Shadow Warrior is fucking awesome on iOS. I cannot believe how well they managed to port the game this time. They also did right by releasing it as a FREE game with in-app purchases. The free version includes the Shareware levels while the IAP includes the rest of the game for $1.99.
The controls are extremely well designed and can be customized fully. Seriously the best FPS controls I've used yet on a touch device.
On top of that, the game renders at a higher resolution (though still sub-native for some reason) with texture filtering on or off at a full 60 frames per second (rather than the original Build engine 35 fps limit). It looks sharp on the phone itself, however, which is most important.
Everything about this is brilliantly designed. It's a shame this studio couldn't go back and fix Duke Nukem 3D while adding Blood to the mix.
There's no source code available for Blood. Then again, I guess that if they did this they'd be working with the creator who still has it and is currently thinking of doing a port to modern PC OS himself so that'd be sorted.
Also, disagree with everything, the controls are similar to any half decent iOS FPS in the end. So, done alright for the platform, though I find myself missing buttons as they're too small. Plus, the game's way too fast for touch only controls, even if you negate the need for vertical aiming, with how platforming heavy these games at times get.
That said my earlier complaint about the positioning of the buttons is I guess a bit moot since you can move them around (at least some of them, not sure) but then again there are still too many functions to have them all on screen in this manner. And crouch should still be a toggle. Controlling the remote controlled car with the analog stick was finicky as well.
Also, the way it's setup to adjust your aim you either have to continue firing (since you can fire then drag your firing finger around without letting go to freelook) or use some claw variation (to drag index finger around to freelook and use your thumb to fire). Similarly for crouching and moving, never mind crouching and moving and firing...
But yeah, trying to melee people in the heat of action or even just adjust my aim was tough with how fast it is vs your average iOS shooter. Although I guess it might be more comfortable on smaller devices than iPad2.
I did think the presentation's good, though the optional filtering is bleh and there's no reason to have the voxels optional.
But I can't imagine myself finishing it on iPad2 if the game gets as tricky as Duke Nukem 3D or Blood (which I'm currently enjoying on PC, and still enjoy Blood way more even though it doesn't have a modern source port like Duke Nukem 3D and the other Build games so suffers a little bit from the emulation and what not - though not its framerate, it's smooth 95% of the time) so I definitely didn't purchase the full thing, I'll get it off gog if I care to play through it.
And yeah, high FPS is great, and sprites as enemies means these games look charming despite their age, not with dodgy blocky 3D models. Modern developers should try things like that too on weak platforms.
. Really want to play it.
