[Tekedon]

They should've gotten John Galt to do the voice.

[Player Lin]

Tekedon, on 24 July 2020 - 03:27 AM, said:

They should've gotten John Galt to do the voice.

Maybe get rid the bad stereotype from the 1997 Lo Wang.

Even as an Asian, I don't mind the silly Wang of 97, but DD and FWH may not want to risk anything on their new reboot(or just want to made everything new) so didn't used the original VA, I guess?

[Jimmy]

Player Lin, on 23 July 2020 - 11:57 PM, said:

https://www.hitc.com...ds-so-familiar/
https://twitter.com/...160652426915843

My fuck up. I thought you meant John Galt.

[Player Lin]

/Defiatron\, on 24 July 2020 - 10:56 AM, said:

My fuck up. I thought you meant John Galt.

Well, since that was SW3 trailer so it unlikely I meant 1997 Lo Wang...and I were almost forgot both games' VAs before I tried to google-ing info for them and then added the "EDIT:" part.

But John William Galt never doing VA works since 06's Prey, and just did few Actor jobs recent years. https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0303344/

[Ninjakitty]

Found a bunch of sprites underneath the floor of Wang's Dojo out of bounds. Turns out his dojo would have been a bit bloodier if the map maker remembered to move the sprites up with the rest of the room when they moved the dojo from the downstairs area to by the red car.
Looks like this with the sprites at the right height

[SonicB00M]

'Thanks Randy!' I guess?

[MetHy]

Ninjakitty, on 07 August 2020 - 03:31 PM, said:

Found a bunch of sprites underneath the floor of Wang's Dojo out of bounds. Turns out his dojo would have been a bit bloodier if the map maker remembered to move the sprites up with the rest of the room when they moved the dojo from the downstairs area to by the red car.
Looks like this with the sprites at the right height
https://cdn.discorda...356/unknown.png

SonicB00M, on 09 August 2020 - 07:39 AM, said:

'Thanks Randy!' I guess?

Late reply but great find. However, if you look at the 1997 beta version of the map, the most recent beta available in the Steam version of the game, when that room was still located downstairs, none of the blood sprites existed, and the skeleton was in the main room, not behind the door.
That version also does not have Randy's sig. Of course it's impossible to tell when he started working on the map and what he did precisely, however these clues tell me that while Randy may have been responsible for forgetting these sprites, he may also have been responsible for putting most of them there to begin with.

Other notable details that differ: there was a slope on the ceiling in the beta version, why would you get rid of that? Also the wall texture behind the door WAS properly aligned when the room was downstairs, further indicating the move of the room was a hasty job. Also, the secret place with the Nuke didn't exist yet.

Minus maybe that starting room, which is better fitted in the streets indeed, the entire layout of the map in that beta version makes so much more sense to me. Especially the ROR with the 2 floors which in the final version got turned into a senseless fish pool.
I wonder why they changed that, some of the architecture when viewed through the ROR does disappear, so maybe they (Randy ?) couldn't figure out how to fix that (it is fixable though); or maybe it was just a framerate issue. That ROR fix would require a 2 render pass and ROR with a single render had terrible framerate under DOS, and those with 2 were worse. There may be similar slowdown heavy ROR cases later on in the game ($airport comes to mind) but they're not in the first map of the game, the one which has to leave a good impression and the one players will use to configure their settings properly.
All the other layout differences seem to be a direct consequence of changing that ROR area, too.

[Jimmy]

At the time, translucent water may have been perceived as more impressing than 2 floor ROR.

[necroslut]

Jimmy, on 26 October 2020 - 10:35 PM, said:

At the time, translucent water may have been perceived as more impressing than 2 floor ROR.

I see no reason why they couldn't have kept the ROR structure and put the fish pool in another room though.

