FASA Studios brought a storm of fanboy anger upon themselves when they decided to pitch Shadowrun for Windows Vista and Xbox 360 as a first-person shooter. But they somehow convinced Microsoft to turn the RPG series into an action-oriented affair.

I spent a good half-hour playing both the Xbox 360 version and its Windows Vista counterpart, just to see how the game is progressing. FASA Studio manager Mitch Gitelman was hanging around the demo stations all day, helping out Shadowrun noobs like myself become accustomed to the controls, explaining the Magic and Tech systems.

After learning how to teleport through objects (simply walk, jump or crouch and you'll safely pass through walls, ceilings or floors), use my glider, and see enemies through solid matter (you're also given their distance in meters) I played my first bot match.

Having just played the PC version of Halo 2, I was thrilled to have some rather unconventional FPS gameplay at my disposal. Dodging firefights by dropping through the floor into the next room, then gliding safely to the floor below to throw out a Tree of Life to heal was, I admit it, damn fun.

As I learned more Magic and Tech abilities, I was shown the radial menu that lets you assign these skills to shoulder buttons and triggers. I cringed. I'd never be able to pull this off in the middle of a firefight and remember what button I'd assigned it to. Fortunately, the PC version makes this much easier, letting you assign skills to number keys. Mouse navigation also helps.

During my second level of 360 version gaming, I picked up new skills like Resurrection, which adds another fantastic aspect to multiplayer gaming. The ability to raise your fallen comrades, with your survival now dependant on theirs, opens up some cool strategic options.

Shadowrun is, unfortunately, a Vista exclusive. This will sadly limit its userbase, but cross-platform play with 360 owners will hopefully make up for that. If I were to buy Shadowrun (which is a possibility), I'd definitely go for the PC version, as the keyboard and mouse controls feel like a personal must. Given time, I'm sure I could get used to the radial menu options, but I'm just too damn impatient.

The product is shaping up far better than I had anticipated. My only concerns about the title lie in balancing. Cross platform play, combined with the new gameplay possibilities provided by things like teleportation, gliding, resurrecting and corpse-destruction could make levelling the playfield a bit tough. Let's hope FASA can wrap up all the loose ends and ship a solid title.

If you want to read more about Shadowrun, make sure you check out Mark Wilson's excellent hands-on feature from September of last year linked below. Michael McWhertor

Kotaku Feature: Shadowrun Hands-On [Kotaku]