[jazzy "Deck the Halls" playing] [computer buzzes, beeps]
Welp, it’s December! And while that typically means holiday things on LGR, this was exciting
enough it felt like a Christmas present to me. So we’ll get to the seasonal silliness next week,
but for now? Come get some with the Duke Nukem Evercade Collection from Blaze Entertainment
that launched on November 28, 2023! There are two $20 cartridges with three games each:
Duke Nukem 1 and 2, Duke 3D Total Meltdown, Duke Nukem Advance, Land of the Babes, and
Time to Kill. Alongside a special $150 Evercade VS console, the Atomic Edition! And while that
was limited to 2000 units and quickly sold out, the games remain in stock and work across the full
Evercade range of systems. Which, I’ll be honest, before now I had near-zero interest in whatsoever.
But if you release exclusive Duke Nukem games for a system, I don’t care how niche it is,
I’ll buy one. The Tapwave Zodiac is a testament to that. I’m doubly interested when what’s offered
are new versions of two of my favorite childhood DOS games: Duke Nukem 1 and 2! Fully remade with
new engines and widescreen gameplay. Yeah these aren’t just emulators running old
MS-DOS software. These are 2023 overhauls using reverse engineered code and new assets, complete
recreations of the titles with modern features. Impressive stuff, but the other titles here are
notable in their own right, and never been ported beyond their respective platforms – until now.
And full disclosure here, this is a project I’ve personally worked on! “Worked” in quotation marks
there, I’m not employed by Blaze and wasn’t paid for my involvement. Nor are they requesting I
make this video, I’m doing that because I’m a Duke fan and would’ve done it anyway. But yeah,
since June of 2023 we’ve had a friendly collaboration, where I’m not working for them
but with them to fine tune a few things on the DOS platformers, Duke 1 and 2. Like particulars of
sound playback and PC speaker characteristics, I was really particular about how certain
sounds... sound. As well as giving feedback on UI elements and general gameplay, nothing major,
they just ran pre-production builds past me and I told ‘em what I thought. All that to say, if you
see me credited as the “Resident Duke Expert” in the game, well that’s what that’s about.
But what’re we waitin’ for, Christmas? Let’s get to the action already! And that begins
with the Evercade itself, of which I have two here. The Atomic Edition VS console,
which I purchased myself, and the Evercade EXP portable, sent to me by the company to
test the games pre-release. Each system accepts the same cartridges and plays games using the
same hardware, though I’ve mostly been playing using the portable since I enjoy the novelty
of DOS games on the go, but either way the experience is the same. As for the games,
they come in the standard Evercade plastic clamshell cases, with nicely-made art inserts
and a little cartridge nestled inside. And a proper full-color instruction booklet,
bringing back the kinda bathroom reading material you see less and less these days,
filled with colorful illustrations, useful info, and gameplay tidbits. There’s even a little
section going over the genesis of the project, which, yeah! Niko, aka lethal_guitar, programmed
his own open source reimplementation of Duke Nukem 2 called Rigel Engine a couple years back,
something I covered on LGR Blerbs. And through that video, Blaze’s Chief Technical Officer, Ryan,
learned of the project and began collaboration talks with Niko, with work beginning in January of
‘23. A refreshing series of events indeed, I love seeing passion projects turn into official paid
gigs. Also refreshing is having no installation, no downloading patches, or waiting for updates
here. Just plug in a cart and start it up, which kicks things off with a brief intro sequence.
[keyboard typing sounds]
[Duke Nukem chuckles]
[shotgun blasts] -”Let’s rock!”
[“Grabbag” theme plays]
And from here you’re greeted with the game selection menu, featuring key art made by a
real human artist! Victor Garcia to be specific. Once you’ve chosen a title, you’re given the
option to start a new game, choose an episode, or view stats. So let's start at the beginning
with Duke Nukem 1 here, which provides a brief story overview in text form, followed by the
usual Dr. Proton and Duke Nukem banter from the DOS game, just with an updated color palette.
