Duke Nukem 3D

As a first-person shooter whose gameplay is similar to Doom, the gameplay of Duke Nukem 3D involves moving through levels presented from the protagonist's point of view, shooting enemies on the way. The environments in Duke Nukem 3D are highly destructible and interactive; most props can be destroyed by the player. Levels were designed in a fairly non-linear manner such that players can advantageously use air ducts, back doors, and sewers to avoid enemies or find hidden caches. These locations are also filled with objects the player can interact with. Some confer gameplay benefits to the player; light switches make it easier to see, while water fountains and broken fire hydrants provide some health points. Others are simply there as a diversion. Tipping strippers provokes a quote from Duke, and a provocative reveal from the dancer. Duke's arsenal consists of the "Mighty Foot" (a basic kick attack), a pistol, a shotgun, a triple-barrelled chain gun, a rocket-propelled grenade launcher, pipe bombs, freezethrower and shrink rays, laser land mines, and the rapid-fire "Devastator" rocket launcher. The Atomic Edition version of the game also has an "Expander", the opposite of the shrink-ray weapon. Lastly, the 20th Anniversary World Tour version of the game also has an "Incinerator", the opposite of the freezethrower (with fiery projectiles instead of ice). Various items can be picked up during gameplay. The portable medkit allows players to heal Duke at will. Steroids speed up Duke's movement, as well as instantly reversing the effects of the shrink-ray weapon and increasing the strength of Duke's Mighty Foot for a short period. Night vision goggles allow players to see enemies in the dark. The "HoloDuke" device projects a hologram of Duke, which can be used to distract enemies. Protective boots allow Duke to cross dangerously hot or toxic terrain. In sections where progress requires more aquatic legwork, an aqua-lung allows Duke to take longer trips underwater. Duke's jet pack allows the player to move vertically and gain access to otherwise inaccessible areas. The game features a wide variety of enemies; some of which are aliens and other mutated humans. The LAPD have been turned into "Pig Cops", a play on the derogatory term "pig" for police officers, with LARD emblazoned on their uniforms. As is usual for a first-person shooter, Duke Nukem encounters a large number of lesser foes, as well as bosses, usually at the end of episodes. Like Duke, these enemies have access to a wide range of weapons and equipment, and some weaker enemies have jet packs. == Plot ==

Setting Duke Nukem 3D is set on Earth "sometime in the early 21st century". Full Metal Jacket, Jaws, Pulp Fiction, and They Live; the captured women saying "Kill me" is a reference to Aliens. Players will encounter corpses of famous characters such as Luke Skywalker, Indiana Jones, Snake Plissken, the protagonist of Doom, and a smashed T-800. In the first episode, players navigate a tunnel in the wall of a prison cell hidden behind a poster, just like in The Shawshank Redemption. During the second episode, players can see a Monolith (from 2001: A Space Odyssey) on the Moon and use it as a teleport to complete the level. Story There is little narrative in the game, only a brief text prelude located under "Help" in the Main Menu, and a few cutscenes after the completion of an episode. The game picks up right after the events of Duke Nukem II, with Duke returning to Earth in his space cruiser. As Duke descends on Los Angeles in hopes of taking a vacation, his ship is shot down by unknown hostiles. While sending a distress signal, Duke learns that aliens are attacking Los Angeles and have mutated the LAPD. With his vacation plans now ruined, Duke hits the "eject" button, and vows to do whatever it takes to stop the alien invasion. In "Episode One: L.A. Meltdown", Duke fights his way through a dystopian Los Angeles. At a strip club, he is captured by pig-cops, but escapes the alien-controlled penitentiary and tracks down the alien cruiser responsible for the invasion in the San Andreas Fault. Duke confronts and kills an Alien Battlelord in the final level. Duke discovers that the aliens were capturing women, and detonates the ship. Levels in this episode include a movie theater, a red-light district, a prison, and a nuclear-waste disposal facility. In "Episode Two: Lunar Apocalypse", Duke journeys to space, where he finds many of the captured women held in various incubators throughout space stations that had been conquered by the aliens. Duke reaches the alien mother ship on the Moon and kills an alien Overlord. As Duke inspects the ship's computer, it is revealed that the plot to capture women was merely a ruse to distract him. The aliens have already begun their attack on Earth. In "Episode Three: Shrapnel City", Duke battles the massive alien presence through Los Angeles once again, and kills the leader of the alien menace: the Cycloid Emperor. The game ends as Duke promises that after some "R&R", he will be "...ready for more action!", as an anonymous woman calls him back to bed. Levels in this episode include a sushi bar, a movie set, a subway, and a hotel. The story continues in the Atomic Edition. In "Episode Four: The Birth", it is revealed that the aliens used a captured woman to give birth to the Alien Queen, a creature which can quickly spawn deadly alien protector drones. Duke is dispatched back to Los Angeles to fight hordes of aliens, including the protector drones. Eventually, Duke finds the lair of the Alien Queen, and kills her, thus thwarting the alien plot. Levels in this episode include a fast-food restaurant ("Duke Burger"), a supermarket, a Disneyland parody called "Babe Land", a police station, the oil tanker Exxon Valdez, and Area 51. With the release of 20th Anniversary World Tour, the story progresses further. In "Episode Five: Alien World Order", Duke finds out that the aliens initiated a world-scale invasion, so he sets out to repel their attack on various countries. Duke proceeds to clear out aliens from Amsterdam, Moscow, London, San Francisco, Paris, the Giza pyramid complex, and Rome, with the final showdown with the returning alien threat taking place in Los Angeles, taking the game full circle. There, he defeats the Cycloid Incinerator, the current alien leader, stopping their threat for good. == Development ==