Has anyone "ported" the beta version of $bullet to be compatible with the release version of SW? While many of the beta maps can be run in the full version, $bullet (and IIRC $airport) crash upon load without any error message in all the versions I've tried it in.
I'm not really familiar enough with SW mapping to guess why. It doesn't seem to be any map file format version differences, at least.

[MetHy]

Jimmy, on 26 October 2020 - 10:35 PM, said:

At the time, translucent water may have been perceived as more impressing than 2 floor ROR.

It looks like a compromise to me: "This ROR would slow the game down too much to work, what can we do to fix that while still having some ROR, which is a selling point on the back of the box, in the first map?"
I'm aware that transculent water was also a huge thing to the point mappers copied it in Duke maps, so it was a good compromise in that regard, but it's still a lot less impressive to me because the final ROR is literally just two flat sectors for the player to swim in.

That entire transculent water setup also looks completely pointless and senseless and it always came off as a show off to me because it disregarded the most important aspect: having a point for gameplay.
I also always thought the layout of the train station in the first map was weird but now I know (or at least strongly believe) the whole thing was also a compromise, "best we can do", that came as a consequence from changing that ROR area, which was central to the layout of the beta version.
The beta ROR is also superior because both floors are also connected through stairs, not just through the portal, further making the entire setup feel real.

Edit: it is also worth noting that this transculent water fish pool used to be in the airport map instead, where it made a bit more sense there. It's gone in the final version I believe because they moved the concept to Seppuku Station.

necroslut, on 26 October 2020 - 11:58 PM, said:

I see no reason why they couldn't have kept the ROR structure and put the fish pool in another room though.

I think framerate is the primary reason, in the same manner that DN3D got simplified before release. 1) There are a lot more sectors in beta version in the ROR area,and it doesn't even look polished yet 2) the beta ROR in order to work requires two render passes going on at once which again is worst for framerate . The final version does have 2 passes but it only uses one at once (they use one for looking from the upper floor, and another to look from the lower floor, the other pass being turned off in each floor respectively)
Under DOS, RORs like the one in $auto lag more than some of the other RORs; and any setup with portal (mirrors etc) was heavy to begin with.

Quote

Has anyone "ported" the beta version of $bullet to be compatible with the release version of SW? While many of the beta maps can be run in the full version, $bullet (and IIRC $airport) crash upon load without any error message in all the versions I've tried it in.
I'm not really familiar enough with SW mapping to guess why. It doesn't seem to be any map file format version differences, at least.

I've been thinking of doing that, restoring the beta layout into the final game, although I would use the final map version as a base rather "finishing" the beta version because there seems to be less work that way. I'd copy paste the ROR from the beta version into the final version, then fix that ROR, then make the layout changes in the final version so that they match the beta version while copy pasting anything that can easily be pasted without being destructive, or when you have no choice but to be destructive (turning the game room into the book shop), then make sure everything that got moved looks proper, perhaps add the missing secret places in the "new" rooms, and make sure enemies / supplies in the "new" room match the final version.

The point wouldn't be to make the beta version playable but to make a "deluxe" version of the map that uses the best aspects from both the beta and final versions. I also believe the map would be better in WangBang with those two ROR floors and the ability to jump/shoot down the ROR portal to the bottom floor; the whole map would be closer to the quality of a Hollywood Holocaust that way.

But I'm super busy with already enough projects, even if this would only take 1-2 days. Maybe someone else can beat me to it.

[Ninjakitty]

https://www.dropbox....TAWANG.GRP?dl=0
basically as much of the beta as i could get to work on retail Shadow Warrior.
though i wasn't able to fix all the levels or add in the extra fist animations and i didn't bother fixing the end level screen

[MrFlibble]

MetHy, on 30 October 2020 - 12:39 AM, said:

It is also worth noting that some of the levels had better plans in that regard when looking at the beta versions, for instance Sumo Sky Palace had a much bigger outdoor area at some point that really helped get a sense of the scale of the place, and so did Airport, that you mentionned.
Airport used to make a lot more "sense" realisticly speaking in the beta versions; but all this stuff got cut, probably to wrap up the game in time. Airport became more like a 2nd version of Seppuku Station in many ways, including not caring that the layout made sense; but instead making sure everything flows and interconnects properly with height level variations for dynamism; and honestly, it's probably a better Build level for that than what it would have become had they kept the realistic layout of the beta version. That layout made more sense realisticly speaking but it doesn't seem as practical for gameplay in my opinion.

