Game News Shadowrun: Hong Kong Released

[Ninjerk]

She's not a fatass, she's a troll.

 

[Excidium II]

Who said she's fat?

 

[Ninjerk]

That's what you like.

 

[Excidium II]

That's what you like.

I like it big. Like trolls are p. big.

 

[Crescent Hawk]

Eiger ? Are you kidding me? Glory is perfect white knight gene activator.

 

[Septaryeth]

I have some gripes about this game but there is one that I must spit out first.

Is0bel's quest. It's absolute trash.

But that's a story for another day.

I noticed the changes and few improvements in HK are very similar to the suggestions Codex made during the DF discussion.
Then I came across this...coincidence?

Spoiler

Will Codex star as the master AI like APEX in the next Shadowrun game?

EDIT: I just found out about the donation campaign, also image fixed.

 

[Nekot-The-Brave]

The Matrix now has a mini-game. Fuckin' decline, if you ask me.

Is it too hard for you?

 

[Gondolin]

Is it too hard for you?

It's annoying.

 

[Roguey]

Fucking glory plebs. Eiger is the best.

Would brofist if not for the low-quality porn.

Climb the Eiger.

 

[VioletShadow]

I'm really enjoying this game so far. Encountered a bug where I couldn't exit a mission but fixed on reload, some typos and minor grammar things, and yep agree that Is0bel mission is meh. HOWEVER....Gaichu. That is all. I absolutely love this character, imho the best companion out of all three games. Yes, Eiger is a sis and I love her too. I find the HK team members to be more interesting as a whole compared to Dragonfall.
The presentation is very nice, writing is good, environmental storytelling is SUPERB. I really like that they did their research on the culture: aesthetics, philosophical themes, characterization all feel very genuine.
Now, the matrix. I can see how it could be a bit tedious for some, but I really love the new 'minigame' hehehe I get all the number combinations every time! So far, I've succeeded at evading the watchers like 90% of the time I just sneak around them using the "safe" squares. The only times I get detected is when they find you as soon as you enter a room
On the negative side, etiquettes are once again seriously unbalanced. Lots of uses for academic and gang, maybe one for security or shadowrunner....
Still, game is

 

[Excidium II]

Would brofist if not for the low-quality porn.

Climb the Eiger.

Hey, you take what you get. At least the proportions are gud.

On the negative side, etiquettes are once again seriously unbalanced. Lots of uses for academic and gang, maybe one for security or shadowrunner....

What a coincidence, the two etiquettes I took.

 

[VioletShadow]

Also, Club 88 music is awesome, I be like

 

[V_K]

maybe one for security or shadowrunner.

Not true, there's a ton of shadowrunner checks. Corporate on the other hand....

 

[Nekot-The-Brave]

I rolled bad RNG (just kidding) and chose Corporate and Security for my first etiquette. I've had zero opportunity to use that so far.

 

[Deleted member 7219]

I rolled bad RNG (just kidding) and chose Corporate and Security for my first etiquette. I've had zero opportunity to use that so far.

You will find uses for both.

 

[Septaryeth]

I'm really enjoying this game so far. Encountered a bug where I couldn't exit a mission but fixed on reload, some typos and minor grammar things, and yep agree that Is0bel mission is meh. HOWEVER....Gaichu. That is all. I absolutely love this character, imho the best companion out of all three games. Yes, Eiger is a sis and I love her too. I find the HK team members to be more interesting as a whole compared to Dragonfall.
The presentation is very nice, writing is good, environmental storytelling is SUPERB. I really like that they did their research on the culture: aesthetics, philosophical themes, characterization all feel very genuine.
Now, the matrix. I can see how it could be a bit tedious for some, but I really love the new 'minigame' hehehe I get all the number combinations every time! So far, I've succeeded at evading the watchers like 90% of the time I just sneak around them using the "safe" squares. The only times I get detected is when they find you as soon as you enter a room
On the negative side, etiquettes are once again seriously unbalanced. Lots of uses for academic and gang, maybe one for security or shadowrunner....
Still, game is

It's an entertaining game, but I'm not sure if it's an actual incline.
Dragonfall has improved on almost every aspects DMS has except for maybe the atmosphere. (I use the word maybe because noir is not necessarily everyone's thing.)
Hong Kong certainly has improved their companions and allow the player to further curstomize your runner's personal background, but gameplay-wise it's noticeably worse.
The difficult is good at the start, it's a balance between Hard and Very Hard in Dragonfall Director's cut, meaning they took out that ridiculous RNG.
However, HBS are way way WAY too generous with their karma. This is probably related to another issue I wanted to point out.
This time they chose "quantity over quality", "variety over focus".
There are more missions and more variable objectives, but most of them are hardly great. Entertaining, yes, but none are as lengthy and enjoyable as those in DFDD.
At the same time, these milk runs give about the same amount of karma as those significantly larger runs in Dragonfall.
It's good that they allow us more karma to see if we can push the builds to their completion or the extreme so to say.
But at the same time there should also be a big boost on the enemy's skills and stats.

