[Quacken]

And the nominations too, I didn't see these. Well, here's my vote:

JJ Duke Nukem 3D
Mikko Sandt's Maps + Duke Tournament + MSSP Episode + The Brave New World
The Birth + Alien World Order +
WGRealms + WGSpace Episode

None of the other map sets interest me, so I'll vote for The Birth and AWO. It'll be my first time playing the latter, so I'm quite interested to give it a shot. I'll also throw in my own personal Shadow Warrior tips too seeing as how FistMarine gave some of his advice:

1. The splash damage on grenades is comically large. When you're firing the Grenade Launcher, keep a good distance from your target(s) so you don't hurt yourself, as a face grenade stings quite a lot. When you see a Grey Ninja shoot a grenade, run for the hills.

2. The Grenade Launcher is a bad weapon to use in one on one fights, especially when fighting Shadow Ninjas. Direct hits and the splash damage don't do enough to even consistently kill a Ripper in two grenades. The Missile Launcher or the Riot Gun are much safer at medium to close range, don't have an arc, and have a higher DPS from my own experience. One direct hit from the Missile Launcher has a chance to instantly one tap a Shadow Ninja, and the Riot Gun is good at extremely close range. Unload four shells on the Shadow, then get out of there before he unloads atomic fire into your face.

3. The Katana can instantly kill Brown Ninjas and Mini Rippers. Take advantage of this when you can to save ammo. Bear in mind though that trying to melee Fish is really inconsistent, and often you'll risk being bitten by them while you go for it. It's safer to click on them once with the Riot Gun or shoot them with one Uzi.

4. For the Rail Gun, the hit detection is pretty wonky. I've had the most success aiming for the feet of your target, but sometimes even this doesn't really work.

5. To elaborate on FistMarine's comment about weapons having alternate firing modes, the Guardian Head is another one that has three firing modes! You have the standard flamethrower which is the default when you pick up the Guardian Head for the first time, the Rise of the Triad-esque Fire Bomb attack the Shadow Ninjas love to use, and finally a useless fire shield. Just like with switching between one and two Uzis, you can cycle between the alternate fires for your weapon (if they have any) by pressing that weapon's slot number while you're holding it (e.g. press the 9 key while the Guardian Head is active to switch between the firing modes, or the 5 key for the Missile Launcher).

6. Don't use the Caltrops, they do pitiful damage and you can hurt yourself with them. The Night Vision Goggles are good for seeing exactly Shadow Ninjas and Coolie Ghosts.

When we do Blood, I'll be sure to have bountiful tips for you all... I didn't suffer through a Pitchfork start run of Extra Crispy for nothing. Well, I kind of did, but that's besides the point.

[TheDragonLiner]

About the RailGun in SW, does it actually pierce through enemies ? Because, playing in GDX, I sometimes have the feeling it does, while most of the time it doesn't, which kills the purpose IMO >_>

About PitchFork in Blood, I personally only use it against Zombies at the beginning of an episode. After a while you're so bloated with ammo, there's always a better way :/ Though, more creatively, I sometimes use the fork (namely in Ep4) in order to take advantage of Gargoyles being kinda stunlocked when you hust them with the LifeLeech. They start their clawing animation but can never make it until the (invisible) flames die out. So you can use the Fork meanwhile.


Think I'll vote for DN3D Ep4, since I remember somebody was surprised that it was excluded in the DN3D club a few months ago. I think it was Aleks but I'm not sure ...

[Quacken]

Here it is! The end of Twin Dragon. What surprises will Level Infinity throw at me in their last hurrah?

Hung Lo's Fortress
Alan Bellows

Hung Lo's Fortress is another solid map. Alan Bellows' labyrinth of concrete is gloomy, dark and decrepit. I've mentioned before how I think Landwaster is a standout track from the Shadow Warrior soundtrack, but I like Love Field a lot too. It's a very haunting and isolating track much like Landwaster, and I think this map was expressly designed around its music much like Toxic Waste Facility. Hung Lo's Fortress might look intimidating in terms of its challenge, but with some smart use of your weapons and knowing where the important items are, you can get by without too much trouble. The two Shadow Ninjas bunkered near the bronze key were a pain until I found the Smoke Bomb in the sewers. The Ninjas stationed on the outskirts of the forest can potentially be obnoxious, but with smart usage of your explosives you can turn them into paste. The two Sumos near the regular exit can be easily put away with a Nuke. And as for Sailor Moon, it's best to fire a grenade into her cell from far away and pretend you misremembered her being in this map. She'll understand it. Hung Lo's Fortress is a standout map from Twin Dragon. Its dark atmosphere, good lighting and decent challenge make it very memorable compared to the rest of the lineup.

8/10.

