Scott Miller: ROTT and Shadow Warrior Sequels Possibly Planned

The other day, Duke4.net had an exclusive interview with Scott Miller, the CEO of 3D Realms. Something interesting in amongst the usual questions one would expect (met with rather abrupt answers for most of them), is this:

“Q10. Any plans for sequels for older titles such as Shadow Warrior and Rise of the Triads?
A: Absolutely.”

I guess now that Duke Nukem Forever, which one must admit was an amazingly huge time sink that’s lasted for thirteen years or so, has been handed over to Gearbox, along with the IP, 3D Realms actually has time for other projects now.

The last game that 3D Realms actually developed and released was Shadow Warrior… in 1997. That was the year after Duke Nukem 3D came out. The company has however been involved in a publishing capacity like with Max Payne since then, and overseen the release of several console-only Duke Nukem titles, but not much else.
So, while Randy Pitchford is polishing Duke Nukem’s rocket, and Gearbox is working on the last bit of Duke Nukem Forever, perhaps 3D Realms can get back to some of the other great games like Rise of the Triad and Shadow Warrior, from the 90’s.
And we want a proper game too – not some iPhone port of ROTT like was seen earlier this year.

3D Realms is a significantly smaller studio now though, since the DNF dev team was let go last year, so I don’t know how long it would take before development could actually begin, or whether the studio will actually do it themselves. They could probably just outsource it to another studio and publish the titles. Apogee Software was a big name in publishing years ago…
They won’t be able to really work on Duke Nukem titles any longer either seeing as the IP was sold to Gearbox. In the above mentioned interview, Scott Miller also replied to a question about whether the company would ever try to re-acquire the Duke Nukem IP. He said it’s “unlikely.” He also mentioned that he looks “forward to several decades worth of Duke console games released in a timely way”.

Timely = good. Console = meh.
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Source: Our Exclusive Duke Nukem Forever Interview with Scott Miller [Duke4.net]

Scott Miller: ROTT and Shadow Warrior Sequels Possibly Planned

Good Old Games, or GOG.com, Gets new Classics, Blood Flowing Soon

Good Old Games recently added Atari classics, Outcast and Master of Orion 1 & 2 to their catalogue. They’re all available for $5.99 each.

But what caught my eye more than those two was that Blood might be debuting on the site soon. Blood is one of the big four build engine games from the 90’s. The others were of course Duke Nukem 3D, Shadow Warrior, and Redneck Rampage.

Blood, in my opinion, is the 2nd best build game ever. Duke Nukem 3D is first, with RR third, and SW last. There were of course other build games, some of which I’ve played, but I digress.

Blood is a cult classic, which I still have on my PC and play from time to time. The game was followed by a less successful sequel, and for a long time people campaigned for the release of the Blood source code, said to be held by Atari. Instead people have had to resort to making Blood mods for other games like Quake or Doom, namely Transfusion and ZDoom, using source ports for those games.

By the way, there’s a list on the website where you can vote for a game that you’d like to see added to the list of games all ready on the site. The last time I checked, System Shock 2 was high up among those “most wanted”.Yep, it’s still there in the lead, with Planescape: Torment in 2nd, and the original System Shock in 3rd.

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Sources:

GOG.com

GOG Gets Outcast, Master of Orion 1 & 2; Blood Coming Soon [Shacknews]

Good Old Games, or GOG.com, Gets new Classics, Blood Flowing Soon

Have you Heard of a mod Called Hypertension?

I have, but not a lot, I'll admit. I've often heard of ZBlood or Transfusion, projects which have tried to port Blood into the Doom and Quake engine, respectively. This one is also being created in a Doom based engine, but a highly tweaked form, called Hyper3dge, a variant of the EDGE engine derived from the Doom source code.

Well, I came across a news update on Planet Doom recently which talked about the Hypertension mod, and about an interview that took place on Diehard Gamefan with the team working on the project. It's been revealed that this mod will be available for PC, Mac, Linux, GP2X Whiz, and oddly enough, the Sega Dreamcast (which is why Diehard Gamefan became interested in the first place, being fans of the console, as are certain members of the team).

Since I am playing the original Blood right as we speak, I was naturally interested and decided to check it out.

It's a lot of reading to wade through, but there are some good bits, and I can't help but have the feeling that this isn't just your average mod. There will be stuff brought back from Blood, as well as the somewhat disappointing sequel, Blood II: The Chosen, as well as all new stuff too. So instead of just a straight port, there will be a fresh experience, created by having two playable characters (one of them being Caleb, our favourite sadistic maniac from the original), as well as a new story, bridging the original Blood games in an all-new take, including some new gameplay such as RPG elements. There's also some effort going into acting, cinematics, and the soundtrack too. The team seems to like blowing their own horn(s) when it comes to what they've been able to achieve with the mod, saying that even John Carmack would be impressed.

From looking at their blog, the mod seems to have been in development since last year, and all of a sudden there's this renewed interest in it, after a few trailers were released last month and this month. Supposedly the mod has been delayed.

Blood is an oft debated title, especially in modding circles, seeing as the source code for the game hasn't been released, even all these years later, while Shadow Warrior and especially Duke Nukem 3D have all gotten a lot of attention over the years with multiple source ports because the source codes for the game were released several years back. When you look at what has been accomplished with Duke 3D, with the HRP, Polymer, and Duke Plus, you just can't believe it's the same game. It's astounding.

Besides, I still haven't heard any mention of a third Blood game coming any time soon, so for the moment, Hypertension looks bloody good.

Have you Heard of a mod Called Hypertension?

Apocalypse Then: Shadow Warrior

On this day in gaming, in 1997, Shadow Warrior was released.

It used the same Build engine as Duke Nukem 3D, and gameplay wise was basically an Asian themed Duke Nukem 3D with many Asian stereotypes.

There were three expansion packs planned for Shadow Warrior, and were started before its release, but disappointing sales compared to Duke Nukem 3D led the publishers to drop the projects. Twin Dragon and Wanton Destruction are available as freeware, and Deadly Kiss remains unreleased.

It was the last game developed by the now defunct 3D Realms to be commercially released before they ventured into the pitfall that is Duke Nukem Forever, which eventually led to the developer’s downfall.

Apocalypse Then: Shadow Warrior

Classic Games Resurrected

November last year, I started a series on HubPages where I have two profiles. Yesterday I finished my article on Thief: The Dark Project.

The series is dedicated to looking at classic games- what they were like to play vanilla style, and what they are like now with all the mods and other improvements available off of the net.

There are pictures, vids as well as lots of links to resources. Hopefully with this project, I can get more people interested in the classic games as well as the PC instead of consoles, that seem to be taking over.

I'd buy a console but I don't have a lot of caps to splash around.

Here's the series of Classic Games Resurrected. 

As you can see, there's Blood, Doom, Duke Nukem 3D, Rise of the Triad, Shadow Warrior, System Shock 2 and Thief: The Dark Project. There should be others coming during the year, so check back regularly.

http://hubpages.com/hub/Blood-Game

http://hubpages.com/hub/Doom
http://hubpages.com/hub/Duke-Nukem-3D 
http://hubpages.com/hub/Rise-of-the-Triad
http://hubpages.com/hub/Shadow-Warrior
http://hubpages.com/hub/System-Shock-2
http://hubpages.com/hub/Thief-The-Dark-Project

And here is the home page where you can find all of them.

http://hubpages.com/_10i99ywqqk5ny/profile/ANDR01D

Classic Games Resurrected