Sitrep: Children of the Build Engine

I, much like most PC shooter-kids now somewhere in the wrong half of their twenties, spent a huge amount of time killing everyone and growing up relatively well-adjusted with a whole lot of FPS games fittingly built on Ken Silverman’s Build Engine.

When Monolith’s former CEO Jace Hall up-and-declared he was seriously thinking about rebooting Blood earlier in the week, I did a sex face. Great game. Full of invention. Lot of risks taken. In fact, if you look back over these 2.5D shooters that were coming out circa mid-to-late 90s, you don’t see nearly as much identikit as you see right now. What you see are devs unfettered by the contraints of big business that often hem them in today, and it’s almost a little sad how remakeable these old things are. I don’t think we’ll be the saying the same thing about a lot of what we’re playing now ten odd years down the track.

In further retrospect, it’s also kind of awesome how many bases these games managed to cover back in the day. We got ninjas, we got rubes, we got crook-ed law­-men, we got sorcerers!

Shadow Warrior

Easily my fave Build effort of all time. WHO WANTA SOME WANG? Man, I did. I mean, what. An endearing and testosteronic caricature on par with The Duke himself, Lo Wang’s misadventures were all about the katana. I went crazy with that thing. Although farcical, the strangest thing about Shadow Warrior was its pensive oriental atmosphere occasionally suggested something more sincere at times. Dare I wish Lo-Wang to return as dour and po-faced?

Redneck Rampage

YES. Moon pies and pork rinds for all! Remember the “gut” meter? Hilarious. I’d be letting trouser-coughs rip all over Hickston in an unsubtle crusade to not hit anything with mah trusty ry-fell ‘cos too drunk. Smash an excessive amount of backwoods hooch and you’d eventually wind up chundering into the dirt, all fuzzy and defenseless. It remains a cautionary tale for today’s youth, surely.

TekWar

I stand by the promise and concept of this game, even if it was totally goddamn awful to play. Not sure how many people give a toss much less remember William Shatner’s TekWar books (I have one! Somewhere! I don’t remember anything about it!), but the game was pretty much a day in the life of a guy with a gun and authority storming into office blocks shooting secretaries and then riding the subway. And look at that brick Ferrari, come on.

Outlaws

We’re straying out of Build Engine territory a bit now, but the song remains the same. One of LucasArts’ most interesting original ideas was also one of its most cultish, famously beloved by John Romero. The Outlaws Mod for Half-Life did it some nostalgic justice, but there’s a shortage of classic Western shooters out there right now – and James Anderson would whip John Marston with his gangly cartoon limbs, easy.

Heretic

This is Doom engine stuff, but the precursor to HeXen (which should also be here, what the hell is wrong with me) was insanely badass and even kicked you in the colon for trying to cheat. Chuck Doom’s ALL WEAPONS RAWR cheat in and it’ll go, “Trying to cheat, eh? Now you die!” And then you die, just like it said. I liked its honesty.

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Tags: Blood, sitrep