[Duke Nukem voice] "Duke Nukem 3D."
What a phenomenal game!
Developed and published by 3D Realms and distributed by FormGen in 1996
for MS-DOS PCs,
followed by an endless supply of ports, spin-offs and re-releases ever since.
In my eyes, this is a contender for the best PC game of all time. So where do I even begin?
Well, let's just start with the box art design by Robert Grace
which is intentionally reminiscent of the movie poster for "Army of Darkness,"
providing the first clue as to the pop culture the developers were smoking at the time.
Make no mistake, Duke Nukem 3D is a parody of all things "action movie."
In previous games, Duke was just a generic self-absorbed tough guy with a gun,
but now he was the Rayban-clad amalgam of Bruce Campbell, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Clint Eastwood,
and Roddy Piper.
Inside the box, you got the game itself on an atomic yellow CD-ROM,
a timeless 3D Realms registration card,
an ad for the TEN multiplayer network in the form of a drink coaster,
a high quality mouse pad of the game's cover art,
and a jewel case manual filled with plenty of information on everything from guns to bad guys
to the AOL Keywords to guide you as you surf the World Wide Web for 3D Realms.
It also has this picture of the development team,
including Duke Nukem himself,
which I guess means that Duke is partially responsible for his own existence,
and is the result of a predestination paradox.
[Duke voice] "I've got causality loops of steel!"
Starting up the game presents the classic nuke symbol,
and a thundering explosion that just--
[grunts] gets the testosterone flowing already!
Then EACH WORD of the title pops up
faster than my erection!
Accompanied by the rockin' "Grabbag" theme song by Lee Jackson.
[rockin' theme music]
Once you've reached the main menu,
checking the Help section will give you the story thus far.
Which basically says that while defeating the aliens in "Duke Nukem II,"
more aliens came to Earth and moved in without even paying a security deposit.
Duke's ship is shot down and he's pissed.
So, start a new game and choose your difficulty.
[Duke voice] "Yeah, Piece of Cake. Let's Rock."
[Duke voice] "Come Get Some."
or...
[Duke] "Damn I'm Good."
[Duke] "Damn. Those alien bastards are gonna pay for shooting up my ride."
[explosion]
[gunfire and explosions]
And that's how "Duke Nukem 3D" begins.
Profanity, explosions, knuckle cracking and guns blazing.
Perfect!
From here the premise is straightforward:
get to the end of the level by way of shooting stuff,
solving simple puzzles and collecting keycards.
If you've played "Doom" or, well, any other first-person shooter in the last twenty years,
it seems downright formulaic.
But what sets "Duke" apart are the multiple layers of awesome happening on top of the basic FPS formula.
Let's start with the weapons.
These go beyond the typical melee, pistol, shotgun, machine gun, and rocket launcher loadout
of similar games of the time.
You do have those, of course,
and they feel absolutely incredible to use, I might add.
But in addition, you've got remote detonated Pipe Bombs,
Laser Trip Mines,
a rapid-firing mini-nuke launcher,
a Freezethrower,
and even a Shrink Ray.
Each of these feel distinct
and are acquired in thoughtfully selected spots throughout the story
so that you're left feeling satisfied with each of them.
Just be careful that you don't accidentally shrink or freeze yourself,
or set off one of the explosives too close,
because they're just as powerful against *you*
as they are your enemies.
The next aspect that gave "Duke Nukem 3D" its unique feel is the level design,
which is complex without being too overwhelming.
The whole game is divided up into three episodes,
with between five and ten levels each,
and some secret levels on top of that.
Each level feels refreshingly distinct from the others
with everything from prison facilities to strip clubs
to alien moon bases.
The layouts can be intimidatingly sprawling,
even using the overhead map.
Rarely does it feel you're being pushed down a corridor towards the end.
Instead, you're given free reign to explore and progress at your own pace,
all while running across tons of secret places and Easter eggs.
The main thing that occasionally lets this down is the copious usage of keycards
which is something relied on so often in shooters back then, that it's become a joke over the years.
Running around looking for the same blue, red and yellow keycards and their associated doors
in nearly every single level--
Ehhh, it's not always the most engaging thing to do.
Thankfully, Duke runs at the speed of a doped-up cheetah
and even faster when he's doped up himself.
Steroids are one of the special items you'll come across,
which makes Duke bolt around like lightning,
in addition to being able to kick with the force of a Mack truck hitting you head on.
There's also the Jetpack, which is used for freely wandering the level and finding even more secrets,
Medkits to restore your perfect physique back to its usual perfection,
Protective Boots and Scuba Gear for dealing with hazardous floors and underwater areas,
and Night Vision Goggles, which don't exactly give you night vision,
but instead make enemies and hidden messages glow green.
