So what's up with all the Build games re-releases?

[674f46f6502f9voodoo47]

anyone tried Duke Nukem 3D: 20th Anniversary World Tour and Shadow Warrior Classic Redux? watched a few videos on youtube, and while the extra episode looks interesting (also, a 20 year game receiving an expansion pack, now that's a first), there were few complaints about mouse controls and incompatibility with fan stuff. also no texture filtering if I'm googling correctly? hmm.. Shadow Warrior Classic Redux is on sale right now (GOG), and it looks better/less glitchy than vanilla+SWP on the videos, but again, a few complaints about vsync and mouse lag.

also, seems like GOG is throwing cashbacks at people from poorer regions when purchasing certain games - watch and learn, steam.

[674f46f6505e0Marvin]

Doesn't the new Duke run like shit and contain horrible new models or was that a different game?

I don't care for these kind of re-releases at all, especially when it comes to making decades of modding obsolete due to compatibility issues.

[674f46f650702voodoo47]

not sure, that's why I'm asking.

I personally don't mind a good re-release, but with the emphasis on "good", that's why I'm snooping around for a bit (feeling like a bit of Shadow Warrior lately, and SWP is getting somewhat old - it's not developed anymore and some things were never fixed, so an alternative would be welcome).

[674f46f6509eaZylonBane]

Doesn't the new Duke run like shit and contain horrible new models or was that a different game?

The new Duke is Duke Nukem Forever. I don't know why you'd think that has anything to do with a discussion of Build Engine games.

[674f46f650c25Marvin]

The new Duke is Duke Nukem Forever. I don't know why you'd think that has anything to do with a discussion of Build Engine games.

Do you want to play word games like a retard or do you have something substantial to say?

[674f46f650d0cZylonBane]

If you came to a Duke Nukem thread for substantial discussion, you have bigger problems.

[674f46f6510e6JDoran]

I've not bothered with the new Duke Nukem 3D release, as I've already bought the game twice (three times if you include the N64 port, which made some nice changes to the game, plus a couple of strange changes). From what I've heard, the new episode it includes isn't too great, anyway.

Duke Nukem Forever isn't actually as bad as some people say - it's not good by any means, but it's far from the worst game ever, despite the criticisms levelled against it. Not awful, just the wrong side of mediocre, and it massively misses on what it was aiming for. It was supposed to be old school style first person shooting, yet it includes regenerating health, checkpoint saving, and a weapon carrying limit. It was supposed to be satire/humour* based, like the original, but instead it utterly misses the point, portraying Duke as someone genuinely world famous and beloved by everyone and who even Presidents listen too (and I'm not making this up, the game includes twin young women who Duke is having a sexual relationship with, and they get kidnapped by aliens. But then they get
inseminated by aliens, and then die when the aliens are born, and when this happens Duke says "Guess they're fucked!", which he wouldn't joke about, he'd be furious. The writers totally misunderstood the character).

There's other flaws, but I can't be bothered listing them. Basically even if you're a Duke fan, it's not worth buying unless you can get it for cheap and you've played all of the good first person shooters available for your PC or consoles.


* Mind you, even Duke Nukem 3D itself can't keep the satire or humour up for long, and the space segments lack most of that too. But the game is constant;y fun with the shooting and exploring, thankfully, so the more generic levels don't drag on or feel boring.


Shadow Warrior 3D (the orignal, 1997, game) is good too, although the too-accurate hit-scan-weapon wielding enemies are mildly annoying. The 2015 reboot is good too, and from what I've read, the new, 2016 sequel it good too, but I've yet to play it.

BTW, the PC versions of Duke Nukem 3D, and Shadow Warrior 3D had their source code released by 3D Realms, so anyone can compile the games to play on any machines powerful enough to host them. This resulted in them being ported by a fan to the original XBox (very good ports, too), and Windows ports were released, supporting new features like 3D models, higher resolution textures, and better online multiplayer support.

