Shadow Warrior is a first-person shooter computer game, developed by 3D Realms and released in 1997 by GT Interactive Software. Very similar to Duke Nukem — 3D Realms star game —, as a matter of fact, sometimes appears to be almost a copy of it, Shadow Warrior manages to be an incredible adventure, where the player must refine his skills in order to subdue his enemies, and be eligible to conclude all challenges and win the game. 

In Shadow Warrior, the main character is Lo Wang, a former employee of Zilla Enterprises, a Zaibatsu, which is an enormous conglomerate that controls entire sectors of Japan's economy. The president of the company, however, is planning to take over the world by using supernatural creatures. Upon learning of this plan, Lo Wang decides to take action against his former employer. Master Zilla, when learning about Lo Wang's plans to subdue him, sends his evil creatures to fight against him.   

Shadow Warrior is a very interesting and dynamic game. Not considering the similarities with Duke Nukem — particularly in the gameplay, the graphic designs and the dark humour —, the game has managed to develop its own identity, and displays a series of personal features, that consecrates to its atmosphere some very distinct and unusual peculiarities. The game also presents from time to time naked girls in anime style, in very eccentric circumstances, and a set of gracefully designed scenarios, that realistically embrace its Japanese setting. 

Exactly like Heretic and Hexen: Beyond Heretic were games developed by Raven Software using the "Doom" engine — an informal name for the game platform known as id Tech 1 —, Shadow Warrior was developed by 3D Realms using the "Build" engine, which is the same used for Duke Nukem. For these reason, games built in the same platform will inadvertently share similar features and technical resemblances. The main difference will be on the exterior graphic designs. 

Despite its high levels of violence and aggressiveness — Shadow Warrior certainly is one of the most violent computer games ever designed —, its easy to become deeply involved in the plot's dense, intricate and pervasive atmosphere. The gameplay is marvelously dynamic, the scenarios are diversified and spectacularly conceived, the premise of the challenges are coherent and portrayed with diligence, and the cohesiveness of the main character and all the enemies he has to fight are competently established and organically developed. The weapons available to be used are also quite varied. Like a ninja, you can use a ninjatō to slice your enemies in half, or shoot them with a pair of submachine guns. You can also use the head of a fire-breathing wizard to kill your enemies. Another interesting feature of the game was the fact that has some vehicles that the player can drive, some of them with usable weapons. 

If we ignore the fact that some elements of Shadow Warrior are definitely generic and quite ordinary, its gameplay still stands out as superior from other first-person shooter adventures. The graphic design successfully conceive a very peculiar identity to the game, and the level of entertainment displayed certainly can be considered above the average. The gameplay is straightforwardly easy and dynamic, and the coherence between the levels and the organic difficulties gradually imposed to the player as he advances showcase a professional degree of objective lucidity and creative diligence from the designers, that engraves on the identity of the adventure the exceptional urgencies of its somber proposal.    

Definitely, Shadow Warrior manages to be a formidable, great game, that allows first-person shooter enthusiasts to have a relevant degree of fun. While the game is far from perfect — and lacks a certain level of creative independence —, Shadow Warrior will always be a peculiar milestone in the history of computer games. More recently, Polish interactive design company Flying Wild Hog developed a reboot of Shadow Warrior, that was released in 2013 by Devolver Digital for several different video games. In 2016, they've released a sequel, Shadow Warrior 2.


​Wagner

Hexen: Beyond Heretic was — exactly like its predecessor, Heretic — a dark fantasy first-person shooter game, developed by Raven Software and released by id Software in 1995. Functioning as an indirect sequel to Heretic, Hexen became unique in the history of computer games, because, unlike any other game before or after, it was possible for the player to choose between three different characters, something that offered to enthusiasts a very singular experience. Hexen: Beyond Heretic was received with great acclaim and enthusiasm by the computer games community upon its release, and remains one of the most relevant, iconic and spectacular first-person shooter games ever to have been created. 

As a sequel to Heretic, Hexen remained loyal and faithful to the underground and somber dark fantasy nature of its predecessor. The scenarios were exceedingly nefarious, medieval-style cold castles, sinister atriums and despondent ruins, where sorcery and black magic exercise undisputed domain over the entirety of the reign of times. Like it is written above, the big difference of the game came from the fact that it was possible to choose between three different characters: a rude barbarian in the style of Conan, Baratus, a virtuous and polyvalent sorcerer, Daedolon, and an introspective religious deacon, Parias. This was an extremely fascinating feature on Hexen, because each one of these characters offer to the players an entirely different game experience, since each one of them has its own qualities, weapons and distinct virtues. 

Immediately upon its release, Hexen was met with enthusiasm by the worldwide computer games community. Its organic, multifaceted, dynamic and sophisticated nature certainly sparked a revolution on first-person shooter games, with a series of improvements, that drastically changed the way games were then played. With a non-linear narrative, that allows the player to choose which path he wants to explore, with the possibility to return to certain areas that function as a point of convergence between different levels, Hexen offers a generally flexible, intricate and realistic game platform, that allow multiple choices to be made along the journey. 

