Duke Nukem 3D

The Good
Duke Nukem 3D was full of original ideas - besides the descent graphics with a great new game engine, great sound effects and music, the gameplay was definitely a perfect 5. At first, the Duke voice. Before Duke Nukem we never saw games, where the main character would talk to himself and the player, especially in such a cool way Duke did. When playing this game, you always felt like your playing this not by yourself, but in a gang of friends. Another thing - the humour. The weapons were all very cool and original, but some monsters, like the Pig Cop for example, are very humorous some times. According to the games plot, these are mutated police officers, which leads us to a skeptic reference to what the developers think of cops (funny ain't it?). Besides those, there are the Assault Commanders, which fly shooting rockets at you and say Dukes quotes like "Suck it down.", and there are Assault Enforcers - reptilian-like aliens with cool costumes, an awesome chaingun for a right hand, and a nose ring, and these guys can even crap on you! Its hilarious! Some interest is also gained when doing stuff you mostly can't do in other FPS games - between battles, Duke can do stuff which is a good way to make a man feel better or make him relax - such as going to the toilet and saying in the same time "Ahh, much better!", playing billiard, or even going to the strip club, handing money to strippers and in the same time saying "Shake it baby!" while they shake their melons. Besides kick-ass weapons like The Chaingun Cannon, Duke Shotgun, Shrinker, Freezer and others we also have plenty of cool items to use, such as a Jetpack, Nightwision goggles, Steroids to make us run like lizards, and some else... In any means - this game is a perfect in any aspect of it.

The Bad
It actually should be a shame to write something bad about this game for a gamer, and that's why i have nothing bad to say about it. Only thing which could be a slight problem here are repetitive level designs, but this happens very rarely.

The Bottom Line
Duke Nukem 3D is the first game which i personally could call a Doom-killer, because it just is one! Its a true mans game, with so many fun in it, that you can't take all the humour in the game by yourself, and you just gotta show it to your fellow gamers after you discovered it. This is a game where anyone would find its place. At least every male player would, because its a true mans game!

The Good
Ah... Duke3D.... What a game it was! Released just as 2.5 graphics were about to become obsolete, this game managed to outlast every other shooter in the wake of the 3D revolution. Why?? FUN. Duke3D added millions of creative touches to the already stagnant fps formula, and ended up with a product that was a truly innovative piece of software, a veritable breath of fresh air loaded with guns, girls and gore!

Duke takes the comedy approach to the fps genre, but unlike previous attempts like The Fortress of Dr. Radiaki, Duke focuses on lampooning recognized pop-culture icons, and even the fps genre and itself as a game while keeping the action and not dropping to gags. Think all fps are about a steroid-ladden hero that singlehandedly saves the world?? Well Duke is EXACTLY that, only it takes that and rubs it in your face instead of trying to hide like a coward! Duke is da man, he is the pure representation the male ego gone wild, complete with full beefcake-ness and the best collection of one-liners ever assembled for a game. Duke walks around like he owns the world, and guess what? He does! It's his show baby, and there's nothing wrong with that. In fact, the game may be about stopping an alien invasion or something like that, but it's really all about the Duke and his world. The designers made the right choice by focusing the level design on recognizable urbane locations, so that gives the ego factor a major boost. Ever wish you could just waltz in on the hottest strip-club in town, shoot some bad dudes, and walk away with the hottest chicks??? Well, with Duke you can!! Heck, even throw money at them and they'll show you some of their goods!! :)) And if you think that's politically incorrect, well that's just the tip of the iceberg. Through the course of the game Duke takes potshots at just about every recognizable pop-culture icon you can think about, including video games! Also among the enemies you have LAPD cops, and not just cops, but PIG cops! How cool is that? But want the icing on the cake?? Duke says to a boss he'll blow his head off and shit down his throat... and guess what does he do when you beat him?? :)))) It's gross, it's immature, it's juvenile, and it's The Greatest videogame moment EVER!

Of course, that alone wouldn't sell the game to anyone but the most stupidly immature of gamers (me!me!!;D) but the gameplay also gets a lot of major yet subtle innovations to add to the usual brain-melting fps action. Remember the duct-crawling you thought was so cool on games like Half-Life or Deus Ex? This is were it started. Ditto that now forgotten "shoot the crack in the wall" trick to reveal new areas. Duke also delivered the first truly good underwater action for an fps, and included an inventory with such items as a jetpack or a holo-duke. Duke also was a first on the good use of decals, which allowed you to leave bullet marks everywhere and even leave bloody footprints when you stepped on dead foes, Hehehe...Furthermore, Duke was the first game which made it's entire levels complete interactive locations. Did you see how in Max Payne you could pick up phones and hear a tone, or use vending machines, or stuff like that?? Well, it all started here also! You could burn down trees, stick your fingers on electrical outlets, use the toilets (and gain health doing so :), turn on tvs, flirt with hookers, open pretty much everything that could be opened (like cash registers) and even play pool!! Even non-obvious things like mirrors would yield their quota of fun when used as Duke would comment on them. (Duke 3D was the prime reason why I so missed the "use" key on Quake).

Further praise must also be made for Duke's arsenal, which stands out as one of the most imaginative ones ever. You get the usual shotgun-pistol-rocket-machinegun combo, and on top of that you get an assortment of wacky and great weapons like a shrinking ray, a freezing ray, micro-missiles, trip mines, and the allmighty pipe bombs. These weapons really came alive during multiplayer duke- match, few things match the joy of shrinking down a friend and then actually stepping over them :))

The Bad
The second episode takes place in a stupid space station. Who wants to be on a dull space station when you can be at a porn-house, or a sushi parlor with funky geishas?? :) Seriously, the second episode is standard fps action, and Duke3D is WAY above that.

