New Shadow Warrior from Hard Reset devs - out now

[DalekFlay]

I played the original too. I played pretty much every shooter from Doom to Unreal except the Hexen series. Need to get on that.

This game is not like those games really. I mean it is a mixture of those and modern stuff to create a fusion of styles, I guess. Like I said before: modern shooters annoy me because of corridor levels of no interest and slow combat. This game improves on both. If it's "classic Shadow Warrior or die" then you won't like it.

 

[Darth Roxor]

Played original + expansions multiple times. This game has as much to do with it as Thiaf with Thief.

 

[ZagorTeNej]

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

I played all Build Engine games (with Blood being my favourite) but that's largely irrelevant in this case as new Shadow Warrior is quite different from them.

Game is designed as such that the melee approach is just as (or even more so) viable as using guns/ranged weapons while in Build games (original SW included though to a lesser degree) melee weapon was of circumstantial use at best and thus you could say it has more in common with say Dark Messiah and Hexen than the old SW.

The threat comes from enemies being able to quickly close the distance to you and swarm you, they're much more numerous (and come at you in waves) but nowhere near as lethal as say cultists are in Blood (or evil ninjas in SW) where even one regular enemy can whittle down your health very quickly if you don't react fast enough.

Level design is also different, it's not as linear as modern shooters but it doesn't have vast levels for you to explore (and hunt for keys) either, if I had to name the FPS of whom it's level design reminds me the most, its probably Raven's Solider of Fortune (the first one).

 

[JudasIscariot]

I haven't played the original all that much but I am planning on rectifying that ASAP. Right now, I am training on Blood vanilla in order to get back into that old school shooter frame of mind

 

[Heresiarch]

I've never played the original SW until a few days ago but I love the other two build games. BTW I just realize Redneck Rampage is one of the build engine classics (though I hated that game).

I think if you want a pure vanilla-ish SW remake then this new SW is not for you. But if you like some of the more inclining modern FPS - Painkiller, Necrovision, Serious Sam: SC, or even Messiah of M&M - then you should find this game enjoyable. "Finding keys" (in the form of destroying statues), finding secrets (there are always 5 to more than a dozen secrets in every level, and all are cleverly and logically hidden, no bullshit "random window in a huge building is accessible" like in Duke3D), 10 to 20 monsters from all direction jumping on you, etc are all there. The fighting arenas are not as big as Serious Sam but at least on the same level as Necrovision and occasionally like Painkiller. This SW is also one of the FPS that has the most explosive objects in FPS history, from cars and motorcycles to electric boxes and vending machines and random pots of fire can all blow up spectacularly which can kill enemies as easily as killing you. Every combat is chaotic with lots of running and dodging and explosions and magic and hack & slash & gunning involved.

 

[UserNamer]

I played the original shadow warrior, and I'm a fan of doom, quake, serious sam. I loved blood, seriously amazing game, but overall I prefer doom\painkiller\ss type of games to build games

I don't like the new sw on its own merits, not just because it's different from the original; it just puzzles me that they decide to revive franchises without even attempting to recreate the feel of the originals. Sometimes I wonder if these idiots think certain franchises were worthy for their characters and plot; to this day I still wonder what the fuck id was thinking when they made doom3, a game that seemed to love and homage the plot of the originals while detesting every element of their gameplay

If they ever remake blood, I seriously hope they understand that the most important of it wasn't the fact that you fought zombies and cultists and that the main character made joke's, but the seriously amazing level design and settings (well some levels were total shit and an insult to the best the game offered, and they should have been trashed). A remake of Blood done with the shadow warrior (2013) school of level design would be extra offensive.

