|
 Shadow Warrior. I played the shareware version many years ago, then foolishly left this game alone until I discovered the remake. The classic redux package was purchased shortly afterwards. Total hours on the remake: 5. Total hours on Classic Redux: 120. And I’m not done with it yet. In this thread I plan to show why I enjoy this game, what I like about the level design, and a few weird things that happened while I was playing. First, a little history. Shadow Warrior was made in the Build engine by 3D Realms to follow up on the popularity of its amazing success story: Duke Nukem 3d. It was made to surpass its predecessor in features and gameplay, which was not an easy goal. To that end it incorporated many new features such as true room-over-room map design, drivable vehicles, transparent water and multiple firing modes for weapons. The gameplay itself is very fast-paced, with high-damage weaponry on both sides making encounters a tense game of rocket tag. Despite all of this effort, Shadow Warrior never achieved the commercial success of its older brother. Controversy surrounded the game due to its obvious parodies of eastern civilization and rather blatant racism. 3D realms claimed that this was because they were aiming for the feel of a bad kung-fu movie but this did not do much to reduce criticism. The game has undergone a bit of a revival due to the recent remake and release of a remastered version on Steam with previously unreleased expansions, but Duke 3D remains the more popular game. In this playthrough I intend to explore the game at its most challenging: in addition to using the highest difficulty level, I will start every level with only the starting gear of a katana, a few shuriken and of course bare fists. The level design is such that every weapon is available somewhere on every level, and I hope to prove that the gear is so well-placed that any level can be reasonably completed from scratch with sufficient knowledge of the game. In addition every now and then I will splice in some footage of a few strange bugs and humiliating deaths. It should be pretty fun. The playlist is here! https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDb-fbCE1tLtEAeLRfM7E4pDNZBgx_hk4 Or you can pick your video below. First level: Seppuku Station. This game is classy already! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zLYz_fr9h4 Second level: Zilla Construction. Includes an important public service announcement. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yilcXKJTuz4 Third level: Master Leep's Temple. Jumping off cliffs for glorious radioactive rewards. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkInjpJfXSc Fourth level: Dark Woods of the Serpent. A cliff hanger like all good shareware final levels. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PoaF_QcYo8s Bonus video: partial collection of Lo Wang's definitely not broken English. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCEGjaGYB7c Fifth level and the first of the non-shareware episode levels: Rising Son. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKmtfw28ock Sixth level: Killing Fields. More dangerous enemies are introduced here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYucNWt0BmE Seventh level: Hara-Kiri harbor. I'd love to know the backstory of whoever named these towns. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJUaGROhw24 Eighth level: Zilla's Villa. Introducing the RUN AWAY opening strategy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCdjkJhCnJ4 Ninth level: Monastery. I hope you like mandatory secrets! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBZodhYwh4s Tenth level: Raiders of the Lost Wang. This is the level that inspired me to attempt a cold-start run in the first place. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zwxy64hk00k First secret level: Shanghai Shipwreck. Huge secret stockpiles of supplies are not in this level. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Y5AnimJJbw Eleventh level: Sumo Sky Palace. Beware the final fart. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ML3WdrGdPAc Level twelve: Bath House. With a nuclear reactor of course. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FO9vv7xD4DE Regdren fucked around with this message at 03:14 on Jun 23, 2014 |
#
?
Apr 25, 2014 13:12
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 13, 2024 20:31 |
|
|
I remember being in grade/middle school and not being able to play any shooters, so I'd go over to a friend's house whose parents let him play whatever the hell he wanted. We got endless hours of glee out of playing and watching this game. It's such a nostalgia trip seeing this again, thanks for LPing it. Since you're showing off everything are you also going to show off the thing hidden on the cd? Also, just a little comment, but since this is one of those games where the character cracks witty one-liners now and then it'd be cool to hear some of them. I realize they repeat a lot but if you could just show them off once and then talk over them from then on that'd be fine. Getsuya fucked around with this message at 13:45 on Apr 25, 2014 |
|
#
?
