Shadow Warrior (1997) despite some of the level design annoyances, still feels underrated to this day (including Multiplayer)
First playthrough was done via SWP source port many years ago, but I decided to playthrough the game via DOSBox on Who Want's Wang difficulty.
If you are a fan Duke Nukem 3D and Blood, please give this game a try. (It's FREE on GOG and Steam)
First playthrough was done via SWP source port many years ago, but I decided to playthrough the game via DOSBox on Who Want's Wang difficulty.
If you are a fan Duke Nukem 3D and Blood, please give this game a try. (It's FREE on GOG and Steam)
So i finally managed to beat the last game of the Build engine holy trinity. Sadly, it’s pretty hard for me to avoid comparisons with the other two games. If you consider the fact that Duke Nukem is by far the most influential –probably for the simple reason of being the first one introducing the Build engine-, and that Blood is largely considered the best, Shadow Warrior might seem the weakest in comparison. And that’s pretty unfair, because Shadow Warrior is still a blast.
Lo Wang’s persona is all over the place, even more than the other build heroes. That’s not jut because of him having MANY more lines than Duke or Caleb, but also because his vocal performance is way more over the top than any other hero. And that leads me to another aspect of the game: The sound design. Ever felt, after a long session of playing Doom or Blood (to name a few), that the monster sounds got stucked in your head for some time after finishing your gameplay? In Shadow Warrior the only thing that get stuck with you is Lo Wang, monster sounds are not really something memorable (not so sure but i feel like many monsters don’t even have any sound at all, or at least i can’t recall any), which might be considered as a minimalistic approach to sound design, but i kinda feel like it’s just lazy. To add more to the sound design general lazyness: While the Riot Gun is a fantastically designed shotgun, i feel it’s fire sound is kinda weak, which is a bit underwelming. Of course, i know that Shadow Warrior is probably the most comical FPS of the 90s, therefore not really needing to build a certain atmoshphere through sound design. The music is also far from being memorable, mostly composing of a few ambient tracks with some eastern instrumentation, and that’s the only attempt of creating an “atmosphere”. But for sure, that’s one of the aspects that makes it feel inferior to the other two of the holy trinity. Of course, being nit-picky.
The gameplay is pretty simple. While some enemies can insta-kill you, they are never as much of a threat the way Blood hitscanners are. Weapons don’t pretend to have special functionalities for specific enemies, like in Quake or Blod. Here, they are mostly ordered from the least to the most powerful, and that’s it. That doesn’t mean that certain areas require their fair share of strategy, and just like in the other Build engine games, these strategies will frequently engage a large use of explosives. Shadow Warrior’s arsenal is excelent and it’s personality is just undeniable. Oh and another acomplishment for SW: this might probably be the only 90’s FPS that doesn’t featur any of those reaaaaally annoying enemies (i.e: Pain Elementals in Doom, Spawns in Quake) that are universally hated by everyone playing it. Okay, maybe the bees, but still they are pretty tolerable in comparison. Probably the greatest novelty introduced in shadow warrior is the possibilty of using vehicles. You can use tanks, gun turrets, and speedboats among others. They are super janky but also fun as hell, specially to kill large hordes of enemies.
I guess you can divide Shadow Warrior levels into three separate moments. The first one is actually the shareware episode and feature 4 levels. As many shareware releases from it’s time, it tries to comprise as much as it can from the whole game, including textures, enemies, and weapons, and it’s also the one with the strongest –to put it in a way- sense of storytelling. You start at a city level, then you go to a factory/techbase, and levels 3 and 4 –which have a fair extension- features a wide variety of themes: Ancient temples, dojos, forests, mountains, caves, and many more. I would say that the biggest flaw of this episode is it’s recurring use of puzzles, which are honestly kind of annoying, but all in all, this first moment is a great example of what Shadow Warrior is capable to offer.
The second moment focuses exclusively on ancient temples and such. While there’s not really a single bad map here, the truth is that it gets too repetitive, and kinda boring by the end. If you include the secret level, this whole section comprises 8 levels, which is a bit too much of the same aesthetic.
