At the end of Duke Nukem II, King Duke killed the Rigelatin leader after he sent an army to kidnap him, strap him to a chair, hook him up to a machine, and watch while his brain patterns conquer Earth. After he claimed victory, we saw a message that said “The End… until Duke 3-D!” At least Apogee didn’t break their word and not release another Duke game, unlike some software developers. But by late 1995, 3D Realms, a company that focuses on first-person shooters, took over Apogee and brought the rights to Duke Nukem.

The story takes place in futuristic LA. After Duke takes some R&R after having beaten the Rigelatins, he receives a distress signal stating that aliens are attacking Earth, and that they have mutated the LAPD. Sounds like a job for Duke Nukem.

In Duke3D, there are three episodes. “L.A. Meltdown” has Duke rampaging through movie theaters, nightclubs, prisons, and sewers. “Lunar Apocalypse” sends him fighting his way through a spaceship. Finally, “Shrapnel City” transports him back to Earth, where he must fight his way through karaoke bars, movie sets, subways, radio stations, and hotels, and defeat the alien leader.

Each episode has nine levels and two secret levels (with the exception of episode one, which has five levels and only one secret level), and each one is crawling with enemies like Pig Cops, Enforcers, Sentry Drones, Protozoid Slimers, and Octabrains. As usual, there is a boss waiting to kill you at the end of each episode. To help Duke in his quest to rid the aliens, various weapons can be picked up along the way including the pistol, shotgun, RPG, pipe bombs, and chaingun cannons. If you have the registered version of Duke3D, you can also gain access to shrinkers, laser tripbombs, devastators, and freezethrowers. My favorite two are the shrinker and the RPG. With the shrinker, you can shrink your enemies to pint-sized ones, and stomp on them with Duke’s big boots. With the RPG, you can fire rockets at them and they explode. Ammo can be picked up, but most of these are hidden inside trashcans and secret compartments.

Scattered throughout some of the levels are doors that can only be opened using a red, blue, or yellow keycard. Also, pressing a series of buttons in the correct sequence will reveal other parts of the level that you can explore. Secret areas can be found if you do unusual things like running along walls or pushing vending machines.

Duke can interact with the environment very well. He can blow up just about everything from trashcans, sometimes revealing hidden items like ammo and first-aid kits. He can also blow up vending machines, shelves full of glasses, toilets, and even damaged walls that will reveal secret passages. Besides enemies, you’re likely to find young women stripped to their underpants and attached to pods, and killing these women will cause more enemies to appear. But there are other things Duke can do besides blowing up things. He can jump, duck, climb through vents, and swim underwater. Although there are security cameras throughout almost each level, you can’t blow them up like you did in Duke 1 or 2. Instead, you can use monitors to spy on your enemies standing in the same room.

I enjoyed the backgrounds, especially while in the space ship. You can look out the window, just to see Earth hovering nearby. In LA, you can jump on top of crates then view how wonderful the skyscrapers look, and look out over to the “HOLLYWOOD” sign in the distance.

If you watch the demos rather than just get into the game, you sometimes see a top-down shot of the action. Too bad it doesn’t let you do this if you’re playing the game. By using a set of command-line parameters, you can even record your own demo, and watch it afterward to see how well you’ve done.

Using the setup program, you can load up a custom map that is designed for multi-player and play through the map with one or more friends and kill each other in the process; or if you prefer to play by yourself, you can download a series of single player maps, load them up, and shoot some more enemies. You can’t do diddily-squat when you play a multi-player map by yourself, but at least you can still explore the environment.

The music and sounds are great and go well with the atmosphere. They are at its best if you have a sound card that supports General Midi.

The Bad

Remember that I said you can blow up just about everything? Too bad that doesn’t work with the background. Wouldn’t it be cool if you decide to blow up one of the skyscrapers in LA.

The Bottom Line

I don’t care about the transfer from platformer to FPS. This is another Duke Nukem game. If you like FPS that offers these types of backgrounds and real-life scenery, or if you just like Duke Nukem, you’ll be sorry not to buy this game. ****½