[Jim]

This will come sooner or later. So how would you compare Ion Fury to the big four?

[Jenz/Amaka]

You mean five?
Also I'd rate...
1st. Duke - 2nd. Ion Fury - 3rd. Shadow Warrior - 4th. Blood - 5th Redneck

[Phredreeke]

Blood > IF > Duke > SW

Note that IF and Blood are very very close. In fact in terms of gameplay I'd say IF beats it, just the atmosphere that pushes Blood to the top.

[Radar]

It's actually the Big 3. Redneck Rampage is not up there.

I don't think Ion Fury is comparable. The original Build games were made with the perfect balance of simplicity and detail, having been made in a time period with weaker machines. IF clearly has much more detailed level design, but has the benefit of running on newer computers.

IF should be compared to other retro shooters of today, like Aeon of Ruin. From what I've seen, I think the gameplay and level design of IF looks far superior.

[AlektorophobiA]

Daily reminder that DOS Powerslave is better than Redneck Rampage.

I still haven't beaten Ion Fury yet so i can't comment on the order.

[Putrid Pete]

I'll rank every Build Engine game I've played:

Awful

Spoiler

Extreme Paintbrawl
NAM
Witchaven II: Blood Vengeance

8. Witchaven
7. Redneck Rampage
6. TekWar
5. Redneck Rampage Rides Again
4. Shadow Warrior
3. Ion Fury
2. Duke Nukem 3D
1. Blood

[Marya]

haven't played Ion Fury so, and a couple of others so from what i have played.

1.Duke 3d
2.Shadow warrior (HOLY COW LOOK LIKE DUKE NUKEM!)
3.Redneck rampage

[Hank]

Ion Fury, then, maybe Shadow Warrior, then definitely nothing.
Why? Glad you asked. The answer is based on what can the Build engine could do. Ion Fury simply surpassed the ancient engine’s abilities, and Shadow warrior tried but did not make my number one.

[Sanek]

I don't finished IF yet, but whet it comes to ranking I'd say it's D3D>Blood>IF>SW

Comparing IF to the classic games is really unfair, since this game use the modern PC's capabilities so you can't really compare it with the classics.

Duke3D is on top because that's the core Build game that have awesome character and expert level design that never overstay it's welcome.

Blood is better than IF because it have more variety, great atmosphere. IF can be considered today's Blood by some, but other than level design and general features that modern engine version have, it's inferior to Blood.

SW is better than Redneck and the rest of the Buld games, but it just comes off as a Duke3D's rip off. Not exactly a rip off, but SW do Duke is like what Heretic to Doom is.

RR is in the "best of the rest" category. Perhaps have more variety than SW.

[ReaperAA]

Haven't played IF yet. Among the ones that I played (or atleast tried as in case of Redneck):

In terms of Weapons/Arsenal:
Blood > Duke 3d > SW >Redneck

Level Design:
Duke 3d > Blood > SW > Redneck

Asthetics:
SW > Duke 3d > Blood > Redneck

Gameplay balance:
Duke 3d > Blood > SW > Redneck


Overall:
Duke 3d > Blood > SW > Redneck

[NNC]

Duke 3D > IF > SW > Blood/Redneck

[SonicB00M]

Level Design:
Ion Fury > Blood > Duke3D > SW > RR

Level Variety:
Duke3D > Blood > RR > Ion Fury > SW

Gameplay:
Blood > Ion Fury > SW > Duke3D > RR

Weapons:
Blood > SW > Duke3D > Ion Fury > RR

Enemies:
SW > Blood > Duke3D > RR > Ion Fury

[Sledgehammer]

It's not fair to compare old Build Engine games to IF and overall I'd say it's complicated for various reasons too if we forget that IF is a new game. But despite not beating the whole game yet, I still would say that IF is definitely better than World Tour which is technically a new Build Engine release, even though IF devs had more experience with Mapster compared to Blum and Levelord (I'm talking about new episode of course).

