Shogo: MAD is only the second major game this year to utilize a brand new 3D engine, the first being Unreal which is powered by the engine with the same name. For being coded from the ground up, Monolith's LithTech engine is a very capable one. Like Unreal, the LithTech engine handles indoor and outdoor environments with ease, and Shogo takes advantage of that fact. Levels range from an underground parking garage, to an open-air market to the expanse of the surface of a desert planet, and each is depicted believably. Unlike Unreal however, Shogo's level design is nothing special. Texture quality, while not horrible, is by no means comparable to the clarity of Unreal's. Level structure begins to approach that of Quake II, with simple and mundane designs being the norm. You won't find the spidery hallways of Unreal, nor the complex layout of Half-Life in this game.

While level design might be sub par, the game employs visually stunning special effects. Particle effects, the staple eye candy in Shogo, are used mainly for smoke trails of debris, rockets and shrapnel. After a heated battle between MCA's on a city street, these effects can be seen implemented in the smoke wafting away from the smoldering mess. That simple effect alone will leave a player, assuming he/she survived the battle, appreciating the minor details which Monolith went the extra mile to perfect. This "perfection of minor details" can be found everywhere from the spectacular explosions to the empty shell casings on the ground. Even the bullet marks left on objects vary from weapon to weapon.

The LithTech engine does its best work behind the scenes. To save processor power, the LithTech engine will scale down the number of visible polygons on any given object as it moves away from you. That is, since the details on a 500 polygon model become almost indiscernible as it becomes farther away, utilizing the CPU to process those polygons is a waste of valuable power. The LithTech engine simply reduces the number of polygons from that object, saving the CPU to process on the more important onscreen action.

As Brett Micheals so eloquently once stated, "every rose has its thorn," and Shogo has a number of prickly deformities that range from being an annoyance to simply being unacceptable. The story, while not overly complex, is heavily segmented, especially towards the end. Characters also begin to act out of place. Admiral Akkaraju, who in the beginning was the voice of reason, undergoes a sudden transformation into a self-righteous genocidal antagonist midway through the game. This is most likely due to the multiple path and ending sequence that Shogo utilizes.