Duke Nukem 3D - No Longer the King, Baby

[StewShearerOld]

Duke Nukem 3D - No Longer the King, Baby

We kick off first-person shooter month with 3D Realm's classic Duke Nukem 3D.

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[mistwolf]

I agree, I enjoyed it a lot when I was a teen, but even then I was starting to feel awkward about some of the things in it (Especially the women, which was just ugh.) I don't think I could stomach playing it now. Duke is very much a character of his time, and I think it is best to stay there as a happy memory than remind me too vividly of the bits I prefer to forget.

 

[Thaluikhain]

I think even when it came out, people recognised that most of the appeal was in things that shouldn't be appealing. Even to teens, shooting naked ladies was obviously an issue, which sorta seemed to be the point. I disagree that Duke was a character of his time, or a parody, except that senseless violence against the helpless seemed to be big at the time. Syndicate Wars let you set civilians on fire and blow up buildings for no reason, and Dungeon Keeper was about being the villain, which was relatively new and daring. Certainly, the crap catch phrases lean towards parody of action movies, but nobody seemed to care. People asked if the pirated version was the uncensored ones with the strippers that showed you their boobs that exploded, not so much about the bad lines.

OTOH, when the game came out, DOOM was still the game that FPS were compared to. Duke3D had major technical improvements over Doom, the levels were 3d in a way that Doom couldn't be...Doom just had a map with an elevation for each point on it, which meant you couldn't go under and over the same bridge, for example. Duke3d also let you swim and fly (the mechanic being identical), laser trip mines, guns that shrunk enemies or yourself, allowing access through small tunnels.

However, this seemed to be let down by the level design, which was pretty poor. Doom had been very inventive with what it had, but the levels were levels of a game to be played. The first level of Duke3d has you go to a seedy theatre, the one after has you go to an adult store/peepshow place, then to a club/strip joint. These might be more realistic than, say "Barrels of fun" from Doom2, but, well, "Barrels of fun" was fun. Shooting monsters and strippers in a strip club isn't much different from shooting monsters and strippers somewhere else.

Later on levels got better, but not all that much, IIRC.

 

[Batou667]

I don't think this review really does the game justice. Never mind the painfully right-on social commentary - were we always this bloody precious about artistic license taken in works of fiction? - how about judging the game on its merits, and within the spirit that it's presented? No notes on the highly variable quality in level design (not just the signposting), the in-jokes, the sideswipes taken at contemporary games like Doom and Quake? A "game if its times"? Not really - Duke was a knowingly caricatured and calculatedly controversial game even then, his OTT machismo was almost as anachronistic then as it is now.

Also, the word "trope" is becoming highly overused - its appearance out-of-context is ironically becoming a trope in itself. Oh well, I look forward to reading in future retrospectives about how Turok is rife with cultural appropriation and how Mario is no longer a good game because it doesn't offer the option to de-escalate conflicts.

 

[Atmos Duality]

Duke 3D really is a product of its time, but after seeing the success of games like Borderlands and Far Cry: Blood Dragon, I'm not at all convinced Duke is some offensive anachronistic dinosaur in dire need of burial. It's a character who needs a developer that actually gives a fuck behind it, and not conventional hacks.

The pixellated titty show and bad one liners seem to be the only things people remember, but I can recall varied and interesting level design with all manner of secrets buried in them. Plus a good number of the weapons were just fucking awesome.

Sadly, all of that is dead and gone; never to return.
Shooters with interesting level design, secrets and inventories of awesome weapons like that pretty much died with the advent of Halo (there were a few stragglers here and there, like Serious Sam, but even that game series went south and fast)

 

[IanDavis]

Of all the classic shooters, I enjoy Duke 3D the most. The weapons are unique, and the levels have this "real" feeling, unlike the abstract layouts in Doom. That said, the sexualized pod women begging to be killed? Yeah, that's a huge dose of creepy dark that totally clashes with the general badass tone.

 

[2xDouble]

First off, I get that you're doing a compare and contrast piece here, juxtaposing the good and bad together into a constructive criticism, but I think your paragraphs need a bit more unity to maintain the flow. I often found myself losing train of thought when I came across yet another "that said" or "on the other hand". There is nothing wrong with phrases like these per se, but the article waffles so much it smells like maple syrup. I liked the article, I really did, but in future do be more careful with your phrasing - perhaps find alternative expressions or weave the shifting tones more organically if you can. I hope my advice is helpful to you.