[PC speaker sounds blaring, remixed “Stalker” track plays]
And right off the bat, this is both familiar and intriguingly fresh as a lifelong fan. Duke Nukem 1
was one of the first games I remember playing as a kid, one of those my Uncle Mark gave me to
install on our then-new Packard Bell 486 PC. And yeah, it’s Duke Nukem all right! Jump, shoot, move
left and right, taking out robots and Energizer bunnies while collecting keycards and balloons,
footballs and floppy disks. It’s all the silliness of the classic game with a fresh slathering of
pixelated paint, made apparent by pressing Select and swapping between the remastered and original
presentation on the fly. [chuckles] Yeah, it’s hard to describe how big a smile this provided
when I first played it, it’s simply the kind of re-release I never thought I’d see. The source
code for Duke 1 and 2 were lost decades ago, so I always assumed there was zero chance we’d ever
get a modern version, much less an enhancement. And if you’re not sold on the full facelift,
peruse the options to customize things further. Modern and retro features can
be toggled on and off to mix and match styles, with everything from the 60 fps smooth scrolling,
to the widescreen view, to the HUD and color palette. My own preferred mix is
having widescreen but with the classic HUD, while keeping the smooth scrolling and whatnot.
And disabling the sound filter, it’s one of the things I personally vouched for including
since it makes the sound a bit brighter and crunchier. Or at least that was the goal.
[PC speaker sound comparisons play]
On a related note, there’s now music in Duke Nukem 1! The original never had any,
so Blaze hired the talented James Paddock, who composed the era-appropriate FM synth music for
the Secret Agent HD remake, along with scoring things like Prodeus and Sigil. Many of these
tunes are original compositions, but several are covers of Lee Jackson’s tracks from Duke
3D. And it’s all lovely stuff, like an AdLib soundtrack the game never had, but deserved.
[various FM synth tunes plays]
And in addition to the colors added to the original’s EGA palette to correct
things like Duke’s skin tone and tank top, there are enhancements to the backgrounds,
with added parallax and extended pixel art. And some minor changes to certain items,
like the soda cans which are now beer cans. Apparently because the old sprites were a bit
too close to Coca Cola, plus Duke and beer are kind of a natural fit. Otherwise, yeah, it’s
the full registered version of Duke from 1991, and I had zero problems playing through it here.
Same with Duke Nukem 2, as expected seeing as I was already super impressed with Niko’s Rigel
Engine project on PC. That work continues here on the Evercade, with the same welcome enhancements
like smoother scrolling and widescreen gameplay. The latter of which really helps with playability
since the original in 4:3 is pretty cramped due to the larger sprites. It also has the optional
modern HUD, which does look nice and I quite like the enhanced radar it offers. But again,
I’m partial to the old DOS interface and prefer using the widescreen
enhanced version of that. Unfortunately though, there’s a huge drawback here,
and that is the music. Or lack thereof. It uses the same new tracks included in Duke 1,
and none of Bobby Prince’s work from the original Duke 2. Again, I like those new
tracks on their own, but removing the old ones here changes the whole vibe of the game.
[Duke 2 plays with alternate music]
The reason for this is twofold. One, there’s been a bit of a thing with Bobby Prince’s
music being used in newer Duke releases where it got financially and legally messy between
rights-holders. And two, many of the old tracks were effectively unauthorized covers of songs by
Metallica, Pantera and the like. So yeah, just a licensing minefield and I get why it was changed.
But I don’t have to be happy about it either, and I’m not. That said, this is still a great port
with those Rigel Engine enhancements, it really makes the game that much more pleasant to play.
And I’m simply gobsmacked to see this and Duke 1 being re-released at all thirty years later.
The third and final title from Collection 1 is Duke Nukem 3D Total Meltdown. Which, yep,
used to just be called Total Meltdown back in the day, but now has “3D” snuck in there to
bring it closer to the better-known Duke Nukem 3D on PC. Make no mistake though, this is not
the 1996 DOS game, but the PlayStation exclusive conversion from 1997. And there are pluses and
minuses that result. On the plus side, hey, it’s Duke Nukem 3D, ya love to see it! The original
three episodes are here and play just as they did on the PlayStation. And the remixed CD audio
soundtrack and exclusive fourth episode, Plug ‘N’ Pray, are included as well. That said though,
it’s... still the PlayStation game. With its unstable frame rate, constant slowdown issues,
lower resolution, and lack of any Atomic Edition content. I asked why they included this instead
of the PC game, especially since there are excellent source ports available. But it turns
out it’s those same source ports that proved tricky to license across all involved parties,
particularly with this being a Linux-based console it seems. Man, alien bastards were bad enough,
but Duke Nukem’s most formidable challenge turns out to be lawyers and legal terms.
