Going Retro

Well, a little.  Despite my currently healing ankle ( I rolled it back in June), I bring my laptop to work every once in awhile to play games.  I decided I'd give Shadow Warrior a go again, as it's been a few years.

Man what a great game!

For those of you who aren't familiar with it, Shadow Warrior puts you in the shoes of Lo Wang, a ninja assassin who works for the shady Zilla corporation.  Zilla, however, made a deal with some demons and decided to have you killed off.  As you can imagine, that doesn't exactly fly with Lo Wang. 

Shadow Warrior uses a much enhanced version of Ken Silverman's Build Engine (in fact, I think he helped in the development of Shadow Warrior as well), and features climbing ladders, weapons with multiple functions, and even vehicles.  Unlike most Build games, Shadow Warrior also has a large focus on melee combat.

The original game sports 14 levels and there were two finished but unreleased expansions, Twin Dragons and Wanton Destruction.  Both expansions are available for free around the internet if you already have the game.  If not, you can get it from Steam or Good Old Games for a decent price (the GOG version also has both expansions).

While it's a build game, E-Duke currently doesn't support it, and most of the source ports for it aren't that great.  JFSW runs slow, and the other that I've found, Proasm's Shadow Warrior Port, has a problem with corrupting save files.  Not good.

However, it runs great in DOSBox and that's all that matters to me.  The original game, while short, is pretty stellar.  Of the expansions, I've only played Wanton Destruction so far, and while it's not quite as fun (mind you, that may be biased because I was using the Proasm port), the level design was fantastic.

I also just picked up Scurge: Hive for my DS, and I have to say, it's pretty decent.  I've only put a few minutes into it so far, but it's kind of like Alien Syndrome meets Secret of Mana. 

Other than that, I'm still playing a lot of Dynasty Warriors 8 and Defiance.  My goal with Dynasty Warriors 8 at this point is to clear the hypothetical story branches.  Once I have everything unlocked, I think I might go on a co-op spree.  With Defiance, I'm still whittling away at the missions.  There are a lot of them!

Also, the current XBox 360 Games With Gold title is Dead Rising 2.  So far, it's okay.  It's not blowing my skirt up, I'm getting flashbacks of Majora's mask with the time limit thing.  Hopefully it gets better as things go along or it'll be leaving my hard drive.  For those who know me well, you'll know I have little nice to say about Majora's Mask.

The last title, by the way, was Crackdown.  Hopefully you Gold account holders grabbed that if you don't have it.  It's a stellar game.

Speaking of games (when aren't I?!), time to get back to killing AI critters and taking names.  Keep your thumbs on your sticks and your fingers on the triggers!