Apr 25, 2014 13:32
|
|
|
What you're describing might be tricky because my commentary partner plans not to watch the vids beforehand in order to get more genuine reactions during the commentary. I could find a place with lots of explosion deaths (level 4!) and sort of splice that in after the fact just to show things off. As for the secret, I'm not sure that it's even in the Steam version.
|
|
#
?
Apr 25, 2014 13:59
|
|
|
Definitely going to watch this with interest, I played this as a kid but don't really remember much apart from the nuclear rocket launcher. Also the remake is awesome. edit: One thing that might be worth considering is raising the game's volume a little, since it's hard to understand Wang's wonderfully terrible quips. anilEhilated fucked around with this message at 14:39 on Apr 25, 2014 |
|
#
?
Apr 25, 2014 14:32
|
|
|
Awesome to have an old school fps LP but to even have it with the highest difficulty and additional challenges. Can't wait to see more.
|
|
#
?
Apr 26, 2014 11:43
|
|
|
Thanks for the feedback, I'll turn up the game volume for the next one to let the main man of the game speak his wonderful Engrish in a manner easier to hear. My main concern was the game sound and the commentary kind of competing with each other to the detriment of both sides but we'll see if we can get a decent balance going. There's no need to spoiler the nuclear rocket launcher, even the game manual freely talks about that thing. Plus I use it in the very first level. Next video will be up tomorrow morning, EST.
|
|
#
?
Apr 26, 2014 20:06
|
|
|
Second video is ready! This time I turned the game volume up a bit, let me know how it works out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yilcXKJTuz4 I've already mentioned in the first video that the game wastes zero time getting you into the first fight, but I'd also like to note something else I like about the early game. You get all the basic tools right away, from shotgun to grenade launcher, and you have the entire game to figure out the best ways to use both the big and small weapons. The other side of this is that you NEED to use all of your tools right away. Shadow ninjas are, in my estimation, the most dangerous enemies in the game. In No Pain No Gain you fight three of them in level 1. In Level 2 they introduce enemies who merely use rocket launchers on you. Shadow Warrior is very quick about teaching you that you can't just hoard all your big ammo and special items until a boss. I like this a lot because it means you're free to apply your entire arsenal to any given encounter without worrying about whether it's overkill or not.
|
|
#
?
Apr 27, 2014 13:28
|
|
|
Holy crap you're good at this game. Okay, so rocket thugs? Severly understated in the video. Those guys are dicks. The level is set up so you'll pretty much always have a hard time to see the rocket coming, especially since they don't exactly telegraph it. Then you get the cocaine coolies. Then they start appearing together. And then it's raining Lo Wang. Yeah, the memories are kinda rushing in when seeing this. edit: 100% agree on using heavy weapons the way God and John Romero intended. So much of the decline of FPS games in later years can be explained by the diminshing amount of ammo available for special guns. anilEhilated fucked around with this message at 16:16 on Apr 27, 2014 |
|
#
?
Apr 27, 2014 16:10
|
|
|
Regdren posted:Second video is ready! This time I turned the game volume up a bit, let me know how it works out: This is the song for the second level, This is the song of Lo Wang and guns! HE TRIED TO KILL THEM WITH A FORKLIFT! edit: as a side note, with all the controversy regarding the blatant racism in this game, I don't see the problem; when you consider the blatant sexism in Duke Nukem 3D, it feels like it's just about as offensive, but maybe I'm wrong. azren fucked around with this message at 16:59 on Apr 27, 2014 |
|
#
?
Apr 27, 2014 16:51
|
|
|
azren posted:edit: as a side note, with all the controversy regarding the blatant racism in this game, I don't see the problem; when you consider the blatant sexism in Duke Nukem 3D, it feels like it's just about as offensive, but maybe I'm wrong. I know Duke Nukem had a bit of controversy at the time, but I think Shadow Warrior got more attention because it's more "in your face" with it. Plus Duke Nukem had the parental controls which removed a lot of the sex. Shadow Warrior... not so much. That being said, I always preferred Blood out of the three games, which is just making fun of horror movies.
|
|
#
?
Apr 28, 2014 01:27
|
|
|
Randalor posted:That being said, I always preferred Blood out of the three games, which is just making fun of horror movies. It was also made by different people. It's kind of interesting how each of the four major Build engine shooters relied on poking fun at different things - it's like it was intended to be a parody shooter engine. edit: VVV Yeah. anilEhilated fucked around with this message at 11:35 on Apr 28, 2014 |
|
#
?
