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Ion Fury vs Duke vs Blood vs Shadow Warrior vs Redneck

User is offline   ReaperAA 

#31

I disagree with Duke3d not aging as well as Blood and SW. Personally i think duke has aged better because of the level design. I like duke's level design more than that of the claustrophobic level design of blood and SW simply bored me to death.
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#32

Even they are similar in engine they using different version of it, a bit different physics, jumping height and player hitbox/size, prone/crouch (if no jetpack) and enemy AI script, level rendering changes and design effects/choices/ You could do similar map for Duke3D but you never do similar map in Shadow Warrior or Blood because they are not only different on gameplay level but also on technical so they just look similar on the first glance but not how it works to achieve this.

Duke3D is just simple and early version of these features, maps, weapons and enemies, gameplay, way how it works as Build, that's how people like it, simplicity has it charms. Even now you can alter core game with modern sorceport, better features and mods but we talking about vanilla unmodded experience behaving how it was made.

This post has been edited by HenitoKisou: 30 August 2019 - 04:11 AM

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User is offline   axl 

#33

View PostZaxx, on 29 August 2019 - 10:52 PM, said:

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.

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.


Duke Nukem is less detailed because it was released in 1996 and Blood in 1997. You can't fault Duke 3D for this reason. In your logic one could even say that Blood hasn't aged well, just because the maps in Ion Fury are far more detailed.

I agree on the fact that the shrinker may be too powerful. But otherwise weapon balance in Duke is way better than in Blood. The tesla cannon in Blood is also way too powerful. And moreover, the voodoo doll and life leech are pratically useless.

Don't get me wrong, I love Blood, but saying that Duke Nukem 3D hasn't aged well, is complete nonsense in my book. Duke Nukem 3D is still one of the best games of the 90s and has, just like Doom, aged like fine wine ;-)
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User is offline   Radar 

  • King of SOVL

#34

I prefer Duke's movement waaay over Blood. The constant bobbling in Blood is annoying. And it's very difficult in Blood to change direction mid-air.
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User is offline   Tekedon 

#35

There is a swedish saying which fits well here. "Smaken är som baken, delad". It basically translates to "Taste is like an asscrack, divided". :( Some people like different games more and have different tastes.

This post has been edited by Tekedon: 30 August 2019 - 08:04 AM

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User is offline   Zaxx 

  • Banned

#36

View PostRadar, on 30 August 2019 - 07:09 AM, said:

I prefer Duke's movement waaay over Blood. The constant bobbling in Blood is annoying. And it's very difficult in Blood to change direction mid-air.

Now that's not correct, you're just doing it wrong. Build gives you a lot of air control when you're mid-air, it's just that it's not really useful in Duke, SW and IF because you don't spend much time there after a jump. In Blood you do so if you want to change direction all you have to do is let go of A / D and just use your mouse (of course if you want to strafe jump like in other Build titles you'll still need those buttons). It's a bit similar to Painkiller's bunny hopping or CPMA.

This post has been edited by Zaxx: 30 August 2019 - 12:04 PM

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User is offline   Zaxx 

  • Banned

#37

View Postaxl, on 30 August 2019 - 06:54 AM, said:

Duke Nukem is less detailed because it was released in 1996 and Blood in 1997. You can't fault Duke 3D for this reason. In your logic one could even say that Blood hasn't aged well, just because the maps in Ion Fury are far more detailed.

It's not only about the detail, I think that Blood and SW overall have better level design than Duke 3D because you just feel that they've learned to make better use of Build.

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The tesla cannon in Blood is also way too powerful. And moreover, the voodoo doll and life leech are pratically useless.

What makes the tesla balanced in my book is that ammo for it is fairly limited. It's a power weapon for sure but you can't find ammo for it everywhere.

The voodoo doll is far from useless, it deals massive damage to the mini boss enemies. You just pop the secondary on a "cheogh" and around half of its HP is just gone.

I agree on the life leech, sadly they nerfed it too much for the multiplayer focused 1.21 patch. In 1.0 it was boss though.