Prison Camp
Ty Matthews

Welp, we've had about seven forgettable maps in Twin Dragon, who would it hurt to add another? Prison Camp is a bland secret level with barely anything to talk about. It doesn't even really go into great depth on its own theming. I find it hard to see anything here that would resemble facilities for a labour camp, and you exit the camp as soon as you find the gold key stashed inside Lara Croft's cell. Ty Matthews does have a decent crack at nature settings past the prison gates, but these areas are so tiny you'll be through with them before you can blink.

3/10.

Hung Lo's Palace
Ryan Isenberg

Isenberg's second map in Twin Dragon isn't too bad. Hung Lo's Palace is an establishment fit for a ruthless warlord, with plenty of shells to be had, crawling with monsters, and accompanied by the triumphant return of Landwaster. It feels pretty copy-pasted though, like Isenberg just slapped together two different symmetrical Wangbang maps he made together and called it a day. I'm not really complaining though. Isenberg's hallways in the second half remind me a lot of those long corridors you have to walk through in a hotel before you get to your room. It feels never-ending and it's always quiet, which adds to the atmosphere provided by the music. To meet up with your gigantic twin brother Hung Lo, you have to find four hidden switches and flick them all on. These aren't too hard to find except for Switch 2, which requires you hit a gong in the serpentining red corridor. Hung Lo himself is simply just Zilla with a new set of sprites (which are probably just traced over Zilla's sprites, now that I think of it), and a new annoying catchphrase that he will spam repeatedly even when he's being decked in the face by a Riot Gun. Beware of the supply pockets, because Coolies spawn nearby which could take a chunk out of your health. Beat up Hung Lo, send him on a one-way trip to an atomic supernova, and you've beaten Twin Dragon!

7/10.

Closing Thoughts

Twin Dragon feels like the black sheep of commercial Shadow Warrior. I didn't even know whether it was originally a commercial release that became free or a community project until I read the text file. While it's unfortunate that Twin Dragon never got its coveted commercial release alongside its brother from another mother Wanton Destruction, if I had to pick which one should have been sold for money, I think Wanton Destruction would have been much more deserving of a commercial release. Compared to Wanton Destruction or even Base Shadow Warrior, Twin Dragon kind of just exists in its own space. Whereas Wanton Destruction can impress you with Sunstorm's proto-mastery of the Build Engine's mechanics, the less experienced Level Infinity made Twin Dragon seem like just more Shadow Warrior. While occasionally showing hidden genius as demonstrated by Wong, Isenberg and Bellows' works, it is more often than not completely forgettable. The maps that miss often fail to leave any kind of lasting impression on players, and unless you're really looking for fine details even the lesser good maps like Toxic Waste Facility can seem like more bricks in the wall. My final ranking for Twin Dragon is a 6/10. It's unlikely to stick in your mind for more than a day, but more Shadow Warrior is always appreciated, and I can appreciate Wong, Isenberg and Bellows for what they brought to the table.

[Aleks]

Played 2 more maps of Twin Dragon yesterday. Weapons Research Centre was definitely a step-up in quality from the previous mediocre maps. The map didn't really sell the titular location at all, as the map looked like a generic kind of harbour or something (now compare that to e.g. Alejandro's Military Madness or Maarten Pinxten's MPWeapon), but the design is definitely less generic. The fights are also quite fun, there's even a nice spot to clear with nuke (the place with blue key lock that's crawing with red ninjas) where you can just shoot then dive. The progression wasn't too obscured (only slight slow-down was finding the blue key), secrets were quite logical to find. There's also a tricky boss fight with the serpent thing, which spawns on a small helipad with a narrow corridor leading to it.

Toxic Waste Facility was even better, probably the best map in the episode yet. The outside part has a nicely designed forest, the colour theme of the industrial plant works well with both this natural part and the game's general palette. The combat is mostly fair, although there's some nasty crouching red ninjas and a bunch of coolios respawning around a tight place. I'm not entirely sure how the progression works around this one, there's been some levers and effects that didn't seem to do much, but this time around, it was quite clear what the building's actual function was. The attention to detail was good, from quite elaborate computer panels to stuff like having to blow a little plinth to reveal a switch opening the gate to the plant. The whole thing was neatly interconnected and had a strong vertical 3D feeling due to being built on many ROR layers. Let's see what's next!

BTW, I also vote for The Birth + Alien World Order for next month.

[Aleks]

It seems Twin Dragon is getting better with each level. Finished two more, here are some thoughts:

Silver Train
Although I do agree with some of the points raised by Quacken and FistMarine, I really liked this level and consider it one of the better ones in the addon. The vault puzzle was fairly easy to figure out and something I consider a good puzzle (yeah look at The Conundrum, although same as FistMarine, I got insta-killed with a grenade to the face the first time I completed it The level did feel a bit empty at places, also it abused the crouching ninjas which are basically everything that's wrong with hitscanning enemies in Build games (also what I don't really like in this episode is that you often get attacked by hitscanning enemies way before you can see them, through windows etc.). The final fight with 2 serpent lords was really cool (I managed to lure them 1 by 1 quite easily), the space was restricted, but large enough to jump around and shoot missiles at them. The design was good enough to sell the locations, also there's been some interesting effects (besides the vault puzzle, also opening the way to the sewers) and the layout was nicely done with some extra platforming available.