That said (see what I did there? hypocrisy! heh.), I can appreciate the statements being made here. Duke 3D is a forefather of the crass, unapologetic "man's man" caricature/parody. Growing up and being exposed to its generally superior offspring requires those "rose-tinted nostalgia glasses" to get thicker and thicker to continue appreciating it on the same levels. Duke 3D is a merely good game on its own, only pushed to legendary status by its then-revolutionary tone and embodiment of 80's- and 90's-era "attitude".

I would argue, however, that the spirit of Duke Nukem 3D is not dead, not yet. No, Duke's soul lives on in Saints Row 3 and especially 4. Both share the same over-the-top attitudes toward sexuality and violence, and blatant unapologetic satire of both itself and pop culture at large. And, like any good offspring, Saints Row 3 and 4 refine the best qualities of the original parents (Duke and Saints Row 1&2) while adding its own flavors and experiences to the mix. For example, though they share very similar crass, "man's man" attitudes, Saints Row opens up the dynamic with the freedom to customize the protagonist into basically whatever body he/she feels like playing - at any time, for a marginal fee - as well as pursue/romance anyone as opposed to only females or only heterosexual relations. Saints Row 3 rekindled our love of over-the-top, wacky, "fun first" gameplay, and Saints Row 4 is basically everything Duke Nukem Forever should have been and more.

 

[themilo504]

Call me greedy but i think that 6 dollar is way too much for a game from 1996, it?s one dollar more than mass effect 2 on steam, I admit that?s because of steam sales but it?s still bizarre if you think about it.

Other games that currently cost less than a game from 1996, heart of iron 3 warlock master of the arcane hundreds of great indie games and lots of high quality dlc.

 

[josemlopes]

You know what, I played the game recently for the first time and it does have a lot more going for it then tits and jokes.

I get that this is a review about how it stood against time so things like graphics dont matter but even without that it still has a lot of things that very few other games have.

One thing that I really enjoyed was the level design and how much interactivity it had. Each level was basicly some random recognizable location like a supermarket, a burger joint or a museum (and if it wasnt all that recognizable it would still basicly be part of a "cool places to fight wishlist" like the spacestation).

All those levels were like actual places with bathrooms, storage rooms and more shit like that.

 

[Zeke17]

You know what, I played the game recently for the first time and it does have a lot more going for it then tits and jokes.

I get that this is a review about how it stood against time so things like graphics dont matter but even without that it still has a lot of things that very few other games have.

One thing that I really enjoyed was the level design and how much interactivity it had. Each level was basicly some random recognizable location like a supermarket, a burger joint or a museum (and if it wasnt all that recognizable it would still basicly be part of a "cool places to fight wishlist" like the spacestation).

All those levels were like actual places with bathrooms, storage rooms and more shit like that.

I recently got this game and Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, playing both for the first time as I heard they were good. I have 41 hours logged on Duke Nukem, from playing all the missions, multiplayer, and maps. I have 7 hours logged on Modern Warfare, the majority of which I found boring. Duke Nukem 3d's humor just seems really tongue in cheek to me, not really to be taken seriously on any level, and therefore it's kind of funny if you don't get offended easily. This separates it from Duke Nukem Forever in that DNF is very much not tongue in cheek. This made Duke just an unlikeable misogynist character, rather than a kind of funny, if rather one note, parody. Also, the gameplay in Duke Nukem 3d and a lot of other old school shooters is so fun, with the resource management and maze-like levels with the secrets. If you enjoy Duke Nukem 3d, I highly recommend Shadow Warrior Classic Redux and the recent sequel.

 

[Callate]

One of the (many) things that bothered me about Duke Nukem Forever was that if you didn't kill the women in the Hive levels quickly enough, they spawned monsters. (And died.)

For all that some of the women in DN3D mutter "Kill me" (in homage to Aliens), if you actually do kill any women in the game, new monsters spawn.

The game punishes you for killing women.

DNF rewards it.

Ugh.

 

[Rad Party God]

Spoiler: Snip.

You know what, I played the game recently for the first time and it does have a lot more going for it then tits and jokes.

