in the mid-90s. I played it
so much that I completely ignored its Nintendo 64 port. Why would I need to play
the game on my 64, when I already had
for my PC? I
still remember nearly every room in the PC version of the game...and it's under
those circumstances that I now play through and review
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Look, ma, no computer!
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Duke Nukem 3D is a first-person shooter in the vein of
Doom. The titular protagonist runs around a 3D environment, full of 2D animated
evil aliens. In addition to the bad guys, weapon and item pickups, as well
as several other environmental objects are 2D sprites.
Duke Nukem 64
turns a few things from sprites to polygons, so things are a little less
pixelated than the PC version, but the textures are also blurrier than most
PC versions, and the environments feel less detailed. As far as graphic
effects, there aren't say, true lighting effects, but there are some fun tricks
to fake them. There's also the trademarked Nintendo censoring, which cuts out
all of the nudity, and turns down the game's overall horniness.
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I said "turns down" NOT "turns off"
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Horniness? Yes, Duke Nukem is a unique product of the 90's, and
features a macho protagonist who loves babes, beer, and blowing holes in
alien monsters. The basic story here is that aliens have invaded Earth and
kidnapped babes, and Duke has to save Earth and the babes. Earth in this
case mostly looks like a seedy, dystopian 80's/90's urban area, full of porn
shops (changed here to gun stores), flaming dumpsters, grimy back alleys,
and dirty skyscrapers. Teenage me ate this up, and while Nintendo has
sanitized the nudity out of Duke Nukem, there are still scantily clad
ladies, and TV and movie screens featuring gyrating, barely dressed women.
There just aren't any bare boobs. Whether this is a good or a bad thing
entirely depends on the player's taste, though several other omissions are
less subjective.
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Don't worry, you can still blast aliens right off the toilet
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For instance, to keep the game running smoothly, and to save space,
there is no music in
Duke Nukem 64, outside of the game's start menu.
The only sounds are weapons blasting away, monsters growling either to
intimidate or in pain, Duke letting out a snarky one-liner, and some
environmental effects. The cool cutscenes between stages are also heavily
pared down and mostly come in the form of text and still screens. Duke still
has his deep, cool guy voice, spouting off a lot of Bruce Campbell's best
lines, though all of the profanity has been eliminated. However, there are
some changes here that might actually be in
Duke Nukem 64's favor.
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Like curvaceous beaches...
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For one, there are some new weapons here that take the place of a few
from the PC version, and it's tough to argue these new weapons aren't
upgrades. The just okay "Ripper" is replaced by a truly awesome pair of
submachine guns (which became my go-to weapon). The cool freeze gun is
replaced by a massive plasma cannon that may actually be even cooler, but
harder to make a pun out of. There's also a very awesome grenade launcher,
heat-seeking missiles, and secondary ammo for certain guns, like explosive
shotgun rounds, which may be the only poor addition, as you can't switch
back to regular old shotgun rounds when you have them, and they have a
tendency to blow you up at short range.
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Your mom has a tendency to blow up at short range...
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Overall, though, I think
DN64 may actually have the best weapon
assortment of any version of the game. The entire arsenal, from a pistol to
a rocket launcher to a shrink ray, is too massive to entirely list here. The
weapons are even redesigned for the 64 and actually look better than their
PC counterparts. Also, even though the sex and language have been toned
down, the violence has not. Blood still spurts from foes as you blast them,
splatters on the wall, and you can still destroy flammable objects, turn
lights off and on, hit the balls on a pool table, flush the toilet...
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Your mom flushes the toilet...
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As much as I've talked about differences, the actual core gameplay
here is the same, and flawlessly carried over from the PC version. You've
got 30 fairly sprawling, well-designed levels here, including several secret
ones, and all of them, even the secret ones, are full of secrets! The player
moves through them from a first person perspective, blasting everything in
sight, blowing holes through walls, solving rudimentary puzzles, saving
babes (the game's parlance), collecting and using key cards, and utilizing
items like your jetpack, scuba gear, and night vision goggles, at whatever difficulty level the player selects. During
combat, the player most benefits by staying on the move, which is quite easy in this
version, which incorporates the classic "Turok" controls, i.e. moving
forward, backward, and left-to-right with the C-buttons, and then using the
joystick to aim (though the game generally auto-aims if you point in vaguely
the right area), fine-tune your direction, and look up and down(you can also
change the controls to suit your preference).