The Bottom Line
Duke is the man. Still is, and always will.

Seriously, tough. Duke3D proved that creative genius, style, and execution are the real cornerstones of every good game. Not the flashy graphics or crap like that. (Tough Duke still remains a visually-digestible game to this day, which says a lot of it's 2.5D engine). Don't even think about it, Get Duke 3D or Get Nuked!

The Good
Duke Nukem 3D is the game I regard as Doom's spiritual descendant. It has all of Doom's good elements (atmosphere, design, and of course mindless fun) while adding something that was totally lacking from the original: style! At first glance it appears to be a rather unassuming FPS that is little more than a 3D rendition of the Duke Nukem platform games that preceded it, but as you step on dog crap and hear Duke say "shit happens," or walk into a topless joint filled with women who will happily strip for cash, you realise this game is something unusual.

Duke 3D became (in?)famous in part because of all the mature content it features. But that's not all it has going for it. Step away from the boobs and profanity for a second and you'll find one of the most fun and inventive shooters ever to come down the pike, and one that is still a blast to play today. Lots of games since have tried to recapture the Duke Nukem 3D spirit (i.e. Serious Sam) but none have ever made the splash the original did.

Game design is a pretty simple equation. It comes down to what a developer/publisher is most prepared to dedicate his time and effort to. At the same time id Software was making a technological wonder with generic gameplay, Quake, 3D Realms was making a game that emphasized content over everything else. And believe me, it paid off. Duke 3D is a blast from beginning to end. At no point does it become generic or annoying. This is partly due to great level design, and also how damned original the game feels. I don't mean "original" in that it turns every FPS game play convention upside down, but that it has millions of small touches that makes Duke 3D an almost unique experience.

Notice the pool table in the first level? You can roll balls around. See the Duff Beer Blimp in the background of the last boss fight? Try shooting it with a rocket. Lights can be turned on and off with switches, and can even be destroyed by gunfire. Toilet won't flush? Pipe-bomb the sucker. Small gimmicks and tricks, you might say. But the stuff I listed above is only the tip of the iceberg, the entire game is full of small personal touches that transform it from a generic shooter to an immersive, original experience that contains the first truly interactive environment found in a 3D video game. Just about everything in the game (toilets, mirrors, fences) can be interacted with in some way. This is part of what makes Duke 3D so special, it's one of the most detailed games around.

Obviously, that kind of stuff isn't enough to make a game on its own. But Duke 3D takes the rabid addictiveness of games like Doom and builds upon it with several new gameplay conventions that are still in use today. The game is non-linear, there are often quite a few ways to get to the exit (such as crawling through an air vent to avoid a tough group of enemies, or blowing a hole in a wall) and lots of different paths you can explore to find goodies and secrets. You also have an inventory, and unlike Heretic's it actually doesn't suck. You have a varied arsenal of weapons (including the classic pistol/shotgun/machinegun combo, as well as weirder stuff like a shrink-ray and freezer) that is perfectly balanced and well-rounded, even in the later stages of the game you'll still be falling back on your pistol occasionally. As you'd expect the enemies in Duke 3D are downright insane, I burst out laughing when I saw a pig cop riding a spin-deck.

Add to this a collection of great levels that actually make you want to play them again, a solid multiplayer mode that remained popular years after the game had become obsolete, and enough pop culture references to expand the trivia section threefold if someone went and documented them all, and you have one of the best old-school shooters around.

In short: this game gives weight to John Romero's famous statement "design is law." Contrary to what industry pundits think, we gamers aren't mindless sheep who play whatever game has the prettiest graphics. If a game has what it takes to rise above the pack, and combine new elements with well-grounded traditional ones, we reward it.

(This isn't related to the game itself as such, but I feel the need to commend Ken Silverman for designing the Build engine. It's incredible that a teenager who was just out of high school and was failing half his classes at university was able to produce such a dynamic, powerful and flexible piece of software with practically no outside help. Build also comes with what must be the easiest editor ever made for a 3D game. Finally you didn't have to be a theoretical mathematician or UNIX operator to design your own levels for an FPS. Ken Silverman became the god of virgin geeks everywhere for allowing them to plague the internet with their billions of crappy custom levels and mods. Oh well...)

The Bad
Most of the problems Duke 3D has some with the genre. If you disliked Doom and hate key-hunt puzzles don't expect Duke 3D to be much different. Duke 3D is simply a nice package of old-school FPS action with some extra huevos thrown in. It's got lots of original touches, but it isn't like it's trying to revolutionize the genre.

And of course there are a few small nits and nats (too much ammo, boss fights are boring, puzzles are dependent on trial and error) but let's not focus on what Duke 3D did wrong but on what it didn't do wrong. Face it, with a game like this a million things could have ruined it, and it's a testament to the designers' work that the game is as good as it is.

The Bottom Line
Some excellent games get released during the wrong time and thus are ignored (Grim Fandango won multiple awards but failed to attract gamers because of the FPS phenomenon), and other mediocre games sell quite substantially if there's a multimillion dollar hype campaign backing them...just look at some of the recent Star Wars games. But Duke 3D is neither over-rated nor under-rated. It deserves every gram of success it received. Duke 3D is a classic and one of the greatest FPS games ever released, no buts ifs or maybes allowed.