I get that this is a review about how it stood against time so things like graphics dont matter but even without that it still has a lot of things that very few other games have.

One thing that I really enjoyed was the level design and how much interactivity it had. Each level was basicly some random recognizable location like a supermarket, a burger joint or a museum (and if it wasnt all that recognizable it would still basicly be part of a "cool places to fight wishlist" like the spacestation).

All those levels were like actual places with bathrooms, storage rooms and more shit like that.

I recently got this game and Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, playing both for the first time as I heard they were good. I have 41 hours logged on Duke Nukem, from playing all the missions, multiplayer, and maps. I have 7 hours logged on Modern Warfare, the majority of which I found boring. Duke Nukem 3d's humor just seems really tongue in cheek to me, not really to be taken seriously on any level, and therefore it's kind of funny if you don't get offended easily. This separates it from Duke Nukem Forever in that DNF is very much not tongue in cheek. This made Duke just an unlikeable misogynist character, rather than a kind of funny, if rather one note, parody. Also, the gameplay in Duke Nukem 3d and a lot of other old school shooters is so fun, with the resource management and maze-like levels with the secrets. If you enjoy Duke Nukem 3d, I highly recommend Shadow Warrior Classic Redux and the recent sequel.

I agree, anyone taking Duke 3D too seriously is kinda missing the point of the game, also it's undeniably fun and I agree, both Shadow Warriors, old and new (especially new) are awesome

 

[KingWein22]

-snip-

Jon St. John said at a Q and A that Duke is a parody of the macho man stereotype and his sayings were ripped off virtually every macho man movie. The games were not to be taken seriously.

 

[xDarc]

Duke3D had major technical improvements over Doom...

In 1996 I was 14, and every day after school I'd run downstairs, boot up the computer and jump into the Build level editor for Duke3D. I have spent likely over 1000 hours making Doom and Duke maps. In Duke 3D, you could stack sectors so that one room was technically on top of another, but you could never look through the room on top to see the room on the bottom. If you did this the game would throw a fit. You always had to have a staircase/vent/teleporter. The game used no-clip sprites to make things like bridges.

Someone else mentioned interactivity; the build engine used tags so you could tag sectors or sprites with a numerical value to perform a predefined action. If you wanted to tag a light switch for example to say turn on the light, you had to tag the sprite of the switch with two numbers; the first number tied the switch to the area to be lit, the second number defined the action- like switch on/off. You had to tag the area to be lit with the same number as you had tagged the switch, then set the light level for that area when off and set the tag to the light level when on.

By the time you had finished a level, you had dozens or hundreds of little tags throughout, and god help you if you criss-crossed the numbers. Editing tags was the most boring part of level design.

Duke 3D was also a lot easier to get adult graphics in- but by then porn was all over the web anyway. Yes, Doom had a quite a few porn maps and sharing WAD files was quite popular back in the day.

 

[Zeke17]

-snip-

Jon St. John said at a Q and A that Duke is a parody of the macho man stereotype and his sayings were ripped off virtually every macho man movie. The games were not to be taken seriously.

I wish they had kept to that on DNF. They still sort of kept that parody, but it was so offensive in that game. Duke Nukem just seemed really stupid in the old games, in a funny way, not self aware or rewarded for his stupidity. I really want them to give the IP to the studio that did the Shadow Warrior remake: Flying Wild Hog. I'd like to see more fun focused FPS.

Captcha: Brand Lift.... Absolutely!

 

[StriderShinryu]

Duke 3D was always just "that other FPS game" for me. Doom was so engrossing and mindblowing to me, and it's progeny in the forms of Heretic and then Hexen were nearly as good. I always appreciated some of what Duke did, especially in it's weaponry and it's goofy action movie shtick, but when I wanted to play a FPS game back then I always just booted up one of the games that I found more enjoyable to actually play. When I went back to try Duke a few years back, I just couldn't get into it at all. The gameplay didn't hold up, and the few things it did do well for it's time just didn't work for me at all anymore.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

I don't think this review really does the game justice. Never mind the painfully right-on social commentary - were we always this bloody precious about artistic license taken in works of fiction? - how about judging the game on its merits, and within the spirit that it's presented? No notes on the highly variable quality in level design (not just the signposting), the in-jokes, the sideswipes taken at contemporary games like Doom and Quake? A "game if its times"? Not really - Duke was a knowingly caricatured and calculatedly controversial game even then, his OTT machismo was almost as anachronistic then as it is now.

