Shadow Warrior strikes me as how to reimagine a game properly. It still retains it’s old school feel but it has a lot of new goodies as well. I have played a lot of “remastered” games and usually I am disappointed because they change the core game play in ways I dislike or try to shove modern politics into a game that never had any to start with. The story is pretty simple overall as you have to seek out a sword for your boss. The expanded story that you learn as you go in regards to the shadow realm and it’s history is actually pretty decent although I found it could have been explained a bit better at parts. It still offers a more fleshed out story than many action games tend to. The weapon selection is great and fives you plenty of options for ranged, close range, and melee weapons. The combat with the sword is one of the better first person melee experiences I have had. You can dismember enemies in various ways, block, and learn a variety of special attacks with it. Speaking of the special attacks there are lots of varied skills and upgrades you can strive for as you find money, crystals, and earn karma. I did find the karma you earn to be rather hit and miss in how it is calculated. The idea is that the more varied and special the attacks you do combined with how fast you finish them off will get you more karma but in my experience I rarely found the score matched with how I thought I did not to mention that many times I took more damage and took longer but because I used a better variety of weapons I got more karma than when I was more efficient yet boring. There was a good selection of enemies to fight. They all had their own styles and strategies to match up to your weapon selection. The boss fights were decent but they made it very obvious how to beat them and they were all pretty much the same. The level design was varied in location but I found many times it felt very maze like. The game does give you slight hints of where to go but even then I felt it could have been better mapped out. The sequel has really remedied this thankfully. Something else the sequel did better was allow you to carry health packs. In this game you can’t hold them, you use them as soon as you touch them. I can hold onto a half dozen weapons as well as hundreds of rounds of ammo but not a health pack. I also don’t like how early in the game you pretty much need to have hints turned on. For instance at one point you must heal to progress and another you must learn a specific power but neither time does the game tell you this without hints on. The graphics were fairly good for when it was released and hold up pretty well over a decade later. Nothing was a standout for 2013 but everything was at least solid or above average. The voice acting was good and the humour was top notch.

I played Shadow Warrior’s native Linux version. The game has a vertical FOV slider that ranges from 50-90, four AF settings, toggles for AA, SSAO, and v-sync as well as eight other graphics settings. You can change difficulty any time you want. You can manually save any time you want and there are auto checkpoints as well. You can skip cut scenes. Performance wise the game ran great which isn’t shocking given it’s age and my hardware. There were a couple issues such ass the game crashed to desktop twice. An enemy was able to attack me through a wall one time, and a barrel exploded just by me touching it one time.

Game Engine: Road Hog Engine
Disk Space Used: 7GB
Input Used: Keyboard and mouse
Game Settings Used: 2560x1440, FXAA, 16x AF, v-sync on, highest settings
GPU Usage: 12-75 %
VRAM Usage: 1848-2918MB
CPU Usage: 13-28 %
System RAM Usage: 4.5-5.8 GB
Frame Rate: 72-135 FPS

If you love action games with good humour you should try Shadow Warrior. You don’t have to have played the original old school version to enjoy this one. It currently retails for $33.99 CAD plus tax which may seem like a lot for a ten year old game but I enjoyed this more than many newer games even after all these years. I finished the main story on normal difficulty in eleven hours and thirty six minutes.

My Score: 8.5/10

My System:

Intel i5-12600K | 32GB DDR4-3200 CL16 | Gigabyte RX 7800 XT 16GB | Western Digital Black SN850X 2TB | Linux Mint 22 | Dasharo 1.1.4 | Mate 1.26.1 | Kernel 6.8.0-51-generic | Mesa 24.0.9-0ubuntu0.2 | MSI G2730QPF 2560*1440 @ 165Hz

Shadow Warrior strikes me as how to reimagine a game properly. It still retains it’s old school feel but it has a lot of new goodies as well. I have played a lot of “remastered” games and usually I am disappointed because they change the core game play in ways I dislike or try to shove modern politics into a game that never had any to start with. The story is pretty simple overall as you have to seek out a sword for your boss. The expanded story that you learn as you go in regards to the shadow realm and it’s history is actually pretty decent although I found it could have been explained a bit better at parts. It still offers a more fleshed out story than many action games tend to. The weapon selection is great and fives you plenty of options for ranged, close range, and melee weapons. The combat with the sword is one of the better first person melee experiences I have had. You can dismember enemies in various ways, block, and learn a variety of special attacks with it. Speaking of the special attacks there are lots of varied skills and upgrades you can strive for as you find money, crystals, and earn karma. I did find the karma you earn to be rather hit and miss in how it is calculated. The idea is that the more varied and special the attacks you do combined with how fast you finish them off will get you more karma but in my experience I rarely found the score matched with how I thought I did not to mention that many times I took more damage and took longer but because I used a better variety of weapons I got more karma than when I was more efficient yet boring. There was a good selection of enemies to fight. They all had their own styles and strategies to match up to your weapon selection. The boss fights were decent but they made it very obvious how to beat them and they were all pretty much the same. The level design was varied in location but I found many times it felt very maze like. The game does give you slight hints of where to go but even then I felt it could have been better mapped out. The sequel has really remedied this thankfully. Something else the sequel did better was allow you to carry health packs. In this game you can’t hold them, you use them as soon as you touch them. I can hold onto a half dozen weapons as well as hundreds of rounds of ammo but not a health pack. I also don’t like how early in the game you pretty much need to have hints turned on. For instance at one point you must heal to progress and another you must learn a specific power but neither time does the game tell you this without hints on. The graphics were fairly good for when it was released and hold up pretty well over a decade later. Nothing was a standout for 2013 but everything was at least solid or above average. The voice acting was good and the humour was top notch. I played Shadow Warrior’s native Linux version. The game has a vertical FOV slider that ranges from 50-90, four AF settings, toggles for AA, SSAO, and v-sync as well as eight other graphics settings. You can change difficulty any time you want. You can manually save any time you want and there are auto checkpoints as well. You can skip cut scenes. Performance wise the game ran great which isn’t shocking given it’s age and my hardware. There were a couple issues such ass the game crashed to desktop twice. An enemy was able to attack me through a wall one time, and a barrel exploded just by me touching it one time. Game Engine: Road Hog Engine Disk Space Used: 7GB Input Used: Keyboard and mouse Game Settings Used: 2560x1440, FXAA, 16x AF, v-sync on, highest settings GPU Usage: 12-75 % VRAM Usage: 1848-2918MB CPU Usage: 13-28 % System RAM Usage: 4.5-5.8 GB Frame Rate: 72-135 FPS If you love action games with good humour you should try Shadow Warrior. You don’t have to have played the original old school version to enjoy this one. It currently retails for $33.99 CAD plus tax which may seem like a lot for a ten year old game but I enjoyed this more than many newer games even after all these years. I finished the main story on normal difficulty in eleven hours and thirty six minutes. My Score: 8.5/10 My System: Intel i5-12600K | 32GB DDR4-3200 CL16 | Gigabyte RX 7800 XT 16GB | Western Digital Black SN850X 2TB | Linux Mint 22 | Dasharo 1.1.4 | Mate 1.26.1 | Kernel 6.8.0-51-generic | Mesa 24.0.9-0ubuntu0.2 | MSI G2730QPF 2560*1440 @ 165Hz