Undergoing through dark castles and sinister labyrinths, that are filled with a great variety of enemies full of supernatural powers, the player must advance in a doomed dimension of hostility and despair. As Hexen functions more or less as a sequence to Heretic, its premise shares some features with its predecessor. As in Heretic, the main character, Corvus, had to defeat D'Sparil, one of the three Serpent Riders, Hexen takes place in the realm of Cronos, that had been captured by Korax, another member of the Serpent Riders. Upon choosing one of the three characters available, the player must go through all the different levels, until finally arriving to the final battle against Korax. 

Like most people of my generation that used to play Hexen in the late nineties, this was one of those games that made adolescence to be an exceptionally fun and entertaining period of life. With somber scenarios that inspired in the player a sentiment of very tense and dark contingencies, Hexen — regardless of which was your favorite character to play with — had made us all undergo extremely somber journeys in a magical, fantastic, inhospitable world of intricate affliction, where an arcane set of enemies where waiting, to invalidate our efforts to accomplish the mission. Playing this game alone in your bedroom, late at night, entirely surrounded by darkness, was a courageous task that only the most brave could endure.

The dark fantasy world of Hexen was majestically conceived, and captured perfectly the atmosphere of RPG games that were so popular at the time. Its realistic graphic designs properly engraved in the mind of the players the density of its overwhelming dark narrative, that not only suggested they were there for real, but also displayed a persuasive cosmogony of dangerous affliction, that compelled them to move on to carry out the mission. In a general evaluation, Hexen can be considered a fantastic adventure, whose density, flexibility, improvements, innovations and realism  proved to be a colossal evolution to the first-person shooter video game platform. 

Undoubtedly, Hexen was one of those fantastic computer games, that — given its originality and creatively audacious nature — ostensibly deserves its place in history. There is not a single computer geek in this world that haven't had a sensational degree of fun playing Hexen. Certainly, a drastically ubiquitous, but doomed nefarious world of dark fantasy got a lot more close to us, thanks to this marvelous and spectacular game. 


Wagner

Heretic is a dark fantasy first-person shooter game, that was developed by Raven Software — and subsequently released by id Software —, that became an instant success, achieving enormous popularity in the nineties, during a time where this type of game became a fever among computer nerds, geeks and teenagers around the world. 

Heretic was different precisely because it was not neither futuristic, nor contemporary. It's setting was a dark underground realm of fantasy, and the main character, Corvus, was a sorcerer that had to fight various monsters and evil creatures throughout multiple levels. The plot is a typical tale of the genre. Corvus — one of the Sidhe elves — has to fight against D'Sparil, one of the three Serpent Riders, and his armies of beast underworld creatures. The Serpent Riders had dominated and possessed all seven kings of Parthoris; Corvus, being an elf, is somewhat immune to the sorcery of their enemies. Nevertheless, he has to take severe countermeasures against the possessed kings, to diminish the malignity of its power and to fight heavily to reduce to ashes the evil dominance of D'Sparil and his horrible army of depraved creatures. 

Regardless of the plot — that generally doesn't matter that much to the player —, the game is very good; as a matter of fact, excellent to a certain extent. Despite being very similar to other games of the genre, like Doom, that was designed and released by id Software, and was conceived over the id Tech 1 engine, popularized as the "Doom" engine, Heretic has its own identity, and a marvelous organic atmosphere, consolidated in a sophisticated and dynamic layout. The scenarios were convincing, realistic and frightful, and definitely added a substantial amount of veracity to the game. Exactly like most first-person shooter adventures, the player has at his disposal several guns, that, in this case, mirrored the fantastic nature of the game, like a lightning crossbow, who fired green flashlight arrows towards the enemies. These were composed of a very versatile, but dreadful gallery of villains, that normally required the right amount of ammunition to be killed. All in all, Heretic managed to be a very interesting and amazing game; despite some limitations, there are no major faults whatsoever to be pointed out. 

Despite the fact that heretic was a success, on the other hand, the game never really achieved the status it certainly deserves, for being the only one of its kind. Exceedingly wonderful to play, Heretic would be obscured, at least partially, by its most sucessfull sequel, Hexen: Beyond Heretic, which had a somewhat different storyline, although it shared explicitly the universe of dark fantasy of its predecessor. A more direct sequel — with a continuing premise — was released in 1998, as Heretic II. 

Heretic was one of those games that people of my generation used to play in their youth, during the mid to late nineties. It certainly was a great game, that not only deserves to be properly remembered, but also introduced to the younger generations, that probably never heard anything about Heretic before. Undoubtedly a crucial first-person shooter game — envisioned in a sinister and nefarious world of dark fantasy and wizardry —, Heretic continues to this day to be one of the most marvelous representatives of interactive adventure, and an entertaining tale of spectacular density, in the history of computer games. 


​Wagner