The other Build game I really like is Blood! (their exclamation mark, not mine). It's a really good FPS based around a horror/cult theme, and should appeal to any fans of Duke Nukem 3D/Shadow Warrior. Sadly, it's source code was never released, but if you want to play a Windows version, then there's the free remake of it, BloodCM) which is really good. Since it's Windows based, it offers more configuration (resolution, controls, etc), but on the minus side it can't currently play the third-party fan made mods, but you can buy the original, DOS game (it comes preset to run in Windows via DOSBox) from gog.com

[674f46f65152fZylonBane]

It was supposed to be satire/humour* based, like the original, but instead it utterly misses the point, portraying Duke as someone genuinely world famous and beloved by everyone and who even Presidents listen too

Why wouldn't he be world famous? He's literally saved it multiple times. He didn't imagine all that happening.

[674f46f651668voodoo47]

wasn't aware of BloodCM (or anything else that would allow playing the original game outside DOS or DOS emulation), pretty sure I'll have a look at that once I'm done with this semester (assuming it supports high resolutions and full mouselook controls, as mentioned, I absolutely need those).

Blood source code actually isn't lost, but it's unreleased because of legal stuff (I've actually linked it here somewhere when the news was still hot). don't you just hate when that happens.

[674f46f651ad5JDoran]

Why wouldn't he be world famous? He's literally saved it multiple times. He didn't imagine all that happening.

Alright, I mis-worded it, sorry. I meant that Duke was supposed to have an over-inflated ego, and a hugely exaggerated view of his own importance and popularity. He was intended to be sort of like Ash from The Evil Dead movies, only with more conceit and self-love. Yes, he's rock hard, yes women probably love him, and yes his exploits probably have (and certainly should have) made him famous, but DNF takes it to ridiculous extremes, almost sycophantically, and it ruins the point by hammering it home too much. In DN3D it feels funny, and like an exaggerated day dream, but in DNF it's made to feel real-life (ish), and it doesn't work at all. Although I'd be more than happy if that was the game's only problem.

BTW, has anyone played the DN3D mod

wasn't aware of BloodCM (or anything else that would allow playing the original game outside DOS or DOS emulation), pretty sure I'll have a look at that once I'm done with this semester (assuming it supports high resolutions and full mouselook controls, as mentioned, I absolutely need those).

It does, yes. Those were part of the reason the project was begun, years back (Build mouse support in Blood! was problematic for some people, though I never found a problem, as far as I can remember), plus the difficulty back then of getting Build games to run on Windows XP. It's a superb port, you'd really think it's just a Windows recompile of the DOS version.

Blood source code actually isn't lost, but it's unreleased because of legal stuff (I've actually linked it here somewhere when the news was still hot). don't you just hate when that happens.

That is a pity.

[674f46f651ed0Join2]

It does, yes. Those were part of the reason the project was begun, years back (Build mouse support in Blood! was problematic for some people, though I never found a problem, as far as I can remember), plus the difficulty back then of getting Build games to run on Windows XP. It's a superb port, you'd really think it's just a Windows recompile of the DOS version.

I've mentioned Blood: Crossmatching here multiple times. It is indeed superb, only problem is the final level is incomplete.

[674f46f6521c7JDoran]

I've mentioned Blood: Crossmatching here multiple times. It is indeed superb, only problem is the final level is incomplete.

The official four episodes are complete now, and work is almost finished on The Plasma Pack too. It's shown as 99% complete, and the latest news update on this was on 29th November 2016, and says:

I made all of Plasma Pack maps, but needs to find and fix some bugs. Besides I'm going to make a new enemies from Plasma Pack episode. GreenPod and FirePod are completed today.

Source: Official Web Site

So maybe the Plasma Pack equipped version will be released before the end of the year, or early next year. Meaning that mod-wiseI have new versions of BloodCM, Goldeneye X, and GMDX to look forward to. And maybe Goldfinger 64, which was strongly hinted to be due out in 2014, but is still waiting for release.

[674f46f6522f7voodoo47]

looks like a new developer has taken over SWP, and a fairly recent beta of the port is available. nice to know that the port is not completely dead, but unfortunately, it still has the savegame corruption issue.

