Nancsi, on 10 December 2016 - 02:33 PM, said:
I disagree with you here. Duke was IMHO more popular because it used more realistic locations, and lacked the central theme which made the game and its modding tools much more versatile. It's much harder to build user levels for SW and Blood, since their sceneries are limited. The same goes to Redneck Rampage. One is horror style, one is asian style, and one is rural style with some weird trash compactor stuff thrown in. Duke has different city elements, hi tech base elements, canyon elements, green alien elements, moon elements etc. Even horror can be built easily with Duke assets. Only the rural theme is not implemented to the game.
Also Duke enemies were better written. SW for example didn't have a pushover like the Liztroop, even the Brown Ninja was as hard as the Enforcer. Blood enemies are just one dimensional IMHO, and the monks are annoying (well, I never liked Blood, so my opinion of it might be truly unpopular here). Also, Duke had better, more complex leveldesign than the other 3 major Build games. Just compare an average Allen Blum level to an average Stephen Cole level. Also, Redneck Rampage failed in the market mostly because its leveldesign was frustrating. I always wanted to like the game, because its theme was great, but there were so many missed oportunities in it.
And yea, Duke was the first game of these. The others came after Quake, and when the FPS went into the true 3D direction.
Yes, I consider the setting to be part of the character. However, I disagree that Duke had superior enemies to the other two. I feel that Duke's enemies were more clunky than Blood or Shadow Warrior's. They were had more health, so it felt a tad slow to fight them; for quite a few you had no choice but to sit there and really chip away at them. You just strafe, peak around corners or stand still and concentrate fire. Perhaps the protector or sentry drone are the only exceptions to this. Blood's enemies are more dynamic in that they forced you to take different approaches to dealing with them. You don't face cultists directly; you either peek and shoot quickly or you throw some dynamite around a corner. You have to kneel to avoid the ranged attacks of butchers. You have to backpedal a little to fight zombies and gill beasts. You have to kneel
and backpedal to deal with gargoyles, hell hounds and spiders. You have to be diligent in waiting for just the right moment to hit phantasms. You have to shoot or move very quickly to avoid choking hands. Everything dealt more damage and pursued you more vigorously, thus forcing you to be very active. Shadow Warrior is sort of similar in this regard; things could kill you and you could kill them at a breakneck speed, so you had to be on the move all the time. I think neither Blood nor Shadow Warrior had a pushover enemy because it would interrupt the pacing. To me, anyway, this departure from the traditional is more appealing than Duke's 'lethargic bullet-sponges that inch towards you' approach.
I think Blood's level design fits in with the game's motif (creepy = more intimate and claustrophobic spaces) and how you'd deal with the enemies (i.e. spacious room with multiple gargoyles and tight, bending maze with cultists). There were also plenty of complex Blood levels (e2m7 "Bowels of the Earth" comes to mind).
I've never liked Redneck Rampage. It was always too rough around the edges for me. The aesthetic looked like it had no effort put into it; the shoddily-rendered enemies and weapons just didn't go with the more "realistic" looking wall textures and whatnot, the level design was poor and the combat was awkward. I think it really shows that they were trying to finish the game before the technology became
too obsolete. I can't help but feel that people try to group it with Duke, Shadow Warrior and Blood as the "big four" just because it had a humorous theme.