The third moment features some of my favourite maps, and contrary to the second set of levels, this one is a lot more thematically diverse. It starts with a few city levels highly reminiscent to Duke Nukem, and slowly starts going into some other military basement-related ones.
An incredibly fun game, Shadow Warrior is definitely a must for any retro-FPS fan.
Fav maps: Map03: Master Leep’s Temple / Map13: Unfriendly Skies / Map22: Auto Maul / Map16: Subpen 7 / Map17: The Great Escape
Worst maps: Map11: Sumo Sky Palace (Ok: At first the map is pretty good and different from the rest, but the latter platforming section, the trap near the end, and the final boss kinda ruined the whole level)
Lo Wang’s persona is all over the place, even more than the other build heroes. That’s not jut because of him having MANY more lines than Duke or Caleb, but also because his vocal performance is way more over the top than any other hero. And that leads me to another aspect of the game: The sound design. Ever felt, after a long session of playing Doom or Blood (to name a few), that the monster sounds got stucked in your head for some time after finishing your gameplay? In Shadow Warrior the only thing that get stuck with you is Lo Wang, monster sounds are not really something memorable (not so sure but i feel like many monsters don’t even have any sound at all, or at least i can’t recall any), which might be considered as a minimalistic approach to sound design, but i kinda feel like it’s just lazy. To add more to the sound design general lazyness: While the Riot Gun is a fantastically designed shotgun, i feel it’s fire sound is kinda weak, which is a bit underwelming. Of course, i know that Shadow Warrior is probably the most comical FPS of the 90s, therefore not really needing to build a certain atmoshphere through sound design. The music is also far from being memorable, mostly composing of a few ambient tracks with some eastern instrumentation, and that’s the only attempt of creating an “atmosphere”. But for sure, that’s one of the aspects that makes it feel inferior to the other two of the holy trinity. Of course, being nit-picky.
The gameplay is pretty simple. While some enemies can insta-kill you, they are never as much of a threat the way Blood hitscanners are. Weapons don’t pretend to have special functionalities for specific enemies, like in Quake or Blod. Here, they are mostly ordered from the least to the most powerful, and that’s it. That doesn’t mean that certain areas require their fair share of strategy, and just like in the other Build engine games, these strategies will frequently engage a large use of explosives. Shadow Warrior’s arsenal is excelent and it’s personality is just undeniable. Oh and another acomplishment for SW: this might probably be the only 90’s FPS that doesn’t featur any of those reaaaaally annoying enemies (i.e: Pain Elementals in Doom, Spawns in Quake) that are universally hated by everyone playing it. Okay, maybe the bees, but still they are pretty tolerable in comparison. Probably the greatest novelty introduced in shadow warrior is the possibilty of using vehicles. You can use tanks, gun turrets, and speedboats among others. They are super janky but also fun as hell, specially to kill large hordes of enemies.
I guess you can divide Shadow Warrior levels into three separate moments. The first one is actually the shareware episode and feature 4 levels. As many shareware releases from it’s time, it tries to comprise as much as it can from the whole game, including textures, enemies, and weapons, and it’s also the one with the strongest –to put it in a way- sense of storytelling. You start at a city level, then you go to a factory/techbase, and levels 3 and 4 –which have a fair extension- features a wide variety of themes: Ancient temples, dojos, forests, mountains, caves, and many more. I would say that the biggest flaw of this episode is it’s recurring use of puzzles, which are honestly kind of annoying, but all in all, this first moment is a great example of what Shadow Warrior is capable to offer.
The second moment focuses exclusively on ancient temples and such. While there’s not really a single bad map here, the truth is that it gets too repetitive, and kinda boring by the end. If you include the secret level, this whole section comprises 8 levels, which is a bit too much of the same aesthetic.
The third moment features some of my favourite maps, and contrary to the second set of levels, this one is a lot more thematically diverse. It starts with a few city levels highly reminiscent to Duke Nukem, and slowly starts going into some other military basement-related ones.
An incredibly fun game, Shadow Warrior is definitely a must for any retro-FPS fan.