Do you think it would make sense to polish up/fix the beta versions of at least some SW levels that are available to make them into fully playable/bugfixed user maps for the retail game? Or are they in such a state that their worth is only in showcasing how the game evolved, and what ideas were thrown around?

[oasiz]

There are levels that are interesting, but a lot of them ended up being stuff that evolved into what's in the final game.

Anything before mid-95 would be hard to implement (even the ones that evolved to final ones) due to different player scale.
94-95 maps are mostly very narrow corridors, then they ended up with the "E1 series" of maps for late 95, which are completely new maps that were done due to scale differences I believe. It's very obvious that the map design is much more spacious on that set of maps.

It would need a modified copy to implement many of the old mechanics (i.e. spells) since you'd have to modify things so much to make it worth it to play that you're not really experiencing it as it was. I will recommend playing the DOS executables with cheats on to get the most accurate feeling.

Doing documentation and videos that would focus on a trail of history on maps & concepts is something I kind of would want to do after going through a lot of the stuff just recently.
Some concepts seem to be derived from the same origin, i.e. $WHIRL and $SHORE seem to both stem from the same concept.
Collecting and following the trail of the maps would be interesting since there is quite a bit to study.

Maybe something like a 15-25min video on a key map highlighting key changes and such would be a cool approach.

[jkas789]

Ninjakitty, on 27 October 2020 - 06:01 PM, said:

https://www.dropbox....TAWANG.GRP?dl=0
basically as much of the beta as i could get to work on retail Shadow Warrior.
though i wasn't able to fix all the levels or add in the extra fist animations and i didn't bother fixing the end level screen

Oh wow, interesting! How would you play it with VoidSW? Or would you use another source port?

[Ninjakitty]

jkas789, on 30 October 2020 - 07:51 AM, said:

Oh wow, interesting! How would you play it with VoidSW? Or would you use another source port?

What I did is I created a new shortcut to voidsw.exe with the additional parameter /gBETAWANG.GRP (with betawang being in my voidsw folder)

[jkas789]

Thanks man I'll try it out.

[MetHy]

MrFlibble, on 30 October 2020 - 06:05 AM, said:

Do you think it would make sense to polish up/fix the beta versions of at least some SW levels that are available to make them into fully playable/bugfixed user maps for the retail game? Or are they in such a state that their worth is only in showcasing how the game evolved, and what ideas were thrown around?

There are quite a lot of levels that are close to completion and which in my opinion are worth something, ones that didn't end up being something in the final game. They're not on par with the quality of the final game though, they have more of a HERETIC/ROTT vibe, it's like they belong to that post Doom but pre-Build time period.
As for beta versions of levels that made it into the final game, in my opinion the only one that'd be really worth making playable would be Seppuku Station; but most things in those maps are very close to what we got in the final game; though it's interesting to see some of the plans they had like making the rooftop of the Dojo in Dark Woods a playable area.

Then, you also have a couple of map files in there which are just "concepts" not even past the block out stage, some of which are really interesting concepts; but finishing that would require so much creative input it could never be what it would have been like if that concept had be chosen for the final game.

[MrFlibble]

MetHy, on 31 October 2020 - 04:31 AM, said:

though it's interesting to see some of the plans they had like making the rooftop of the Dojo in Dark Woods a playable area.

I vaguely remember that in the leaked beta v0.90, you start not in the Dojo (which is called Dojo of the Sumo IIRC?) but elsewhere and apparently need to get into it, possibly for the boss fight? I did not complete that level, can't remember for what reason exactly, maybe the game crashed.