Duke Nukem 3D was developed on a budget of roughly $300,000. LameDuke is an early prototype of Duke Nukem 3D, which was released by 3D Realms as a "bonus" one year after the release of the official version. It has been released as is, with no support. LameDuke features four episodes: Mr. Caliber, Mission Cockroach, Suck Hole, and Hard Landing. Certain weapons were altered from the original versions and/or removed. The original official website was created by Jeffrey D. Erb and Mark Farish of Intersphere Communications Ltd. == Release ==

PC versions • Shareware Version: The shareware version, released on January 29, 1996, as version 1.0, contained only the first episode. This version uses 3D Realms's shareware distribution model, which means that it can be distributed for free. The shareware version was re-released as version 1.1 on February 20, 1996, and re-released once again as version 1.3D on April 24, 1996. • Full Version: Released on April 19, 1996, as version 1.3D. 3D Realms started shipping the full registered version to customers on May 5, 1996. and released on June 6, 1997, in Minneapolis, being shipped by MacSoft. As of 2020, it includes Duke It Out In D.C., ''Duke Caribbean: Life's a Beach, Duke: Nuclear Winter, Duke Nukem's Penthouse Paradise, Duke!ZONE and Duke!ZONE II. Since 2022, it also includes Duke - It's Zero Hour. As of 2024, ZOOM Platform is the only digital store where the Atomic Edition'' is available. Expansion packs • Nuke It: This is an expansion pack developed by Micro Star in 1996, consisting of 300 custom made levels. Although it was made with the Build Editor, Micro Star was countersued by FormGen and 3D Realms for copyright infringement for unauthorized sales of the pack. Ultimately Micro Star lost their case. • Duke It Out In D.C.: This is an authorized add-on developed by Sunstorm Interactive and published by WizardWorks; it was released in March 1997. President Bill Clinton is captured by alien forces, and Duke must save him. This expansion pack featured 10 new levels that were based on real-world locations, such as: the White House, the FBI headquarters, the Smithsonian museum, the Washington Monument, and other areas in Washington, D.C. The add-on was also included as part of an official compilation called Duke Nukem: Kill-A-Ton Collection through business deals with 3D Realms. Charlie Wiederhold created levels for this add-on. • '''''Duke Caribbean: Life's a Beach''''': This is an authorized add-on developed by Sunstorm Interactive and published by WizardWorks; it was released in January 1998. Duke is relaxing on a tropical island when he discovers that the aliens are having their own "vacation". This add-on includes a sunny Caribbean theme with 12 new levels that take place on beaches and vacation hotels. The add-on also reskins Duke's weapons with a summer theme, such as water guns. Charlie Wiederhold created several levels for this add-on. Wiederhold was later hired by 3D Realms to work on the sequel Duke Nukem Forever. • Duke: Nuclear Winter: This is an authorized add-on developed by Simply Silly Software and published by WizardWorks; it was released in January 1998. and in Europe on October 30, 1997. It retains the original name and uses Lobotomy Software's own fully 3D SlaveDriver engine. It contains all three original episodes, plus an exclusive fourth episode, ''Plug 'n' Pray, which includes six new levels and a secret level. The secret level was also included in the PC version of Duke Nukem 3D''. The new episode features several new enemies, including three new types of Pig Cops, and a new final boss, the CyberKeef. This version also features remixed music, some rearranged from the PC version, and some original, in streaming XA-Audio made by Mark Knight. port. Note its level design changes and that some sprites were replaced with polygonal models. • Duke Nukem 64 is a port released on November 14, 1997, for the Nintendo 64 and features a split screen 4-player mode. It was developed by Eurocom. In-game music was removed due to limited storage capacity, many items were renamed to avoid drug and sex references, and new lines of dialogue were recorded specifically for this version to remove profanity. Several levels were altered to include areas from the Atomic Edition, such as a Duke Burger outlet in the second level which was not in the original PC version. Levels are played sequentially instead of as separate episodes. Other changes include the addition of Rumble Pak support, • Duke Nukem 3D (Mega Drive/Genesis) was released in 1998 by Tec Toy. The visuals were drastically simplified, being closer to early shooters like Wolfenstein 3D. It consisted solely of Lunar Apocalypse, the second from the original game's three episodes, which was heavily modified to suit the game engine. This version was initially released in South America only. Soundtrack Lee Jackson's theme song "Grabbag" has elicited many covers and remixes over the years by both fans and professional musicians, including an officially sanctioned studio version by thrash metal band Megadeth. Another version of the song was recorded by Chris Kline in August 2005. 3D Realms featured it on the front page of their website and contracted with Kline to use it to promote their Xbox Live release of Duke Nukem 3D. == Sales ==