Overall the interesting thing about Blood's weapon balance is that it's not perfect but it also doesn't have to be because:

- Almost everything can melt you away in seconds so having powerful weapons against powerful enemies just works. Sure, the tesla would be OP in any other game but in Blood if your tesla ammo is at 0 because you went ham with it you'll die a lot more because sometimes you just have to whip out your bullshit weapon.
- You have a ton of options thanks to the ridiculous amount of weapons and alternate firing modes and as a result everything can be amazing in certain situations, you just have to find out about those.

Compared to that Duke has cool weapons with some weird balancing issues, SW's arsenal is fun but janky as hell and IF's weapons feel like as if they were made along a checklist of functions without taking fun into the equation (and in a sense IF's arsenal is boring because it's too balanced so you can't really go ham with anything). :P Blood gives you the exotics but almost every single weapon is also very functional = FUN.

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Duke Nukem 3D is still one of the best games of the 90s and has, just like Doom, aged like fine wine ;-)

No FPS aged as well as Doom and that's a fact. :(

This post has been edited by Zaxx: 30 August 2019 - 12:26 PM

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User is offline   Zaxx 

  • Banned

#38

Anyway I think what would have helped Duke 3D's weapon balance tremendously is if 3DR retroactively put the new enemies from Birth into the base game too because those give no fucks about the Shrinker. The Birth is the best episode of the game by far partially because of those enemies (and pushing the self destruct button on the back of pig tanks is just awesome every time you nail it :().

This post has been edited by Zaxx: 30 August 2019 - 12:32 PM

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User is offline   Phredreeke 

#39

Eurocom actually did put the protector drone into some of the Duke Nukem 64 levels (though I can't remember which ones, I believe Fusion Station was one)
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User is offline   necroslut 

#40

The Shrinker really does have way too much ammo (both capacity and availability) for such a powerful weapon. This is one of Duke 3D's biggest flaws IMO.
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#41

Although the Tesla canon in Blood is quite OP, when used on lesser enemies (like the zombie or cultists) it wastes ammo quite a lot because it always shoot 4 bolts at a time, that isn't needed for the lesser enemies. So that balanced it a bit, that you can't use it all the time. Also ammo is a bit scarse.

Crouching on the other hand... You can dodge many attacks. The bloaded butchers can't hit you at all from a distance and Cheogh doesn't pose any threat when crouching. Also a horde of zombies can be avoided by simply crouching while moving right into the croud. Crouching is for me a bit too easy to use for avoiding shots. If enemies besides the cultists aimed down when crouching, it balanced it a bit better, at least I think.

About that static feel of Duke Nukem 3D, I also find Blood's physics more satisfying. Especially the force of explosions. In Duke explosions don't feel that strong for me.

Also when falling in water, the downward force applied feels much more natural. It handles more like water instead of teleporting. Although that when at the water surface and enemies can't see you until you jump out is very odd.

Shadow Warrior has that same static feel for me.

The movement of enemies in Shadow Warrior and Blood feels more fluid for me. For instance, when you die in Duke, the enemies stutter a lot while they are humping your dead body. The same doesn't seem to happen with Blood and Shadow Warrior. Could it be that the interpolation of Duke is less refined as that of the other two games? Altough not all actors defined in CON seem to have this. The Pigcop Tanks also move not quite as fluid and feels static for me.

All said, I also like Blood's movement a lot more.

This post has been edited by Little Tijn: 31 August 2019 - 08:50 AM

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User is offline   NNC 

#42

View Postkeiron, on 29 August 2019 - 03:14 PM, said:

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


After the first four levels I guess. I don't like the castle type levels in the end of episode 1. But episode 2 is rather good, better than episode 1 in atmosphere, particulary map 01, 04 and 05. It had its stinkers though. I never cared about the remaining Blood episodes though. It's far behind Duke (Allen Blum) in terms of leveldesign, at least IMHO. The game didn't use the scale of the Build engine very well, I can't tell the difference between Wilson and Hubbard, and I don't like the palette of the game, it's extremely pale and boring. It has some cool enemies and weapons, but I still don't understand how can it be better than Duke. Also cultists annoy me very much. Their accuracy, their voice, everything about them. I love The Haunting not having any of these guys.
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User is offline   NNC 

#43

View PostZaxx, on 29 August 2019 - 08:56 PM, said:

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.


