Shadow Warrior

Not many are aware that Shadow warrior was in development even before Duke3D. From its relatively primitive starting point, the final release of Shadow Warrior took the build engine to its limits and today, has even been enhanced with OpenGL support and a high resolution pack project in the pipeline.

So what made SW so great? It was essentially Duke of Japan or Asia, starring another one of 3DRealm's kickass characters, the wacky ninja Lo Wang, pardon the errors in geography with respect to naming. No other game boasts of such a character who makes every moment of this game unique and replayable.

On the techie front, SW did have some excellent levels and some crappy ones as well. The artwork is well done but the character artwork could have been better. The weapons and items were very enjoyable to use. Wang Bang, the multiplayer mode, was also much more fun than Duke's multiplayer.

This game has funny but crude humor such as when you walk up to something broken the guy says:"ooh must be American made" but overall this game is funny worth playing. The weaponry is amazing too you get: A sword, shuriken, fists, uzis, shotguns, demon heads, bazookas, nukes plus more its fun to tear things up.

You are, well, the title. The best of your kind. As many others of them, you're security for a large corporation... Master Zilla's. He has become corrupted by his immense power, and now plans to take over Japan using creatures summoned from the dark side. You quit as a matter of honor, and find yourself a target. Of course, given what this actually is, there is no real plot.

While it is enjoyable to play, this is an average example of its subgenre. It is the lesser of the three BUILD engine releases, the other two being Duke Nukem 3D, a classic, and the solid horror Blood. It does add things not in those. You get to drive and fire the cannon of a tank, blowing holes in walls to proceed, man a machine-gun-armed patrol boat to mow down enemies, and more. There are climbable ladders, swimming underneath as well as on the surface of the transparent water, and to add to the typical key-hunt, you also turn machines on or off, activate switches, levers, elevators, doors, find your way through areas. Thus, you can't just run mindlessly through, you will have to approach it focused. Say, did you/something/someone just blow up something explosive, typically a barrel, possibly opening a path? Has it recently? No to both? Then it for sure will soon.

There is some good enemy AI, and they may take cover. You'll take on and out, among others, humanoid demons, some of them crawling on walls and lunge to and from them and at you, ninjas, ape-like monsters, koi, hornets, and flying ghosts, you'll literally see one arise from the guy you just killed. You can stunlock a number of them, and can sometimes have to. This tends not to put too many of them in one spot, so with skill you can bypass without too much frustration. You can shoot bunnies and most objects, be they still or moving. There is plenty of gore, violence and blood in this. You can slice some of them in two! Or knock them into the air with your bare fists! There are 4 difficulty settings, it will test you even on the easiest... and it gets insane on the higher ones! There is not much replayability, with no randomization or bonus modes, albeit there are hidden areas to locate. There is some cheap challenges, such as unexpected detonations right by you, either static ones or enemy ones, but saving every so often, since you can anytime, fixes that. If you don't load when dying, you'll respawn at the start of the current, losing everything you've picked up, including bonus health, armor, etc. so for those that want that making it even tougher, there you go. And keep fall damage in mind.

Your hands, a Katana, and Shuriken, 3 thrown at a time, are all you have initially. That might make you think this has you sneak through it, but really, you're moving from place to place, blasting away foes, many of which also use non-stealthy weaponry. You can throw smoke and 'blind'. If or when you pick up a second one, you can dual-wield Uzis. There's a riot quad-barrel(fire one, or all four, at a time! Click the select number twice to shift between them) shotgun. A missile launcher, which can be used for heat seekers... even nukes! The mandatory grenade-launcher, they bounce before explode, for ledges and around corners. This has the first sticky bomb in one of these, it's a prox mine: and why yes, it *can* attach to living beings, as well! It didn't come back in the genre until years later! That's just criminal. There's an Eraser-like railgun... that can't go through even thin walls or obstacles! The head and heart of certain enemies can be used as weapons, summoning a zombie for a short time, and, three modes, for example throwing fireballs, respectively. They could easily be more interesting: this doesn't have a real stand-out, to me, like the Doom Plasma Gun, which is essentially an assault rifle that fires energy, and the DND Ripper Chaingun, a multiple-barrelled carried machinegun. Like the other 90's FPS', you sometimes miss, for example, a regular rifle, a lot of your weapons are short-range and/or immensely powerful and thus have very little ammo. This uses of 3D voxels instead of 2D sprites for them. You have to empty the clip to reload. You very quickly get a hold of almost all of them, and though you are of course limited by ammo, you can use even the biggest ones very early on, takes some of the fun out of that, albeit it makes sense if you "die"(and you have unlimited lives), since restarting means you have to start over on collecting them.

The MP is limited and dead. There are a few mostly minor bugs and glitches. The graphics are pretty good, can get it on today's graphics cards and high resolutions without it pixelating horribly, and it runs well. That, and the two expansion packs are all that you get by buying this, instead of using the (legal) free Steam version. Wanton Destruction at 3 and a half hours, and Twin Dragon at 4. They chiefly feature additional levels, and they're slightly less polished than the main ones. Included are a plane that seems like it might crash soon that you don't get to stay on the inside of, a palace, a maze and various plants and the like. Like the regular ones, they're hard to find your way through, usually bordering on, and sometimes crossing into being, obnoxiously so.

There is a lot of material that is tremendously offensive to Asians. Why did the decades around this view being non-PC in humor as an end unto itself, rather than a means to open the debate, to bring up things that could be improved, you know, kicking up instead of down? I recommend this to those who *must* play all of these. 7/10

Rated M for Strong Violence,Blood and Gore,Sexual Content,Nudity and Some Language.

I got my copy of Shadow Warrior at Toys R Us a couple of years back.It doesn't work as well on my Windows XP but its okay.This game is from the creators of Duke Nukem 3D which came out a year before.This game is sort of like Duke Nukem 3D which was an ultra violent FPS game with sexual content which also had plenty of comedy in the game.Shadow Warrior takes place in Hong Kong or somewhere else in China and follows an old,perverted kung fu master named Lo Wang who wants to get revenge on his former boss.You go through many levels shooting and slicing and fighting anyone who gets in your way.Shadow Warrior is a great video game and If you can find it buy it! You wont regret it.Great game especially for its time.

9/10

From 3D realms, meet the new contender - Lo Wang. After the success of Duke Nukem, Shadow Warrior, in my opinion really rocked the boat. Yes, it reminds you on Duke Nukem so much, but try not to pay attention, only the engine is the same and the idea that Lo Wang is somewhat also a macho alpha male like Duke, the only difference is that Duke got chicks, but Lo Wang does not. Lo Wang is a former ninja and a bodyguard to a powerful business man Zilla. After Wang leave Zilla's corporation, he sends his armies of darkness to kill such a mighty warrior as Wang. As you play, you get multiple weapons, and other helpful things, also ability to operate vehicles. Lo Wang has one liners, just like Duke, and they are also based on some dry humor and manly talk. Wang is voiced by John William Galt who did an excellent job. Your enemies are also pretty cool, graphics are the same like Duke Nukem's, good for that time, gameplay is highly entertaining. If you haven't tried Shadow Warrior, I recommend you do so.