As it was, even with my Pentium 90 PC and a 2Mb Diamond Stealth graphics card,
anything remotely SVGA slowed the game down noticeably, so I spent most of the
time with the graphics set to basic VGA level. This resulted in a low resolution
of 320x200 pixels, but at least it ran at a decent speed.
I did manage to find a Website on the internet which contains patches for a
number of games, but on using the patch I found it didn't work quite as well
as expected even though my 4Mb Maxi Gamer 3Dfx card has the necessary Glide
drivers. It continually put my monitor into 640x400 resolution, giving the
screen a compressed "widescreen" look, and all attempts to alter the resolution
with the F5 key were to no avail. Perhaps if an official 3Dfx patch was released
this would solve the problem.
If you want to try the 3Dfx patch (of which there are four, for each of the
different versions out there), the site can be found at :
http://www.iinet.net.au/~pveder/3dfx
The game's sound is mainly limited to explosions, bullets ricocheting, or Lo
Wang endlessly coming out with phrases like "Want some Wang?" or "Pain is
for the weak!". There is a music option available, but even with it switched
on I didn't hear a note come out.
Finally the gameplay is the game's one redeeming factor. It's just as playable
as Duke and Blood, and with the auto-run option on you can go exploring just
as easily, and killing monsters without a problem causing their blood to spurt
aplenty.
Overall
One thing that I haven't mentioned yet is that this game has been rated 18
by the BBFC, presumably for the massive amounts of gore involved. However, one
thing that the BBFC don't like in films is the use of the Shuriken
weapon, and as such those have been replaced with Darts although this
change won't affect the gameplay when using them.
The fact that the BBFC are now rating games is a comparitively recent thing,
it only having happened in the last few years, and is a step on (or should that
be backward?) from the 1985 Video Recordings Act which stated that every video
cassette rented or sold in the UK had to have a certificate, so the first ones
to be affected were films like Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The
Exorcist. This certainly explains why the ZX Spectrum game, Saboteur,
still had shurikens in 1984.
Overall, one gets the feeling of having done everything before as nothing has
been done to improve the original game engine. On top of this, the levels and
scenery haven't been created as well as those games that have gone before it,
thus giving you not much incentive to go through the levels.
Similarly there seems to be not much in the way of humour here, so if you're
after a game of this type and haven't played Duke Nukem 3D then buy
that, especially as it's at a bargain price now, or the more recent
Blood.
If you're after some more info on Eidos Interactive's games, you can check
out their official Website at
www.eidosinteractive.com or
the official Shadow Warrior site at
www.shadowwarrior.com
As of April 2009, Blu-rays and DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TH-37PX80B
37" Plasma TV with a Sony BDP-1500 Blu-ray player and played through a Yamaha DSP-AX820 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
Since Jan 2011: Intel Quad Core Dell XPS 8100, i7 CPU 860 @ 2.80Ghz, 8Gb RAM, nVidia GeForce GTS 240, Windows 7
Since Nov 2005: Intel Pentium D 830 3.0Ghz, 1Gb RAM, 128Mb nVidia GeForce 6700XL, Windows XP
Since Aug 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.66Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb GeForce4 MX440 graphics, Windows XP
Since May 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.6Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb ATI Radeon 9600TX graphics, Windows XP
Since Jun 2002: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, 64Mb ATI Radeon 8500LE
Since May 2000: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
