By Greg McNevin

Following the recent claims by Falling Leaf Systems that it is soon releasing Halo 2 and Shadowrun compatibility libraries enabling these two Vista exclusive games to run on Windows XP, the infamous cracking group Razor 1911 has released a patch to enable Shadowrun to run on XP.

Bundled with an illegal cracked copy of the game, the patch replaces several of the game’s files and enables it to be played on XP machines sans online multiplayer. While SPOnG does not condone pirated software, we are curious whether the patch can be applied to legitimate copies of the game.

While Microsoft claims that DirectX10 is too complicated for an XP port, its decision to lock Halo2 and Shadowrun to Vista is a blatant bid to encourage gamer migration to its new OS in the face of lacklustre sales. Both of these games are DirectX9 based though, so the argument for exclusivity (which is tenuous at best according to some commentators) is somewhat undermined.