New Shadow Warrior from Hard Reset devs - out now

[DalekFlay]

Well, like I said... can't please everyone.

No one ever said the game is perfect. It brings a lot of old school elements back which were very pleasing, and I personally find the combat to be very fun. Taste is subjective though, and it depends on what specific elements you are looking for I suppose. It definitely has a lot of modern aspects as well. No one is ever going to make a clone of the original build engine games with just better graphics.

Most of the complaints here either aren't true in my experience or aren't things I give a shit about, so... to each his own. In an age where the top shooters in the world are about holding W and clicking heads though, I would hope we can all agree this game is at least trying.

 

[Valestein]

This "remake" really sounds like a piece of shit then UserNamer and Darth Roxor.

Does it even have some of the old classic weapons like the Rail gun and Guardian head?

 

[Darth Roxor]

I would hope we can all agree this game is at least trying.

Or is it?

It's just as half-arsed as the top shooters you mention, just that instead of holding W and clicking heads, you hold W and slice heads, what's the damned difference? It's just shovelware with half-arsed gameplay that is supposed to be oldschool, but not oldschool enough to be tough, with bad design and concessions made every step. It's essentially a very, VERY dumbed down new-Raven-game, like Singularity or Wolfenstein, complete with "some old school ideas", corridors and xp upgrades, but at least Raven still knows how to make shooters that are fun to play, even if they add popamole elements for God knows what reason.

So, this game is a shitty Serious Sam clone pretending to be an old school shooter? Like Hard Reset?

Yup, exactly like Hard Reset, but with an added melee weapon that makes shit guns less frustrating, but no less annoying.

 

[Volrath]

So, this game is a shitty Serious Sam clone pretending to be an old school shooter? Like Hard Reset? I will play the original Shadow Warrior then, it's free on Steam.

Like I said: popamole pretending to be non popamole. Roxor just has a more elaborate reasoning as to why this game is shit.

 

[UserNamer]

just posting because I forgot to mention how lame the new down low wang and the humor is

 

[DalekFlay]

It's just as half-arsed as the top shooters you mention, just that instead of holding W and clicking heads, you hold W and slice heads, what's the damned difference? It's just shovelware with half-arsed gameplay that is supposed to be oldschool, but not oldschool enough to be tough, with bad design and concessions made every step. It's essentially a very, VERY dumbed down new-Raven-game, like Singularity or Wolfenstein, complete with "some old school ideas", corridors and xp upgrades, but at least Raven still knows how to make shooters that are fun to play, even if they add popamole elements for God knows what reason.

Yes, well, I completely disagree with you on the combat. Even if the game was easy enough to wander around mashing LMB, why would I do that? The weapons, powers and sword combos are all super fun. The enemies are fast and quickly surround you, resurrect other enemies or shoot from a distance. It's fast paced and fun combat, very hectic and requiring a lot of power, gun and location management. Your counter-argument is "nuh-uh" so we're obviously not getting anywhere going in circles.

Like what you wish, obviously. My main issues with modern shooters are linearity and boring simplistic combat. This game makes vast improvements in both areas.

 

[Heresiarch]

I'm playing at chapter 4 (after the part Roxor ragequitted) and it's fun. Much funnier than Roxor and UserNamer claimed.

First off, the guns are useful if you actually upgrade them. Akimbo uzis are useful because you can stunlock and headshot groups of lesser demons and kill 3 to 4 of them with one whole clip. Revolver headshots can one shot anything including humans ("2 - 3 shots to the head and not dying" is a blatant lie), the only problem is you need to aim carefully. The crossbow apparently can reach mega destructive power only after you upgrade it to have the 4X damage and grenade launcher.

Secondly, sword fighting is not just LMB spamming. Soon after the part Roxor ragequitted, lesser demons would start to block your attack, so spamming LMB would do almost no damage. Not to mention those guys with a huge shield requires special care to fight with. Spells and special attacks must be used a lot in order to survive the onslaught of even lesser demons.

The game actually feels very like Necrovision, but I think it's actually better than NV. Combat is more hectic than NV and on the contrary to what the guys above said, guns are actually very useful especially if you combine with spells. Also to one of the poster above, yes you can use demon heads as a weapon (though require a skill to unlock that).

So far I think the game is ok, not as good as Painkiller but at least on the same league if not better than as Necrovision. Ditching it and claiming it as pure shit just at chapter 3 is like saying Necrovision is shit before getting the demonclaw.