Fav maps: Map03: Master Leep’s Temple / Map13: Unfriendly Skies / Map22: Auto Maul / Map16: Subpen 7 / Map17: The Great Escape
Worst maps: Map11: Sumo Sky Palace (Ok: At first the map is pretty good and different from the rest, but the latter platforming section, the trap near the end, and the final boss kinda ruined the whole level)
Dad and I sometimes reminisce at how difficult it was to see the lil remote control cars in the arcade on our original CRT/DOS setup. Four stars are for gameplay, weapons and graphics alone, it really didn't age well sadly. Tbh some of those lines/impressions really weren't acceptable on release either. It is a build engine classic so worth considering for that. I like Civvie's review of it: if you're interested, go watch the boomer shooter master at work.
Secretly my favourite of the Build engine games. Love the fast paced ninja warfare, the silly kung-fu movie tone, "iconic" voice acting (R.I.P.), and ridiculous weapons. Some levels are a bit crap to navigate and the fly enemies were a mistake, but this is otherwise a blast to rush through.
I'm going to be honest: I loved this game as a kid, but it is absolutely racist, sexist, and retrograde as hell. It's also definitely the worst of the three core Build games by any standard, so it's not even really worth revisiting for the historical value. Just play Blood instead. If you're a boomer shooter completionist, there are some interesting elements here. It's just buried under a lot of really virulent, shitty, lazy racism.
the least good and most racist of the big three build engine games. never stood out nearly as much as its two siblings and has nowhere near the amount of character or fun of those i think.
Good game and an absolute classic, it's free on Steam last I checked and is only 20 levels so give it a try if you like old school shooters
Might be the best build game if it wasn't weirdly racist. Like I get it, it's tongue in cheek and having a laugh but some of the stuff in this game man...
The racism wasn't even my biggest problem with this game.
"A Buggy, Badly Optimized Version Of A Classic But Aged Game"
I played through the 2013 reboot of "Shadow Warrior", and while I wasn't blown away by really any aspect of that game, it was still a fun above average FPS. I figured that I would give this classic version a shot to see why it is remembered by so many FPS fans!
I wish I had left it alone. This version that Steam provided for free is horribly buggy and does not run properly on a modern OS. This is a DOS version of the original game, which if anyone has tried to fix/enjoy DOS versions of old games, it is not a particularly enjoyable experience. My screen continued to glitch out repeatedly and would make both gameplay and menu interaction pretty much impossible. Numerous file fixes and mods didn't help, and I was only able to get portions of gameplay to actually experience without hiccups.
To me the shooting was lackluster, at least from what I was able to play. It is weird in that is "sort of" allows you to aim up and down, but the camera jerks back into position as you move, screwing with your aim and causing you to take more damage than needed. This is amplified in areas that involve either traveling up a ramp or jumping on top of boxes, which cause problems as enemies pump you full of lead. This title is already particularly challenging, but the camera and aiming controls made it much more difficult than needed. I wasn't able to enjoy this title very much due to technical problems, which is a shame because I now have to play the redux version that was released a few years back.
Luckily, I liked a few aspects of the game when it worked properly. The difficulty actually changed where enemies were placed, as well as how many there were in total. Additionally, the soundtrack is pretty good, though I wasn't able to hear much of it, but seeing other playthroughs and reviews it sounds great! I personally don't prefer FPS characters in the style of Duke Nukem and Lo Wang, but their quips are still humorous in their own ways and add some character that doesn't generally exist in many FPS titles.
I would have to go ahead and Not Recommend this title, only because the technical issues and unchanged style of aiming had ruined my experience. It is worth the download since it is free, but don't be surprised if you run into technical limitations due to it being a 20+ year old version of the game. I will still go ahead and try the Redux version so that I may be able to enjoy the adventures of Lo Wang without gameplay issues getting in the way.
Final Verdict: 2/10 (Bad)
I played through the 2013 reboot of "Shadow Warrior", and while I wasn't blown away by really any aspect of that game, it was still a fun above average FPS. I figured that I would give this classic version a shot to see why it is remembered by so many FPS fans!