Then there's the Holoduke,
and it doesn't have a whole lot of use in the single player campaign.
It pops up a holographic clone of Duke to fool enemies,
but most of the time they'll just ignore it and shoot you anyway.
So it's best used against much more gullible human beings.
You're much better off spending your time learning each enemy's quirks,
and this is yet another thing that sets "Duke" apart.
The Jetpack-wielding Assault Troopers,
or Lizard Troopers, as I always called them,
will sometimes appear to die while choking on their own blood,
which, in and of itself, is another cool feature.
But there's a chance they'll be faking it
and pop back up to shoot you in the back,
so it's best to blow up their corpse as a precaution.
Others will teleport away from the action
and try to get the jump on you from behind later on,
the backstabbing punks!
Then you've got the Pig Cops, which-- ha ha,
cops are also called pigs, get it?
Anyway, if you don't turn them into Bacon Bits first,
they'll wander around on foot and shotgun you in the face,
while others will take to the sky in Recon Patrol Vehicles to go all "Danger Zone" on you.
Octabrains follow soon after,
and these monstrosities freaked me out as a kid.
Toothy floating brains with tentacles and the ability to blast you with lethal energy
and oh, so satisfying to kill and watch them deflate into a bloody pile of gray matter.
The Protozoid Slimers are your token "Alien" Facehugger ripoffs,
with egg pods that they hatch from before attaching themselves to your face
and sucking out your brains.
They also highly resemble the sentient goo enemies from "Duke Nukem II," and this makes me happy.
Enforcers are total jerks
and jump around shooting you with automatic chain gun fire,
and by the way, the bullet weapons are all hit-scan,
so good luck getting out of the way.
Assault Commanders, or Fat Commanders,
are rotund creatures that fire rockets
out of their butthole.
Yep.
Sentry Drones are the most annoying things ever.
They're just robotic kamikaze douchebags that inflict tons of damage and have tons of armor.
And beyond a few other minor things, like sharks and turret guns,
the rest of the enemies are bosses found at the end of each episode.
The first of which, the Battlelord,
also appears in each episode as a mini-boss of sorts,
but it's the biggest, baddest one that you come across at the end of Episode 1.
You've also got the Overlord at the Moon Base at the end of Episode 2
and the Cycloid Emperor at the L.A. football stadium showdown in Episode 3.
With each episode, you get a short pre-rendered cutscene,
usually with Duke saying and doing something absurd and/or lewd.
[gooey splattering]
[thud]
[unbuckling]
[metal thud]
[unzipping]
[paper rustling]
[Duke whistling theme song]
Ah, pure campiness. I love it!
The whole game can be completed in about six or seven hours, if you know what you're doing,
but it's well worth it to take your time and admire the scenery.
You can explore movie theaters,
restaurants, hotels, subway stations,
desert temples and even strip clubs,
which was a far cry from what other first-person shooters were doing in '96.
Of course, you also have a ton of other sci-fi themed levels that look like a mix between "Star Trek" and "Aliens,"
especially in Episode 2.
But it was the more realistic levels in Episodes 1 and 3 that *really* drew me in,
largely because they were so believable.
Plus they were all chock-full of pop culture references,
from current events to movies to music,
to other games being constantly lampooned and alluded to.
[Duke] "Hmm. That's one doomed space marine."
They were all hugely interactive
and this was probably the most impressive thing to me of all.
Small things like being able to leave bullet holes on solid surfaces
or shooting aliens and watching their blood streak down the wall behind them,
may seem insignificant now, but it was incredibly novel then.
And the details didn't stop there.
You could open lifelike doors and toggle light switches,
rifle through cabinets,
pee in toilets and then drink from them for health,
blow apart walls and detonate entire buildings.
play a game of pool,
break TVs and electronics,
spy on distant locations through security camera feeds,
and yes, you can even tip strippers.
In fact, the women are the only humans you come across in the game and
most of them have been bound, stripped and controlled by the aliens in some way.
Naturally, this was a topic of controversy in 1996,
alongside the game's profanity and gory violence.
It even led to the game being outright banned in several countries,
as well as stores like Walmart in the USA selling their own censored version of the game.
Granted, you could always censor it yourself with the included Parental Lock option,
but I guess it made certain feel better to have it removed entirely.
But I can't knock the option too hard, really,
since it was understandably the only way my parents let me play the game when I was twelve years old.
Regardless of where you stand on the issue,
the content only seemed to help sales, rather than hinder them,
and subsequent Duke Nukem games capitalized on this even more.
But I've got to say, the controversy is never what kept me interested because
the biggest thing that kept me playing was the ability to mod the crap out of it.
You see, on the game CD in a special folder,
there was a full set of editing tools.
These were the same ones used by 3D Realms to develop the game, so really,
you had the ability to make an entire new game out of this, if you wanted to.