Apr 28, 2014 06:49
|
|
|
What's the 4th one? Redneck Rampage?
|
|
#
?
Apr 28, 2014 11:23
|
|
|
Coolies have a firm spot on my most hated enemies list. Not only will they make you paranoid as hell, but the ghosts add their own special kind of annoyance  Pierzak posted:What's the 4th one? Redneck Rampage?
|
|
#
?
Apr 28, 2014 13:57
|
|
|
Tin Tim posted:Coolies have a firm spot on my most hated enemies list. Not only will they make you paranoid as hell, but the ghosts add their own special kind of annoyance An explosive suicide enemy that sometimes on death turns into a high speed difficult to hit enemy that shoots energy balls is a pretty perfect recipe for the worst enemy in any game format really.
|
|
#
?
Apr 28, 2014 14:05
|
|
|
Tin Tim posted:Coolies have a firm spot on my most hated enemies list. Not only will they make you paranoid as hell, but the ghosts add their own special kind of annoyance Well, from what I saw from the archived LP, it looked really dull.
|
|
#
?
Apr 28, 2014 20:02
|
|
|
anilEhilated posted:...And then it's raining Lo Wang. For extra fun, check my health before my surprise coolie encounter at the start. anilEhilated posted:edit: 100% agree on using heavy weapons the way God and John Romero intended. So much of the decline of FPS games in later years can be explained by the diminshing amount of ammo available for special guns. I'd like to think that at least some of it is due to map design. Very few maps in recent games are as interactive as, say, level one in Shadow Warrior classic. There are many other aspects too which I hope to get into in later videos. Regarding the other Build engine games, I can certainly see the appeal of Duke 3D but I just don't have as much fun with the game. It's kind of hard for me to explain why. Redneck Rampage is much easier to explain. I just don't like the feel of the combat and the weapons in particular. It doesn't feel like either you or the enemy do particularly interesting things with the tools provided by the game. Combat overall felt kind of boring to me. Blood is not boring at all. I enjoy the gritty horror style with old trains, dynamite and anachronisms all over the place. I would love to do the same thing with Blood as I'm doing with Shadow Warrior, the only thing stopping me is the utterly hellish difficulty when starting each level from scratch on Extra Crispy. Expect to see a lot of poking things to death with the pitchfork and luring cultists around corners if I take up this challenge with that game.
|
|
#
?
Apr 28, 2014 21:40
|
|
|
Regdren posted:Redneck Rampage is much easier to explain. I just don't like the feel of the combat and the weapons in particular. It doesn't feel like either you or the enemy do particularly interesting things with the tools provided by the game. Combat overall felt kind of boring to me. Plus it's ugly as all hell. Bad textures, bad sprites, bad level design, you name it. Blood did everything so much better with the pulp-cartoonish feel and way better texture/sprite-work. And amazing sound effects. Plus the first gun you get lets you set people on fire.
|
|
#
?
Apr 28, 2014 22:05
|
|
|
As I feared, turning up the game volume caused it to interfere with the commentary so I turned it back down for future videos. I do not want to ignore people who want to hear the one-liners though, so I will make a video dedicated solely to Lo Wang's wonderful witticisms after the shareware episode is complete. The third video is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkInjpJfXSc This level is pretty well known among people who have played the game for its introduction of gratuitous anime bewbs. My understanding is that the redhead in the portrait was supposed to be included but got cut out due to time constraints or something similar.
|
|
#
?
Apr 29, 2014 20:37
|
|
|
Going off of the whole master Leep thing, some time during the games development Lo Wang was going to be (or at least) look a fair bit younger
|
|
#
?
Apr 29, 2014 22:02
|
|
|
Good fun, I'm enjoying the tour so far. Keep it up! I've got a weird nostalgia for Duke, SW, and Blood in that I was too busy with Doom and Quake to play them back then, but I sure saw a lot about them. Duke was a blast when I eventually got it a few years ago. I've picked up Blood and SW and I'm sure I'll get to them sooner or later. :-) How's the "classic redux" flavor of SW on Steam handle, for someone who is used to mouselook? Is it straight up original SW or tweaked in any way? Blood was pretty uncomfortable even with bmouse when I took a brief run at it, but eDuke32 on the other hand had controls that were good enough to not get in the way.
|
|
#
?