[674f46f652405JDoran]

Thanks for the link to the latest version. I've not heard of a save game bug, and I've played it a little on the PC, and a lot on the original XBox, but both times it was the original JonoF Windows engine version (well, on the XBox it was a port of the JonoF Windows engine), is the bug only in the SWP version?

[674f46f6525e2voodoo47]

yes, SWP 4.3.2 (and newer) randomly corrupts the savegames up to the point of losing all game progress, if you are unlucky enough. it's a fairly known problem, with a simple solution - use SWP 4.3.1 which is fine, and should allow full singleplayer experience (for now). it's pretty stable, and (unlike JonoF's port) supports widescreen resolutions plus has a few more cfg options.

seems like there is something new coming - VoidSW, which should be SW port based off EDuke32, but pretty much no information is available, so no idea whether it's still in works or not.


//also, there is a hires pack available at the proasm webpage, but it's a really, really mixed bag - as mentioned quite a few times, there's nothing worse than a mix of old and new textures everywhere (also includes 3d models for some AIs - they are awful, this never seems to look right for some reason). the only part of the pack that is a welcome addition are the skyboxes, and I actually use those to prevent some major ugliness from happening (the vanilla skybox is not mouselook ready, and will glitch out if looking up too much). see the skybox pack here if you are interested.

[674f46f652712voodoo47]

also, a new version of BloodCM has just been released, Plasma Pack edition is now listed as 100% working. open for business?


//not quite - scripted stuff can break sometimes. keep a save at the beginning and the end of each level to be safe.

[674f46f6527ffJDoran]

Thanks for the heads up about SWP's save corruption (and the link to the working version), and for the news of BloodCM's release.

[674f46f652961voodoo47]

ah, just remembered that there is no non-stupid way of getting SWP to play mp3 music - for that reason alone, I'll probably be buying the redux version next time it's on sale.

playing BloodCM right now, it's fun (only played shareware Blood back in the day, so most of the stuff is fresh and extra crispy). crashes about once every two levels, and had about three cases of scripted stuff breaking forcing me to reload an older save so far (about halfway through the second episode). also auto-squishing into walls and doors is a thing, but still beats messing around with dosbox.

I'll be having a look at Blood2 sometime next year - only played the demo back in 1998, and I didn't like it too much for some reason, maybe now with nostalgia glasses on things will be better. also, how come no one is rebooting Blood yet? Duke and Lo Wang already got theirs, should be about time.

[674f46f652a45Join2]

I never had a single crash with BloodCM, if I recall. I guess I got lucky.

Really great game. Definitely in my top ten FPS'.

[674f46f652c04voodoo47]

yeah - but lets list couple of mildly annoying things (may, or may not be vanilla issues, feel free to comment if you are a veteran);

BloodCM:
-really difficult to hit small enemies, even with weapons that deal area damage.
-big spiders are total bullet sponges, can withstand enormous amount of punishment, usually more than half a dozen (!) direct dynamite bundles. //yes, this is vanilla.
-partial invisibility is actually full invisibility, AIs will ignore you even if you attack them.
-weren't the zombies supposed to resurrect sometimes?
-voodoo doll doesn't seem to work half of the time.
-no red flash when you get hit.
-annoying artifacts when looking from a room into another room sometimes, especially when through a hole in the floor or ceiling.

SWP:
-for some reason, I can't seem to hit anything with Wang's riot shotgun. and it's not me, I can hit a pig cop into the crotch through half a level with Duke's pump action shotty.
-playing with autoaim off, it's painfully obvious that some AIs were designed around it - the giga wasps and evil fish are pretty much impossible to hit with anything but explosives.
-the stupid crap the game does with your viewpoint when walking on sloped surfaces, pushing it up or down. I hope some future port either kills this, or at least makes it configurable.

[674f46f6531abJDoran]

BloodCM has never crashed for me, as far as I can remember (on either my desktop or laptop, both Windows 7), but I've not played through more than a few levels, and even then that was a while back, so perhaps the latest version of the game has introduced some instability problems?