Fishing Village
I can see why The Watchtower keeps praising this one, as the design is probably the best in the episode yet. It's just too bad I've only noticed towards the end that you can actually ride the small boat, it would have been funnier to mow the coastal ninjas with its cannon. The major flaw with this map - obviously - are the stupidly placed mines which are fucking everywhere for some reason. Other than that, it's quite an elaborate key hunt with plenty of backtracking, but at least areas usually get repopulated enough to make it worth your while. There's a few tight encounters with shadow ninjas and many opportunities for fancy sniping with the railgun or using the grenade launcher to clear insides of these small houses. For the final serpent lord I just used the ripper heart dude, since I've had a bunch of these laying around to pick anyway, surprisingly he made a short work of the boss.

[Aleks]

Feels a bit awkward to do a triple post, anyway, I promise this one will be the last, since I've finished the remaining 4 levels of the expansion and can call this month off - too bad I didn't replay SOTA just for the sake of more detailed discussion, but oh well.

Secret Garden
I'm inclined to at least partly agree with Quacken here that this might be the episode's finest map. My only gripe with the level is the super generic thematic, at least for a Shadow Warrior level, where pretty much every other level is a temple-garden kind of location. Other than that, the map has interesting, interconnected layout (to the point that you can skip the red key by pressing the switch that opens the underwater gate at the very beginning from the outside and swim inside), with lots of height variation that doesn't obstruct the fights and some underwater action. The combat is all out entertaining, not too challenging (I took Quacken's advice here and sliced all the low-tier enemies at the beginning with a katana, was funny), the level is quite evenly populated, there's a bunch of stronger guys like shadow ninjas, serpent lords, sumos and orange rippers, but they don't feel too challenging either. In fact, I kinda cheaped the serpent lord behind the gate towards the end by just throwing my ripper heart double behind the bars before opening it and letting him deal with the boss

Hung Lo's Fortress
This one is a fortress alright and you can tell that. It's an alright level, but not quite as good as the previous couple of maps, mostly due to basing the layout on tiny corridors and lots of vertical hitscanners that are a pain in the ass to aim at. For some reason, it also didn't really feel like a penultimate level. There was one interesting fight with a sumo in a very restricted space, but ended up easier than I'd expect. The level is also quite dilligent with re-populating the areas you backtrack through, and there's plenty of these. Also just to respond to FistMarine, it's possible to go back from the secret exit place, even without strafe jumping, just from the last ledge you gotta jump back at the platform on the same side of the chasm and slightly turn mid-air.

Prison Camp
This is another pretty generic level that doesn't sell the location at all, it's also fairly easy, despite some dickish traps with trees that shoot arrows. The outside part looks nice, the insides of the buildings seem more like a TROR/SOS study than actual playable level. Another slight drop of quality, but still a lot better than the abominations that were levels 2, 4 and 5.

Hung Lo's Palace
Another top-tier level and probably the best boss fight in any Shadow Warrior episode I've played. The design of the palace looks like something I'd imagine from a Lego set from the outside, but inside it's neat and quite detailed, especially after progressing through the golden key door to the final part. The switch hunt is actually quite funny due to having to actually look around in different sections of the palace that all are distinguished enough to make the navigation easy, yet still quite crawling with monsters. Finally, the boss fight opens up the place just how it should - you get a classic 90's shooter kind of experience here, running around, luring the boss to different corners just to strike him from the back a moment later. The coolios spawning around can be quite a nasty surprise. Very fine level, once again.

Overall thoughts: Well, after the first few levels, the addon did manage to positively surprise me due to the sudden increase of quality. It's quite unusual to throw the shittiest maps at the beginning and the best around the middle or end of the episode, but there it goes. In general, this ended up being just what I would expect from Shadow Warrior - pretty funny gunplay, generic locations and map themes, enemies that are either annoying, but deal barely any damage, or ones that can pretty much one-hit kill you even with 150+ health out of the blue, because why not.

[juvenite]

JJ Duke Nukem 3D
Mikko Sandt's Maps + Duke Tournament + MSSP Episode + The Brave New World
The Birth + Alien World Order ++
WGRealms + WGSpace Episode

Never played 20th anniversary, might as well give it a chance.
Also, sorry for my absence. My laptop died a while ago (and still is dead), haven't been able to do anything Duke related since.
Probably won't finish SOTA in time :/