - but also speaks about multiplayer peeves, seen as one character tries to convince the others that the system merely lagged, and a certain character did not just teleport. Funny stuff, if a bit on the foul-mouthed side.

No more spoilers! Enjoy the video!

Buy: [Shadowrun (Xbox 360)]
Buy: [Shadowrun (Windows Vista)]

 

Although Falling Leaf Systems promised Windows XP gamers that they will begin on the "Alky Project" for Microsoft's Halo 2 for Windows Vista and Shadowrun to run on XP, the infamous cracking group Razor1911 took to the drawing boards earlier and released their own fix for FASA Studios' Shadowrun, allowing them it played in Windows XP.

Reports have come in stating the crack fix for the two games only require a simple overwrite of the games' files. Once successfully completed, the games will run in Windows XP even with DirectX 9 installed only, the report says. Inquiries on the crack's no-cd capabilities have yet to be verified.

The Alky Project for the two games was conceptualized by Falling Leaf Systems back in early to mid-May, after no attempt by Microsoft was made to deliver the game to existing Windows XP gamers. As a result, Falling Leaf focused on delivering the Alky Compatibility Libraries which should have offered drivers to run the two aforementioned games on the NT 5.0 kernel.

The drivers were announced to be available soon within the year for no additional fees.

 

FASA's Shadowrun for Vista and the Xbox 360 was recently patched this June 22. A lot of players may be wondering what the patch actually did. Well, the patch actually addressed some issues and bugs, but had very little to do with balancing the characters and gameplay.

The patch fixed up some of the interface issues in Vista as well as a few hardlock issues in the Xbox 360. Probably the biggest fix though was the repair of a memory leak that affected the game's stability and performance in some players' systems. If you want to get the specifics, check out the list in our Full Article (see the Full Article link below).

One problem they weren't able to fix is the lag players have been experiencing. FASA is still looking into the issue, but has come up with a few suggestions for those experiencing this problem with the game.  First up, open your 360 dashboard and select the System tab. Then head to Network Settings and select Test Xbox Live Connection. If the test gives says "OK," then you should be good to go.

If you're still experiencing problems with the game, you could try using a maintenance fix to clear the cache. Remember that this is not recommended by Microsoft, so proceed at your own risk. Using this also clears out other things from your Xbox 360 such as all other downloaded patches. Don't worry too much about that since it can be re-downloaded.

If you do decide to perform the maintenance fix, Press Y on either the HDD or a MU and then press X, X, LB, RB, X, X. Once you do this a window will appear saying: "This will perform maintenance on your Xbox 360 storage devices. Do you want to continue?" Then you simply pick the yes option. Once again, this is not recommended by Microsoft so you're doing this at your own risk.

Hopefully, these fixes will help in delivering a better gaming experience to Shadowrun players everywhere. A lot of players may be more than a little disappointed since they were expecting more content for the game in this patch, but perhaps we'll be seeing it in the next one.

For the change log, check out our Full Article.

 

For those who are planning to pick up both Halo 2 and Shadowrun, or even just Halo 2 for Vista. Circuit City is running a sweet deal where you can get Shadowrun for free if you buy a copy of Halo 2 for Vista. Yup, you're getting two games for the price of one. Halo 2 for Vista is going for US$ 39.99 which is pretty good if you don't have a copy of it already for your Xbox or just want to play it on your PC (Keyboard + Mouse = pwnage).

Both games are playable over Microsoft's Games for Windows Live service where you can play against players on the Xbox 360. Halo 2 is about Master Chief fighting against ... why bother, you probably know this by now. Shadowrun however, is an online based game where you go head-to-head against other players using magic and some heavy ordinance to take out your opposition. Counter-Strike fans might want to check this out since both games have similar gameplay.

That said, click on our read link to head straight to Best Buy to view their promo. Be sure to keep checking back here for the latest deals and bargains for your PC.

The Windows Live service which has been the talk of a lot of PC and Xbox 360 gamers has finally launched. It debuted last July 1 with the release of Shadowrun, the first game which allows both PC and Xbox 360 communities to have 16-player matches online. Another game that will take advantage of this service is Halo 2 which will be coming out this May 8. The question is, is it worth it?

To see if the service is worth the time and money, we'll have to discuss both the service and the launch title.

The Windows Live service. The service itself is really good with the free Silver option (for those who don't want to pony up additional cash) and with the Gold subscription for the more hardcore players. What most have been worrying about is the connection between the Xbox 360 to the PC and the possible lag that the interface of both systems might experience.

Shadowrun on Windows Live. However, Shadowrun is another story. Most of the people who ponied up the US$ 60 for the game have pointed out that it has potential. The gameplay is great and the graphics are passable. The concerns that most people have are both the pricing and the fact that it's an online-only game with three modes of play. It has nine single-player training missions, so you'll really need to play online. When you do get online, there are only three modes of play so you don't really get much bang for the buck.

On the bright side, the first update is already rumored to be in the works. In addition, this has the potential to be a really great game if the community really gets behind it. If not, well, it flops... bad.

Those things said, it's not really such a bad launch for Microsoft's Windows Live. We'll just have to wait and see if the community really rallies under this new standard or decides to ignore it.

Several hours ago, Xbox 360 and Windows Vista owners were greeted with the news that Microsoft released the Shadowrun FPS for their respective platforms. And while we imagine players who've purchased their copy are enjoying the game's linked play capability, we've picked up another upcoming event, courtesy of FASA.

The game developers has just announced that as part of the ongoing festivities surrounding Shadowrun's release, FASA is planning to run the second part of the Play the Devs Day this Thursday, May 31.

This event will provide gamers with an opportunity to meet up (online) with Shadowrun's creative team, who in turn have several activities such as a Q&A session being planned for the appointed day. The event is scheduled for 3 p.m. (Seattle time), and will be conducted via IRC chat. Players interested in joining are advised to PM the FASA developers via their Gamertag.

Shadowrun (rated "M" by the ESRB) for the Xbox 360 is priced at US$ 59.99, with the Windows Vista port coming in at US$ 49.99. The game includes nine unique maps and three additional map variations, showcasing environments set in a futuristic Santos, Brazil, and its neighboring ancient Ziggurat. Shadowrun includes six training chapters, with four levels of difficulty provided for the game's bots. For the guys who've decided to wait and see if the game's worth buying, expect a demo to be released this June 6 via Xbox Live.