Shadow Warrior

Playtime: 16.9 Hours

Finished 01 June 2025.

Played on Steam using the RAZE sourceport, instead of the default Redux sourceport that feels kinda choppy and laggy for some reason. Unlike most of the other 2.5D games, I played this one the normal difficulty because it's really challening (also because explosions do a boatload of damage to you); it did get much easier later on into the game though. Finished all of the campaigns, Enter the Wang / Code of Honor, Twin Dragon, and Wanton Destruction. Quality was surprisingly consistent throughout, and I enjoyed basically my entire time playing this!

Who wants some Wang? After several attempts to get into this game over the years, I finally managed to stick with it for long enough to really engross myself in this game. And was it worth it! After playing through all of the "official" campaigns, I completely understand why this is considered a Build Engine classic. It might even be my favorite 2.5D shooter now - it's SO much fun to play.

There's probably a few major reasons why I failed to break into this game so many times to begin with. The foremost one is that this game is really hard, especially in the first few levels; Enter the Wang is technically the shareware portion of the game, and it's super tough, with limited arsenal access and some insane BS. More generally though, enemies do tons of damage and react quickly, making it super difficult and inconsistent to get through encounters unscathed, even if you're only up against the little guys. Also, I always forget that Build engine games have some strange quirks with vertical aim, even though it's supported -- so they should always be played with auto-aim on, as much as it hurts to use. SW actually punishes you even further if you try to play the game with it off, as the wasps are super annoying to hit with incredibly erratic movement and a tiny hitbox. I distinctly remember them making me ragequit the game last time.

Compared to the other 2.5D-era games I've played, Lo Wang has a significantly more varied arsenal. In addition to the usual suspects, SW also has a grenade launcher, sticky bombs, a railgun, ripper hearts that can be used to summon shadow clones, and many more - both in the list of weapons and sub-items that you get to use. The sword is an awesome melee weapon, doing enough damage to slice up lots of common enemies, and even the fists have some funny mechanics - damaging you if you're stupid enough to puch a solid wall, but healing you if you punch a fighting dummy! All of the weapons look and feel really cool - the riot gun is a quad-barrelled shotgun that looks kind of like a minigun with a burst-fire mode, and you can literally use a demon head to shoot fireballs at enemies too. The rocket launcher can also fire an actual nuke -- no joke. I really can't overstate how cool the weapons feel in this game; they're not all optimal to use, but they look and feel fantastic.

One of the things that I quickly realized about the general gameplay flow of this game is its incredibly heavy reliance on explosives, far more than any other 2.5D shooter. Again, because enemies are so dangerous, you need to anticipate where enemies might be hiding and thoroughly clear areas as you move through the map. The irony of a "shadow warrior" using the loudest and most destructive weapons possible isn't lost on me, but the levels flow very well with this in mind. On the other hand, since explosions do such a ridiculous amount of self-damage (often up to or exceeding 100HP), there can be some serious BS if you accidentally hit a bozo that runs directly into you as you fire a grenade. Other guns, like the riot gun, Uzis, and railgun are typically used to finish off enemies or blow up barrels, though they are all very powerful in their own right too. It's just that the rate at which you consume ammo for those weapons (especially with low ammo caps & high fire rates) is exceedingly high, while pretty much all maps top you up with enough explosive ammo to blow up half of America on your way from start to end.

Another great strength of Shadow Warrior, as a Build Engine game, is that all of the levels are meticulously themed to different locations - a Chinatown, a Shopping Mall, monasteries, forests, villages, factories, etc. It's really cool being able to actually recognize what the different levels are supposed to be, rather than the abstract tilesets and textures of the big DOOM Engine games. The actual level design in these games tends to fairly solid as well, with lots of verticality, interesting secrets, and a balance between winding and directed design. I never feel like a level is a boring walk from beginning to end, but it's also pretty rare for me to completely lose track of where I am.

Enemies are quite interesting as well - there's lots of variety in the roster, and lots of them have funny or interesting effects. I like how the sumo guys die in a giant cloud of toxic fart, and the suicide zombie things that turn into ghosts are funny (and really annoying) until you learn how to deal with them properly. The cloaked enemy shadow warriors are seriously terrifying to fight; you can barely see them, and they can obliterate you with their rockets and explosive flare things. A slight counterpoint to this is that the bosses are kind of bad since they're too easy; they all have fairly simple patterns and are notoriously easy to cheese, including the final bosses which are probably easier to do damageless than otherwise. I think I killed myself trying to nuke the bosses for fun more frequently than they actually killed me. In all fairness, boss fights are pretty much the last reason why anyone would care about playing this game anyway.

I'm pretty surprised I never managed to stick out the entire game before, but I couldn't be happier that I decided to give it one final shot, so I could lay it properly to rest (for now). I think the first few shareware levels really ramped up the difficulty quickly, but as I got used to the way the game played, I found that most of the levels afterward were very comfortable to play. Unlike DOOM, none of the levels felt like giant slogs through hundreds of enemies; in fact, I don't think any of the levels went beyond a 2-digit enemy count. Now that I've finally managed to finish this, the last one of the Build Engine games that I want to play is BLOOD, which also has a similarly stellar reputation. I'm hoping I'll have as much fun with that as I did this :)