 

[UserNamer]

Heresiarch I got to the level when the shield monster appears, I just don't like the action... it's superficially well done, the violence is cool, I just think the gameplay is way too mindless. The enemies are just annoying to fight because they are not really a threat, just many and very resistant. They take a lot of time to take you out and you can always ninja dash back and heal, or they drop health randomly. It seems that it requires too little effort to win, just (precious) time. Maybe it changes later on but how many chances do I have to give this game? It just keeps throwing you the same hordes, fighting them seems like a mindless job rather than a fun challenge. Maybe someone can be amazed endlessly by the violence and the fact that you can (unnecessarily) use different combination of powers to achieve what mindless slashing does

The explosive objects are overdone, because they are all over the place and explosions themselves are over the top (hit a coin op machine by mistake and you explode a billion enemies and electrify another million, cars are more explosive than fallout 3's nuclear cars and so on) but this is just nitpicking and I'm mentioning it because you mentioned it

 

[iqzulk]

to this day I still wonder what the fuck id was thinking when they made doom3

Yeah, because id totally didn't do Quake1 as much as 8 years before Doom3's release and didn't produce DooM64 shortly after that.

but the seriously amazing level design

Lolwut? Are you talking about environmental dressing or layouts? Because layout-wise, say, original SW absolutely destroys Blood (as it does in terms of degree of actual interaction with said layouts).

and settings

Painkiller: 1997 Edition. Let's see how many clichéd B-movie horror locations we could fit in one game. The cultists/Chernobog aesthetics was interesting and seriously original (although criminally underdeveloped) but the sheer amount of absolutely filler crap (up to 3/4 of game's content) almost nullified all the impact.

 

[DalekFlay]

to this day I still wonder what the fuck id was thinking when they made doom3, a game that seemed to love and homage the plot of the originals while detesting every element of their gameplay

Doom 3 plays a lot like the very first episode of Doom actually. It just never ramps up to the pace of later episodes of Doom, or Doom 2. Whether they did this because the shareware episode of the original was mega-popular, or because they liked that style, I don't know.

 

[Darth Roxor]

Also, inquiring mind wants to know, since y'all fruitcakes keep citing "level design" as something good in nu shadow warrior. Please tell me what's so good about its corridors, and how exactly is it so much better than all the corridors in all other popamole new shooters? Because it doesn't even drop you in big arenas, they are small courtyards at best, and others are just corridors (sewer corridors, town corridors, forest corridors, corridors galore!)

Doom 3 plays a lot like the very first episode of Doom actually.

r00fles!

 

[baturinsky]

Is it possible to configure ki strikes, so they don't require double-tap?

 

[UserNamer]

to this day I still wonder what the fuck id was thinking when they made doom3

Yeah, because id totally didn't do Quake1 as much as 8 years before Doom3's release and didn't produce DooM64 shortly after that.

what do you mean by this?

Lolwut? Are you talking about environmental dressing or layouts? Because layout-wise, say, original SW absolutely destroys Blood (as it does in terms of degree of actual interaction with said layouts).

I was talking about both actually... but I must confess I last played blood more than 5 years ago so maybe I'm not remembering correctly. I replayed shadow warrior much more recently, and many levels are amazing both in term of settings and layout- and ways of progressing through them- even if the game is full of filler levels who are boring and dull, even if articulate navigation-wise

Painkiller: 1997 Edition. Let's see how many clichéd B-movie horror locations we could fit in one game. The cultists/Chernobog aesthetics was interesting and seriously original (although criminally underdeveloped) but the sheer amount of absolutely filler crap (up to 3/4 of game's content) almost nullified all the impact.