To clarify, in my previous post I was referring to the levels from the later development builds which are already approaching the final state of the game. The early stuff from 1995-96 is too different in so many aspects, indeed it's more like a straightforward Doom clone with some extra bits like spells thrown in.

Although I have to admit that some of the areas shown in the preview shots from this and this batch (both from mid-1995) suggest some interesting layouts per se, regardless of possible gameplay. How complete were those levels? Has anything survived to the final release from those?

[NNC]

Just my late response to MetHy's post in the other thread:

Quote

This discussion should probably be cut and pasted in "Shadow Warrior Corner".

I think Keith Schuler is great. It is true that none of his maps have the "awe" factor and scale of some of Blum's levels or even The Abyss, but honestly that's not a problem with KS, that's a problem with Shadow Warrior as a whole.

Apart maybe from Floating Fortress, none of the maps do, and the lack of meaninful outdoor area is a common issue throughout the entire game. I'd even say this about Sumo Sky Palace, the player only truly realizes he's on a floating rock when going down that ladder leading below, I think the place lacks an outdoor area to start the map with that truly shows what the place is (and I don't think the small outdoor court with the first key does that either).
Then you have maps like Zilla's Villa and Monastery which alternate between indoor/outdoor areas but the outdoor areas are super confusing. Are they outdoor courts inside the place or are they outside the place? It doesn't help that they all have the same height as the indoor places around and uses the same wall textures, so they just feel like another room instead of proper outdoor places that could help set the place both in theme and in scale.
Also, Zilla's Villa has that amazing outdoor place at the end but it's an unreachable place, from my point of view the player should have started there instead, let him see the entire villa with his eyes including the rooftop he'll get to access later on.
Then you have Raider of the Lost Wang, it does start with an outdoor area but it's kind of a clusterfuck. The temple has what looks like a main entrance in the middle but it doesn't lead anywhere, plus the entire front is hidden by rocks and more rocks so you don't get any good view at it, then you have 2 side entrances but they're half natural looking so you never know where the nature stops and where the temple starts.

So in short, the lack of awe-some scale and view is a common problem in almost the entire game and I don't think it's right to blame KS for it especially since Bath House is one of the few maps that do manage to give a proper sense of scale with its starting outdoor area.
It is also worth noting that some of the levels had better plans in that regard when looking at the beta versions, for instance Sumo Sky Palace had a much bigger outdoor area at some point that really helped get a sense of the scale of the place, and so did Airport, that you mentionned.
Airport used to make a lot more "sense" realisticly speaking in the beta versions; but all this stuff got cut, probably to wrap up the game in time. Airport became more like a 2nd version of Seppuku Station in many ways, including not caring that the layout made sense; but instead making sure everything flows and interconnects properly with height level variations for dynamism; and honestly, it's probably a better Build level for that than what it would have become had they kept the realistic layout of the beta version. That layout made more sense realisticly speaking but it doesn't seem as practical for gameplay in my opinion.
One thing I don't understand though is why they cut the cockpit of the crashed plane, I don't think there is anything wrong with it and it could have been perfectly functional except for the fact that you couldn't see the outdoor from the cockpit itself.

Anyway - my point wanted to be that I think KS is awesome. I could be wrong but with the information we got but from the betas and everything I think he's one of the level designers that tried the most to experiment with things like ROR and effects. I think it shows that he used to be a programmer and the fact that he is the one that wrote the official mapping FAQs is probably a testatement to all that.
I think a lot of the flaws in level design may be attributed to the "cut and wrap up" phase; and despite nitpicking a lot about Cole's levels, I do think Cole was a good designer and had plenty of his moments as well.

