Duke Nukem 3D

Duke Nukem 3D was the first FPS that I ever saw, and at the time it blew me away. Now, after all the years DN 3D isn't nearly as fun, much less impressive. At the time, it must have been a novel idea, mixing FPS with humor and adult content. At best it might draw a strained smile, but most of the time it's groan-inducing.

The graphics are Doom quality, with the one improvement that you can look up and down. The environments are different, they include a strip club, military bases and alien worlds. However, when you try to look up and down, the vanishing points, and the general perspectives are all screwed up. Also, all the characters and items are sprites, which means that they always look like they are facing you. Characters are like 8-sided boxes. Depending on where you are, you see one side, regardless of elevation. The sprites just seem to remind you are playing a last-gen game.

The music is OK, the gun sounds are so-so. The monster sounds are also so-so. However, Duke Nukem's lines sound like they are read by John Wayne at 3 in the morning: Really, really gruff. He ripps of Ash of Evil Dead fame, and most of his other lines are far too over done. Not good.

The guns are standard fare, you have the pistol, the shotgun, the machine gun and the rocket launcher. There are more exotic weapons, like a freeze gun and a shrinker, but you will rarely use them. My main complaint is that unlike Doom, there is no backpack of ammo. Your ammo capacity is quite limited, especially once you figure out that the oly weapons you need to use is the shotgun and machine gun.

The level design just docked this review 1 point. Some of the levels require much too much platforming, and the WASD controls don't translate well. Also, some levels require too much backtraking, and there are cheap instant kills sprinked around. I really hope you use the save function often, but it has issues if you don't run DN 3D in DOS. The levels sometimes feature these strange puzzles where there are 3-5 switches in a row. You must flip them in the right combination to move on. Why add this? It just slows down the game, especially when you rely on trail and error to succeed.

Lastly the "adult" humor, but if you're really considered an adult there is not a snowball's chance in hell of you laughing at any of it. There are strippers, and girls in these weird goo pods naked, but that's it. There's witty one-liners that fall faster then a drunk 90-year old woman with a busted hip. In my humble opinion, it sucks, and actually lowers the entertainment factor of thins game.

In closing, Duke Nukem 3D is an OK way to waste some hours, but you're doing exactly that: wasting time. I would recommend playing most new FPSs, and even the original Doom series is a more worthy use of your time. DN 3D has it's own unique flavor, and you may find something to like in it, but I have better things to do and play.

Like Xenogears.

Hello Elly!

2 star(s) out of 5

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