"Damn, those alien bastards are gonna pay for shooting up my ride."
We have seem all this countless times already, but not in the way that Duke Nukem 3D manages to show. First of all, the most notable feature in this game is the gameplay. 3D Realms' excuse to make you go through a lot of different places, killing hundreds of monsters, is that the world is being attacked by aliens that want to kidnap all the women and reproduce themselves to conquer the Earth. Of course, for every lame action story there's a bad*** hero, who is called here by the name Duke Nukem. He got his ship attacked by the aliens when he was returning to our planet, and after saying the line I quoted in the review deck, the American hero is going to stop the alien invasion all by himself.
How the gameplay can be so innovative in such game? Well, Duke not only moves around as the DOOM marine does, but he can also jump obstacles, crouch, explode cracked walls, swim and use items stored in his inventory. This may sound common because every game today may feature those things, but back in 1996 it was kinda revolutionary. It's true that we had similar concepts with Shadow Caster (1993) and HeXen (1995), both games by Raven Software; however Duke Nukem 3D brought everything together in a sharp and unique form, thus delivering a mighty blow on the gaming world.
The controls are all quite responsive, making easy what would be otherwise a cumbersome task, such as jumping over obstacles or ducking quick enough to hide from enemy projectiles. This is important because Duke Nukem 3D is very fast-paced, so if something goes wrong you can only blame yourself for not being as fast as necessary, and never due to unresponsive commands you issued.
Duke Nukem 3D features visceral gameplay and great graphics thanks to the amazing engine this game was built on. 3D Realms called it Build Engine, which was used in popular titles back in 1997, such as Shadow Warrior, Redneck Rampage and Blood. The most relevant innovation in this engine was the design of the levels, which allowed fairly complex maps that couldn't be crafted in the old DOOM engine. If that wasn't enough, the developers were kind enough to release the Duke Nukem 3D with the Build Editor along with all the necessary documentation, so fans were able to design their own maps without too much trouble.
By featuring four chapters and more than 30 levels to beat, you may spend 10 or 15 hours to finish this game in the regular difficulty level; take notice that the forth chapter is only available in the Atomic Edition version. Your gameplay time may vary greatly depending on how much you want to explore each level, which is usually filled with secret passages and some cool Easter eggs. Each episode has a secret level, so if you want to beat all the maps in Duke Nukem 3D, it's a good idea to look for all the secrets before hitting the exit button.
Your objective in this game is clear: Duke must find the Nuke button in each level in order to advance to the next stage. To do so, you'll have to kill dozens of aliens and find a few keycards to open locked doors. Do this repeatedly until you reach the last map of the episode, where you must finish off a big alien boss in an arena-like room. Simple and good as ever; raising the difficulty level is always a good reason to replay an episode, especially because the number of monsters per map increases.
Considering that Duke's main activity is butchering his enemies around, you'll need overpowered weapons to go through all the four chapters. Thankfully Duke Nukem 3D has a great arsenal that isn't only devastating, but also innovative and bizarre. Naturally, you'll find here the standard stuff, such as the pistol, the machine gun, the RPG and, my all-time favorite, the shotgun. However be prepared for some surprises as well. There aren't too many games around which allows you to shoot ice and freeze your opponent, so you can kick him and shatter his body all over the place. Duke Nukem 3D has such weapon, and much more: you can shrink your enemies to smash them with your foot, set explosive traps with a laser detector and, with the Atomic Edition version, you can use a mod of the shrink gun to expand your enemies enough to make them explode!
However, my favorite surprise in this game was the pipe bomb. Don't ask me why, but I suck with thrown weapons in every FPS title. For some reason I found the pipe bomb in Duke Nukem 3D one of the best weapons I ever used in any game of the genre. You just throw Duke's "little friend" in the middle of a group of aliens, wait a bit when they're close enough, hit the trigger button and enjoy their pieces flying everywhere! Let's not forget the boss-killer weapon, which is called "Devastator" for a reason. If you keep the fire button pressed for a few seconds, this amazing toy of destruction launches a bunch of mini-rockets that can finish off almost every monster in the game. And, finally, your melee weapon is Duke's kick, which can be activated either by the respective weapon number or by a shortcut, which allows you to wield a gun while kicking your enemies or breaking objects.
Your enemies in Duke Nukem 3D are varied enough to keep the game interesting, and the Atomic Edition release comes with new aliens exclusively for the last episode. The menagerie brings the standard alien trooper armed with a laser pistol, the pigcop equipped with a shotgun, the flying alien commander (my favorite) and its powerful rocket launcher, a psychic monster that is usually creeping under the water, and a few more. The Atomic Edition brings a tall alien, which can shoot a shrink ray to turn Duke into a miniature, and a pigcop driving a powerful tank armed with machine guns. The AI isn't very sophisticated, and if you're into the speedrun thing and likes to beat time records, you'll notice that isn't too difficult to jump over their heads and pass through hordes of aliens... if you're skilled and knows the map, of course.
The sound in this game is what you should expect from any good First-Person Shooter. When Duke is noticed by nearby aliens, you'll hear their angry groans from the distance. Depending on what you're shooting at, you can effectively hear objects breaking, the monsters screaming and dying, cracked walls exploding and so. However, the most noticeable sounds are Duke's lines, which made him the unique character he is today. His voice fits perfectly when he says: "Hail to the king, baby!", "This really ****es me off.", "Come get some!", "Yeah, piece of cake!" and, naturally, "Die, you son of a *****!", a well-known line when he kills an alien boss.
Now, as with most great old-school games, Duke Nukem 3D wouldn't be the same without a multiplayer component. Fortunately it has one, and it's not by-the-numbers as it happens with the great majority of games released today. Up to eight players can connect in a cooperative or competitive match, and both modes are perfect. If you wanna play this game on-line, it's a good idea to try Dukester X, so you can find servers quite easily. It's possible to play in Local Area Network as well, even by using MS-DOS emulators such as DOSBox and VDMSound.
Since Duke Nukem 3D is an old game, the aged graphics may not appeal for newcomers. Personally, I love the scenario and the design of the monsters; but if you want to improve them, you can try the High Resolution Pack, which replaces the 2D sprites with detailed 3D models, adds special effects and improves the textures by using your graphics card's resources. Considering the gameplay isn't affected, you can apply the High Resolution Pack and still experience the same feel you would back in 1996.
I think the biggest problem with Duke Nukem 3D is that there're few options to expand your single player experience. Most of the innumerous expansions released are quite lame, so you basically rely only in the official Atomic Edition version, although the add-ons Nuclear Winter and Duke It Out in D.C. aren't bad. However, with or without expansions, the game speaks for itself nicely. Since the gaming world won't probably be blessed with a sequel, you can replay the original game once more, maybe on a higher difficulty setting, trying to beat the time scores or finding all the secrets. That's only possible because precious gems like Duke Nukem 3D: Atomic Edition never gets old, and considering the activity of the on-line community, it will rarely die someday.