I don't blame Schuler for anything, in fact, I said he is a very good, even great mapper, and saved SW from being a disaster. But I also think it's not the game's fault that no level designers (including Schuler) managed to create truly awesome and creative outdoor areas, at least in the registered episode. The game definitely had the tools, just look at the vulcano in Schuler's own Master Leep's Temple level or the carpet section in Dark Woods of the Serpent. It can be done. Or even Monastery or Tokyo Rooftops from WD. It's just a scarce thing in the game after the demo as building indoors and putting effort to micromanagement like meaningless details is always easier. And yes, probably George's "cutting is shipping" policy hurt the quality more than in Duke.

Despite his strong merits, Schuler DID have a flaw with his lack of self confidence and he probably thought following others is a safer bet than being creative. I think he was just looking at Blum's and Levelord's Duke maps instead of excelling on his own. And that's bad because he was very well capable, as most of his maps proven it, he just didn't dare to create stuff with the game's own facade. His other problem (or maybe the consequence of the first one) is that he probably thought the game will be better as an asian copy of Duke instead of being a game of its own merit. Bath House, Floating Fortress, Water Torture and even the weaker ones like Auto Maul ARE Duke Nukem 3D levels with Shadow Warrior skin. In Auto Maul and Water Torture I would go as far as saying that SW monsters like coolies felt out of place a bit, and waited for the pigcops to roar up somewhere. Maybe Bath House managed to capture some asian city vibes, but you know by heart as soon as you first jumped to the map, that it's a Duke Nukem homage from start to end. Even the reference was obvious.

I think the last two demo maps (Master Leep and Dark Woods) are the best at excelling in something the game owns, ie. rural environment with exotic locations, awe inspiring outdoors, natural disasters (something typical far east), new effects like fog or visible SOS. I think they should have followed this direction, and maybe they should have hired Allen Blum as a partner to Schuler to create stuff for the registered episode.

Btw. talking about Sumo Sky Palace, I have to say it's the first truly interesting map in the registered episode (Harakiri Harbor has a nice theme, but it had some annoying Cole-ism with the keycard to key door tedium, and cramped monster placement). The map wasn't flawless, for example I think George was responsible for some of the trial and error puzzles, but the map also had a memorable theme, and a great sense of place and scale, it was like 1000 times better than the dull levels before it. I don't know what Randy and George could have done to the game as regulars, probably they work best as the weirdo designers that can make a few occasional gems, but not on regular basis (something that would have worked for Petersen in Doom as well).

[MetHy]

I don't doubt that the level designers had a lot of creative freedom, more so than most level designers do in modern game dev, but the decision to Dukicize the game was most likely done by the higher ups (Broussard?) after the success of Duke's shareware. Looking at the available betas could probably confirm this (or not).

KS was also reponsible for Master Leep's Temple and Dark Woods of the Serpent (before Randy worked on that one). At the very least he was responsible for dojo at the start as well as the flying carpet ride, the rest it's harder to tell.

[NNC]

MetHy, on 03 November 2020 - 03:36 AM, said:

I don't doubt that the level designers had a lot of creative freedom, more so than most level designers do in modern game dev, but the decision to Dukicize the game was most likely done by the higher ups (Broussard?) after the success of Duke's shareware. Looking at the available betas could probably confirm this (or not).

KS was also reponsible for Master Leep's Temple and Dark Woods of the Serpent (before Randy worked on that one). At the very least he was responsible for dojo at the start as well as the flying carpet ride, the rest it's harder to tell.

I always wanted to know who was more responsible for each level: the starter or the finisher. I think I have to look deeper in the game to understand the various style elements. Even Schuler's own maps have varied quality. For example Rising Son is just as generic as the rest of the first half of the registered episode, while Master Leep's Temple was a gorgeous level. The same comparison can be said about Bath House vs. Auto Maul. Dark Woods' middle section was probably the one by Randy, it looks completely different to both the dojo and the carpet segments. I guess in Floating Fortress the outside areas and the nearby depot was by Norwood, while the ship's inside was by Schuler (also the flooded section). The other levels are too small to judge I guess. Coolie Mines for example looks like a compact work, hard to see it as a map by two persons.