[Dzierzan]

It is fair. Maybe it runs on heavily modifed Build engine and was basically released in 2019, it doesn't mean it has everything perfect. For example weapon design here is honestly weak. Level design on the other hand is well done. So for me:

Blood > Duke = IF > SW = RR

And speaking of the main protagonist:

Caleb>Duke>Lo Wang>Shelly=Leonard

[Master O]

When's Ion Fury 2 coming out?

[Zaxx]

It's coming out in 2034 and it will be called Ion Forever.

For me it's Blood > Duke 3D > IF (only because of the worse weapon arsenal, the old Build games are just slightly more fun because of that added weapon variety) > SW > Redneck

[necroslut]

1. Duke
2. Shadow Warrior
3. Blood
4. Ion Maiden
5. Powerslave
6. Redneck Rampage Rides Again
7. Redneck Rampage
but the 2-4 spots are pretty damn close

[HenitoKisou]

Strictly on topic? Ion Fury is better than Shadow Warrior being almost evolution of it but worse than Blood and everything is better than Redneck Rampage so...

1. Blood
2. Ion Fury
3. Shadow Warrior
4. Duke 3D
5. Redneck Rampage Rides Again
6. Redneck Rampage

Some doesn't count Redneck to Build Big Four making it holy trinity with Duke, Blood and Shadow Warrior but it's unique enough to be considered as fourth one.

[NNC]

Half of the voters said Blood is a better game than Duke. In the number 1 Duke forum. That's just... well, whatever.

[t800]

Heh, I can quite imagine statement "Blood is not best Build game" would fit nicely in Unpopular opinions thread in these parts.

Anyways as I mentioned in my "review". My order would be: Duke3D (of course) > Shadow Warrior > Ion Fury > Blood > Powerslave.
Other Build games I have not finished, so it would be not fair to compare.
Here go special prizes:
Best looking one: Ion Fury (previously Blood)
Most ambitious: TekWar
Most refined gameplay: Shadow Warrior
Most underrated: Powerslave
Best atmosphere: Blood

[Radar]

 The Watchtower, on 28 August 2019 - 01:52 PM, said:

Half of the voters said Blood is a better game than Duke. In the number 1 Duke forum. That's just... well, whatever.

Keep in mind that probably half of this site's original userbase has left over the past decade. And in the past few years, we've seen an influx of Blood players due to being the home of GDX and NBlood.

[Sanek]

 Radar, on 29 August 2019 - 04:20 AM, said:

Keep in mind that probably half of this site's original userbase has left over the past decade. And in the past few years, we've seen an influx of Blood players due to being the home of GDX and NBlood.

I don't see much Blood content here tbh...but I agree that new ports gave the boost to our community.

Blood is more popular than Ion Fury right now.

[Phredreeke]

There's a fair number of mappers for Blood.

Ion Fury has only been out for about two weeks.

[Putrid Pete]

 Radar, on 29 August 2019 - 04:20 AM, said:

Keep in mind that probably half of this site's original userbase has left over the past decade. And in the past few years, we've seen an influx of Blood players due to being the home of GDX and NBlood.

Being a new user and having placed Blood as my number one pick, I can corroborate this, since I found this forum while searching for Blood ports. Another thing to keep in mind is that not everybody had the opportunity to play Duke3D back in the days. I first played it in 2013 when I was 23, so it wasn't part of the games I grew up with and I'm sentimental about, unlike Blood which I did play back in '98 when I was 8 years old. The fact that I placed Duke3D in second place without the effects of nostalgia says a lot about how great the game is, specially since I played Shadow Warrior back then and have a lot of fond memories of it, but still ranked Duke above it.

[Tekedon]

 The Watchtower, on 28 August 2019 - 01:52 PM, said:

Half of the voters said Blood is a better game than Duke. In the number 1 Duke forum. That's just... well, whatever.

It's just an honest opinion and quite obvious, but then again it was released later But Blood wouldn't be the same without Duke.

For me it's.

1. Blood
2. Duke
3. Shadow Warrior/Ion Fury
4. Redneck Rampage

[axl]

Have to play more of Ion Fury to give a serious opinion. But for now:

1. Duke Nukem 3D
2. Blood
3. Shadow Warrior / Ion Fury
4. Redneck Rampage Rides Again
5. Redneck Rampage

Did not yet play the PC version op Powerslave.

