Duke Nukem, Part 4: Console Wars

Duke Nukem 3D, the topic of the last part’s discussion, was released on computers but was not exclusive. Like many other shooters of its time, Duke Nukem 3D was ported to home consoles so that more people would play the game. Welcome back to THE SITH ARCHIVES OF DARTH FANDOM, where I will be talking about the console ports of Duke Nukem 3D. Just as a note, I won’t be covering the handheld/mobile ports of Duke Nukem 3D (ports like Game.com and mobile) in this post; those are for later. In this post I’ll be talking about things like the PlayStation and Nintendo 64 ports. Right, let’s get going.

Whoa! A whole extra level! For free! Sadly it sucks.
Image Credit: Nach0 / Duke Nukem Wiki

Saturn
Duke Nukem 3D’s first home console port was to the Sega Saturn. The Saturn port was developed by Lobotomy Software, a company previously known for developing the FPS/Metroidvania PowerSlave, a game which ironically was ported to PC using the Build Engine. Duke Nukem 3D’s Saturn port ran on the SlaveDriver engine, a new FPS engine developed by Lobotomy for the PowerSlave game on Saturn. Out of all the original 5th generation ports, the Saturn port is generally regarded the truest to the original DOS release. Only some minor changes, such as no selection of the three episodes or the disappearance of a few secret levels, appeared in this port, and a new secret level, Urea 51, was included as a bonus. Urea 51 has been ported to PC and can be found here. I personally haven’t played the Saturn port, so I’m not sure what it’s like in terms of movement, controls, gunplay, etc. One notable feature of the Saturn port is the inclusion of Death Tank Zwei, a hidden multiplayer artillery game that was a sequel to Death Tank, a minigame featured in PowerSlave. Many say that you should get the port just for Death Tank Zwei. The port seems to be quite good, but as I said before I haven’t played it yet. Onto the second one.

Death Tank it out on Saturn.
Image Credit: Alchetron

PlayStation
The second home console port of Duke Nukem 3D, the PlayStation port, was handled by Aardvark Software. Aardvark Software was previously known for Zalaga, a BBC Micro port of Galaga, although there port of Duke Nukem 3D was not exactly popular. Duke Nukem: Total Meltdown, as it was titled, included the original three episodes (L.A. Meltdown, Lunar Apocalypse and Shrapnel City), as well as a whole new episode, Plug ‘N’ Pray. PNP is all about the aliens building a robot to try and kill Duke, and it added six new enemies to the roster of aliens. The port was filled with bugs, many more than the Saturn version, and had rather poor graphics. A standout feature, though, was the inclusion of an awesome remixed soundtrack created by Mark “TDK” Knight, composer of soundtracks for Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, Crysis and The Witcher. The TDK soundtrack is available as an addon for Duke Nukem 3D here, and a total conversion of the port to the PC version (with many of the bugs purposefully intact) can be found here. I personally enjoyed playing through this version, but I’ve only played the fan-made TC so I’m not sure what the original controls and performance are like. Onto the third one.

At least these guys are enjoying the party.
Image Credit: T-002 / Duke Nukem Wiki

Nintendo 64
When compared to the PlayStation, Sega Saturn and Nintendo 64 had relatively few each, both around 15 in total. One of the Nintendo 64’s titles was The World is Not Enough, a James Bond First-Person Shooter that attempted to continue on from GoldenEye. It was developed by Eurocom, who handled the Nintendo 64 port of Duke Nukem 3D, titled Duke Nukem 64, the “64” being a tagline of many ports and exclusive games on the system. Duke Nukem 64 is easily the most different of the ports. Levels are often changed, graphics are changed, explosions are now full-3D, weapons are different and some are new, some enemies have been remade, the soundtrack has been removed but at least now babes can be saved, something which was brought into later mainstream Duke Nukem games. The port was notorious for its censorship, something prevalent in ports to Nintendo systems (including the SNES port of Wolfenstein 3D), and some its changes to graphics, gameplay and overall style were not well received. In 2020, the Rednukem source port (a port aimed at running the two Redneck Rampage games) added support for Duke Nukem 64 without emulation, meaning that the game is now fully playable with mouse and keyboard in its raw form. The Rednukem source port can be found here. Duke Nukem 64 is a disappointing port, and is almost an entirely different experience in some ways, but is still, at its core, Duke Nukem fun. Now it gets really weird.