[MetHy]

The Watchtower, on 03 November 2020 - 04:12 AM, said:

I always wanted to know who was more responsible for each level: the starter or the finisher.

I think it could be more complicated than just having someone start a map and someone else finish it. It's not like in the case of Shop'n'Bag and Pigsty where the original level designer is gone.
The case of the mine for instance, the level is named "newmine", which is to differentiate it with the old mine level that you can find in the available betas. The concept is the same, but it looks like the map was restarted from scratch. Perhaps mapper A made the initial mine t and mapper B was asked to take that concept and make something new with it, hence mapper A is credited anyway; but perhaps both worked on the newmine together after all. Even with the clues left with the available betas it is sometimes hard to tell.

[NNC]

MetHy, on 03 November 2020 - 06:36 AM, said:

I think it could be more complicated than just having someone start a map and someone else finish it. It's not like in the case of Shop'n'Bag and Pigsty where the original level designer is gone.
The case of the mine for instance, the level is named "newmine", which is to differentiate it with the old mine level that you can find in the available betas. The concept is the same, but it looks like the map was restarted from scratch. Perhaps mapper A made the initial mine t and mapper B was asked to take that concept and make something new with it, hence mapper A is credited anyway; but perhaps both worked on the newmine together after all. Even with the clues left with the available betas it is sometimes hard to tell.

I think it's time to check those betas soon.

[NNC]

I played a little SW yesterday, and I decided to give my level to level ratings for the game, like for Duke back then:

Seppuku Station 7
Zilla Construction 8
Master Leep's Temple 10
Dark Woods of the Serpent 10

Rising Son 6
Killing Fields 5
Hara-Kiri Harbor 7
Zilla's Villa 5
Monastery 5
Raiders of the Lost Wang 6
Shanghai Shipwreck (secret) 6
Sumo Sky Palace 7
Bath House 9
Unfriendly Skies 6
Auto Maul (secret) 6
Crude Oil 6
Coolie Mines 7
Subpen Seven 6
The Great Escape 6
Floating Fortress 9
Water Torture 9
Stone Rain 7

Maybe I try the same with the two addons next time, but I didn't play the levels enough to rate them. I'm wondering what are MetHy's or the rest of the community's scores btw.

[MetHy]

I don't know about rating them like this but on top of my favourites (Bath House, Water Torture) I also really enjoy Auto Maul, The Great Escape and Unfriendly Skies. They have a great thematic coherence and pretty much everything you can expect from a typical classic Build map.

Those maps are also pretty fun to play in NPNG with katana start which can't always be said; I tend to play any Build game that way on the hardest or penultimate skill depending on the game, and the arcade way too (not allowing saves and restarting the level over if I die).
The end of Dark Woods for instance, everything past the portal is a royal pain in the ass, you almost have to make sure you do exploits if you don't want to die. I don't know how many times I had to restart the map because of dying around that place or on the carpet ride in the past. With time I learnt to do it properly (now I know where and how to use Nukes effectively and safely for instance) but it's still the most painful moment in the game.

I do enjoy Dark Woods though, it has an adventure vibe not found in many Build maps outside of the The Abyss.

[NNC]

MetHy, on 05 November 2020 - 12:34 AM, said:

I don't know about rating them like this but on top of my favourites (Bath House, Water Torture) I also really enjoy Auto Maul, The Great Escape and Unfriendly Skies. They have a great thematic coherence and pretty much everything you can expect from a typical classic Build map.

Those maps are also pretty fun to play in NPNG with katana start which can't always be said; I tend to play any Build game that way on the hardest or penultimate skill depending on the game, and the arcade way too (not allowing saves and restarting the level over if I die).
The end of Dark Woods for instance, everything past the portal is a royal pain in the ass, you almost have to make sure you do exploits if you don't want to die. I don't know how many times I had to restart the map because of dying around that place or on the carpet ride in the past. With time I learnt to do it properly (now I know where and how to use Nukes effectively and safely for instance) but it's still the most painful moment in the game.

