Microsoft announced at E3 2006 that Shadowrun will be one of the first Windows Vista games to allow gameplay between players on the Xbox 360 and PC. This was interesting and potentially exciting news, but it brought up the age-old issue of whether a mouse-and-keyboard setup or an Xbox 360 controller would have a strategic gameplay advantage.
Concerned about this ourselves, we sat down at E3 for an exclusive interview with Shadowrun’s lead designer, John Howard, to find out which input method is best.
DailyGame: You realize Shadowrun is going to fire up the old argument of which input device is better for gaming, right?
John Howard: I think that’s awesome. Shadowrun has been heavily tested across both platforms, and what we discovered first was that the gamepad was superior. We use the Halo 2 design for the controller, and we discovered that it had a definite advantage. Except for when it came to sniping, of course.
So what did you do about that?
We moved as much as we could from the controller over to the PC, because being good at run-and-gun is only one part of Shadowrun. With its melee and magic there’s a lot of different ways you can approach playing the game. The better you are at combining those abilities, the better you will be — regardless of the platform you’re playing on.
What kind of efforts did you guys put into testing that?
We’ve had both PC and Halo 2 veterans testing the game heavily, and our own team tests and plays the game every single day. The majority of the game is already done and in the can, so all we’re focusing on now is balancing between the different races and weapons and the different platforms. One thing I’d really like to see would be the winners of a Counter-Strike PC tournament going against the winners of a Halo 2 console tournament. I think they’d be surprised at how well balanced the two sides really are.
You seem to have the veterans gamers covered, but what about the novice players?
Bill Fulton joined the FASA team for this project. He created the usability group testing that Microsoft uses for all its games.
He was in charge of testing and balancing Halo, right?
Right, he did all of that. We regularly have testing groups of 60 or more random people playing the game and filling out surveys afterward. We actually get quantum statistics from that information and can predict how well the game will go over with the general public, usually within a few percentage points.
But even with all of those statistics, you’re still going to have critics and non-believers. I wouldn’t be surprised if a few gaming forums blew up debating this. How does it feel to be spearheading a first in gaming, tackling an old, hot topic with gamers?
I welcome it! I believe the game we made is a lot of fun. I know it’s fun. We’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback from it here at E3, and we’re all confident it’s going to be a success. Our goal right now is to get it into as many people’s hands as possible, so you can expect demos on the Xbox Live Marketplace and the Internet real soon.
Thanks to John Howard for taking the time to speak with DailyGame amid the frantic pace of E3.