Duke Nukem 3D was a commercial hit, selling about 3.5 million copies. reported 1.25 million units sold of Duke Nukem 3D by December 2002. == Source ports ==

Following the release of the Doom source code in 1997, players wanted a similar source code release from 3D Realms. The last major game to make use of the Duke Nukem 3D source code was TNT Team's World War II GI in 1999. Its programmer, Matthew Saettler, obtained permission from 3D Realms to expand the gameplay enhancements done on WWII GI to Duke Nukem 3D. EDuke was a semi-official branch of Duke Nukem 3D that was released as a patch as Duke Nukem 3D v2.0 for Atomic Edition users on July 28, 2000. It included a demo mod made by several beta testers. It focused primarily on enhancing the CON scripting language in ways which allowed those modifying the game to do much more with the system than originally possible. Though a further version was planned, it never made it out of beta. It was eventually cancelled due to programmer time constraints. About a month after the release of the Duke Nukem 3D source code, Blood project manager Matt Saettler released the source code for both EDuke v2.0 and EDuke v2.1, the test version of which would have eventually become the next EDuke release, under the GPL. The source code to the Duke Nukem 3D v1.5 executable, which uses the Build engine, was released as free software under the GPL-2.0-or-later license on April 1, 2003. The game content remains under a proprietary license. The game was quickly ported by enthusiasts to modern operating systems. The first Duke Nukem 3D port was from icculus.org. It is a cross-platform project that allows the game to be played on AmigaOS, AmigaOS 4, AROS, BeOS, FreeBSD, Linux, Mac OS X, MorphOS, Solaris, and Windows rather than MS-DOS. The icculus.org codebase would later be used as the base for several other ports, including Duke3d_32. Another popular early project is Jonathon Fowler's JFDuke3D, which, in December 2003, received backing from the original author of Build, programmer Ken Silverman. Fowler, in cooperation with Silverman, released a new version of JFDuke3D using Polymost, an OpenGL-enhanced renderer for Build which allows hardware acceleration and 3D model support along with 32-bit color high resolution textures. Another project based on JFDuke3D called xDuke, unrelated to the xDuke project based on Duke3d_w32, runs on the Xbox. Silverman has since helped Fowler with a large portion of other engine work, including updating the network code, and helping to maintain various other aspects of the engine. Development was semi-active between 2005 and 2020; since then, new versions are regularly published. While a few short-lived MS-DOS-based EDuke projects emerged, it was not until the release of EDuke32, an extended version of Duke3D incorporating variants of both Fowler's Microsoft Windows JFDuke3D code, and Saettler's EDuke code, by one of 3D Realms' forum moderators in late 2004, that ''EDuke's scripting extensions received community focus. Among the various enhancements, support for advanced shader model 3.0 based graphics was added to EDuke32 during late 2008-early 2009. In June 2008, thanks to significant porting contributions from the DOSBox team, EDuke32 became the only Duke Nukem 3D'' source port to compile and run natively on 64-bit Linux systems without the use of a 32-bit compatibility environment. On April 1, 2009, an OpenGL Shader Model 3.0 renderer was revealed to have been developed for EDuke32, named Polymer to distinguish from Ken Silverman's Polymost. It allows for much more modern effects such as dynamic lighting and normal mapping. Although Polymer is fully functional, it is technically incomplete and unoptimized, and is still in development. As of the fifth installment of the High Resolution Pack, released in 2011, the Polymer renderer is mandatory. In 2011, another significant development of EDuke32 was the introduction of true room over room (TROR), where sectors can be placed over other sectors, and can be seen at the same time. In practice, this allows for true three-dimensional level design that was previously impossible, although the base engine is still 2D. On December 18, 2012, the Chocolate Duke Nukem 3D source port was released. Inspired by Chocolate Doom, the primary goal was to refactor the code so developers could easily read and learn from it, as well as make it portable. In February 2013, a source code review article was published that described the internal working of the code. == Reception ==

