Shadow Warrior Classic Complete

As a huge fan of most of the games that were release with the Build Engine, this one was always one of my favourites. I don't know how many games have tried to do first person swords/fists with effectiveness, but I've always found this one is the best. It's funny, well designed and just good. If you love Duke Nukem, and always had a soft spot in your heart for its peers in on the build engine, you'll have a great time with this. The fact that it includes the expansions for only $6? Great stuff.

Like many BUILD engine games released after Duke 3D this is one that didn't get as much attention as it deserved. With larger more varied environments and some really cool engine tricks Shadow Warrior cranks the extreme edginess of Duke 3D up to 11. Lo Wang is a hilarious character and absolutely not politically correct. That's ok, because the substance of the game is some great run and gun action with huge levels. Drivable vehicles, Room over Room design, and some really epic deaths of your foes really make this game something special including cute anime girls that are the icing on the cake. The weapons are also a blast to play with as well they all have alternate fire modes, and some really interesting design, including a NUKE! Something that Duke 3D lacked despite it being the main character's namesake. In addition to the previously mentioned features you have some really interesting puzzle design that differs from Duke 3D due to the more advanced maturity of the BUILD engine at this point. I don't want to spoil anything, but GO SPEED RACER GO! Shadow Warrior is a great 90s FPS it's got some tacky humour, but you'll probably find yourself stifling a chuckle or two. If you're looking for more great 90s FPS action though Shadow Warrior will not disappoint.

Another of the "Build Engine" games, Shadow Warrior was wickedly tough but rewarded you with fun levels, a lewd sense of humour and some awesomely violent fights. I never realised there were actually two mission packs made available for this, as when it came out, many PC games had a notoriously low release rate in the UK. Another example of that were the two mission packs for Blood, one of which I mail ordered from Monolith Software as it was simply un-available in the UK. Shadow Warrior is a great release and one you should purchase NOW if you liked Duke Nukem, and the vastly superior Blood.

I remember playing this game when it was a current release. In fact I think I still have the old PC Gamer magazine that did a review on it I believe. I'll never forget some of the great one-liners that your main character Lo Wang says. Here's a couple examples: In one of the early levels, you have to find a part to repair a 2 wheel fork-lift, so that you can access a shaft that is otherwise inaccessible. When you first walk up to the machine, if you press the Space-bar (just like how in Doom or Wolf3D you would mash the space-bar key to find hidden doors and such, but in Shadow Warrior your avatar says something like "Hmmmm, must be American Made".. In another level, I think the start of the second episode or whatever you call it, where as the game loads and starts, you find yourself floating on a little boat, and your avatar repeats the famous song "Row, Row, Row you boat" only to be interrupted when your character announces out loud "Woah, my thingy fell out" Here's a couple YouTube videos that show some of the action from this game. www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0Fo_4QW6jg This video below on youtube might be exposing some game progress, or rather if you will be considered a "spoiler" if you will, so please consider watching it if you've never played this game before....There's no video, but these one-liners are found throughout the game. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PleifZ56yuo When Duke Nukem came out, and included some tongue-in-cheek humor, such as stumbling across a dead avatar body of what players looked like in the original Doom v.1666 looked like during Doom Deathmatch 4v4. Lo Wang sees the green and white suited dead Doom character, and Lo Wang would say "Woah, that's one Doomed Space Marine". The humor is on par with the original Duke Nukem 3D in the late 90's, but back then most games didn't have this kind of humor. Obviously this game is likely highly offensive to any Asian who doesn't like it when people stereotype how they talk when exposed to Westerns, but even still I loved this game, and played many many hours on it..