It's been a while since Duke Nukem first stomped his way into our lives. Brandishing some ridiculously sized arms, rapid-fire legs that would give a can can girl a run for her money, and a flat top to end all flat tops, Duke was the very definition of a larger than life, parody of an action hero - and knew how to court controversy. While he first showed his face in a 2D platformer, it was Duke Nukem 3D, first released in 1996, that cemented his place in gaming lore, as our hero divided his time between shooting alien scumbags, searching for hidden passages, and telling everyone in earshot about the metallic nature of his gonads. Now, in an attempt to forget the bad memories that his most recent outing (the iffy-to-say-the-least Duke Nukem Forever), Duke is back once again, in a downloadable collection that harks back to the old man's glory days.
Packaging the main game, Duke Nukem 3D, plus three totally weird and wonderful expansions - Duke Caribbean: Life's a Beach, Duke: Nuclear Winter and Duke it out in DC - together as a £7.99 download, there's no question over value for money here - you'll be getting plenty of Duke for your dollar. What's perhaps more surprising, though, is just how fresh Duke still feels - even so many years on.
The pig cops are surprisingly tricky enemies to beat. Armed with shotguns, you'd best not get too close.
While so many shooters now force you down corridors, from one pre-set encounter to the next with little room to go off on your own and explore, Duke takes a markedly different approach. While there are plenty of enemies for you to swing your boots at, the levels are almost like mazes in themselves, with hidden passages, secret areas, and puzzles to be solved, as you try to figure out which switch you have to flip, which card you need to pinch, or which lift you need to use to get from A to B. When so many games now are so focused on the linear, this is a real change of pace, and one that's surprisingly fun.
Those who've never played a Duke game before may be in for a shock, though, as our hero still has his famous lack of manners. An alpha male if ever there was one, Duke has the ladies swooning if he even so much as looks their way - and in Duke Nukem, there's a lot of ladies to be swooned. You see, the whole plot here is that some aliens have invaded the earth, and are planning on making off (and making babies!) with earth's women - and as their number one fan, Duke can't have that. What follows is a game that takes you to the seedy underbellies of the city, lets you tip strippers in exchange for a flash of some boobs (or sometimes just a bit of a wiggle), and generally provides excuses for Duke to beat up some aliens within view of the (oft scantily clad) ladies that love him.
Yes, that's a water pistol. Yes, that guy's wearing a Hawaiian shirt. We'll get there later.
While major changes from the original are few and far between, the few areas that have been tweaked make a huge difference to the game - not least the save games. As an old-ish game, Duke is one of those games that has a notoriously tricky difficulty level, with one mistake being all it takes to see you lose a life, and have to revert to your last save. Not so any more, as in Duke Nukem 3D: Megaton Edition, there aren't actually any real save points. Instead, the game records your progress as you play, and when you die, you'll simply be rewound a little bit to a suggested respawn time. If you want to, you can press play, and watch the game replay the events that led to your death, choosing to stop, and jump back in whenever you like - perfect for when you're jumped by an enemy you weren't expecting to be lurking behind the corner.
If the main game proves too serious for your liking (or perhaps predictable, if you've played the Xbox 360 version, or even the original PC game), then the chances are the expansion packs will be enough to keep you occupied. Taking the tongue in cheek Duke action to the next level, these three expansion packs are totally irreverent, and make you wonder why games nowadays take themselves so seriously. Duke Caribbean sees the square chinned macho man swapping his arsenal of explosive weaponry for water pistols, super soakers, and an ice machine (no, really), in order to take the fight to enemies wearing Hawaiian shirts, rubber rings, and sunglasses; Duke it out in DC lets you fight your way through the White House; while Duke: Nuclear Winter puts Christmas hats on some enemies, turns others into giant snowmen who'll pelt you to death with snowballs, and plays the whole level out to the tune of Frosty the Snowman. Irreverent doesn't begin to describe it.
Festive, right?
However, Duke isn't without its flaws. For a game so old, it's disappointing that the frame rate is so weird. Most of the time, it's so ridiculously smooth it almost seems to be running too fast (which may not be good news for folks with motion sickness) - but that doesn't explain the random pauses that occur whenever you pick up items. Similar, the whole game itself froze when we went to start the one level, forcing us to restart our PS3 (which in turn insisted on scanning the file system, taking another 10-20 minutes). It's also a little bit crap that there's nothing in the way of split-screen support. While the original game didn't support it either, this is 2015, and it's running on a machine that's thousands of times more powerful than it would have run on back in the day. Surely it'd be possible to have added on a split-screen co-op mode, much like it supports online co-op play?
Still, for those looking for a blast from the past, or fancy seeing how shooters started out, before they evolved into the multi billion selling franchises they are today, Duke Nukem 3D: Megaton Edition will be well worth a look. This isn't a game that'll be to everyone's cup of tea - but as a cross-buy game (meaning you buy once, and play it on both PS3 and PS Vita), if you're familiar with old shooters, or brave enough to give them a try for the first time, there'll be something you can enjoy here. Especially in the expansions.
Format Reviewed: Playstation 3