Cycloid Emperor in threee-deeeee.
Image Credit: Tropicon / GameFaqs

Genesis/Mega Drive
I don’t even know where to start. The Sega Genesis, or Mega Drive depending on your region, was home to a Duke Nukem 3D port. It was the fourth (fifth if you count Star Cruiser) and final First-Person Shooter on Sega’s console, and it sure wasn’t a good way to go. First off, the port is as ugly as it gets. It reminds me of things like The Fortress of Dr. Radiaki. Kind of. Secondly, you only get the second episode. No L.A. Meltdown, no Shrapnel City, no The Birth. Just Lunar Apocalypse, and it is EXTREMELY bastardised. The audio mixing is awful, the graphics are clunky, the music is terrible, and there’s this annoying border around the screen which I guess is for technical reasons. I haven’t even talked about who made it. Duke Nukem 3D’s Genesis port was released by Tec Toy, a Brazilian company who essentially acted as Sega’s distributing company in Brazil. Interestingly enough, it was only available in South America until 2015, when Piko Interactive bought the rights to the game and started distributing it. The thing is, I’m not even sure if the original version was official or not, but if you can find any strict info saying whether it’s official or not, please tell me.

Eugh. It hurts my eyes.
Image Credit: 3D Realms

And Beyond
This isn’t the end of Duke Nukem 3D’s console life. An Xbox 360 port was released which is a lot truer to the original game, with some added features. 2015 saw the release of Abstraction Games’ port to PlayStation 3 and Vita, based on the PC’s Megaton Edition, but I’ll get to that at a later stage, as with the 20th Anniversary World Tour port that was released on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch. In other news, it was my birthday on the 23rd (yippee) and I managed to snag Doom 3 and Prey (the original and best version)’s physical copies. Just for fun, I’m also going on a bit of an Uwe Boll marathon. I’ve already got through House of the Dead, Assault on Wall Street and Rampage, and I’ll probably go onto Rampage 2 and 3 next. Well, that’s a wrap on THE SITH ARCHIVES OF DARTH FANDOM!

Life Hits Back, Part 1

Welcome back to THE SITH ARCHIVES OF DARTH FANDOM! Before I start, I don’t intend to make a series about this topic, it’s just that I expect something like this to happen again, so I’ve made it the first part. Currently, life’s busy. It happens sometimes. I had my blog posts all planned out, and boom, something comes up that demands more attention. I always seem to forget these moments – I’m sure that, if you’re one of the people that has ventured into the den that is my old blog posts, you will most likely notice that this sort of thing tends to happen to me a lot. I just forget.

Well, fear not, this isn’t anything too major. In a few weeks (hopefully), I’ll be back on my normal track, posting once a week every Sunday or Saturday. During this busy time, I’m certainly not going to stop blogging, just don’t expect posts to be as frequent. Just to be on the safe side, I’ve decided to put together a little roadmap of some of the upcoming content:

Duke Nukem 3D’s console ports
Duke Nukem 3D’s expansions
Duke Nukem “Duke Raider” games
Handheld/mobile Duke Nukem games
Duke Nukem: Manhattan Project
That one 2011 Duke Nukem game
Some more of the Duke

I do have more stuff planned after this, but let’s not get too ahead of ourselves. I’m currently writing up the console post, but due to my current busy-ness I’m not sure how long it’ll take before I can post. As I said before, I’m not stopping the blog, just going to be a bit infrequent for a few weeks. I almost forgot: I have a little Doom WAD that I’m making (I found some great tutorials that I’ll link sometime) which I also hope to unveil soon. Well, that’s a wrap on  THE SITH ARCHIVES OF DARTH FANDOM!

Rush: The Height of Arcade Racing, Part 1

Back on March the 20th, I made a post about Cruis’n, an arcade racing game series that made its way from the Nintendo 64 all the way to the Nintendo Switch, with (most) of the entries being in good, while some were... less so. At the end of the post, I mentioned that I planned to make a series on arcade racing, and fear not, those plans have not been canned. This is a birthday post for a recent viewer of the blog, who happens to love this game series, but next week I’ll be back in with the Duke. Today’s blog post is all about Midway’s Rush series, which, at least in my opinion, is the height of arcade racing. This post will be split (I don’t have the time right now to do the whole Rush series justice), though I will post the second part sometime soon. Right, let’s get into it.

