[electronic holiday music]
[fizz, sip]
Aahhh!
DUKE: "What are you waitin' for? Christmas?"
LGR: Duke Nukem first uttered those classic words when you went AFK
in the 1996 classic shooter, Duke Nukem 3D.
Well, apparently Simply Silly Software and WizardWorks were listening,
and released Duke Nukem 3D: Nuclear Winter
in 1997.
Nuclear Winter is one of the three authorized third-party add-on packs for Duke Nukem 3D,
along with Duke It Out in D.C.
and Duke Caribbean: Life's a Beach.
This one, though, is not made by Sunstorm,
which made Caribbean and D.C.,
and you can really tell the difference in style.
You'll need the Atomic Edition of Duke 3D in order to play,
since the game contains many new versions of features
introduced in version 1.4 of Duke 3D.
[explosion]
In Nuclear Winter, the aliens have returned to Earth
and enslaved Santa Claus
using an alien mind-control device,
and making him more evil than he already was.
So goes the story told to you by the creepy Frosty the Snowman here.
What's with his mouth?
It's like he had a stroke or something.
In order to thwart this plot,
Earth's favorite politically incorrect and trash-talking macho man Duke Nukem
must save the world
and Christmas at the same time.
You have plenty of over-the-top weapons at your disposal
to make your way through the various levels, blowing away aliens,
collecting keycards along the way to the North Pole.
All the while spouting your classic one-liners
and generally being the ultimate man's man.
If that sounds familiar,
well that's because it is!
Gameplay remains exactly the same for the vast majority.
DUKE: "Hail to the king, baby!"
LGR: In fact, so much of the game remains the same,
it's rather disappointing.
The first few levels of the game are really just backwards versions
of the first few levels from Hollywood Holocaust in the original game.
Sure, there are new textures and some variations to some of the rooms,
but not really much.
Honestly, it just seems lazy.
Although I can relate to that.
I guess it is kind of cool to see how things have changed a little bit
in these developers' eyes.
But still, it's just rehashing what you've probably played a hundred times before.
Many of the enemies have been redrawn to include slightly Christmasy facades,
like Santa hats, Santa outfits,
and reindeer antlers,
although not always to great effect.
There are also new enemies that act exactly like some of the old enemies.
These include killer snowmen that throw deadly snowballs,
snowman tanks,
and killer ninja elves.
The elves are particularly different
due to the fact that they drop presents when they die,
which you can then unwrap,
and they often contain guns or ammo,
so that's an interesting feature.
There are also Christmas carolers in some of the levels.
To me, this is really an unexpected addition.
I mean, I guess you can assume
that there probably would be Christmas carolers at this time of year,
but it's just weird to me that you can kill them.
[gunshot, scream]
DUKE: "That was annoying."
[gunshot, scream]
LGR: Since Duke apparently finds them annoying.
Well this really annoys me,
since I think it goes against what Duke stands for.
I mean, would Duke really kill innocent people?
I... don't think so.
No matter how off-key they may be singing.
I dunno. Somehow it just detracts from it, even if it's just for a second.
Besides, there's never any other people,
other than the trapped babes in the regular game,
so seeing regular humans who aren't women or mutants is just very strange.
I do, however, love the music in the game.
The nice and cheery Christmas tunes
really add to the tongue-in-cheek atmosphere of the game,
and I always love hearing music in exactly the wrong place for it.
Like mass alien murder scenes in nightclubs.
Just fits the overall feel of the levels.
Speaking of the levels, they unfortunately start taking a downward turn
after the Hollywood Holocaust ripoffs are through.
Some of them are annoyingly maze-like
and really counterintuitive to me.
It's easy to get turned around,
even with the overhead map view.
DUKE: "Holy shi–"
LGR: Beyond that, many of them are just plain boring.
The lighting effects, though, that they achieved are pretty impressive in some spots,
and they're similar to what was used in Blood or Shadow Warrior.
And the homage to the E1M1 from the original Doom is awesome,
if a little bit out of place.
Not exactly what I think of when I think of Christmas.
When it's all said and done, I just wish they had gone a bit further.
I mean, why not give Duke exploding snowballs
or a nuclear icepick or
a candy cane that shoots heat- seeking missiles or something?
Duke Caribbean really got this absurdity right in this respect,
and Christmas is almost the most absurd thing you can get in a game.
Beyond that, they really could have used some new one-liners.
I mean, imagine how awesome that would be.
[LGR in Duke voice] Hmm, don't have time to play with my jingle bells!
Deck the halls with bowels of pig!
What are you waitin' for? Fourth of July?
You better watch out. You better not pout.
Duke Nukem's coming to town!
[normal voice] It's much to my disappointment,
Nuclear Winter disappoints me,
and is easily my least-favorite add-on for the original Duke games.
It could have been so much better
and really suffers from poor level design,
not much new to offer,
lackluster, same-old-same-old enemies,
and a lack of inspiration, it seems.
Essentially, they just covered everything in snow,
added some Christmas music and dropped it on the store shelf,
calling it a new expansion.
Still, it has become a collectible,
and you can't deny how unique it is.
So maybe Nuclear Winter deserves a spot in your collection.
Or perhaps it just needs to stay in Christmas past,
and leave the good games to do their job of being awesome.
Duke Nukem: Nuclear Winter.
Duke Nukem: Nuclear Lame.