Best Build game?

We all know about Ken Silverman's wonderful Build engine, which powered a number of first person shooters in the mid and late 90s. But which one is superior? Personally, I'm going with Blood. As iconic as Duke Nukem 3D was, and as wild as Shadow Warrior and Redneck Rampage are, Blood is the closest I've come to the level of fun I experienced on the original Dooms. Blood had this great combination of morbid humor, macabre visuals, killer map design, an excellent weapon arsenal, and a diverse enemy set. I have found it to have more replay value than the other famous Build games.

The only one I really enjoyed was Blood.

Duke Nukem's level design bores me to tears, and I can't even remember what put me off about Shadow Warrior, but I know it was something. I don't own a copy of the game anymore, but I'll probably pick it back up eventually and love it.

I've never played Redneck Rampage, though.

The problem with Shadow Warrior was that it was incredibly deceptive. The shareware version had four gigantic, diverse, very fun maps. The second episode, contrarily, had something like 18 much smaller maps that were repetitive and not nearly as compelling. Also, Shadow Warrior's enemy set was not nearly as diverse as that of Blood or Doom. Redneck Rampage is fun, but again, does not have the best level design, even though its humor and weapon selection is pretty nice.

Mithran Denizen said:

Duke Nukem's level design bores me to tears

ugh I know. I keep trying to play the shareware but get bored a few levels in.

I'd say blood aswell. Maps in Shadow Warrior got me lost so much, Duke Nukem maps just got old after the first time.

Haven't played them all; but I'd say Blood had the best game design (including levels, weapons, storyline, etc.) and Shadow Warrior the best version of the engine.

GoatLord said:

Redneck Rampage is fun, but again, does not have the best level design

I disagree entirely. Maps like Smelting Plant and Uranium Mines are the best Build has to offer in terms of mapping.

I vote Blood. It great weapons, a very diverse cast, it was fun, and the levels were all very well designed and actually looked like they were supposed to be something. Duke Nukem comes in second for me because it's funny, action packed, but I only like Episode 1 and the Expansion Pack episode. Lunar Apocalypse and Shrapnel City are both rather boring. Redneck Rampage comes next because it's pretty funny and the levels look great. I haven't played Shadow Warrior.

Blood!

4/20 burn monks everyday!

Belial said:

I disagree entirely. Maps like Smelting Plant and Uranium Mines are the best Build has to offer in terms of mapping.

Well, I haven't played through the entire game, so maybe I'm being hasty. The levels do in fact look great...but they just aren't as fun as Blood's.

DuckReconMajor said:

ugh I know. I keep trying to play the shareware but get bored a few levels in.

Pretty much all Duke Nukem games end up that way. Levels aren't terribly fun, and a lot of the game is carried on Duke's shoulders.

I dunno, I enjoy Duke a lot, although Episode 2 is really boring. But yeah, a lot of it is about the gimmicky themes and visuals.

Blood is the best of all build games. Great immersive level design, great cast of enemies, great gameplay, great weapons, and great music. Imo, Blood has no flaws as a FPS at all and is truly a forgotten gem of a game.

Duke Nukem is fun, but I find the gameplay somewhat lacking. Episode 1 and 2 are fun, though 2 has a he-uge increase in difficulty, with various dangerous, tedious traps and questionable monster placement (there's one level which has 2 Overlords. And you fight them AT THE SAME TIME IN A CRAMPED ROOM. No fucking thank you, I say). Episode 3, however, BLOWS. It has no redeeming factors at all. The music's great, too.

Shadow Warrior just rubs me the wrong way. I've only played the shareware of it, but even that's enough to tell me how tedious the game is. Unsatisfying weapons, boring cast of enemies, and tedious levels. The humor sucks, too. Only really redeeming factor of it is the music

Redneck Rampage is better, though. The level design is much better and much more immersive than Shadow Warrior's, the enemies are far better than Shadow Warrior's, and the weapons much more fun to use. The alcohol/gut meters are interesting and act like a in between of a armor system and a firepower system (though I'm not 100% sure WHAT it does). Oh, and the humor's better than Shadow Warrior's. Only drawback is the music. It suck, imo.

Doomhuntress said:

Only drawback is the music. It suck, imo.

What?

I just realized no one has mentioned Powerslave yet... I'd probably take that one over RR, tied with DN3D, and under Blood. PowerSlave I gotta say has some awesome moments.

Played some Duke3D back in the day, but never got that far in it. Went back to Doom, then Quake. Didn't play much other 3D stuff except Heretic/Hexen and Descent. By the time a lot of these other games came out, I was already in fulltime Linux mode (no more dual-booting) and they only had DOS binaries.

Blood is awesome as is DN3D. I enjoyed RR to a lesser degree because I feel as though the gameplay doesn't feel as nice. The guns aren't as visceral and the enemies don't look like they injured when shot. SW is also great fun.

Pretty much everyone in this thread is 100% wrong because extreme paintbrawl is certainly the best build engine game.

Is it possible to play Blood/Redneck Rampage with eduke32? or is there specific "source ports" for both of them?

Doomhuntress said:

Episode 3, however, BLOWS. It has no redeeming factors at all.

I'd refute that with Tier Drops, which in terms of clever Build use and design is quite interesting.

Gotta go with Blood. I had the most fun with it. The expansion levels were perhaps the finest crafted works in the BUILD engine, though some of them did end up a little too confusing. I never could figure out how to get out of the first house without noclipping in the map with the plane that drops a bomb on the level; I think it's the first map of one of the two extra episodes.

Never played Shadow Warrior, but Redneck Rampage was a ton of fun. Those kinds of games with all their superfluous elements and goofy sense of humor are definitely a reminder of the days that developers obviously actually really loved making games.

Duke... Was Duke. I'm not sure I ever even completed the first episode. I liked it anyway.

No love for PowerSlave...

Clonehunter said:

No love for PowerSlave...

None.

Clonehunter said:

What?

...It sounds like THAT??? O_O
I remember it being much, much worse than this. Then again, I haven't played it in... years. Guess my memory is failing me.

That song just has so much win in it.

100% Blood all the way... Oddly about the only one which has no source port as yet, aside from those god awful games like Witchaven, Tekwar and I think there are a few others that were almost unplayable.

I've always been a Shadow Warrior fan, myself. Blood's a close second, though. Damn awesome map design, but some parts can be a bit slow (starting out, especially) due to lack of equipment.

Not to knock Duke3D, though. 'Tis damn good as well. Haven't played any of the others, though.

Extreme PaintBrawl has the best soundtrack, of course.

For all its gore and macabre stylings, I enjoyed Blood the most, followed by Shadow Warrior and then Duke 3D. I didn't play that far into Powerslave for PC but I heard some great things about the console version. I'd be interested in actually muscling through it some day, I just wish they'd release the source code so we could have an easier time trolling through it.

SeanWJF said:

Is it possible to play Blood/Redneck Rampage with eduke32? or is there specific "source ports" for both of them?

They don't run via Eduke. I had a hard time getting my copy of Blood to run nicely on Win 7 x64 but I found some torrents on TPB that are extract + play copies of Blood and RR that work 100% perfectly out of the box (at least for me) which was extremely useful.

I've never played Powerslave but now I really want to :]

That's what DOSbox is for.

I never did play much of Blood. Played tons of DN3D. RR gets special mention because my mom, who normally hates violent games, thinks it's hilarious.