I remember the filler crap, and that's something sw suffered from too, but I don't really get the "it's a collection of cliched horror locations". They were still interesting architecturally and gameplay wise so what's the point? same for painkiller. Also do you mean a variety of horror settings is somehow worse than generic space bases or generic japanese settings? (I love space bases anyway, just curious)

 

[Heresiarch]

Heresiarch I got to the level when the shield monster appears, I just don't like the action... it's superficially well done, the violence is cool, I just think the gameplay is way too mindless. The enemies are just annoying to fight because they are not really a threat, just many and very resistant. They take a lot of time to take you out and you can always ninja dash back and heal, or they drop health randomly. It seems that it requires too little effort to win, just (precious) time. Maybe it changes later on but how many chances do I have to give this game? It just keeps throwing you the same hordes, fighting them seems like a mindless job rather than a fun challenge. Maybe someone can be amazed endlessly by the violence and the fact that you can (unnecessarily) use different combination of powers to achieve what mindless slashing does

The explosive objects are overdone, because they are all over the place and explosions themselves are over the top (hit a coin op machine by mistake and you explode a billion enemies and electrify another million, cars are more explosive than fallout 3's nuclear cars and so on) but this is just nitpicking and I'm mentioning it because you mentioned it

I guess it's perfectly valid to hate a franchised game based on expectation from what the classic does, it's not unlike how people hate Doom 3 because they expected it to be a mindless fun shooter just like the classic yet it turned out to be a survival horror like FPS.

Anyway I'm enjoying this so far, maybe due to my high tolerance for trying new elements in FPS (I liked Doom 3, and even finished Jericho twice), and I also didn't expect anything because I've never played SW classic. If they're going to remake Blood though I do hope they don't make it like this (since I do have played Blood 1 and 2), since both Blood games were definitely not about pure chaotic combat like this (Build games combat were actually very tame compared to most FPS), but about queer atmosphere and settings, realistic level designs with lots of interactive details, and truly fun easter eggs with black humor.

 

[chestburster]

Finished it.

The later levels have quite intense big arenas. They would throw two Minotaur-like demons, one summoner, one large charging demon, and a whole bunch of lesser demons at you at the same time. Definitely requires a little more than mindless slashing and spamming magic. Still not difficult enough (I played on Hard).

But the boss fights are kinda let down. All the three boss fights are essentially the same pattern.

7.5/10, as good as Necrovision.

 

[iqzulk]

what do you mean by this?

That Quake's combat dynamics (esp. on SP/Nightmare) is literally nothing like DOOM 1/2 whatsoever (and don't you even try to point me to those speedruns!); that "id game" isn't identical to "the carbon copy of DOOM 2", especially when we are talking about a game with strong horror influences; and that in terms of both concept (an attempt of fusion of classical shooting with horror component, with slower pace, sharp and disturbing sound design, higher risks, more static and positional combat and strong observational themes) AND overall combat dynamics, DOOM3 is surprisingly similar to both Quake1 AND DooM64 (despite all the immediate differences both in artistic style and in combat patterns themselves).

all of the Shadow Warrior and Blood stuff

HHNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNGGGGGG.
Here is some vitriol without any actual argumentation to prove my point. Feel free to completely disregard it.
I am totally not going to write down all the reasons why I think Blood to be a typical piece of amateurish artsy-fartsy pretentious mediocrity with crappiest actual gamedesign (including the actual combat) and absolutely overblown (for its own good) longevity, that actually completely and utterly blew the strongest theme - that artsy postapocalyptic cultist thing with warping of familiar locales into something weird and otherworldly - it kinda had going (so there is nothing else left but pretension itself), with nothing else out there to actually fall back to for the support. The last time I did it (right after completing the thing on Extra Crispy) it took me almost 30 kb of raw text (NOT including the texts I wrote WHILE actually playing it) - with the problem of all of that text being in Russian (and, thus, unusable in this discussion) and with it being slang- and mistype-heavy (and, thus, unusable via Google Translate without some really heavy editing, even if we disregard the typical "quality" of Russian-to-Eng translations made via that service). And I'm not going to write down a new 20kb tl;dr, together with SW parallels, and to spend half a day doing that (which I would, if I started - because the whole thing, together with all the "cult status" and "ZOMG TEH BEST FPS EVAR" wankery annoys me to no end); nor am I going to translate the original texts while editing and expanding them where needed.
So, yeah, let's just say, that for the time being I refuse to comment on the whole matter altogether (in contrast with turning it into huge time-sink and vitriol spewing fest) even despite actually having started this "line" of discussion with my snarky (or "snarky") comments.