I love Lunar Apocalypse. If there is an episode in Duke which "aged" well, it was that one. The city stuff aged much worse. But Duke's leveldesign is sensational, I never saw something like LA Rumble or Dark Side or Abyss in Blood.
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User is offline   Zaxx 

  • Banned

#44

View PostThe Watchtower, on 01 September 2019 - 12:15 PM, said:

It's far behind Duke (Allen Blum) in terms of leveldesign, at least IMHO. The game didn't use the scale of the Build engine very well

I think that argument is just about "not getting it" honestly. You see, Blood is using a horror theme and it has a bunch of nasty hitscan enemies so it's not really a game that would benefit from large open areas. It's more about exploring complex layouts and utilizing the more detailed environments, like for example a table is mostly an object to manuever around in Duke while in Blood it's valuable cover and that's why the gameplay has this "shootout" feel to it. Some of Duke 3D's enemy encounters has this too of course but in Blood a room with a bunch of tables, bookshelves and other walled off places lead to strategic set pieces and if those are used well then the result is just better combat design.

That's why in Blood the so called "door combat" is also less of an issue: the cluttered environment leads to better room control if you realize your options. Now the problem is of course realizing those options sometimes but once you figure out the weak spots of the AI it becomes an instinct really (like for example a cultist has great accuracy and amazing reaction times on higher difficulties but when it comes to turning and changing positions they suck, that's why using the environment to your advantage is essential).

As for this:

Quote

I love Lunar Apocalypse. If there is an episode in Duke which "aged" well, it was that one. The city stuff aged much worse. But Duke's leveldesign is sensational, I never saw something like LA Rumble or Dark Side or Abyss in Blood.

I find Lunar Apocalyse very boring these days because sure, the more abstract sci-fi environment aged better visually but if I want abstract I just go and play Doom because Doom is doing that kind of level design better even if Duke 3D has a few gimmicks to spice things up. The whole episode just feels more of the same to me after the first two maps and only the last few levels can improve on that somewhat. The drones also slow down the gameplay to a crawl sometimes and they just suck as opponents because fighting them is not fun.

And really when it comes to level design Blood just feels more "lived in" for me: it's not relying on gimmicks like the jetpack or the shrinker, instead it gives you interesting layouts and exciting enemy encounters even in its worst moments. It's also important to note that in Duke 3D basically all the secret levels except Freeway suck (and Freeway is not a very creative map either) while in Blood they provide some really good moments instead of just being tech demos for some of Build's features. And even when Blood decides to go abstract you get stuff like Catacombs which is basically a fun, classic Doom style map (and it's a secret map...) or In the Flesh, a parody of Doom that's good for a laugh.

Why I value Blood's level design so much is because it's evident that the designers made maps that perfectly suit the gameplay and in a lot of other shooters that's not always the case. Hell, even if you play Cryptic Passage there are a number of times when you get the sense that "yeah, these are some nice and atmopheric levels but the people who made them just don't fully understand how Blood works." Some of those maps would be great in Duke 3D or SW but Blood has a specific style and enemy balance where the maps just have to serve those elements.

This post has been edited by Zaxx: 01 September 2019 - 11:27 PM

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User is offline   axl 

#45

View PostZaxx, on 01 September 2019 - 11:23 PM, said:

It's also important to note that in Duke 3D basically all the secret levels except Freeway suck (and Freeway is not a very creative map either) while in Blood they provide some really good moments instead of just being tech demos for some of Build's features.


They all suck ? Launch Facility, Freeway and Area 51 are awesome maps ! Spin Cycle and Lunatic Fringe are OK. The only secret map that kinda sucks is Tier Drops.

In Blood: House of Horrors and Mall of the Dead are awesome. Thin Ice, Catacombs and Forgotten Catacombs are good maps, but nothing spectacular.

