L-R: rapture, Goku (Chattanooga, TN), EnragedGnome (Atlanta, GA), and Vintage (New York City, NY).

I'm still loving Shadowrun. Goodbye HALO 2 (PC), HALO 3, et. al.

BTW: We still got beat...

Shadowrun by FASA is my new favorite first person shooter. It's cross platform so it connects XBOX 360 and Windows Vista together for the first time.

What's the better platform? That's not the right question. The question should be: "What's the better input device?"

As a PC gamer, it stinks to have to tell you that the XBOX 360 controller is the better input device in Shadowrun. However, this is strictly because the User Interface in Shadowrun (for 360 and Vista) is designed for a controller. The "quick cast" menu is harder to navigate with a keyboard and mouse than with a controller. The UI was designed for the controller.

In order to try to fix this imbalance, I've written scripts for the Logitech G15 keyboard. This will allow me to macro quick cast spells to the "G" keys. In my testing, due to the finger travel required to use the "G" keys, quick cast is still slower with the G15 keyboard than with the XBOX 360 controller. However, it is faster than doing it manually.

Below is a sample profile that you can import into your G15 profiler.

Copy the code below
Paste it into a text editor like Notepad
Name the file "shadowrun.lgp" and save it
Launch the G-series Keyboard Profiler application
Go to "Profile > Import" and select "shadowrun.lgp"

Now Resurrection and Tree of Life can be assigned to a G key. Experiment with the code below to tweak the macros to better work for you. Depending on your screen resolution, you may have to tweak the "dx" and "dy" values. To add new magic, you'll need to tweak the "mousemove" commands and their "dx" and "dy" settings to work for your resolution and for the technology and magic you want.

(Note to controller fanboiz: Even with these macros, quick casting on a KB/M is still slower than with a controller. Finger travel is involved. Only the "G" keys on the G15 keyboard can be mapped. Controllers still have the advantage.)

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?></p>
<profiles>
<profile guid="{CB57353E-8415-4A71-954A-04E9A405EF72}" name="rapture SR" revision="1.04">
        <description>
            Shadowrun profile
        </description>
        <macros>
            <macro name="Resurrection" guid="{8B4EC57D-D261-4D28-9D19-9095534744C1}" type="multikey">
                <event type="keydown" keyname="F"/>
                <event type="delay" delay="40"/>
                <event type="keyup" keyname="F"/>
                <event type="delay" delay="40"/>
                <event type="mousemove" dx="-30" dy="0" coordinate="relative"/>
                <event type="delay" delay="140"/>
                <event type="mousemove" dx="-30" dy="-30" coordinate="relative"/>
                <event type="delay" delay="40"/>
                <event type="mousedown" mousebutton="left"/>
                <event type="delay" delay="40"/>
                <event type="mouseup" mousebutton="left"/>
                <event type="delay" delay="40"/>
                <event type="mousedown" mousebutton="left"/>
                <event type="delay" delay="40"/>f
                <event type="mouseup" mousebutton="left"/>
            </macro>
            <macro name="Tree of Life" guid="{A8FD16EC-1CE9-4FA2-B9DD-39C37336D743}" type="multikey">
                <event type="keydown" keyname="F"/>
                <event type="delay" delay="40"/>
                <event type="keyup" keyname="F"/>
                <event type="delay" delay="140"/>
                <event type="mousemove" dx="-30" dy="0" coordinate="relative"/>
                <event type="delay" delay="40"/>
                <event type="mousedown" mousebutton="left"/>
                <event type="delay" delay="40"/>
                <event type="mouseup" mousebutton="left"/>
                <event type="delay" delay="40"/>
                <event type="mousedown" mousebutton="left"/>
                <event type="delay" delay="40"/>
                <event type="mouseup" mousebutton="left"/>
            </macro></p>
<p>        </macros>
        <assignments>
            <assignment gamekey="G1" shiftstate="1" macroguid="{99D13200-6316-4E34-A19A-DFAA4A9C70FC}" playmode="oneshot"/>
            <assignment gamekey="G7" shiftstate="1" macroguid="{8B4EC57D-D261-4D28-9D19-9095534744C1}" playmode="oneshot"/>
            <assignment gamekey="G9" shiftstate="1" macroguid="{A8FD16EC-1CE9-4FA2-B9DD-39C37336D743}" playmode="oneshot"/>
            <assignment gamekey="G10" shiftstate="1" macroguid="{99D13200-6316-4E34-A19A-DFAA4A9C70FC}" playmode="oneshot"/>
            <assignment gamekey="G12" shiftstate="1" macroguid="{6439ACE8-1D7D-46EB-B952-329A273AC709}" playmode="oneshot"/>
        f    <assignment gamekey="G6" shiftstate="1" macroguid="{4FBA9CEA-C2C7-4084-9860-8DFEE728A7EB}" playmode="oneshot"/>
        </assignments>
        <target>
            C:Program FilesMicrosoft GamesShadowrunShadowrun.exe
        </target>
    </profile>
</profiles>
<p>

The initial community of beta testers was rock solid. Everyone was very vocal, mature, and articulate.

And then the flood gates were opened to a ton of other testers. Let's hope this guy takes the "fall" soon. What he was doing in-game to me was worse.

I've uploaded some of my carnage reports to my Flickr account.

Big news today for me. HALO 2 for Vista, a game that I've been waiting on for a long time, finally has a release date. May 8th H2V is released along with the Games for Windows - Live service.

Also, Shadowrun has a launch window of June 2007. This game will be the first to allow console gamers and Vista gamers to play in the same game together.

Yippie.

It's now time to start buying computer parts for my new gaming rig. I think of going with the soon to be released ATi DX10 cards and some kind of Core 2 Duo processor.

Pre-order HALO 2 for Vista

I've been playing the Shadowrun beta on XBOX 360 (although I'd rather play on Vista with a keyboard and mouse) for the past few weeks. The NDA is pretty strict so I can't say anything about the beta that isn't already legally public. That said, there is a good bit of information out there that I want to share with everyone. I'll do that later. I plan on writing a pre-NDA-lift summary and a post-NDA-lift summary. That said, I've been playing the Shadowrun beta whenever I'm free to play on the 360 bar a few exceptions. Now, if I could get into the Shadowrun Vista beta.

Shadowrun beta: check