And I totally don't agree with SW being full of filler levels. I remember explicitly disliking Floating Fortress (despite it having probably the coolest secret in the entire game - the one with the rotation of "Big Gun") and kinda disliking "Sumo Sky Palace" (which, in addition to being really damn exhausting, was also different and really memorable). And there was maybe a handful of other levels that were kind of mediocre but still entertaining (Coolie Mines, Monastery, Auto Maul - never found the first secret level BTW - and Subpen 7). All of the others were B to A stuff.

 

[dunno lah]

Doom 3 plays a lot like the very first episode of Doom actually.

Only if you played it on the first two difficulties...

 

[DalekFlay]

r00fles!

Stunning counter-argument, no wonder you write reviews.

Only if you played it on the first two difficulties...

Perhaps, but I would guess most people did. In any case my specific point is there are large tonal similarities in Doom and Doom 3 in certain sections. It's not a complete off-the-wall WTF.

 

[Haba]

Frankly the whole FPS genre has been in steady decline since Doom 2. Why can't I have my ultraviolence with meaty guns, scary enemies and smartly designed levels?

The new SW does some things right, but also comes with the same issues as almost all FPS games do. Bleh.

 

[ghostdog]

So from the comments here I take it that necrovision is a good game ? Or should I keep playing Doom wads and forget about it ?

 

[Angthoron]

So from the comments here I take it that necrovision is a good game ? Or should I keep playing Doom wads and forget about it ?

Personally never found Necrovision likeable, starting with the arsenal and finishing with art style/graphics (hint: you use brown thingies to shoot at brown thingies that move around brown surroundings. I get it, it's WW1 WITH DEMONS but come on).

 

[Darth Roxor]

So from the comments here I take it that necrovision is a good game ?

Yes.

Stunning counter-argument, no wonder you write reviews.

oshit son you told me gud

I'll be the last person to hate on Doom 3, but bullshit needs to be called out where it's due. The moment you start Knee-deep in the Dead you run through spacey rooms with shooty zombie guys that take a few pistol hits/1 shotgun blast to take down, then proceed through a track surrounded by acid while dodging pimp fireballs, and that's only the first level, later on you come across larger groups of larger stuff, often mixed. Meanwhile, Doom 3 serves you corridors with slow melee zombies that you whack with a flashlight, then it serves you singular imps that just teleport somewhere around you, after which you start meeting meaty zombie security dudes that hide behind crates and shoot you with SMGs/shotguns and you barely ever face more than 2-3 dudes at a time. How is that in any way similar.

 

[Ninja Destroyer]

what do you mean by this?

That Quake's combat dynamics (esp. on SP/Nightmare) is literally nothing like DOOM 1/2 whatsoever (and don't you even try to point me to those speedruns!); that "id game" isn't identical to "the carbon copy of DOOM 2", especially when we are talking about a game with strong horror influences; and that in terms of both concept (an attempt of fusion of classical shooting with horror component, with slower pace, sharp and disturbing sound design, higher risks, more static and positional combat and strong observational themes) AND overall combat dynamics, DOOM3 is surprisingly similar to both Quake1 AND DooM64 (despite all the immediate differences both in artistic style and in combat patterns themselves).