This post has been edited by axl: 02 September 2019 - 01:41 PM

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User is offline   Radar 

  • King of SOVL

#46

The one thing that always irks me about Blood is that they give you a bunch of temporary pickups like akimbo weapons, invisibility, reflective shots, etc. and they are always placed in the worst spots ever. I always manage to find them after combat areas or in places with no enemies.

This post has been edited by Radar: 02 September 2019 - 02:49 PM

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User is offline   NNC 

#47

View Postaxl, on 02 September 2019 - 01:38 PM, said:

They all suck ? Launch Facility, Freeway and Area 51 are awesome maps ! Spin Cycle and Lunatic Fringe are OK. The only secret map that kinda sucks is Tier Drops.

In Blood: House of Horrors and Mall of the Dead are awesome. Thin Ice, Catacombs and Forgotten Catacombs are good maps, but nothing spectacular.


As a kid, I always thought Area 51 is a far more impressive map than Launch Facility, as it looks more realistic, more complex. Nowadays I tend to think otherwise. The relative emptiness of LF gives a true eerie and "Dukish" feel to the map not present at all in Area 51. In short it "aged" much better. Just like stylized animation often looks more impressive than full animation.

By this time I don't like maps that are too detailed. I prefer maps that had some room left for details, but atmosphere, shading, scale made up the rest.
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User is offline   t800 

#48

While we are at it. Have anybody seen this video?



They forgot several titles and by look they had wrong DosBox setups for most games. But still it is nice to see more exposure for Build engine games. :(

This post has been edited by t800: 03 September 2019 - 09:19 AM

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User is offline   Sanek 

#49

View Postt800, on 03 September 2019 - 09:07 AM, said:

While we are at it. Have anybody seen this video?


Yeah I saw it. Lawrence made a couple of mistakes about the engine but it's so unexpected and cool to see Build exposed on channels as big as this one. :(
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User is offline   Zaxx 

  • Banned

#50

View Postaxl, on 02 September 2019 - 01:38 PM, said:

They all suck ? Launch Facility, Freeway and Area 51 are awesome maps ! Spin Cycle and Lunatic Fringe are OK. The only secret map that kinda sucks is Tier Drops.

In Blood: House of Horrors and Mall of the Dead are awesome. Thin Ice, Catacombs and Forgotten Catacombs are good maps, but nothing spectacular.

I didn't count Area 51 (and Forgotten Catacombs) because those maps are not part of the base campaign so they represent a different quality level I feel. Like most of my gripes with Duke 3D are simply not true when it comes to Birth because that episode was seemingly made with the goal to address the base game's shortcomings. It's just an all around great episode where almost everything is top notch (with the exception being the Expander but who cares, you don't have to use it).

And yeah, I forgot about Launch Facility, that's a good secret map too though I think that it's a bit overrated because of the nice set piece at the end. I like the layout but it's nothing amazing and most of it just a sewer level.

The rest though? I have to say that I think Spin Cycle, Lunactic Fringe and Tier Drops are all very lazy and gimmicky maps made to showcase Build's features.
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User is offline   Phredreeke 

#51

Yeah, DN64 made the right call dropping Spin Cycle and Tier Drops in favour of Dukeburger and Area 51
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User is offline   Radar 

  • King of SOVL

#52

The Birth is a weird hodj podj of levels. A half of them don't even connect. When I first got my hands on the Atomic Edition GRP (I played 1.3d DOS for a year), I thought the first level "It's Impossible" was some effed up user map. And then the next level Duke Burger doesn't even connect. The tire screeching at the beginning of Pigsty, with no visible car, was always cringy. And the constant whining pigcops are annoying. And as for Derelict, the underwater walls around the level are a total fail.
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User is offline   Zaxx 

  • Banned

#53

I always liked that it doesn't really have a "theme" going for it because as a result it can give you more varied levels.
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User is offline   NNC 

#54

View PostRadar, on 05 September 2019 - 08:58 AM, said:

The Birth is a weird hodj podj of levels. A half of them don't even connect. When I first got my hands on the Atomic Edition GRP (I played 1.3d DOS for a year), I thought the first level "It's Impossible" was some effed up user map. And then the next level Duke Burger doesn't even connect. The tire screeching at the beginning of Pigsty, with no visible car, was always cringy. And the constant whining pigcops are annoying. And as for Derelict, the underwater walls around the level are a total fail.


