Shadowrun: Dragonfall

I know I said I was going “books only” after Remedy’s outstanding Control. I didn’t lie, I just didn’t realize at the time that playing through Harebrained’s Dungeons & Cyberpunk trilogy was going to feel important.

In recent years I’ve tried to journal the reasons why I picked up a particular book, show, or video game. As of late, it feels as though I’m using games as therapy. The stress of closing a seven-year gap in computer science knowledge, under make-or-break conditions, has had me yearning for the old days of DOOM - TOOL - JOINT (not always in that order, but there was a long stretch of my late adolescence/early adulthood where video games, music, and marijuana were all I needed in any given twenty-four-hour period.) But I can’t be friends with Mary Jane and mathematics-based algorithm design. I envy those who can. My brain, quite literally, does not function that way. But the act of navigating a video game feels like it fills the same void of doing dope. So, I’m getting high while weaning myself off.

Whatever the case, I was compelled enough to complete this and the previous entry. The first game, Shadowrun Returns, was actually easy on easy difficulty. This one, however, was a grind. I cannot imagine how much more frustrating the experience would have been on normal or hard. While the combat remained the same, the narrative felt exponentially denser. Even as someone who has rediscovered his love for reading, I found it a hard slog at times. No fault to the writers, it’s just how it’s presented that caused the fatigue. Fans of visual novels know what they’re getting when they fire up a word-heavy title. Shadowrun is not a visual novel: it’s an isometric tactical game with a story bolted on top. I’ll admit to glossing over and skipping ahead of many of the dialogues in this title to reach the credits roll before losing interest.

I’m putting off my cold-turkey exit from gaming for now. I’ll work my way through the third game and see how it goes. On the plus side, I am reading a lot more.

2024.10.13 – 2024.10.19

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