RUSH-rush-rush-rush...
Image Credit: GameSpot

It's Rush, baby.
Image Credit: Game Developer

Is it real? Or is it RUSH? This was the slogan of the first game in the series, San Francisco Rush: Extreme Racing. Only months after the original Quake game, Rush was released into arcades in December, 1996, running on a modified version of 3dfx’s Voodoo Graphics chipset with some modifications. The game plays across San Francisco, although this rendition is not true to its real counterpart, as the locations were changed to be more fun in-game. The original arcade version includes eight vehicles, playable across three maps based off of San Francisco. In October of 1997, San Francisco Rush was updated to San Francisco Rush: The Rock, including four new tracks (one of which is the Alcatraz track, originally intended for the N64 version) and four new cars. This led to the release of a Nintendo 64 port, which included all the content from the original arcade version, as well as three new tracks and all of the cars (other than some from The Rock). Early 1998 saw the release of a more barebones PlayStation port, including only three tracks (plus a new bonus one), a different soundtrack, a modified announcer and some gameplay changes, such as fiddling with the gravity. The PlayStation port was followed by a Windows version, San Francisco Rush: The Rock – Alcatraz Edition. This version took advantage of the Quantum3D graphics card (a spin-off of the 3dfx hardware powering the original arcade release), so much so that until a fan fixed it, the game was blocked from running on anything other than Quantum3D. Soon after, San Francisco Rush: The Rock – Wave Net was released, which is an updated version of the arcade release with online multiplayer capabilities. Rush is a very fun game, all about speeding through the tracks and getting in the air. It’s certainly one of my favourite arcade racing games, and it was great enough to receive a sequel.

The PlayStation port is a bit... lackluster in the graphics department.
Image Credit: ArmadilloZero / YouTube

Now with stunts.
Image Credit: Viperr818 / YouTube

Rush 2: Extreme Racing USA, released in November, 1998 onto the Nintendo 64, is to San Francisco Rush what Cruis’n World was to Cruis’n USA: a massive expansion of the boundaries of the predecessor. Sure, Rush didn’t expand to the whole world like Cruis’n did, but no longer are you stuck in the Golden City. Rush 2 includes tracks based off of Las Vegas, New York, Hawaii, Los Angeles, Seattle, and more. The car selection was also upgraded to 16. Strangely, Rush 2 was only released for N64, unlike the first game, which was released for arcade and then ported to home consoles. There were, however, apparently plans for a PlayStation version and a Windows 95 version, but there is no significant evidence to prove it. Because of this, Rush 2 has never received any modern rereleases, such as in the Midway Arcade Treasures collections, but we’ll get to that later. In my opinion, Rush 2 is certainly a worthy sequel to Rush, and in some ways, I enjoyed it more. Like its predecessor, Rush 2 received a sequel in 1999, the game that truly put Rush on the map.

Drive the future!
Image Credit: GameSpot

And now with rockets too.
Image Credit: LeopardYiu's Storage Wiki 

Remember how Rush 2 went country-wide? This time, we’re going sci-fi. San Francisco Rush 2049, released in June, 1999, is what happens when you take a reasonably grounded racing game (albeit with some silly bits here and there) and make it futuristic. Rush 2049 doesn’t have the large amount of cars like Rush 2 did, but what it lost in quantity, it made up for in quality. Rush 2049 features customisation for handling type, engine type, tire type, frame type, wing size, tire rim style and car colours. The game also has only a few tracks, less than the previous game. This could be seen as a bad thing, but this game really makes up for it with its soundtrack. The 2049 soundtrack is awesome; you should be listening to it while reading this post. The game was ported to Dreamcast and Nintendo 64 in 2000, with some changes such as the addition of stunt wings. The arcade version of Rush 2049 was upgraded, also in 2000, to the Tournament Edition, with some added tracks/cars and online multiplayer. A 2003 version, San Francisco Rush 2049: Special Edition, is a rerelease of the Tournament Edition, minus the online multiplayer, as Midway’s servers had shut down. San Francisco Rush 2049 is one hell of an excellent game, and is definitely one of my favourite arcade experiences.

Fun.
Image Credit: GameFabrique

That’s not the end of Rush. When I next talk about Rush, I’ll talk about the handheld games, the Midway Arcade Treasures collections, and that time that Rush went to Los Angeles. I hope you’ve enjoyed the post, and to the birthday boy, happy birthday. Another little thing I forgot to post last time was that I got shout-outed (probably not a word but who cares) in a YouTube video. Check out CD-ROM Fossil’s video on Knights of the Temple here for a bit of info on my amazing creation that I, ahem, created for him. Next week, I’ll be discussing something Duke3D-related, but I’m not sure entirely what yet. Well, that’s a wrap on THE SITH ARCHIVES OF DARTH FANDOM!