Blood and other Build Engine games

[shopkins]

I noticed Blood was just released on gog.com. I heard a lot of good things about it back in the day but didn't have a computer that could run it. Yeah, sad, I know, my computer would have choked on Doom. I'm excited to be able to finally try it.

Anyone else have memories of playing this or other Build Engine games? I eventually did get my hands on Duke 3D and enjoyed it, but never got too far into it for some reason. What I saw of Shadow Warrior seemed intriguing with the humor, and I actually have Redneck Rampage and just haven't installed it.

[phreakindee]

Yeah, LOTS of memories of these for me! I played Duke Nukem 3D endlessly back in the day, modded it to no end.

Blood is great, SW is great, Duke3D is beyond great, RR I never liked too much somehow.

There's a ton of others: NAM, Extreme Paintbrawl, Witchaven, Shatner's Tekwar, on and on the list goes.

I've been reviewing some of them recently to introduce them somewhat to new players, here's a couple of them:

Shadow Warrior - LGR Video Review

Blood - LGR Video Review

[Arkhan]

WELCOME TO KENS LABYRINTH!!!!!

[IronBuddha]

These games on gog.com, are the controls fully configurable? Can I use a joystick instead of the keyboard?

[Kitsune Sniper]

Um, well, not that I know of.

But you can use a program like XPadder to configure your joystick to work as a keyboard.

[Push Upstairs]

Anyone else have memories of playing this or other Build Engine games? I eventually did get my hands on Duke 3D and enjoyed it, but never got too far into it for some reason. What I saw of Shadow Warrior seemed intriguing with the humor, and I actually have Redneck Rampage and just haven't installed it.

I own what I consider the "Build Trilogy" which is Duke3D, Blood, & Shadow Warrior.

Duke3D is Duke. Love it because of *ACTUAL LOCATIONS* as opposed to the vague levels "Doom" had.

I would like to point out that that the people who made "NAM", started out by making a total conversion for Duke3D before they made NAM. I remember playing the TC, it was very good quality.

Blood gets the most play simply because the weapons in it are totally insane and fun to use. The dynamite & exploding hairspray are so much fun.

Shadow Warrior is funny, funnier than Duke3D, but the weapons are anemic. I could sit and quote this game all day long though.

"Eww, stink like dead baboon in here."

"Oh ho ho, sticky bomb like you!"

"You are weak as a baby fart, go live in fear"

[Ze_ro]

I played the crap out of Duke 3D, Shadow Warrior, and Ken's 3D Labyrinth. Blood was awesome too, but for whatever reason, I never played it quite as much.

Shadow Warrior got pretty advanced, with drivable vehicles in the game, and loads of humour. Blood had a lot of humour too, though kind of that dark humour where you laugh while enemies scream while they're on fire. Caleb's voice is awesome too.

--Zero

[shopkins]

I played a hellacious amount of Ken's Labryinth, too. Those bizarre enemies were very memorable.

My computer at the time was a 386 SX with 2MB of RAM, so when you go much past Ken's Labyrinth of Wolf 3D things started to get unplayable. It ran Blake Stone, for instance, but too slow and choppy in some places to be much fun. So I spent more time with the older and simpler ones.

[wyethin]

Almost all of the Build engine games are worth playing, shy of TekWar and Nam. Even Nam's pseudo-sequel WW2 GI is worth a play-through. I especially recommend giving the first Witchaven a look. It's similar to Hexen in terms of combat but Witchaven also has bows and spells.

Coolest part of Witchaven for me in the old days was the fact that arrows stuck in walls once shot. That blew my mind and still does to a degree.

And it goes without saying that Blood is the shit. Shadow Warrior is a close second. Shadow Warrior is the only game I've ever seen in which enemies will eventually commit suicide if left in a state of severe wounding.

[Ed Oscuro]

I tried out the first Witchaven recently...ugh, UGH.

BUILD games always feel a bit unsettling to me, for whatever reason. It's the slopes I think, mainly; it's also probably that many of the games I've played have wacked-out art as well. None of the BUILD games rank among my all-time favorite games, but they're alright. I think the Lithtech engine did better though

Anyway, out of the ones I've played:

Ken's Labyrinth: Someday I ought to try to play through the whole thing. It's interesting - like Wolf 3D with more insanity, i.e. musclebound dudes, and giant holes for hall-width bowling balls to fall into. Also, the slot machine

LameDuke: I actually had fun with this some years back. Sheep...there are sheep, right? Also wacky architecture.

Duke 3D: Needs no introduction. Seems a bit short these days though. It's hard to imagine it, but this was one of the first FPSes that had weapons that add strategy, though it wasn't all that balanced - it's usually faster just to shotgun things to death. But the holoduke, trip mines, shrink-ray (giant strippers! awesome) and freezer led the way to today, where we pretty much expect every new FPS to add some revelatory gameplay mechanic. Also, a rapid-fire swarm rocket launcher, awesome. Definitely a step up from Rise of the Triad.

Shadow Warrior: Pretty decent! Actually has some vehicles, awesome. The multiplayer race map is a cool idea too.

Blood: Haven't played all that much of it, also uses voxel models like Shadow Warrior. The character kind of annoys me, but the game is kind of interesting.

Redneck Rampage: The original is pretty cool, and makes good use of the limited inventory slots, and oh god the asylum song. There are some cool moments in here.

Redneck Rampage Route 66: Crummy and lo-rent compared to other Rampages. Not horrible though.

Redneck Rampage Rides Again: Feels like a full-on sequel to the original, with great new scenes, time travel (sort of), all kinds of good stuff.

Witchaven: I haven't played much of this because my plastic spork broke at the beginning. Weird ineffective UI, ugly clay enemies, other stuff. The movies are kind of neat though.

Witchaven 2: Again haven't played much of it.

Nam / Tek War / WW 2 GI - haven't gotten these to work.

Finally, I think I have a copy of Napalm somewhere around here. Pretty sure that's a BUILD game too.