All versions of the game have earned a positive aggregate score on GameRankings and Metacritic. The original release on MS-DOS holds an aggregate score of 89% on GameRankings and a score of 89/100 on Metacritic. The Saturn version also received generally positive reviews, with critics particularly praising the use of real-world settings for the levels However, some complained at the limitations of this version's multiplayer. Dan Hsu of Electronic Gaming Monthly said it was unfortunate that it supports only two players instead of four, GamePro opined that the censoring of sexual content from the port stripped the game of all uniqueness, but the vast majority of critics held that the censorship, though unfortunate, was not extensive enough to eliminate or even reduce Duke's distinctive personality. Both also complained that the control configuration only provides three presets, with no option for custom configuration. The editors of PC Game ranked it as the 12th top game of all time in 2001 citing the game's humor and pop-culture references, and as the 15th best games of all time in 2005. GamePro included it among the most important video games of all time. In 2009, IGN's Cam Shea ranked it as the ninth top 10 Xbox Live Arcade game, stating that it was as fun as it was in its initial release, and praised the ability to rewind to any point before the player died. Controversy Duke Nukem 3D was attacked by some critics, who alleged that it promoted pornography and murder. In response to the criticism encountered, censored versions of the game were released in certain countries in order to avoid it being banned altogether. A similar censored version was carried at Wal-Mart retail stores in the United States. In Australia, the game was originally refused classification on release. 3D Realms repackaged the game with the parental lock feature permanently enabled, although a patch available on the 3D Realms website allowed the user to revert the game back into its uncensored U.S. version. The OFLC then attempted to have the game pulled from the shelves, but it was discovered that the distributor had notified them of this fact and the rating could not be surrendered; six months later, the game was reclassified and released uncensored with an MA15+ rating. In Germany, the BPjM placed the game on their "List B" ("List of Media Harmful to Young People") of videos games, thus prohibiting its advertisement in the public. However, it was not fully confiscated, meaning that an adult could still request to see the game and buy it. In 1999, Duke Nukem 3D was banned in Brazil, along with Doom and several other first-person shooters, after a rampage in and around a movie theater was supposedly inspired by the first level in the game. Despite such concerns from critics, legislators, and publishers, Scott Miller later recounted that 3D Realms saw very little negative feedback to the game's controversial elements from actual gamers or their parents. He pointed out that Duke Nukem 3D was appropriately rated "M" and had no real nudity, and speculated that that was enough to make it inoffensive to the general public. ==Notes==