6 Likes
Gotta strike when the iron is still vaguely remembered as having once been hot by some people.
5 Likes
You sure did!
It spoke to the juvenile, sexist, racist, queerphobic senses of humour of a generation of 12yo straight white boys.
Those boys are now “men” and that fondness, having been cemented at a formative age, remains. Duke was never a good game, had no redeeming qualities, and doesn’t deserve any of the press it gets.
4 Likes
It wasn’t a bad game, it was a badly written game. The gameplay was perfectly fine, but the entirety of the story was juvenile at best. If you’re a fan of Army of Darkness, the quotes will tickle you a bit, but that’s the extent of the enjoyment you’ll get that isn’t related to insert-rounds-into-enemies.
3 Likes
You’re not entirely wrong. The gameplay/story was indeed cringeworthy, but on the technical level, the game was outstanding. The 2.5D Doom at the time was a very modern game requiring reasonably capable hardware. Duke3D engine used very smart techiques to ovecome performance bottlenecks. And it felt like true, very responsive 3D game. The engine was written by a 20-something dude I’m a few months from scratch, and part of that was a dare. And the game came with team play capabilities, including remote (over modem line).
Many LAN parties of the time appreciated the experience/team play, not the storyline. That included female teenagers and 20-somethings.
Engine details:
5 Likes
Who’s going to play him? And how old will they be when it’s finally made?
4 Likes
Yeah i was going to bring up that it was the first game i ever played that let you flush the toilets.
I think people forget how much of a wow that was coming from earlier games where objects were basically printed on the walls.
Other Build Engine games pushed it further too. I think it was Shadow Warrior that had interactive pachinko and arcade machines.
2 Likes
It’s a lot like family guy.
What people remember is mostly “remember that thing!”.
The rest of it is just obnoxious.
1 Like
Dude, the Build Engine! Man that takes me back. Back in the day I built one of the most epic levels and even imported my own sprites. Good times. Now if I can just locate that floppy disk…
5 Likes
Yeah, exactly - there’s no “there” there, with DN as an “intellectual property.” The bits that were original were only original to it as a video game (and barely even that), but not in any other context. The plot was non-existent and the character and tone were just gross.
I’m suddenly thinking of how Sony (rather disastrously) re-released “Morbius” in theaters because of all the memes, ignoring the fact that the memes didn’t exist because people liked the movie.
Now I’m imagining a “Duke Nukem” movie where the title character just wanders around pushing pool balls, flushing toilets, breaking things and being impressed he can see himself in a mirror. I.e. the true essence of the game.
6 Likes
Flush toilets and sinks, functional mirrors, deformable walls, remote security cameras(!), semi-functional pool tables, breakable glass, plus and a lot of other things that were more clever illusions, like the building demolishment, submarine, electric chair, etc. Plus a lot of items that didn’t do much more than play a sound when interacted with (like the payphones) that rewarded exploration and helped with immersion.
I also can’t think of an earlier 3D game that was set in a modern, urban environment. Simply exploring the levels was a cool change of pace from Doom, Wolfenstein, Heretic, ROTT, etc.
2 Likes
I wouldn’t even call it original. Even some other Apogee/3d Realms games had done all of it before.
I’d just call it well executed. But some of their other games in the same few years executed those mechanics better. Duke was just popular enough that it’s often the first place people experienced them.
But it’s all in the mechanics.
2 Likes
I wonder what they’ll do with the pig cops. Hardly Mr. Nukem’s only brush with insensitivity; but one with a target that has somewhat loud and thin-skinned defenders compared to most of the rest.
1 Like
By “original” elements I mean a main character who repeats '80s movie quips and thrusts money at strippers and toilets that flush. A combination of things that were blatantly ripped off from other mediums, were gross, or were just attention to environmental detail. I.e. nothing that would translate to another medium (at least, not as a positive).
I keep thinking about what would have happened if they had released the sequel as they original intended, about 18 months after the first. They’d run out of movie quips and it would have struggled to match the appeal of the first or compete with the other 2.5D games that came after (which, as you say, matched or exceeded the environmental interactions and other features) - but at that point it also would have been competing with real 3D games such as Half-Life, which would have made it a bit obsolete. The sequel would have sunk like a stone and the whole IP would have been largely lost from gamer memory.
2 Likes
It would have effectively been a level pack. With a bit of added tweaks. Which is pretty much what came out in that time frame, and pretty much all 3d Realms was doing as whatever series II at the time.
But exactly what you describe is what happened. Shadow Warrior seems to be the last 3d Realms in house build engine game, it was never as well known and not as successful. It was a lot of the same, some new tech. With a different crass gimmick. And then hey there’s Half-Life.
Even the engine was just outclassed by then.
Duke is really only notable for being the most popular release on what was an influential, but short lived engine.
1 Like
This is being made by the Cobra Kai people, who have shown they’re able to get a decent sympathetic take on historically toxic characters getting their shit together. I really can’t see them celebrating the macho bullshit of Nukem. It might be harder to get a redemptive take on a grown ass adult than a teenager, but Peacemaker somehow worked, so who knows.
I’m not going to go out my way to watch it, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it turned out half decent.
Yup. You have to tune a lot out for a serviceable game. It was possible back in the day (there wasn’t a lot of competition), but as writing goes there’s no cause for nostalgia.
Duke with a teenaged daughter, and he has to try to rehab his image. I’d watch that.
1 Like
18 months was the dev time for a 2.5D shooter at the time, but yeah, it would have necessarily been quite similar to the first one, using the same tech.
Though ironically that’s the one that got a recent - and highly successful - sequel (that has, in turn, spawned a third game in the series) that was a huge improvement over its original game. Ultimately making it the more successful game series between it and Duke. I remember being more impressed with it (and Blood) at the time, on a technical level and in terms of gameplay.
It’s funny, I’d forgotten just what a small window all those 2.5D games came out in, but especially the Build engine games.
1 Like