I was one of those people and I could got not get enough of it.
I had the official "Duke Nukem 3D Level Design Handbook,"
and I read it cover to cover countless times.
I made my house, my friends' houses,
the local library, my mom's office,
just whatever I could think of.
And then I'd upload it to the AOL Games channel,
while downloading hundreds of other people's work after that.
You could even edit the included CON files,
which acted as liaisons between modders
and the more complex code under the hood.
Using any text editor, you could easily manipulate everything,
from the aliens to individual objects.
It was such a cool feature.
It was my first introduction to a vibrant modding community,
and it's one that is still going strong to this day.
Quite simply, if it weren't for "Duke 3D,"
I don't know if I would have the same interests and skills that I do now.
And it all has to do with 3D Realms including those tools on the disc.
And if you really wanted something a little more professionally made,
3D Realms had you covered there, too.
They released the "Plutonium Pak" later in '96,
which was a hefty patch sold in its own box that
upgraded the game to the "Atomic Edition, Version 1.4."
After this, they bundled the game together as the "Atomic Edition, Version 1.5,"
which was a standalone game with the latest patches and the "Plutonium Pak" installed.
It also came in this incredible holofoil box.
Augh! One of my favorite PC game boxes, bar none.
But yeah, this featured a fourth episode to the game,
"The Birth,"
which included new weapons like the Microwave Expander,
and new enemies, like the Protector Drone, the Pig Cop Tank, and the Alien Queen.
It's an excellent addition to the main story.
It features some of the best levels in the game
and one of the most infamous ending screens ever.
Ahh! Halcyon days, indeed.
But while 3D Realms was done with "Duke Nukem 3D" for the time being,
third-party developers were all over it.
Expansion packs like "Duke Caribbean,"
"Duke It Out In D.C.,"
and "Nuclear Winter" were readily available,
as were dozens of others like "Duke Xtreme,"
"Duke!ZONE,"
"Duke Assault,"
"Duke the Apocalypse,"
"The Kill-A-Ton Collection,"
"Nuke It 1000,"
"Total Meltdown,"
"Beyond the Meltdown,"
etcetera, etcetera, you get the idea.
"Duke Nukem 3D" was a moneymaker for plenty of people beyond those at 3D Realms,
which is as sure a sign as any of how hungry people were for more.
And, man, I haven't even mentioned the multiplayer!
The focus of a lot of these unauthorized level packs
was the addition of new multiplayer maps.
There were two main modes allowing you to do several things over a modem or serial connection,
or over the Total Entertainment Network, which was an online service of the time.
First up was the co-op campaign mode, which is exactly what it sounds like.
Get by with a little help from your friends, as you make your way through every level of the story,
causing total mayhem along the way and
having a hearty chuckle when your co-op buddies blow themselves up.
Then there's death match, or "Duke Match," as it was called,
which is your typical "kill or be killed" competitive mode.
You can play any levels from the main campaign,
but 3D Realms included a bunch of arena levels designed specifically for this mode as well.
And, man, this is an absolute blast even today.
I mean, it's fast as hell, and often devolves into pure chaos, but--
Augh! It's so fun!
Things like the Holoduke and Laser Tripbombs really shine in this mode,
since other people are far more susceptible to being caught off-guard by them.
Although, if you just want to play by yourself, there are actually bots in the game you can play against, but
it's nothing compared to going online and hunting down live opponents.
This is a bit of a pain to set up nowadays in the original version,
but if you grab one of the more modern ports of the game, like the "Megaton Edition,"
it makes it really easy to do, with things like servers and matchmaking.
Sadly, the PC version seems to be quite lacking on players nowadays,
but if you check it out on consoles, or hit up some fan forums,
you could almost always find someone down to Duke Match.
And you are by no means limited to the "Megaton Edition" on PC,
with the copious amount of digital re-releases,
source ports, like "EDuke32",
enhancement packs, like the "High Resolution Pack,"
and the ability to play the original using DOSBox.
Ahhh...
Dude, I love this game.
"Duke Nukem 3D" -- it's just such a great frickin' game!
I just, augh!
[Duke] "Damn."
I'm lookin' good!"
This is one that I instantly recommend to anyone
if I hear they haven't played it yet.
So that's what I'm gonna do now.
If you have not checked out "Duke 3D"...
[Duke] "What're ya waitin' for?"
"Christmas?"
[Duke voice throughout] Mmm. Don't have time to watch myself.
But if you do, you can always watch more.
Right here on LGR.
Lots of Duke Nukem videos
and other things entirely.
There's also Twitter and Facebook.
And if it's time to kick ass and chew bubble gum,
and you're all out of gum, then, uh, why not go to Patreon?
Those alien bastards won't like that at all.
And, as always, thank you for watching.