The BUILD trio, which one do you prefer?

[levelworm]

I have to say that I like all of them. Given the amount of game contents and expansions available, I could probably play them for the rest X years.

Duke Nukem 3D is the first Build game, and it's the first FPS game I played (strictly speaking I played the demo of Rebel Moon Rising before that, for perhaps 15 mins). I still remember the moment that I saw "Entering Hollywood Holocaust" shown on the screen of my father's 486DX PC. Although I have spent a lot more time on other games such as Baldur's Gate and System Shock 2 and I profoundly enjoy them, that particular moment is so unique that the thrill it brought to me occured once in my life, so far.

I didn't play Blood until GoG released the bundle, so that's at least 10 years from its release. Contrary to what some people say, nostalgia is NOT the reason that I prefer classic games like Blood. After all, I didn't get the chance to play the game until at least 2008, and I'm also playing some of the modern FPS games as well, e.g. Call of Duty. I prefer Blood to modern FPS games, as it does have a lot of game design gems. Blood doesn't have up-to-date graphics and audio, and the control is awkward if you don't set up properly. Build engine does not do well about players' looking up/down so that's also a problem. But Blood has superb game design, in some ways far superior than many modern FPS games. Modern FPS games, as well as some other genres, seem to be based on an objective system. The players are busy completing all the designated objectives without being truly immersed in the game. The cover system that you are able to see in some FPS and RPG games are also a game-flow-breaker. I played all the Mass Effect games, but honestly I never got used to the cover system so I rarely used them. I'm not saying that the objective system and cover system are bad designs, but they definitely remind the players from time to time that they are supposed to enjoy the hard work of game designers and abey the rules.

I'd like to discuss a little bit more about the objective system and cover system. It's true that a lot of games need such systems, but they can be treated differently. For example System Shock 2 has a lot of game objectives, but they are subtle, and the map is just for reference. The player is supposed to find clues in the game world, i.e. they are supposed to immerse in the gigantic game world, not the objective system itself. Now I didn't play many 3rd person games, so I can't say much about the cover system.

Shadow Warrior is actually the only game of the trio that I never completed. I bought the game a while ago and am playing it slowly, due to high difficulty and other reasons. IMO Blood and Shadow Warrior are definitely more difficult tham Duke3d, and Shadow Warrior is the most difficult one in the trio. Shadow Warrior introduces some new elements into the build engine, like drivable vehicles, but most new gameplay elements are subtle. For example I pretty enjoy taking hours and hours to find a certain key (not a secret place), and some of the secret places are truly well hidden.

Overall I'd say Duke3d is conceptually simple, while Blood and Shadow Warrior try to add a lot of details and flavors into the games. I definitely enjoy all of them, but I'd like to hear your opinions.

[Emmanuelexe]

levelworm eredeti hozzászólása:

JustDust666 eredeti hozzászólása:

It seems like many people enjoyed BLOOD the most, so I would like to get it on Steam. But it seems like I can't buy it in germany? Or do I just don't find it in the store? :/

On Steam it's called Blood: One Unit Whole Blood. If you can't buy it on Steam, try GOG.com.

Beta of the fan port of BLOOD here :)
http://m210.duke4.net/index.php

For people who don't want install java:
https://forums.duke4.net/topic/9376-portable-java-and-bloodgdx/

[PixelPusher]

I love them all equally. ❤ So many good memories playing Duke
Match, WangBang and BloodBath over LAN, building maps and creating custom art for the games. =)

[phrozz]

I dunno, I preferred Quake and Doom, but out of those I think Duke is best. Never played Blood.

[Death]

PixelPusher eredeti hozzászólása:

I love them all equally. ❤ So many good memories playing Duke
Match, WangBang and BloodBath over LAN, building maps and creating custom art for the games. =)

This. Each one had things that made them great. Duke is just a bad ass, Caleb has a dark sense of humor that is right up my alley and Lo Wang is a bad ass too. He's basically just an asian themed Duke and I enjoy both characters even if they are pretty shallow and all 3 games had pretty good level design in my opinion.

[phrozz]

Death eredeti hozzászólása:

PixelPusher eredeti hozzászólása:

I love them all equally. ❤ So many good memories playing Duke
Match, WangBang and BloodBath over LAN, building maps and creating custom art for the games. =)

This. Each one had things that made them great. Duke is just a bad ass, Caleb has a dark sense of humor that is right up my alley and Lo Wang is a bad ass too. He's basically just an asian themed Duke and I enjoy both characters even if they are pretty shallow and all 3 games had pretty good level design in my opinion.

The level in shadow warrior where you have to take the raft to that big battleship is actually one of the worst designed levels I've ever played. It's so dumb.

[Josh]

doom 2

[🌎Earth]

bernt eredeti hozzászólása:

Death eredeti hozzászólása:

This. Each one had things that made them great. Duke is just a bad ass, Caleb has a dark sense of humor that is right up my alley and Lo Wang is a bad ass too. He's basically just an asian themed Duke and I enjoy both characters even if they are pretty shallow and all 3 games had pretty good level design in my opinion.

The level in shadow warrior where you have to take the raft to that big battleship is actually one of the worst designed levels I've ever played. It's so dumb.

What killed it for me was the Coolios, they seemed to be everywhere on that level

[Red Cooter]

I found that the level design in shadow warrior and blood was generally weaker than the level design in duke3d.

[ax34]

I prefer Redneck Rampage (my nickname is in honor of it)

[丂ｱ乇丂丂ひ_丂乃]

I think these days I actually prefer Shadow Warrior over Duke. As game I think Duke is more varied and better but level design is imo at it's peak in Shadow Warrior. Really hardcore and creative stuff right there.

Blood I have never finished and anyways played only couple times. So I cannot really speak about that one. Blood has has amazing atmopshere.

[gecko_sp]

They all got there good and average parts. Some of the levels in Duke are really short, especially in shrapnel city. I also don't really like the space episode too much, it’s a bit repetitive and they could have done so much more with this.

Shadow warrior should have diversified a bit with separate episodes like duke, but they went the DOOM 2 route with one long episode, and I think it suffered because of that. There could have been more variety with the enemies and bosses too. The level design is superior to Duke though.

Blood has this weird floaty thing going on with its physics and some of the levels are just downright maze like with like 8 different keys. I really like the alternative fire mode with the weapons though, that would have been cool in Duke. I also like the Cryptic Passage expansion the better than the main episode.

But I think we can all agree that the worst build engine game is a tie between WW2GI and NAM. They are just crazy stupid hard to the point where its just not enjoyable.

[aXe]

Blood by a long shot. Play as a bad guy, not some generic tough guy, unique feel with its environments and I swear it has better designed levels. I seem to spend less time exploring empty levels for the last damn key.

Not to mention most weapons have a secondary firing mode and the black humour.

[EuloGP]

Red Cooter eredeti hozzászólása:

I found that the level design in shadow warrior and blood was generally weaker than the level design in duke3d.

Yep. Duke 3D had so many great levels, and SW had a few in comparison. The said battleship level (Floating Fortress) is one great exception, it's like Derelict from Duke, and the following map (Water Torture) is also amazing. Too bad there are so many weak levels particularly in the early parts of Code of Honor.

[Jellopie]

Blood. All day long. Blood.

It's howdy doody time kiddies, the bad man is here.

[Alyxxandria]

Probably Blood.