Duke Nukem 3D: Atomic Edition

The Good
Duke Nukem 3D: Atomic Edition, contains the original Duke 3D game as well as the expansion Plutonium Pak. Duke Nukem was once the most recognizable male videogame hero, who has just about faded out of memory for most. I, for one, still have a blast playing this game, as one of the best FPS of it’s day Duke still packs plenty of thrills.

Duke is returning to Earth, when he finds that all the babes are gone! Duke knows what he must do. Kick alien ass and chew some bubblegum, and he’s all out of gum. Like most FPS in the pre-Half-Life times the plot in Duke 3D takes a back seat to the action. But action this game packs in spades. Duke runs and guns his way through 4 episodes and over 30 levels. With the Plutonium Pak, Duke finds himself pitted against new alien foes, and blasts his way through some of the games best levels, such as Duke Burger.

Graphically, Duke 3D was impressive for its time. Now it shows its age. But the aesthetics are still okay, I mean they are hardly bad. The quasi-3D graphics still do their job.

The Sound/Music is pretty good. From the loud and realistic gun shots, the monsters screams and of course Duke’s hilarious one-liners. The music is all in midi form, as was the standard at the time. And considering how low tech Midi’s are, it still sounds pretty good, with its Doomesque rock tracks.

The gameplay is still loads of fun. When isn’t blasting aliens fun? And before Half-life’s Gordon Freeman, Duke did it best. Of course it is an old-school FPS that means collecting keys and hitting switches are a big part of the gameplay. As well as blasting hundreds of enemies.

The Bad
Duke is a little dated. And we will likely never see Duke Nukem Forever, so this still stand out as Duke’s best game.

The Bottom Line
Shooter fans can’t go wrong with Duke 3D.