all of the Shadow Warrior and Blood stuff

HHNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNGGGGGG.
Here is some vitriol without any actual argumentation to prove my point. Feel free to completely disregard it.
I am totally not going to write down all the reasons why I think Blood to be a typical piece of amateurish artsy-fartsy pretentious mediocrity with crappiest actual gamedesign (including the actual combat) and absolutely overblown (for its own good) longevity, that actually completely and utterly blew the strongest theme - that artsy postapocalyptic cultist thing with warping of familiar locales into something weird and otherworldly - it kinda had going (so there is nothing else left but pretension itself), with nothing else out there to actually fall back to for the support. The last time I did it (right after completing the thing on Extra Crispy) it took me almost 30 kb of raw text (NOT including the texts I wrote WHILE actually playing it) - with the problem of all of that text being in Russian (and, thus, unusable in this discussion) and with it being slang- and mistype-heavy (and, thus, unusable via Google Translate without some really heavy editing, even if we disregard the typical "quality" of Russian-to-Eng translations made via that service). And I'm not going to write down a new 20kb tl;dr, together with SW parallels, and to spend half a day doing that (which I would, if I started - because the whole thing, together with all the "cult status" and "ZOMG TEH BEST FPS EVAR" wankery annoys me to no end); nor am I going to translate the original texts while editing and expanding them where needed.
So, yeah, let's just say, that for the time being I refuse to comment on the whole matter altogether (in contrast with turning it into huge time-sink and vitriol spewing fest) even despite actually having started this "line" of discussion with my snarky (or "snarky") comments.

And I totally don't agree with SW being full of filler levels. I remember explicitly disliking Floating Fortress (despite it having probably the coolest secret in the entire game - the one with the rotation of "Big Gun") and kinda disliking "Sumo Sky Palace" (which, in addition to being really damn exhausting, was also different and really memorable). And there was maybe a handful of other levels that were kind of mediocre but still entertaining (Coolie Mines, Monastery, Auto Maul - never found the first secret level BTW - and Subpen 7). All of the others were B to A stuff.

I'll probably try SW soon, probably after beating original build game.

 

[Eyeball]

If I had to point to one thing that was deeply wrong with SW2, it would be the secrets. In the earlier Build engine games, finding a secret required a certain amount of lateral thinking, ingenious jumping, creative use of pyrotechnics or just dumb luck. Finding a secret here felt rewarding. In SW2, finding a secret involves such complicated feats as "looking up", "looking in the corner of a room" or most fiendishly "heading left when the corridor-like level design had intended you to head right." Finding these secrets gives you no sense of accomplishment at all, which should be what secrets are all about. Granted, I only find like half the secrets in each level, so some of them could be better hidden, but most of them by far are just insulting.

 

[Haba]

Yeah. Not to mention that hunting secrets in this fashion downright ruins the game experience itself. "Whee, another dark bamboo forest. Let's find the dark corner that leads to the obligatory secret again!"

 

[Heresiarch]

If I had to point to one thing that was deeply wrong with SW2, it would be the secrets. In the earlier Build engine games, finding a secret required a certain amount of lateral thinking, ingenious jumping, creative use of pyrotechnics or just dumb luck. Finding a secret here felt rewarding. In SW2, finding a secret involves such complicated feats as "looking up", "looking in the corner of a room" or most fiendishly "heading left when the corridor-like level design had intended you to head right." Finding these secrets gives you no sense of accomplishment at all, which should be what secrets are all about. Granted, I only find like half the secrets in each level, so some of them could be better hidden, but most of them by far are just insulting.

Earlier Build games still have many secrets which are badly designed. Some are simple "huge crack in the wall" that needs you to blow up, and I can't believe you think that using dumb luck is a good indication for a good secret. In Duke 3D for example some so called secrets require you to find that one particular window out of a hundred at the wall (e1m1 has that IIRC).

Granted, in SW2 a lot of secrets are so badly designed that when I see the "Secret!" pop up I can't believe that's it. E.g. In a three-way tunnel, two are required to go in order to progress and the third contains a secret. But some of the are quite cleverly designed, like in one level I see that small statue just behind a fence but until I beat the game I still can't find it.

My point is: in build games there are perhaps 6 secrets on average in each level and 3 of them are bad. In SW2 they have like 8 to 11 on each level and 4 to 6 are bad. Which is better and why, it really depends.