Right now the difficulty almost feels like DMS all over again, for different reasons.

Spoiler

I just took down the Red Samurai without getting hit. Without any decker to help me setting up the traps.
I admit I played this mission like close to the end, but still, for all the praising and scary bullshit I read from the conversation, this is a dramatic let down.

With less levels in each run, HBS fit them well with lighter stories compare to Dragonfall.
They are certainly amusing but can be sometimes forgettable.
Sure we don't need another crazy Satan-worshiping shaman and his harem. I'm just wondering if they restrict themselves too much on this one.
I mean part of the story's premise is how you started as a shadowrunner who would do ANYTHING in order to survive on the street. And it did started that way.
But these missions......not sure how to put it, goofy? Can't be taken seriously? Bland?
Or maybe I'm only feeling this way because I put in less effort due to the lowered difficulty.

Also, Racter is better.
Which character the best in all 3 shadowrun games? Discuss!

 

[Stormcrowfleet]

I like it. Some stuff I like less (everything 'seems' more linear ?; minigame in matrix that is easy as fuck and just time consuming), but overall its still SR and its cool. I like the fact that I was able to recruit (albeit easily) two more party members because I actually did something. That Samurai-ghoul at least needed some decision and all, it's cool. But in PoE too I thought the beginning was okay/cool, I'll see if this one can keep up the pace until the end (which I think Dragonfall did, especially with the diverse ending).

It's still easy as fuck tho.

 

[almondblight]

It's still easy as fuck tho.

In on of the interviews Mitch talks about initially having very hard, but taking it out because they weren't able to set it up properly in the time-frame they were working with (they also apparently had a much more ambitious matrix revamp planned that would have taken twice as long, as well as a rough plan for an astral space stretch goal).

 

[Infinitron]

Which interview is that?

Very Hard is just a modifier on stats, isn't it? Unless they wanted to do a full-blown hardcore mode instead, but why not bring back the regular Very Hard if they couldn't?

 

[Blackstaff]

Which interview is that?

Very Hard is just a modifier on stats, isn't it? Unless they wanted to do a full-blown hardcore mode instead, but why not bring back the regular Very Hard if they couldn't?

I think he is talking about that one, at the end :



During the KS, Mitch seemed really interested in the idea of doing a special difficulty mode like "shadowrunner". Maybe they are still thinking of doing something like that for the release of the mini campaign next year.

 

[Infinitron]

Ah yes, Arv's stream, I forgot about that. Shame he didn't do it the day before the game was released, I would have given him a newspost.

 

[Zeronet]

Not only that, but half of the minigame is fucking Simon. I mean, c'mon.

(it's skippable, though... the bruteforce option only 'costs' 50 trace, and Iso's starter deck has a much higher limit. May be possible to skip multiple ones too, if she gets a chance to use the Suppress program between them..)

How annoying is it? It sounds pretty annoying, somebody i know who's playing it absolutely hates it.

 

[V_K]

Somewhat. Personally I hated real-time stealth sequences more. But both are avoidable - you can just fuck system trace and go full combat.

 

[Zetor]

It's a bit annoying... not just because it's RT twitch, but also because it's so samey. Watch for travel pattern of IC, then just follow one of them around until you get to the other side of the map while occasionally dodging vision cones from other ICs.

I think a turn-based switch would really help. Problem is, if they did that, they'd have to redo the scripting for all timed matrix sequences -- right now they depend on the player staying in freemove mode in the matrix, and only dropping to TB mode once or twice.

 

[Stormcrowfleet]

In on of the interviews Mitch talks about initially having very hard, but taking it out because they weren't able to set it up properly in the time-frame they were working with (they also apparently had a much more ambitious matrix revamp planned that would have taken twice as long, as well as a rough plan for an astral space stretch goal).

Quite sad. Those kind of games have huge possibility in terms of difficulty mode since the combat are all fixed and planned-out i.e. they can make combat actually more tactically difficult with different enemies and enemy positioning instead of just having enemies getting better stats.