Special Effects: Going Fast is Simple

When "Shadowrun" made its big debut at E3 2006, we felt pretty good going into the show; we knew our gameplay was fun, we had all of our levels prototyped, and most of our magic and tech functionality was in place. However, "Shadowrun" had a problem: A year from ship, with mostly placeholder effects, we were out of CPU cycles to make things pretty.

"Shadowrun" has a demanding set of gameplay requirements. While certainly enhancing the player experience, they also cause heartache and strife as programmers try to coax the game into running at a rock solid framerate. Sure, "Shadowrun" multiplayer matches support 16 players – as do "Halo 2" and "Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter," de rigueur for console first-person shooters. However, with the addition of magic and technology in the hands of a smart player, the complex entity count (and computer horsepower required) in a match can quickly double or even quadruple – magic trees, elemental minions, and strangle barriers take their own toll on our poor little CPU.