I wish I had left it alone. This version that Steam provided for free is horribly buggy and does not run properly on a modern OS. This is a DOS version of the original game, which if anyone has tried to fix/enjoy DOS versions of old games, it is not a particularly enjoyable experience. My screen continued to glitch out repeatedly and would make both gameplay and menu interaction pretty much impossible. Numerous file fixes and mods didn't help, and I was only able to get portions of gameplay to actually experience without hiccups.
To me the shooting was lackluster, at least from what I was able to play. It is weird in that is "sort of" allows you to aim up and down, but the camera jerks back into position as you move, screwing with your aim and causing you to take more damage than needed. This is amplified in areas that involve either traveling up a ramp or jumping on top of boxes, which cause problems as enemies pump you full of lead. This title is already particularly challenging, but the camera and aiming controls made it much more difficult than needed. I wasn't able to enjoy this title very much due to technical problems, which is a shame because I now have to play the redux version that was released a few years back.
Luckily, I liked a few aspects of the game when it worked properly. The difficulty actually changed where enemies were placed, as well as how many there were in total. Additionally, the soundtrack is pretty good, though I wasn't able to hear much of it, but seeing other playthroughs and reviews it sounds great! I personally don't prefer FPS characters in the style of Duke Nukem and Lo Wang, but their quips are still humorous in their own ways and add some character that doesn't generally exist in many FPS titles.
I would have to go ahead and Not Recommend this title, only because the technical issues and unchanged style of aiming had ruined my experience. It is worth the download since it is free, but don't be surprised if you run into technical limitations due to it being a 20+ year old version of the game. I will still go ahead and try the Redux version so that I may be able to enjoy the adventures of Lo Wang without gameplay issues getting in the way.
Final Verdict: 2/10 (Bad)
Клёвая олдовый шутерок в азиатской стилистике, не хуже дюка 3д
Duke 3D but hard and bad
Shadow Warrior is an FPS game which comes from a strange time known as the late 1990s - where upon the entire premise of the game is that it satirises so much about Asian media, namely anime and samurai films and centred around a character called Lo Wang who is both a badass and also "Talks rike this." and exists as such a massive offensive caricature even at the time, but then it was somehow justified a bit with how it was sort of satirical - but it still goes a bit too heavy at points.
It's also a strange celebration of Asian whilst also engaging so heavily in offensive stereotypes, but I still found this game a load of fun and it's often genuinely funny at points. If you were to cast yourself back to a mindset of a 13 year old, then there's just so much fun that this game has with the combat and the gameplay - and the level design in particular is absolutely top-notch, managing to find the right balance between action, mood and interactivity.
Blood and Duke Nukem 3D were definitely better games than this, although this is a very solid Build engine game - namely because they knew what they were doing with it, and it's a strange experiment with morphing a samurai game with an FPS. The melee combat is satisfying when you get it to work - notably with just how powerful the sword is in this game and the satisfyingly gory kill animations, and it's sort of unbalanced but then there's something satisfying that comes with blowing people up to smithereens.
Also, this game has an absolutely punishing and brutal difficulty - almost where it can be downright unfair at points, but that's also kind of the fun of it. The whole thing is free on Steam (as in the DOS version of it is) so really this is something to check out.
It's also a strange celebration of Asian whilst also engaging so heavily in offensive stereotypes, but I still found this game a load of fun and it's often genuinely funny at points. If you were to cast yourself back to a mindset of a 13 year old, then there's just so much fun that this game has with the combat and the gameplay - and the level design in particular is absolutely top-notch, managing to find the right balance between action, mood and interactivity.
Blood and Duke Nukem 3D were definitely better games than this, although this is a very solid Build engine game - namely because they knew what they were doing with it, and it's a strange experiment with morphing a samurai game with an FPS. The melee combat is satisfying when you get it to work - notably with just how powerful the sword is in this game and the satisfyingly gory kill animations, and it's sort of unbalanced but then there's something satisfying that comes with blowing people up to smithereens.
Also, this game has an absolutely punishing and brutal difficulty - almost where it can be downright unfair at points, but that's also kind of the fun of it. The whole thing is free on Steam (as in the DOS version of it is) so really this is something to check out.