Duke Nukem 3D

[JaySevenZero]

Here's where you can contribute your thoughts and opinions for Duke Nukem 3D for potential inclusion in the forthcoming podcast.

A friendly reminder that where the feedback for the podcast is concerned, we love it - but keeping it brief is appreciated. We do want to include a breadth of opinions where appropriate, but no-one wants a discussion podcast that’s mostly reading out essays. Better to save yourself time and cut to the chase if you can.

[Billy]

In 1998 I was 11 and one of the few people I knew who owned a Sega Saturn. Game releases were drying up by then for the Saturn and my Dad brought me to Curry's to see what selection they had to offer. I desperately wanted to get Sega Worldwide Soccer 98 but my Dad, seeing the £45 price tag, suggested Duke Nukem 3D sitting at the much more reasonable £25.

I had seen the marketing and read the stellar review in the Official Sega Saturn Magazine (by Digital Foundry's Rich Leadbetter no less) but seeing my football game fade away I panicked and used the nuclear button. "But Dad that's an 18 and it's filled with blood and swearing and strippers!" He couldn't really say anything and reluctantly he picked up SWWS '98 and we made our way to the checkout. The irony was not lost on me years later when I tried to convince my parents to buy me GTA3.

I don't regret my choice but playing Duke Nukem 3D years later, I realised that the Saturn port by Lobotomy was actually rather good and I would have been very happy to have played it back then. It used the same Slave Driver engine as their previous title Exhumed which was excellent and later, the quite remarkable Saturn port of Quake. Sure the game had its technical limitations but the framerate was somehow higher than the PlayStation port and you could even use the 3D Nights controller. Definitely worth a look for Saturn collectors today as you can still find it relatively cheaply and it is testament to a team that understood how to get the best out of a challenging console.

[psychohype]

Oh, the memories of discovering Duke Nukem 3D with my friends back in the day. My friends from church, I might add.

I was barely a teenager at the time. Games like Wolfenstein and DOOM were already controversial for their gory violence and demonic themes. Duke 3D was something else. It had violence AND sex ... well, sort of. Before I saw the game with my own eyes, I remember someone describing to me how you could go into a strip club, hand a woman money, and have her flash her you-know-whats at you. It sounded implausible. Strippers in a video game? No way. I eventually found myself playing the game at a friend’s house—this was the pastor’s kid—and, sure enough, it was real thing you could do. That and a bunch of other silly, pointless interactions.

As impressionable teens and pre-teens, we probably had no business playing Duke 3D, and if our parents knew about the content of the game, it likely would have resulted in an awkward conversation or two. That and a lot more oversight into the rest of the games we were playing.

It’s silly, of course, to think of those pixellated strippers and interactive bathroom urinals as ever being edgy. The easy joke is that it’s hard to call a game like Duke 3D “mature” when it’s all so juvenile—not to mention misogynistic, albeit cartoonishly so.

I’m sure Duke Nukem 3D was and is a great game in many respects. I admit I still get a bit of enjoyment at hearing Duke’s gruff voice belting out his silly one-liners. Laying waste to some mutated L.A.P.D. pigs. Beyond the crude humor, I remember the game being somewhat unique for adding an element of vertically to its levels, sometimes through the use of the jet pack item. It was really among the first FPS games that managed to achieve a sense of verisimilitude with levels that felt like real places with real-life objects in them.

While the game was mostly just a novelty for me, my friend (the pastor’s kid) got seriously addicted to the game for a stretch and put in a lot of time playing competitively online. Unfortunately, as with so many of the pioneering first-person shooters from that era, I rarely ever played Duke Nukem 3D without activating the invincibility cheats. I actually hope to go back to the game someday and give it a legitimate play through attempt.

[Steve Arran]

Duke Nukem 3D is one of those games which I know I owned but can remember absolutely nothing about; except this one thing.
I bought it in the year 2000 together with a friend whilst spending a summer down at his house in Bedfordshire when I was 15 years old. We pooled our resources and headed into town, hoping that we would have enough for a new game- any game- as our Super Bomber Man marathons on my mates chipped PlayStation were wearing thin after nearly two weeks. When we saw that Duke Nukem was on sale neither of us were particularly excited by it, my friend considering it to be an inferior doom clone, and myself completely ambivalent. However, the fact that the game was an 18, and we weren’t legally old enough to play it, lent it an almost irresistible allure. Resolved, I took it up to the counter, handed it to the clerk and kept my fingers crossed that he wouldn’t pay too much attention to the obvious immaturity of this lanky, acne covered beanpole before him. It was all going great, he rang it in, took the money, popped it in the bag and then.... ‘oh’ he said, ‘this games an 18, have you got any ID?’ Crestfallen, I stood there alone for what seemed like an age, my friend having mysteriously vanished. I didn’t even say anything, just hoped that my hangdog look would convince him to turn a blind eye. However, he didn’t, and I left the store with our cash in hand, somewhat deflated over a game I didn’t even really want. Fortunately my mates dad was kind enough to pick it up for us the next day- and I assume we played it, though I honestly can’t remember a thing about it, and I certainly don’t still own the original disc. It’s funny the allure of having something that your not supposed to have holds over you. Maybe it’s time to to give it another whirl after listening to this podcast

[Magical_Isopod]

I definitely missed out on the Duke zeitgeist when it was new and exciting... I first played it around 2008 after finding a disc-only used copy of the Atomic Edition in a bargain bin for $0.99. It's quite an impressive shooter for its time from a technical perspective - it feels super smooth to play, and the Build Engine was absolutely a godsend to bedroom game developers in the mid-90s. But I never really found the game as a whole all that fun to play compared to the likes of Doom and Heretic... And that's not for lack of trying, certainly. But this is definitely one where the theming and aesthetic just don't jive with me too well.

Three Word Review:
BALLS OF STEEL

[Jobobonobo]

My first and only experience of Duke was that awful demo of Duke Nukem Forever which I can't even remember why but I just remember hating it. But despite that dodgy record with the character I still really liked this episode. The discussion on the outdated humour reminded me of this great video where the voice actor of Duke, Jon St. John read out tweets from the Duke Nukem Quotes twitter page and honestly some of these were fantastic. I think if they are to bring this character back this is the level of absurdity they should aim for.



This discussion about how to revive a character that is so of its era reminded me of Conker's Bad Fur Day. For its time it's raunchy humour was very subversive considering it was a cute 3D platformer so fighting a giant pile of shit was definitely pushing boundaries in a way. But now that games are more than capable of telling mature and complex stories dealing with dark topics such as mental illness and sexual abuse, would a sequel to this classic be able to get by on the same humour or would it have to shift its tone to make an impact today? Might be the reason Rare does not seem to be so interested in making a return to the series.

Also this episode was a bit more sweary than usual, is shite not considered a swear word by the C and R team? Not complaining, just was actually surprised to hear it.

[ratsoalbion]

The occasional 'shite' just pushes a show into 'PG' territory rather than 'Explicit'.

[Magical_Isopod]

In Canada, shite isn't even a swear word - it's like "darn," you say it in place of the spicier word. A British colloquialism for cigarette is also deeply offensive here, regardless of context (although I reckon that's changing across the pond too). Language is a complicated game.

If you want a fun Canadian way to tell someone you're going out for a smoke, tell them you're "hackin' a dart," I've always loved one for some reason. And you should quit smoking, it's not good for you!

[Jobobonobo]

Shite is quite mild in the grand scheme of things, still was a bit of a shock to hear it on the podcast though! Considering the subject matter in this episode, you can afford to be a bit more risque I guess.