In last week’s post, I talked about Duke Nukem II, the sequel to the original platformer, and now I’m moving onto the third game, the one that truly made Duke who he is known as today. Welcome back to THE SITH ARCHIVES OF DARTH FANDOM, where my Duke Nukem series continues, now focusing on the first 3D entry in the series, Duke Nukem 3D. I’ve now reached the 100th post on my blog, which is extra special, but I won’t be able to cram all of my Duke Nukem 3D content into one post, so be ready for more. Right, let’s get going.
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| Damn, he's good. Image Credit: ZOOM Platform |
Introduction: The Build Engine
Ken Silverman first ventured into First-Person gaming with his demo Walken. Walken was an incredibly basic demo, with almost no interactivity, but was further expanded in Ken’s Labyrinth, a game initially sold as one episode directly by Ken, but later published as a full, three-episode game by Epic MegaGames (now Epic Games, known most recently for... Fortnite) in January 1993. Ken’s Labyrinth is a basic First-Person Shooter, similar to Wolfenstein 3D, with (in its final version) 30 levels and boss battles. After the release of Ken’s Labyrinth, Ken began working on a new, more advanced engine, in order to keep up with the Doom engine, itself the product of the Wolfenstein 3D engine. The first game to use the Build Engine was Rock’n’Shaolin: Legend of the Seven Paladins 3D, otherwise known as Legend of the Seven Paladins, released in 1994. This game used an illegal version of the engine due to broken contracts, bad communication, etc., but it is still the first Build engine game. Witchaven was the second game to use the engine (created by the infamous Capstone, the pinnacle of entertainment software, who you’ve hopefully heard of), followed by all-time “classic” and personal favourite of mine, William Shatner’s TekWar, also created by Capstone, both released in 1995. The fourth game released for the Build Engine was today’s topic – Duke Nukem 3D.
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| Before Unreal, Epic published... this. Image Credit: Hardcore Gaming 101 |
Introduction: Duke Nukem 3D
Duke Nukem 3D was first teased at the end of Duke Nukem II and began development around that time. During development, it was became a competitor for the original DOOM game. One of the earliest versions of Duke Nukem 3D is LameDuke, a beta version featuring four episodes, different weapons, very different enemies and a totally different story. Over development time, Duke Nukem 3D became a very different game, until its eventual shareware release (see the “Apogee model” in previous posts) on January 29, 1996, containing the first episode, L.A. Meltdown, under Apogee’s new title, 3D Realms. Duke Nukem 3D was not the first First-Person Shooter to be developed or published by 3D Realms; under their original Apogee name, they had developed and published the awesome Rise of the Triad game on the Wolf3D engine, as well as published Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold and its sequel, Planet Strike!, and even the original Wolfenstein 3D itself! Gameplay is quite basic, but fun: Duke Nukem must shoot down any aliens he sees and pick up red, blue and yellow key cards in order to progress to new areas. Different weapons and powerups can be picked up over the course of the game, and the game could also be played in multiplayer, something that had only started to begin during the “Doom era”. On the 5th of May, 1996 (one day after May the Fourth, and not long before Quake), the full version of Duke Nukem 3D was shipped, including two new episodes, Lunar Apocalypse and Shrapnel City. The first two Duke Nukem games were included as a bonus. Duke Nukem 3D was a commercial success, and as such, an expanded version was released. This version, Duke Nukem 3D: Atomic Edition, added in a new, fourth episode, The Birth, as well as two new enemies, a new boss, and a new weapon. All the content was also available as a patch for the original version, as the Plutonium PAK.
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| This might reignite some old memories. Image Credit: Abandonware Games |
Story
*WARNING* Spoilers for Duke Nukem 3D and Plutonium PAK. Just after the events of Duke Nukem II, Duke has left the Rigelatin Battlenaut, now in a Skycar, a smaller ship located in the Battlenaut. All seems well, when all of a sudden, the Skycar is shot down by an alien blast, not belonging to the Rigelatins. The Skycar crashes down from the atmosphere at lands on a building in Holllywood, back in good old Los Angeles. In anger, Duke goes on a rampage to make those alien bastards pay for shooting up his ride, encountering. Duke makes his way through an adult cinema and the Red Light District, before being captured by the aliens and taken to Death Row. Duke gets his weapons back and escapes Death Row by submarine, making his way to the toxic dump where he is shrunken for the first time. Duke finally gets to the San Andreas Fault and kills the Alien Battlelord, but that’s not the end of the invasion. Duke escapes to the EDF’s space port and navigates his way to the Moon, visiting what may have been Dr Proton’s Lunar Fortress back in the day. Duke hunts down and kills the Alien Overlord in the mothership, but it turns out that the aliens have already begun a full-scale invasion of Earth. Returning to Shrapnel City, the place once take over by Dr Proton, Duke kicks more alien ass through the bank, a movie set and even a hotel, before arriving at the Shrapnel City Football Stadium and defeating the Cycloid Emperor, leader of the aliens. Duke kicks the eye of the Emperor through the goals and decides to go out for a little R&R.
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| Don't expect too much story from a 90s shooter. Image Credit: Marphitimus Blackimus / YouTube |
After his brief R&R period (which I’ll cover in a later post), General Philip Graves, a high-ranking member of the EDF, briefs Duke on a new threat: the aliens have kidnapped a woman from Earth and bred her with the aliens, causing the creation of the Alien Queen. Duke must stop the Alien Queen before it’s too late. Duke navigates his way through the Impossible Mission Forces base, his own restaurant the Duke Burger, the Shop-N-Bag supermarket, the Babe Land theme park, an L.A.P.D. police station, the post office, the XXX-Stacy adult film centre, a garage and a boat. Along the way he encounters two new enemies: the Pig Cop Tanks (Pig Cops in tanks) and the Protector Drones, the new-born children the Alien Queen, on top of his previous enemies: the Assault Captains, Assault Commanders, Assault Troopers, Battlelord Sentries, Enforcers, Octabrains, Protozoid Slimers, Recon Patrol Vehicles, Sentry Drones, and of course, Pig Cops. Duke locates the Alien Queen’s lair and defeats her, saving the planet once again.
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| It's time to kick ass... again. Image Credit: Me |
Legacy
Duke Nukem 3D certainly has quite the legacy. This includes console ports, source ports (official and unofficial), tons of expansions (both good and bad), spiritual successors, sequels, spin-offs, compilation releases and more. Obviously, as I stated earlier, I won’t be able to cover ALL of this content in one little paragraph at the end of this post, so I’ll be splitting the remainder of the Duke3D content into a few posts, each focused on different aspects of its legacy. Once I’m done with this, I’ll be able to move on to the rest of the series, which means the “Duke Raider” game, portable releases, mobile release, Manhattan Project, and... *sigh*... Duke Nukem Forever. I will, however, briefly interrupt the Duke series with a special 101st post tomorrow based on a series that I’ve been meaning to cover for quite some time now. Well, that’s a wrap on THE SITH ARCHIVES OF DARTH FANDOM!
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| Yep, there's more. Image Credit: Steam |
**Duke Nukem 3D: Atomic Edition is available on ZOOM Platform**
**Duke Nukem 3D: 20th Anniversary World Tour (a.k.a. Cursed Randy Version) is available on Steam**
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