Shadowrun has come a long way (two whole editions!) since RA:S was first published, but the material is no less useful, fun, or mind-numbingly scary as it was the day it hit the market. I'm an old school guy. My introduction to Shadowrun occurred during the 2e and 3e days, so perhaps I feel a bit more nostalgic about these sourcebooks than most. But in my humble estimation, this sourcebook would still be valuable no matter what edition happens to be your poison.

The source book covers the events of the Renraku Arcology shutdown in which the mad artificial intelligence Deus takes control of the Arcology's systems, locks out the world, and puts into motion its plan to escape its hardware prison. In one day the Arcology--a corporate utopia in the middle of Downtown Seattle--is plunged into a dystopian nightmare of techno-horror on par with "Event Horizon" or "Pandorum."

Perhaps the supplement's greatest strength is its open-endedness. Many Shadowrun books are written in a similar vein, which I believe is one of the most endearing aspects of the gaming line. RA:S is written like a series of articles posted to the Seattle Shadow Node of the Matrix along with a couple short stories tossed in there for good measure. Using disparate anecdotes (complete with comments from several fictional "readers") they slowly piece together the story of the horror that has befallen the Arcology. Its great fun simply reading it, and the imaginative game master will find tons of adventure seeds for future games. It is purposefully left open-ended so that GMs can determine for themselves how the nightmare unfolds. Plus, it's relatively rules light, so you can customize the stats for the various baddies as needed. Therefore, it's not edition-dependent.

I'm a sucker for anything techno-horror. I'm also a sucker for Shadowrun in general. That's a double-whammy my cynical inner-critic can't overcome, so of course it gets a good rating. The only reason it didn't get a perfect five stars there was so little material (under a hundred pages!). And as a bit of a disclaimer, the four and a half stars implies that you like RPGs and Shadowrun especially. So if that doesn't fit the bill for you, your mileage may vary. ( )