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My best advice for playing this game: point at whatever is ugly
and shoot
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It is also quite easy to keep moving because the game, thanks to the
aforementioned music omission, moves at a rapid clip. There's rarely any
slowdown here (it takes a lot of explosions on screen to make the game
stutter, and they are animated in greater detail here than in the PC
version, and now include after-explosion smoke, which isn't found in the PC
version, either). Duke can absolutely fly around these levels. For as much
as many first-person shooters from this era feature framerate issues,
Duke Nukem 64 is a standout, smooth-running game. There's not even
any of the trademarked Nintendo 64 fog. You can see for miles.
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It's so clear, you can see all the way to Uranus
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Eh, this movie sucks
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Overall, while I'm biased toward the original PC version,
Duke Nukem 64 puts up a hell of a fight. While it's missing some of
the PC version's production bells and whistles, more envelope-pushing
content, and in-game music, most of the game's character is intact, and
its gameplay, which is served by some new and improved weapons, stands
toe-to-toe with that of the original. Saving to a controller pak might not
be as convenient as saving on a PC, but you do get a lot of save slots, so
that you can return to your favorite levels whenever you want. The
important thing is, this gameplay is still fun today. Even as technology
has progressed far past what's on display here, basic 3D level design was
perfected in the 90's. Games like Doom (whose Nintendo 64 iteration
I like a bit better than this) and Duke Nukem 3D are still fun
because the level design and basic gameplay still hold together. I enjoy
Duke Nukem 64 not only as a blast from the past, but as a basic
display of game design competency.
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There's a reason just looking at this game's opening screen,
like the first one in Super Mario Bros. or
The Legend of Zelda, brings a wave of nostalgia
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Sure, the standout feature of the Duke Nukem series in the 90's was
its risqué content. The PC version also contains more levels than this
one...though this version is still 15-20 hours long. The game's character
still comes through in this version, and while the lack of music might be
a mortal sin, and I gravely miss the original cutscenes, the new weapons
will likely make
Duke Nukem 64 the preferred way to play for those
who experienced it first. Anyway, who wants to deal with finding a version
that works on your PC in the modern age, when you can just plug in your
Nintendo 64, put in the cartridge, and play? I mean really, the Nintendo
64 controller's trigger button is still, to the this day, the most
enjoyable way to blast bad guys anyway.
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So uh...with uh...the bad guys in this level chanting "suck it
down!" at you, 15-year-old me just figured that the woman in this giant looping video, whose face is conveniently blocked off
under her nose, is...performing fellatio on someone. I've never
heard anyone else say this before, and 40-year-old me thought
that if Nintendo let this stay in and I saw it now, I would
think 15-year-old me was just being overdramatic...but it
definitely looks like this woman is performing fellatio on
someone.
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Oh, wait...did I fail to mention the multiplayer?
Duke Nukem 64, like most Nintendo 64 first-person shooters,
contains a deathmatch multiplayer mode and a co-op mode for the main
mission as well. The deathmatch is nothing to write home about, as the
environments look bewildering that way, and it's tough to find each other,
even when bots are added. While the co-op mode does limit your field of
view a bit, I actually think it is pretty cool, and it runs surprisingly
well. Either way...you're playing this for the single player mode first.
The multiplayer is lagniappe. You can just pretend like the previous
paragraph was the final one. Hey, uh, I mean really, the Nintendo 64
controller's trigger button is still, to the this day, the most enjoyable
way to blast bad guys anyway.
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| Duke Nukem 64 forever! Also, this is the only version with a fully polygonal final boss! |
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