RISE OF THE TRIAD

Before Duke Nukem 3D, there was Rise of the Triad! You see, the developers who worked on this game would go on to work on Duke 3D. Now, Rise of the Triad in many ways can almost be considered a Duke 0, although in many respects this game is slightly more advanced than Duke3D even though it uses a less advanced game engine.

 You see, Rise of the Triad is oneof those very few games from the 1990's that is just.... complete. Like with Dark Forces,there's just so much content packed into this game that it really just transcends your average90's FPS.This game uses a modified version of the Wolfenstein 3D engine and that mainly is evident by the90 degree walls.

 However, if you're not really familiar with the game engine, you're notgonna really care, because it doesn't really detract from the graphical presentation ofthe levels all that much. Now, as you can tell already, Rise of the Triad is a very interesting game. It was basically built with goofiness from the ground up.

All the powerups are kind of goofy, like the Dog Mode  you see? Like God Mode, Dog Mode, but wait! That’s not actually its subversion; there is a God Mode power up in this game where you BECOME God and you can smite your foes! One interesting thing about the shooting in this game is the fact that you don't actually pick up ammo for your three main weapons.

Now, you have a pistol, a double pistol, and then a machine gun, although the machine gun is an MP-40, which I find somewhat odd in this game, mainly because this game is supposed to take place one year in the future. So...in 2014 you're going to be toting an MP-40 which at this point is over seventy years old? Not really seeing that happening. And also, the pistols are interesting. These areP64's, not really the weapon you would see cultists armed with, mainly because at the time this game came out at least, they were relatively rare.

This game also introduced the concept of ludicrous gibs. Basically, if you shoot someone withal rocket launcher, they explode into clouds of glorious offal!... I think I probably enjoyed that a little too much. One of the best power ups in the game is a flight power up just like in Heretic! The fact that they were able to do that with the Wolfenstein 3D engine is nothing short of amazing. And really, with this review, I have only scratched the surface of all the great content found in this game.

Hell, if you fire a rocket into a wall next to this priest forge, it’ll warm it up, and thus give you more health! Really, of all the legendary first person shooters of the 90's, this has got to be one of the most underrated of the lot. Hell, it doesn’t even have a great source port. There is one, called Win rot, but it's really not very good at all. In fact, I used Dos Box to play this game. Really, this game needs to be played, and I cannot recommend it enough. And so, this is Jon, wishing you good Half-Life, good Quake 2, or whatever makes you happy.