Anyway, the second cartridge contains three more console ports! And we’ll start
with Duke Nukem Advance. A game I’ve been vocally critical of in the past, calling it
technically impressive but clunky to play, with sterile and confusing level design. And I mean,
I still sorta think that but perhaps I was a bit harsh, cuz it’s really not that bad. Considering
this was a handheld title from 2002, I think the original devs did a fantastic job making
it feel as much like Duke 3D as possible, while simplifying things enough to ensure it
plays decently on a small screen. Playing on a portable Evercade really drives that home,
I had more fun with this than I thought I would! Although, yeah, it’s rather eye-melting to look
at on a big modern display. But whatever, now that I’ve given this one another shot I see
that the gameplay itself is actually pretty solid for what it is, and I’m glad it’s here.
Next on this cartridge is Duke Nukem Time to Kill, a third-person action platformer from 1998 with
a clear Tomb Raider inspiration going on. Ever since I first played this one on a PlayStation
demo disc back when it was new, I’ve found it oddly enjoyable, despite its slower pace and
somewhat clunky controls. Much like Lara, once you get used to the quirks of handling Duke here,
it’s rewarding to learn exactly how to move in order to complete puzzles and annihilate
aliens while taking minimal damage. Your first playthrough is certainly a slog,
but revisiting it is where it tends to come alive for me, especially the world itself and the time
traveling level design which I find unusually charming. As for what’s changed for this port,
well, as with Total Meltdown it’s not a lot. Other than modified UI elements to
show Evercade buttons instead of PS1 controls. And the intro video has had its music changed,
again being a licensing issue, this time with the record label for Stabbing Westward.
And last but probably least, is Duke Nukem: Land of the Babes. Which I always forget came out two
years after Time to Kill, since it feels like a step backwards. No fault of the Evercade port of
course, it was a lackluster game back in the day and that’s even clearer 23 years
later. It plays as fine as it ever did, a bit more streamlined than Time to Kill actually,
and it’s undoubtedly nice to have from the standpoint of preservation and completeness. And
the extra cheesy in-engine cutscenes still provide a chuckle here and there. But the story and the
world and the aliens never grabbed me, it’s easily my least-played across this entire collection,
and that’s fine. There’s still plenty of enjoyment to be had from the rest of the series.
And that about sums up the first two Duke Nukem Evercade Collections! And in my highly biased
opinion, I think these are fantastic ports and updates. Despite the unfortunate issues with music
licensing, I’m utterly stoked to see all these Duke games finally get re-released! Even though
they are restricted to the Evercade platform, and I already know the top comments below this
video are gonna be like “if only they weren’t exclusives! I’d buy these if they were on PC,
or the Switch, or Xbox or PS5 or literally anything else.” Yeah, I hear that! It was one of
the very first things I brought up when I started to talking to them about the project, and all I
can say is the folks at Blaze are very much aware of that demand. For now though, it’s a real treat
to see these specific and often-underappreciated titles get updated and re-released on physical
media in 2023. Especially since multiple Duke games have been delisted over the years, no chance
of that happening with cartridges. About the only games quote unquote “missing” are Duke Nukem 64
and Zero Hour, but there aren’t any Nintendo 64 Evercade ports yet, and I don’t know if it’s even
feasible on the current hardware. But I hope it happens someday, perhaps alongside Duke Nukem for
the Game Boy Color too if I’m being greedy. Who knows what the future may bring for the Evercade,
and Duke Nukem in general! I for one have hope for both, now that I’ve seen the care and
respect these ports received leading up to their release. It’s a good time to be a fan of the Duke.
[Duke Nukem gameplay playing]
And hey, if you’ve played these yourself or have any thoughts on the Evercade in general,
plop down some comments! Or stick around for more LGR things always in the works,
Christmas is just around the corner after all. And as always, thanks for watching!