 

[Darth Roxor]

The game actually feels very like Necrovision, but I think it's actually better than NV.

...



!!!!!!!

ALL MY RAGE

 

[JudasIscariot]

This "remake" really sounds like a piece of shit then UserNamer and Darth Roxor.

Does it even have some of the old classic weapons like the Rail gun and Guardian head?

These guys drop their heads and you can use them but you have to buy a skill for that first.

 

[DalekFlay]

The crossbow apparently can reach mega destructive power only after you upgrade it to have the 4X damage and grenade launcher.

I'll have to upgrade it, I was largely ignoring it. Spent all my money on uzi stuff.

 

[JudasIscariot]

The crossbow apparently can reach mega destructive power only after you upgrade it to have the 4X damage and grenade launcher.

I'll have to upgrade it, I was largely ignoring it. Spent all my money on uzi stuff.

The 4x damage upgrade is worth it at least :D. The crossbow is my weapon of choice for the huge bosses and Warlords :D

 

[AlexOfSpades]

Do we still get naked anime chicks? 9-years-old-me loved Shadow Warrior thanks to that.

 

[UserNamer]

I'm playing at chapter 4 (after the part Roxor ragequitted) and it's fun. Much funnier than Roxor and UserNamer claimed.

First off, the guns are useful if you actually upgrade them. Akimbo uzis are useful because you can stunlock and headshot groups of lesser demons and kill 3 to 4 of them with one whole clip. Revolver headshots can one shot anything including humans ("2 - 3 shots to the head and not dying" is a blatant lie).

what difficulty were you on? On insane, I shot a yakuza dude in the head and he just staggered a bit (maybe he blocked the bullet with martial arts techniques). I hit him one or two more times, I can't remember, and he was still alive

Ok the guns are useful if you upgrade them, I'll trust you on this... still, I'm not sure how to feel about such a design decision

 

[skacky]

Do we still get naked anime chicks? 9-years-old-me loved Shadow Warrior thanks to that.

Yes.

The default mobs will go more and more berserk as you progress and I can definitely confirm that spamming LMB against them won't work as much as it did in the early levels. The crossbow is pretty awesome once you get the charged shot. I arrived at the point where I get the rocket launcher, and I blasted myself to death thanks to its huge blast radius.

 

[Heresiarch]

I'm playing at chapter 4 (after the part Roxor ragequitted) and it's fun. Much funnier than Roxor and UserNamer claimed.

First off, the guns are useful if you actually upgrade them. Akimbo uzis are useful because you can stunlock and headshot groups of lesser demons and kill 3 to 4 of them with one whole clip. Revolver headshots can one shot anything including humans ("2 - 3 shots to the head and not dying" is a blatant lie).

what difficulty were you on? On insane, I shot a yakuza dude in the head and he just staggered a bit (maybe he blocked the bullet with martial arts techniques). I hit him one or two more times, I can't remember, and he was still alive

Ok the guns are useful if you upgrade them, I'll trust you on this... still, I'm not sure how to feel about such a design decision

Well, I'm playing on Hard...because after the horror of Bioshock Infinite (in which the truly inhuman humans can endure 3 headshots) I don't dare to play any recent FPS on top difficulty anymore. All they do is to make all enemies pure bullet sponges.

I have no final conclusion on the game's weapon power actually, after all I haven't even seen the shotgun and other weapons yet, and the upgrades for the katana aren't even open for unlocking. It's possible by tomorrow I'll claim this game as shittier than Bioshock Infinite . This game's guns do hit much more difficult than other FPS, after all the lesser demons run very fast and the ranged attackers are always strafe dodging. But that doesn't mean they're useless, it's just that some guns are more useful on some monsters than others (e.g. the revolver can kill those vulture demons very easily because they mostly don't move a lot, uzis are excellent at crowd controlling, and the crossbow could be awesome with 4X damage on bigger enemies).

 

[DalekFlay]

I'm on hard as well. I never pick the highest setting for the same HP bloat reason.

 

[Eyeball]

Reached chapter six or so and found the fourth gun. It oneshots multiple mooks standing NeXT to each other. Dual uzis is also quite useful in hallways. Pistol is absolute shit as far as I can tell, but I didn't bother getting any upgrades for it either.

 

[JudasIscariot]

Damn, I finally beat the new Shadow Warrior on Hard difficulty! I couldn't find all the secrets but damn I feel good for having finished it.

 

[chestburster]

What I don't like is someone mentioned before those so-called witty humor one-liners which most are pretty lame IMO. Is that what westerners perceive as "asian humor"?