I do enjoy Dark Woods though, it has an adventure vibe not found in many Build maps outside of the The Abyss.

I never liked this arbitrary playstyle of hardest skill/pistolstart/nosaves. I have never tried NPNG but if it's like Damn I'm Good or Nightmare, then it's a no go to me. Penultimate skill is good, and it's usually my preference these days, but pistolstarting for me rarely works with it due to the lack of ammo in most maps (it definitely worked in episode 5 of Duke for example, but that was made in 2016, devs adjusted to common playstyle by that time) . No saving essentially kills the fun of longer maps like Dark Woods or Floating Fortress, although savescumming is also a no go. For example in Dark Woods I usually save once (around the start of the Ripper Valley), but back in my n00bish days, I also saved before the bossfight (I struggled with the serpent back then). To each his own playstyle I guess.

As for adventure, I also see some connections between Abyss and Dark Woods. It almost felt like Dark Woods wanted to be SW's answer to Abyss, just like Seppuku Station was a response to HH (not the best one) or Floating Fortress was a response to Derelict. The whole shrine techbase section was probably a poor response to Lunar Apocalypse. Btw. I don't know if you played Sigil, but the penultimate level there (Nightmare Underworld) also felt like an Abyss clone to me.

[MetHy]

The Watchtower, on 05 November 2020 - 01:08 AM, said:

but pistolstarting for me rarely works with it due to the lack of ammo in most maps (it definitely worked in episode 5 of Duke for example, but that was made in 2016, devs adjusted to common playstyle by that time) .

Actually SW is the easiest game to play that way. You get a lot of supplies in every map, and usually lot's of different weapons too.

[necroslut]

No Pain No Gain is much more pleasant than Damn I'm Good since there are no respawning enemies, and lack of ammo with a pistol start isn't as much of a deal as Wang's melee weapons are significantly more useful.
While I generally prefer to play without saves in Duke 3D, it can be a bit more annoying to do it in SW as levels can indeed be very long and it's so easy to get instakilled by something. Especially some of the shareware levels that have a mid-level portal to an unconnected area could have well been split into two IMO.

[NNC]

Katana might be better than Duke's mighty boot (which is a badly flawed thing in Duke), but I wouldn't put it over the pistol. Pistol is an accurate weapon and a weapon of choice in some situations (ie. against long distance troopers or turrets), especially if you play with autoaim on. Katana's problem is that it doesn't work with some common enemies like coolies or rippers, and even the coloured ninjas can be problem especially if they spread through the map. SW is a much harder game anyway as even the lowest tier enemies are as bad as the enforcers with painful accuracy, Duke had many pushover foes and even midtiers like the commander are not as bad as the SW midtiers like the female ninja or the ripper (especially the brown one). I think SW's uzi and riot gun are just too soft weapons, their accuracy is weak and HP is not high. They wanted us to use a broader selection of weapons more often, but it just made the game more annoying and harder.

[MetHy]

Ripper's aren't that hard to kill with the katana, you'll be able to avoid most of their attacks just by doing backwards/forwards and attacking in between.

This is a video I made a while back of Auto Maul on NPNG katana start only using the following things: katana, shurikens, fists and inventory items.
Recorded in DOSbox and at the time I didn't know about the secret

Spoiler

fortune cookie in the middle of the map

necroslut, on 05 November 2020 - 11:54 PM, said:

Especially some of the shareware levels that have a mid-level portal to an unconnected area could have well been split into two IMO.

Those portals can be exploited to kill enemies through it safely though. It wastes ammo but in the case of Dark Woods for instance there is tons. You can even fire a Nuke through the portal and just watch a dozen ripper corpses fly off.