I had no idea for long time what the hell was going on in Pigsty's start. At first, I thought it's just a pig scream. It was a badly designed stuff which aged very poorly. Too bad, because the interiors were quite cool.
It's Impossible also suffered a lot from ugly exteriors (and many levels back then probably because of framerate problems), but the storm thing and the weather forecast lady, along with some other stuff like the tape destruction felt awesome.

Derelict blew me away back then, it was THE level of episode 4. It still feels a bit more episode 1 and episode 2-ish (read: classic style), except with more complexity (like Golden Carnage in episode 5, also blew me away). Too bad for some nuances, like the lightnigh in the middle of the crane pick-up area, the annoying door sounds or the solid underwater walls. Still the good outweighs the bad.

This post has been edited by The Watchtower: 06 September 2019 - 01:35 AM

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User is offline   VGA 

#55

I am not an expert on Duke by any stretch but it always seemed to me like they didn't think some things through, like the arsenal. They have too many weapons, some of which are unbalanced. And I don't think they share ammo so sometimes you struggle to remember which weapon you have ammo for or what it is you are picking up. I found myself using random weapons very often.

The items are also not well thought out. For example, they give you the jetpack which just breaks some maps and is way too powerful and lasts for way too long. And it should be harder to use than just making gravity=0. And what is it with the obsession to give you Holodukes in the single player? It does nothing, you idiots, enemies don't attack it! Huh?!

And the jumping is just wonky. I never seem to figure out if I can reach somewhere or not, unless I try.

Of course, it has a ton of positive things that have been talked about a lot and I consider it almost as good as Blood :( :P

I don't like SW and have never managed to get into it, everything seems to happen way too fast and I feel I don't have control. Give. Me. Ammo! Haven't played Ion Fury.

This post has been edited by VGA: 07 September 2019 - 03:39 PM

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User is offline   Zaxx 

  • Banned

#56

Yeah, stuff like the inventory being weird and jank as hell is partially why I just don't think Duke aged particularly well: I just had too many friends try the game and tell me that it's shit because of stuff like that. :( While that's not true it's still useful to get into the perspective of a newcomer and compare Duke to Doom along those lines for example and then it's easy to see that Doom can be fun for basically everyone even these days while in the case of Duke things just detract from "getting" the game for a first time player.

Of course Blood has some problems like that too, for example the weapon arsenal is a bit weird and takes some time getting used to and how the game handles hitscan enemies is so old school that chances are it will be a bit jarring to a first time player. Overall though you'll find some very standard and very effective weapons + a lot of the hitscan problems can be solved by simply lowering the difficulty until you just learn how to deal with them.
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User is offline   Radar 

  • King of SOVL

#57

@Watchtower

IMO Golden Carnage was a laughable level. The Golden Gate bridge is supposed to be over a mile long, but Duke can run across it in 3 seconds. DC was way more creative and effective in its implementation of real life locations.
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User is offline   Zaxx 

  • Banned

#58

Realism doesn't equal good map design, guess if it did then Smithsonian Terror would be the best Duke map ever created. :(
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User is offline   Radar 

  • King of SOVL

#59

I didn't say "realistic". I said "creative and effective". There are ways in Build to create a bridge that takes a couple minutes to walk across. Though I guess it's silly expecting earth shattering geometry from something like World Tour anyway. That's one of the reasons why I really hate these new "official" episodes for old shooters.

This post has been edited by Radar: 08 September 2019 - 06:37 PM

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User is offline   Fox 

  • Fraka kaka kaka kaka-kow!

#60

*Looks at floor plans of the real *Smithsonian Institution*

I don't think that map is remotely realistic...
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