May 1, 2014 07:28
|
|
|
Johnny Law posted:How's the "classic redux" flavor of SW on Steam handle, for someone who is used to mouselook? Is it straight up original SW or tweaked in any way? Blood was pretty uncomfortable even with bmouse when I took a brief run at it, but eDuke32 on the other hand had controls that were good enough to not get in the way.
|
|
#
?
May 1, 2014 12:36
|
|
|
That picture is badass NoodleBox. I never had a problem with mouselook in Classic Redux. That version of the game cleaned up everything quite a bit for modern system. Now the free version on Steam, Shadow Warrior Classic, is the DosBox straight port of the old version and I'll agree that mouselook there is not necessarily a good idea. My video will be ready early tomorrow, real life has been keeping me busy the last couple of days.
|
|
#
?
May 1, 2014 20:12
|
|
|
The fourth and final level of the shareware episode is ready. We'll have to say goodbye to my co-commentator. So goodbye Kc Scrag! I have another volunteer for commentary so hopefully the rest of the series will still proceed smoothly. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PoaF_QcYo8s The first episode as a whole is one of my favorite video game teaser episodes. You get all of the important tools for fighting early, there are some challenging situations and okay enemy variety and the final encounter is great at hooking the player in and building anticipation for the next episode. It might not be quite Knee Deep in the Dead stature but I think it does its job pretty well.
|
|
#
?
May 2, 2014 15:02
|
|
|
Regdren posted:The fourth and final level of the shareware episode is ready. We'll have to say goodbye to my co-commentator. So goodbye Kc Scrag! I have another volunteer for commentary so hopefully the rest of the series will still proceed smoothly. Could you go over what the ripper hearts do? It wasn't really clear from the video.
|
|
#
?
May 2, 2014 16:37
|
|
|
azren posted:Could you go over what the ripper hearts do? It wasn't really clear from the video. They spawn an AI-controlled Lo Wang clone that will then proceed to gank the poo poo out of everything with its rapid-fire railgun.
|
|
#
?
May 2, 2014 16:42
|
|
|
Don't think I've seen you do this, but if you are below 100 health and you use your fists on one of the wing-chun or human dummies you can recover health; there are even some levels where this seems bugged as you can just keep punching until you're at 200 health (you can also hurt yourself if you punch walls) Also parking meters in the first level have a special animation where they shoot out a bunch of jangling Japanese mon-styled coins when destroyed, the cars all have individual damaged/undamaged textures, and the pachinko machines in the first level have a random chance of giving out various ammo/items when used Figured I'd also post This community voxel project here, its not completely finished yet but it works perfectly fine with both SWP and classic redux front-ends and adds some more voxel models in-place of various other sprites
|
|
#
?
May 2, 2014 18:43
|
|
|
It took longer than I expected, but the bonus video is ready. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCEGjaGYB7c It's not a comprehensive collection by any means but it should give you a general idea of what Lo Wang is saying while the commentary talks over him. I'll also try to highlight anything important he says from now on. Parking meters and car textures are included for Noodlebox but I left out the training dummy healing and pachinko machines on purpose; they take a long time to pay off and I like to keep a pretty brisk pace in my videos. The start of episode two will not take too long, I think. 24 hours from now at most.
|
|
#
?
May 5, 2014 04:25
|
|
|
If you try to use the forklift before you have the repair kit, Lo Wang says "huh, must be American made".
|
|
#
?
May 5, 2014 05:44
|
|
|
Wait, you can... get off the loving carpet in the lava pit? All those years and I never knew. anilEhilated fucked around with this message at 07:22 on May 5, 2014 |
|
#
?
May 5, 2014 07:20
|
|
|
Man this game is really hard to play. You make it look so effortless. :/
|
|
#
?
