Shadowrun

Introduction
You are Jake Armitage, a shadowrunner. You were unceremoniously executed in the streets, but somehow you woke up in the morgue (albeit with a massive migraine). Somebody wants you dead, and you have to find out who -- and why.

Outside the Matrix

 * A: Draw weapon/fire
 * B: Examine/manipulate objects, talk
 * L: Examine object
 * R: Pick up object
 * Select: Show stats
 * Start: Game menu

Both manipulating objects and firing weapons depend on positioning the cursor. You might wonder how you can take evasive action in combat when you cannot move and control a cursor at the same time. Well, you can't. You generally just stand in place and fire your weapon, taking whatever damage comes your way. This is not a tactical game.

Inside the Matrix

 * A: Initiate combat (destroy IC or nodes)
 * B: Pick up data/alter program

The morgue
You can examine your chamber to find a hidden piece of paper. Open the right freezer and take the slap patch within. You can either use it when you're near death, or hang onto it to use later (you'll need it to obtain the Magic Fetish, but you can buy a patch later in the game). Also notice near the bottom end of the room a scalpel on a tray. It is not easy to spot so use the hand cursor to locate it. Exit your room and the two men will be surprised to see you alive -- surprised enough that they run into the next room, fearing you to be a zombie. Walk out of the building and somebody will be surprised to see you alive... he saw the hitmen shoot you dead. He runs away for fear of being seen with you. Follow him into a dark alley. He will meet a bad end, but quickly go over to his body (past the enemy orc) and pick up and equip his weapon. Quickly kill the orc. Examine the Orc's dead body to find leather armor. Equip it. Go to the northwest and you will be greeted by a dog, but he won't be much help to you right now.

Your apartment
This will be one of the most tedious parts of the game. Even with your weapon and armor, you are very weak. You must go to your apartment because it will be your home base, and there are enemies in a neighboring room which you can repeatedly pick off to build up. Go to the town square, then go to the southeast. Head up northeast from there and you'll come across a big red building. Enter it, then take the nearest door. You'll find an incapacitated or, perhaps more likely, dead body. Examine him and pick up his key: this is actually the key to your apartment. Take the note as well if you like. Exit the building (the other room just has enemies), go to the northeast and then hook around the corner to the northwest. Keep going and you'll arrive at your apartment building. Enter it, find apartment six, and use the key on the door. Listen to the message on the video phone on the wall, open the filing cabinet and take the &yen;20, and pick up and use your sunglasses. (You look like a dork with 'em on, don't you?) You must also read the ripped note by the computer to get Sassie's phone number, although you can't use the information now until you have the credstick. Rest on the bed and save the game.

Now, enter the door just to the right of yours. Inside you'll likely find some enemies. Gun 'em down, take their nuyen, and repeat until you have 3 karma or are dangerously low on health. Go back to your bed and use your karma to boost your body attribute or firearms skill. Keep doing this until you have body and firearms at about 5 or 6; don't worry about boosting anything else as you don't need it right now. Once you have these attributes boosted, you should be safe until you reach the next major leveling-up area, the Caryards.

Exit the building and go to the southwest. You should now be in the plaza again. Look at the fence around the fountain: at the north end you will find a place where it can be opened. Open it to allow the dog to escape, and you get its collar. Pick it up, since you'll need it for a magic spell (any item that you need for a magic spell will give a distinctive sound when you examine it). Continue to the southwest to the next screen, and enter the building. We'll call this the "Glutman Building" because Glutman's office is the only thing of interest here. Enter the first door and defeat any enemies. On one desk you will see a small black object, a paperweight (use your cursor to help find it). Pick it up, since you'll need it to learn a magic spell. Now enter the second door, go up to the computer, and take the Cyberdeck. Exit the building.

Attributes

 * Body: Your HP is ten times your body attribute.
 * Charisma: Determines number of shadowrunners you may be with. The number is half your charisma, rounded down.
 * Magic: Your MP is ten times your magic attribute.

Balancing HP and MP
In the beginning, HP is at a premium and cannot be recovered well. Therefore, it is a high priority to boost your body stat (up to 5 before Caryards and around 10 at Caryards). Once you acquire the Heal spell, things start to change. At first you will not have enough karma to boost your spell to 6 and also increase your MP capacity. However, it is wise to do so when you can. The heal spell is by far the most useful spell in the game, so do not worry that a level 6 spell will drain your MP, because you'll use it for little else. You also experience increasing returns with each spell level. That is, each level adds more HP healing capacity than the previous level did.

Here's where the balancing act comes in. A level 6 spell heals 90 MP, therefore, late in the game, it is usually to boost your magic attribute instead of your body attribute, even if your body attribute is not maxed out and you have karma to burn. For example, suppose you have 15 body and 10 magic. You can burn 15 karma for a 10 HP boost, or you can burn only 10 karma for an extra 90 HP of healing capacity. Which is better, 10 HP or 90 HP?

This is not to say that it's worthless to boost your body stat a bit further. Doing so allows you to sustain damage longer before needing to cast the spell. If somehow you had only 10 body and 10 magic, it may be wiser to boost the body because you only get maximum value out of a level 6 heal when you have 10 HP or less, which is be dangerously low. If you have trouble healing yourself in combat, you might be better off getting your body attribute close to the max before you start boosting your healing capacity. An average or better player should need only about 15 body near the end, although you might want more when it's time to fight Drake.

Skills

 * Leadership: Determines how long shadowrunners remain with you.
 * Buy it at Dr. Maplethorpe's office.
 * Negotiation: Reduces cost of shadowrunners.
 * Buy it at the arena in the caryards.

Fun stuff

 * Most of the time you cannot shoot unarmed civilians. However, it still is possible sometimes. If they don't go down in one shot, you probably can't kill them. If you continue to shoot at people who you can't kill, you will get a warning. If you ignore the warning and keep doing it, you will lose one karma point, unless you have no karma, then you just get the warning again.
 * At Ed's Patch & Fix, after Ed activates the cortex bomb, you can shoot him. This is one of the rare exceptions to the rule that you cannot kill people who mean you no harm.
 * You can kill any scientist in the Drake Volcano whether they can hurt you or not.
 * You can try to kill the helicopter pilot at Drake Volcano (but not at the top of Drake Tower) and he'll take damage, but he seems to have infinite HP. It wouldn't be a good idea anyway because then the only way to get out would be to defeat Drake.

Bugs

 * It may sometimes be possible to kill an enemy with one hit if you shoot them before the battle music starts. Normally it won't happen, but it's possible.
 * One time furrykef was stranded on the Bremerton ship without the crowbar, even though he had picked up the item. This is apparently the result of the game automatically getting rid of some items you don't need at certain points in the game. It is not certain what triggered this, but it was probably either going to the Drake Towers or Aneki building too early. If this happens, you must reset the game. If the crowbar is still gone, you're screwed and have to start the game over from the beginning. Ouch!

Trivia

 * The name "Armitage" is a reference to Neuromancer, which features a character with this name. The Genesis Shadowrun also has a reference to Neuromancer, in the form of a character going by the name Nero Manser. Neuromancer is a book by William Gibson, and was the first cyberpunk novel.