On the Duke vs Blood debate... Blood sure does some things better than Duke, but without Duke, Blood wouldn't exist... And above all Duke's level variety, weapon arsenal, ... is unmatched.

[keiron]

How can anyone put Blood in the top 3? The level design after the first episode is bloody awful.

[Zaxx]

 The Watchtower, on 28 August 2019 - 01:52 PM, said:

Half of the voters said Blood is a better game than Duke. In the number 1 Duke forum. That's just... well, whatever.

Can we admit that Duke 3D didn't age super well? Don't get me wrong, I love me some Duke just as much as the next guy, I played that game religously when I was a kid, in fact I replayed the original first 3 episodes just a few weeks ago (and yeah, I want to get back to the Birth after I get bored of IF) and you know what? I enjoyed Blood better the month before that.

The thing is that Duke's movement feels too static these days, the challenge is not there anymore and apart from the last few maps Lunar Apocalypse is just terrible. Those are the 3 things that drag the Duke down for me and compared to that Blood's bouncy movement and floaty jumping is still just as satisfying as it was 20+ years ago, Well Done can still kick my ass sometimes, Extra Crispy is something I've yet to attempt apart from the first episode and I don't think the game has one bad episode in it. Blood also has a more polished theme, literally everything you'd want from a horror themed Build shooter is in there just like how IF maxes out cyberpunk.

So yep, Blood is the better game though not by far while Duke 3D has some aspects that make it less enjoyable to me these days.

[axl]

 Zaxx, on 29 August 2019 - 08:56 PM, said:

Can we admit that Duke 3D didn't age super well?

The thing is that Duke's movement feels too static these days, the challenge is not there anymore and apart from the last few maps Lunar Apocalypse is just terrible.

Duke didn't age well ?? That I find bizarre because the big 3 are, in a way, so identical that you can't say one has aged well and the other one didn't.

And about the challenge - well, it's normal that if you've played a game for so many years, the challenge isn't there anymore. This applies to every game out there.

[Zaxx]

Quote

the big 3 are, in a way, so identical that you can't say one has aged well and the other one didn't.

I wouldn't say that: yeah, they are similar games because they share the same engine and the general design philosophy of being based on a certain theme but because those themes are very different you get different games. For example when it comes to movement I always thought that Duke feels more grounded and static because he's a one man army, he moves like Arnie in Commando. Caleb is more like a character from a John Woo movie so he's squishier than Duke but he can also move more freely. The games are full of these little differences and they add up and result in 3 very different titles.

Plus when it comes to Duke aging badly I think it's a factor that his game was the first out of the "holy trinity" and as a result it's just less detailed and less crazy than the titles that followed him. The difference can be quite jarring at times, for example if you take something like Hotel Hell and imagine how it would look like and play in Blood (you don't really have to since Overlooked Hotel is pretty much the same concept) well, the improvement would be pretty significant.

There is a "benefit" to this however. I wouldn't be interested in a "Blood 2" running on the Build engine because even after looking at IF I don't think it would be a meaningful upgrade anymore. A "Duke 3D 2" made on Build with new, high res textures and sprites just like IF? Count me in, that would be a huge jump in quality and complexity.

Quote

And about the challenge - well, it's normal that if you've played a game for so many years, the challenge isn't there anymore. This applies to every game out there.

Sure, there is an aspect like that for every game you've played to death but I think it's worse in Duke 3D because there is a pretty significant problem with how the weapons are balanced. Once you get how the arsenal works and can use every weapon effectively there is nothing that can stop you in Duke mainly because of the Shrinker. The Shrinker is not ideal against smaller enemies because you have faster ways to deal with a pig cop for example but it makes the stronger and more dangerous enemies like the battlelords and the fat commanders into non-threats.

Compared to that yeah, I'm pretty good at Doom 2 these days for example but that game still has a few moments where I'm like "okay, Doom 2, you got me there" and the same goes for Blood.