Saturday, March 4, 2017

Revisiting The Build Trilogy

Fancely named, I consider Duke Nukem 3D, Shadow Warrior and Blood to be the holy trinity of games run on the Build engine. Lately, all three of them basically have been given definitive editions in regards to content, so let´s revisit!

One Unit Whole Blood

While a fantastic game, it is unfortunately the most dissapointing of these three, because while it includes the main campaign and it´s expansions, it runs on DOSBox, and somehow, the lag is unbearable at times, making spikes happen often.

Also, the framerate is not what I am used to when playing it. Even if you have a high end PC, One Unit Whole Blood does not run smoothly. If you are not bothered by this(you should because the difficulty becomes insane later on), then you will have a creepy yet exciting 90's time.

Shadow Warrior Classic Redux

Still being my favorite out of these three, Shadow Warrior Classic Redux runs regarding performance perfect, and it includes the full game, as well as the expansions and the Build editor, with a slick new menu interface added.

Despite that I knew how to build levels on it during the late 90's/early 00's, I have completely forgotten how it works now, and finding a tutorial of it online now is almost impossible to find! It's a shame because I used to have such a good time either creating entire new levels, or simply making existing ones even harder by enemy and item placements.

Duke Nukem 3D Twentieth Anniversary World Tour

The objective favorite of the bunch as well as when speaking of the series itsel, Duke Nukem 3D celebrates it's anniversary, and includes besides it's primary base game and expansions, a new episode called World Tour, where obviously you tour key world settings.

When compared with the other two, I consider Twentieth Anniversary World Tour to be a middleground, as it also sometimes has frame issues, and it does not have exciting new content. Maybe the mark left by Duke Nukem Forever still hurts enough before anyone can consider a real sequel towards Duke Nukem 3D?

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