Anyway, you can get the original Blood game and it's add-on packs from GOG for £4.79 - I did, and it's a great package, set up to work with (the included) DOSBox, and being a GOG release it has no DRM or other protection, so you can put it on as many machines as you have, and nowadays of course almost any PC still in use is fast enough to run the game at full speed in DOSBox.

I remember playing Blood 2, back when it was first released, and not liking it at all. Does it get better later on?

yeah - but lets list couple of mildly annoying things (may, or may not be vanilla issues, feel free to comment if you are a veteran);

BloodCM:
-really difficult to hit small enemies, even with weapons that deal area damage.
-big spiders are total bullet sponges, can withstand enormous amount of punishment, usually more than half a dozen (!) direct dynamite bundles.
-partial invisibility is actually full invisibility, AIs will ignore you even if you attack them.
-weren't the zombies supposed to resurrect sometimes?
-voodoo doll doesn't seem to work half of the time.
-no red flash when you get hit.
-annoying artifacts when looking from a room into another room sometimes, especially when through a hole in the floor or ceiling.

SWP:
-for some reason, I can't seem to hit anything with Wang's riot shotgun. and it's not me, I can hit a pig cop into the crotch through half a level with Duke's pump action shotty.
-playing with autoaim off, it's painfully obvious that some AIs were designed around it - the giga wasps and evil fish are pretty much impossible to hit with anything but explosives.
-the stupid crap the game does with your viewpoint when walking on sloped surfaces, pushing it up or down. I hope some future port either kills this, or at least makes it configurable.

Have you reported these bugs to the respective games' authors? I can't comment on them (I've not really played SWP, and I can't remember enough about Blood/BloodCM in most cases), but I seem to recall that the voodoo doll was temperamental in the original game (though I might be wrong, and anyway, I can't compare it to BloodCM's version, so maybe the latter is worse somehow), and I don't recall zombies coming back to after being 'really dead' (you know, when you've decapitated them, or otherwise made them stop getting up again).

[674f46f6532deJDoran]

What's Redneck Rampage like? What features does it have that Duke/Shadow/Blood don't have? I've played it at a mate's years back, but don't remember much about it.

[674f46f653522voodoo47]

yeah, Blood2 didn't click for me either, but I'm willing to give it a second go.

SWP is not developed anymore, and it seems BloodCM's author is going to work on some other Blood port now, so that probably makes BloodCM abandoned as well. zombies never get up as far as I can tell, they just take damage until they go down permanently - looking at vanilla Blood on youtube, the correct behavior should be taking some damage, go down, go up, take more damage, go down etc. crashing mostly happens when you try to load a game, so if you aren't doing that, you won't experience many crashes (I do, as I play on hard, and even with full mouselook controls, the game is still capable of blowing me up into bloody chunks every once in a while - that's a nineties FPS for you).

most people agree that Redneck Rampage is nowhere near the big Build trinity.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBj7RR9_-D0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZWXsIlaT5k

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RluZuxrIh7A

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=os8pA26K1QU

that pretty much sums it up.

[674f46f65395fJoin2]

BloodCM:
-really difficult to hit small enemies, even with weapons that deal area damage.

The Adams Family hands were annoying as shit, but I enjoy an enemy that gives me a hard time, from time to time.

-big spiders are total bullet sponges, can withstand enormous amount of punishment, usually more than half a dozen (!) direct dynamite bundles.

Doesn't bother me.

-partial invisibility is actually full invisibility, AIs will ignore you even if you attack them.

Pretty sure it's meant to be full invisibility, it just looks like a partial effect on your rendered weapons.

-weren't the zombies supposed to resurrect sometimes?

Yeah, unless decapitated, set on fire or blown up.

-voodoo doll doesn't seem to work half of the time.

I think it's just meant to be novelty weapon, although I'm not certain. I just ignored it.

-no red flash when you get hit.

I don't recall having this problem. And I would if I suffered it because it is important feedback to have. Hmm.

-annoying artifacts when looking from a room into another room sometimes, especially when through a hole in the floor or ceiling.

Sounds like standard old school engine occlusion. But perhaps it wasn't present in the original Blood. No idea. Minor graphical anomalies never bothered me. I enjoy old 3D games which were often filled with 'em.