Shadow Warrior (1997)

Review by Nirvanaron
"Honorable game most hilarious"

Back in 1993, 3d Realms had a dream of making a first person shooter based on a ninja. Id software nearly finished Doom and when it came out a few months later, it took the gaming industry by a huge storm and rumor has it hooked even the likes of Steven Speilburg and Robin Williams. At this same time, Duke Nukem 3d was in the making, Shadow Warrior was as well. After almost four years, Shadow Warrior was released. Duke Nukem had already come out almost a year before and really changed the face of gaming. Shadow Warrior would add to what Duke did.

Graphically, it is somewhat improved over Duke Nukem 3d, in 1997 the graphics were okay, but slightly dated. The sprites are cleaner than Duke and there are some polygonal sprites that you can turn on.

Sonically, this game is great, the groans and all of the weaponry are really well made. The wisecracks are the most hilarious, the cheesy Asian stereotyped voice will make most gamers' sides split, unless you don't take kindly to profiling Asians in such a way. But if you enjoy any kind of joking with stereotyping or whatever then you'll love it. With such witty retorts like ''You blocking with your head again'' and ''Holy Cow, that look like Duke Nukem!'' any gamer with a certain sense of humor will find themselves in racous laughter.

Control is the same as Duke Nukem, so anyone that has played Duke Nukem before knows what to expect, and if not then the controls will still be easy to master.

The Story is good and short, you're a ninja named Lo Wang looking to kill some guy named Zilla or something like that.

The enemies are okay but they're not the best. They lack in diversity, as several of them are mere pallette swaps. I mean how many types of one bad guy have to be in this game? I mean there's a brown ninja, red, etc. I need different enemies and not assorted by the visible spectrum. A little creativity would serve the creators of the game and the gamers well.

The weapons are really good, they're nice and diverse, and some really give you the feel of a ninja, while others are just plain cool otherwise.

Overall, this game is good, and would've been better had it come out a year before and really contested Duke Nukem. But nonetheless, this game is still a good game.

Buy or borrow? I'd say buy, it's not too easy to find though, but try a computer show or a pawnshop or amazon or ebay.