Also, the word "trope" is becoming highly overused - its appearance out-of-context is ironically becoming a trope in itself. Oh well, I look forward to reading in future retrospectives about how Turok is rife with cultural appropriation and how Mario is no longer a good game because it doesn't offer the option to de-escalate conflicts.

Duke 3D really is a product of its time, but after seeing the success of games like Borderlands and Far Cry: Blood Dragon, I'm not at all convinced Duke is some offensive anachronistic dinosaur in dire need of burial. It's a character who needs a developer that actually gives a fuck behind it, and not conventional hacks.

The pixellated titty show and bad one liners seem to be the only things people remember, but I can recall varied and interesting level design with all manner of secrets buried in them. Plus a good number of the weapons were just fucking awesome.

Sadly, all of that is dead and gone; never to return.
Shooters with interesting level design, secrets and inventories of awesome weapons like that pretty much died with the advent of Halo (there were a few stragglers here and there, like Serious Sam, but even that game series went south and fast)

These. I really used to like this series, right up until the Wing Commander III review. Seems like somebody realized after that point that negative reviews of beloved games brought more page views than an honest appraisal that takes both the modern state of the industry and the historical context into consideration. I still say there's no way Andy Chalk actually played WC III and IV.

 

[Andy of Comix Inc]

I agree with this review. At the same time, I urge everyone to check out Duke Nukem 3D: Megaton Edition, which adds stuff like working WASD/mouse aim, HD-ish graphics (not quite as HD as the proper 3D Atomic Edition mod, but still pretty good upgrade anyway), and just overall makes it more playable on modern machines. The game is old-fashioned, and that's both a hindrance and a strength. Megaton Edition makes it just ever-so-slightly less old-fashioned... for the better, I think.

 

[Zeke17]

I agree with this review. At the same time, I urge everyone to check out Duke Nukem 3D: Megaton Edition, which adds stuff like working WASD/mouse aim, HD-ish graphics (not quite as HD as the proper 3D Atomic Edition mod, but still pretty good upgrade anyway), and just overall makes it more playable on modern machines. The game is old-fashioned, and that's both a hindrance and a strength. Megaton Edition makes it just ever-so-slightly less old-fashioned... for the better, I think.

That's actually the the only version I played. That might be why I liked the game so much. Maybe I'll try the original version and see if it's significantly worse. Did it really not have mouse aim at all? That seems so weird. The mouse is what makes shooters so good on the PC for me. I can't imagine playing that game without it.

 

[Andy of Comix Inc]

I agree with this review. At the same time, I urge everyone to check out Duke Nukem 3D: Megaton Edition, which adds stuff like working WASD/mouse aim, HD-ish graphics (not quite as HD as the proper 3D Atomic Edition mod, but still pretty good upgrade anyway), and just overall makes it more playable on modern machines. The game is old-fashioned, and that's both a hindrance and a strength. Megaton Edition makes it just ever-so-slightly less old-fashioned... for the better, I think.

That's actually the the only version I played. That might be why I liked the game so much. Maybe I'll try the original version and see if it's significantly worse. Did it really not have mouse aim at all? That seems so weird. The mouse is what makes shooters so good on the PC for me. I can't imagine playing that game without it.

Most PC games from that era didn't have mouse look. You used WASD keys to move and the arrow keys to look around. I think Duke Nukem 3D DID have mouse look but it was horribly nauseating as the whole game is projected onto a 2D plane, buildings and the sky... skydome, I was going to say, more of a skywall - and looking more than a few degrees up or down just made everything kind of skewer viciously across your line of sight. It hurts so bad. The Megaton Edition does in fact limit your vertical mouse movement, thankfully.

Games like DOOM and Rise of the Triad and Wolfenstein 3D... they were all keyboard-only. Which is alright, I prefer playing DOOM with the arrow keys on account of... well, you can't look up in that game anyway. (Duke Nukem 3D also has auto-aim a bit when you use a keyboard, so you don't need to fiddle around when fighting the flying enemies.)