Video Game Review: Duke Nukem 3D: Megaton Edition

Duke Nukem 3D: Megaton Edition

PlayStation 3

This game makes me feel old... really old. It brings to mind when I was a teenager full of good ole angsty teenage angst. I was a first person shooter fan back then. Granted, the only two first person shooters I had actually played were Wolfenstein 3D and Doom - but hey, I liked them.

One game I had heard a lot about was Duke Nukem 3D. I had heard how this was the most amazing and interactive game EVER. Not only was it set in the modern world, unlike those other two games, but you could do so much stuff that I never would have thought possible in a video game. You could flush toilets, turn lights on and off, ride subway cars, fly around with a jetpack, take a leak, even give strippers money. In Doom and Wolfenstein, you walked around and you shot stuff. You couldn't even jump! Understandably the concept of the game fascinated me.

Since I wasn't a PC gamer, I had to patiently wait for the game to hit home consoles. I had my eye on the Nintendo 64 version since it looked the smoothest and least pixelated. Yeah everything had that "I've been smeared in Vaseline!" look to it that so many Nintendo 64 games seemed to possess, but I preferred that to the blocky, messy appearance of the other home versions.

The game was a colossal letdown in my mind. I liked the environments and the level design and all that. I liked the game's sense of humor. But it wasn't that fun to me. In fact, it frustrated me immensely. The levels were so big I would often get completely lost and have no idea what to do or where to go next. I'd clear each stage of enemies - and then waste hours upon hours on end wandering around looking for whatever it was I could have missed that was keeping me from completing the level.

Right off the bat in the very first level of the game, I was stuck. And this was in an era where there was no readily available internet to help me through when I'd get stuck. Somehow I powered through the level, only to encounter the same problem in the next level. And the next. And the next. I had rented the game for an entire three day weekend and had maybe, maybe cleared four or five levels. I knew for damned sure that I hadn't even come close to beating the game.

I returned Duke Nukem 64 at the end of those three days, completely disappointed that this game I had pined for for so long was not really not that much fun after all. I didn't think it was that revolutionary either. Yeah you could do things that you couldn't do in other games, but these were novelties, nothing really that game changing or awe inspiring. Oooh, push a button and hear a toilet flush. The game still wasn't any fun! I usually don't like leaving games uncompleted, but I never did rent it again in an attempt to finish it.

This was 1997. Time passed. And I mean a LOT of time. 18 years as a matter of fact; enough time to make me forget how much I had originally disliked the game. Mid 2015 I happened to find myself perusing the Playstation Store on my PS3 and I noticed that this game was free for PS Plus members. It wasn't just a straight port of the original game, it would feature enhanced graphics, trophy support, online play, and all the extra add-on levels from the old PC version of the game. I immediately thought "oh hey! Awesome! Duke Nukem is a classic" and set out to play it right away.

No more than a level or two into the game, all those old frustrations came bubbling up to the surface once again. I repeatedly got stuck, overlooking whatever small hidden switch I needed to push, every cracked wall I needed to bust through. It didn't take long for those old N64 era memories of disliking the game to come back to me. Once again, I wanted to like the game, but I just couldn't.

But one major difference existed between my playing days back in 1997 and my playing days now: the ability to access the internet and look up what to do whenever I would get stuck. And this happened much, much more than I care to admit. I started making my way through the game with the help of online guides. Slowly but surely I made progress, making it to where I had made it back in the N64 days and beyond.

And something weird started to happen: the game got easier for me. Much easier. Usually games start out easy and slowly build in difficulty, but I found that the opposite was true here. Sure I would get stuck every once in a while, but I found that I was able to complete each level in no more than an hour or so with minimal reliance on the internet.

And then I was finally able to enjoy the game.

The concept of Duke Nukem really isn't that groundbreaking. At least, nowadays it is not. It's a first person shooter set in a modern world which has been invaded by aliens. You walk around levels that are set mainly in cities. You shoot aliens and you collect keys that eventually unlock the way to the end of the level. The aliens come in all shapes and sizes. You've got pig cops, fireball shooting jetpack aliens, aliens that ride around in little rocket shooting vessels, aliens that hatch from eggs and look like little balls of slime. The weapons you use are typical FPS fare. You've got the obligatory handgun. There's a shotgun, machine gun, ice gun, rocket launcher, shrink ray... nothing too groundbreaking.

What made the game revolutionary when it was released was its setting. Each level is really big, and takes you to areas you usually don't see in video games. Movie theaters, strip clubs, convenience stores, police stations, heck even museums and government offices. Duke packs a bad attitude too, and is constantly spouting sarcastic one liners that lighten the mood of the game.

Each section of the game is broken down into about 5 or 6 stages. At the end of the final stage you square off against a giant boss character and then you move on to the next section of the game. I forget how many sections there are, but the game seems VERY long. Considering I got this for free, it was definitely well worth the download. This game packs a ton of content, I have to give it that.

The PlayStation 3 version of the game includes all the bonus or add-on levels from the old PC version of the game. I don't even know if a lot of these levels were available on the home console versions of Duke Nukem 3D. Some of the later expansion levels were pretty cool. The Washington DC segment is awesome. You explore a ton of landmarks like the Pentagon and the White House. The Smithsonian level, while big and confusing and VERY easy to get lost in, is brilliantly designed. Another cool expansion segment is the Christmas portion of the game. Christmas music plays, snow falls, and all the levels are Christmas themed. The enemies even wear Santa hats to add to the authenticity of the environment. I played this around Christmas time so it was pretty cool and coincidental that things worked out that way.

Another cool expansion stage is set in the Bahamas. Everything is changed for this segment of the game. All the weapons become beach themed. For example, the handgun becomes a squirt gun, health packs change to bundles of bananas. The music is always Caribbean themed, and the enemies don Hawaiian shirts and shorts while doing battle with you.

As I mentioned, the game became much easier for me as I played on. I don't know if it is because the game actually became easier, or if I just became used to its tricks. Where to look for switches and cracks, how to find ventilation shafts with ease, that kind of thing. But the farther I got into the game, the less I had to rely on online help.

And that definitely added a lot to the enjoyment for me. I actually came to grow quite fond of Duke Nukem by the time I finished it. And that says a lot considering how much I loathed it towards the beginning.

I'd say overall I had a really good time with the game. I started this last year, but it took me quite a while to finish it due to the fact that I took a lot of long breaks in between completing chapters of the game. But those breaks didn't diminish the game in my eyes at all. In fact, they helped me enjoy it more because if I had played it straight through I probably would have gotten quite sick of the game.

Anyone looking to take a trip down memory lane should for sure check out this game, especially if you can get your hands on it for free like I did. If you are a newcomer... hmm. I don't really know if I can recommend this game to you. It doesn't particularly withstand the test of time. And also it is very lengthy and can be extremely frustrating at times. If you are curious about older first person shooters and this particular stage in their evolution, I wouldn't dissuade you from checking it out. But I think that unless you grew up with Duke Nukem, you'd probably be better off playing other things.

Is this a great game? Nah. Did I have fun with it? Did it bring back some good memories of my teenage years? Sure. I'll probably never play it again, but at least I can say that I have finally closed the book on Duke Nukem. The same book that I opened about 18 years ago. And in a weird kind of way, that makes me feel satisfied with my experience playing this game. I feel a sense of closure here, and that makes me happy.

Overall:

C+