As an Asian myself, the humor here seems more like a parody of "what Westerners PERCEIVE as Asian". Lo Wang himself even broke the fourth wall and commented (in the first level) that the sakura trees and stuff are so cliched.

And I forgive those Polish developers for being too poor to hire proper translators to do the kanji right.

 

[Average Manatee]

Shit man, the game turned out possibly pretty good? Never saw it coming. Time for some shooty and choppy.

 

[Heresiarch]

What I don't like is someone mentioned before those so-called witty humor one-liners which most are pretty lame IMO. Is that what westerners perceive as "asian humor"?

And I forgive those Polish developers for being too poor to hire proper translators to do the kanji right.

The funny thing is, almost all the kanji are actually correctly translated, they just put them all into wrong places. It's like they have hired someone to translate all the kanji but forgot to actually match them back. It's more of a case of laziness and messiness.

It's possible some of the mistranslation are sort of a easter egg to surprise Western players who don't know Chinese/Japanese but bother to translate them. For example the kanji for Zilla Corporation seen in the Zilla docks literally transalates into

Spoiler

Zillla Is Bad

. Which is not surprising for old SW players but could surprise newer players. Some of the words are awfully out of place though, like boards saying "Stadium" for many small houses.

I'm in chapter 7 now and got the shotgun and it's great. The XBow sucks at killing groups of weak monsters but it's awesome against elites and bosses. Or if you are a good aim, it can consistenlty one shot lesser demons so it works like a sniper rifle. Against those towershield wielding guys you can lift them up with magic and then a fully charged bolt to the head can one shot them. The alternative mode of shooting sticky bombs is pretty good at crowd controlling too. Also some people claim that katana special moves are overpowered, yet the game is also balancing on this part too. Spamming too many special attacks or spells will make enemies go hyperberzerk mode more frequently, though of course you can keep on spamming the special attacks to fight even more berzerk demons if going nuts is your thing. The three katana attacks and the various guns have their own pros and cons and using them on the right enemies can make battles much smoother. Finally, the humor thing is getting better or it's just because the game has declined my humo-meter.

7.5/10

 

[ZagorTeNej]

Level design is a definite improvement compared to modern shooters (though that's not saying much given that most of them are cinematic action corridors, it's still nowhere near Build Engine games in that regard) and I dig the visuals (despite too much bloom on some occasions) but for me the main selling point of the game is sword combat, I haven't had this much fun in a 1st person slasher since Dark Messiah, they just got the feel of it (the melee combat) right, something that is very hard to do and that very few games (Dark Messiah and Blade of Darkness being the two examples I can think of, I never played Dark Souls though) ever managed to accomplish.

I do think you could argue that the sword is overpowered, especially when you unlock the 360 degree sword slash and skill that allows you to leech of health with ki strikes , there probably should have been some ki/mana/whatever bar so that you can't spam ki strikes indefinitely or something, this way I'm almost always in full health.

Guns while seemingly weak at first do pack quite a punch when upgraded (though I wager I haven't gotten to all of them yet, I'm on level 8 currently), especially the (quad barreled when upgraded) shotgun can clear the room in seconds (more effective than the sword even) and as mentioned crossbow is great for taking out boss and elite mooks when the charge attack is upgraded (didn't try the sticky grenades upgrade yet), that said, guns for me in this game are for killing flying mooks & bosses and the occasional try out when I purchase an upgrade but I mostly stick to the sword, it's just too damn fun.

Regarding those shuriken ratings that determine how much bonus karma you get after a combat encounter, from my experience it's mostly about how fast you dispatch a group of enemies rather than how much you vary your attacks/powers (despite what the game tells you).

 

[dunno lah]

...I never played Dark Souls though...

Go play Dark Souls, man. It's good great.

 

[DraQ]

Could you opinionfags clarify whether you played the original or not when posting?
kthxbye

What I don't like is someone mentioned before those so-called witty humor one-liners which most are pretty lame IMO. Is that what westerners perceive as "asian humor"?

As an Asian myself, the humor here seems more like a parody of "what Westerners PERCEIVE as Asian".

Wasn't this the case with the original as well?

 

[skacky]

I played the original and its expansions (though when it comes to Build games I prefer Duke and Blood) and I really like this new Shadow Warrior. Like I said it has next to nothing in common with the old game but it does a lot of things right compared to the abysmal ROTT remake that came out this year. It's far from perfect, mind you, but it's definitely a step in the right direction for me.