May 5, 2014 09:04
|
|
|
Beartaco posted:Man this game is really hard to play. You make it look so effortless. :/   Also isn't the political correctness going a bit overboard when this game gets beat up for racism as much as it does? As a kid I never really noticed it while playing it and thought the tacky humor and blatant smugness of Lo wang was very endearing and hilarious. Couldn't one argue the same for Redneck rampage? Isn't it very obvious that both are joke games with over the top everything shoveled into it?
|
|
#
?
May 5, 2014 10:02
|
|
|
It is ovbious, but some people are really stupid when it comes to things like this.
|
|
#
?
May 5, 2014 10:11
|
|
|
Remember, it was the nineties and no one really knew what to think about games - it was before the controversies that brought gaming to media attention. Now it's easy to pin the games as parodies and Doom as an over-the-top action ride, but back then the question on everyone's lips was "what is it going to do to the kids?" edit: And no, the effortlessness is not being a product of gaming in the nineties. I played this game when it was released - and the highest difficulty is still hard as balls. He's just that good at this game. anilEhilated fucked around with this message at 11:48 on May 5, 2014 |
|
#
?
May 5, 2014 11:45
|
|
|
anilEhilated posted:Remember, it was the nineties and no one really knew what to think about games - it was before the controversies that brought gaming to media attention. Now it's easy to pin the games as parodies and Doom as an over-the-top action ride, but back then the question on everyone's lips was "what is it going to do to the kids?" Then again they said the exact same things about Video Games that they did about TV before it and Radio before that, somewhere in there Comic Books got the same treatment for awhile as well, and let's not forget rock and roll. The reality is that people blame new things for percieved wrongs in the present regardless of any actual connection just because the things are new and they don't understand them.
|
|
#
?
May 5, 2014 11:52
|
|
|
That and the running assumptions that a]games are for kids since they are games and b]kids are stupid.
|
|
#
?
May 5, 2014 11:54
|
|
|
anilEhilated posted:That and the running assumptions that a]games are for kids since they are games and b]kids are stupid. Oh god don't get me started on people who make assumption b.
|
|
#
?
May 5, 2014 11:55
|
|
|
One fun little detail about the thugs with uzis: they suicide sometimes if you get near enough. I saw them putting the barrel in their mouths a couple of times in the second level but you killed them too quick.
|
|
#
?
May 5, 2014 12:38
|
|
|
First video of episode two! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKmtfw28ock Given the controversy first person shooters have suffered since day one, I'm kinda not surprised that people would latch on to any objectionable things they could find in these games. I'm sure most of us are familiar with the way that even the most blatant parodies get taken at face value. If anyone wants me to talk about how I approach Shadow Warrior once all the videos are up, I'd be happy to go over what I've done to get through the game. It's my belief that just about anyone can do what I'm doing with some map knowledge and understanding of the game. Trust me when I say I'm not some FPS god. You should see me try to play Titanfall, my K/D ratio approaches Avogadro's limit so I can't be sure if I ever got any kills.
|
|
#
?
May 5, 2014 20:54
|
|
|
I'm not stopping! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYucNWt0BmE Since this is the first level where I use the Guardian Head I'd like to talk a little bit about what I think of it. The default fire is amazing. It's accurate, kills quickly at short and long range, and runs out of ammo so very fast. Most weapons that powerful will kill me if I use them at close range so this fills a very useful role at times. I don't really like the other two firing modes. The circle of fire might be okay in very specific situations perhaps, but it doesn't get the immediate results I need when I try it out. The fire wave attack looks great and deals good damage but doesn't work at short range. I already have weapons that are powerful but don't work at short range, thanks.
|
|
#
?
May 7, 2014 23:33
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 13, 2024 20:31 |
|
|
Another good thing about the guardian head's primary fire is that if you hit something with it enough times it will get set on fire and go into a panic mode, it also does some high damage against boss/ mini-boss characters The fire circle and fire wave are fairly iffy; the circle is decent at dealing with hornet swarms (although explosive weaponry is way better in nearly every case) and it can go through walls, the wave is kind of junk though and since it doesn't have a trail effect it's basically just a gimped missile launcher There was also a little item alcove you missed back in Rising Son   Nothing really game changing in it, but the cookie is helpful if you're hurting
|
|
#
?
May 8, 2014 22:46
|
|