By Alec Meer on February 26th, 2009 at 5:41 pm.
It’s always fun to hear about what new retro sweetmeat has found its way to Good Old Games‘ DRM-free servers – to sigh and think of times gone by, to think of how silly our hair was in 1995 and to wonder whether the Manic Street Preachers would be any good today if Richie hadn’t gone missing.
Today, it’s the turn of Duke Nukem 3D, along with a host of other old Apogee stuff. It’s almost odd to think of people paying hard cash for Duke 3D these days – so many FPSes of that era simply haven’t aged as well as their less graphics-reliant strategy, RPG and adventure contemporaries. Of course, Duke earned some 21st century stripes last year, with the well-received XBLA port, so it’s nice to see him back on his original home too.
D3D was one of those games that personally passed me by entirely – I spent a few years without a decent gaming PC, years which encompassed this. So I have no strong feelings about it whatsoever. I know full well what it is and its place in PC history, but it’s more like a museum piece to me. I played it through a few years after its release, and it seemed too crude in both technology and wit for my snooty liking. Yet I’ve got friends for whom it’s an essential part of their growing-up, one they’ll forever be as fond of as I am of X-COM or Doom 2. I’m too far on from it to ever be able to appreciate their enthusiasm, which I find curiously saddening. What about you lot? Regardless of that nasty Duke Nukem Forever business, is Duke a figure of legend for you?
26/02/2009 at 17:49 Freelancepolice says:
I loved duke :*(
26/02/2009 at 17:52 rob says:
Blake Stone! Rise of the Triad!! My surrogate parents are on GoG!
26/02/2009 at 17:52 Piispa says:
It’s time to kick ass and chew bubblegum.. and I’m all outta gum!
26/02/2009 at 17:58 Cian says:
This is probably heresy, but the Duke eclipsed Doom II in my eight year old mind. Perhaps it was already having his posturing machismo imprinted at an even more tender age by the platform game. Or maybe I just really loved jetpacks.
26/02/2009 at 18:05 Xercies says:
I remember Duke Nukhum 3D as this mysterious game that i was never allowed to play so in my mind its the best game ever made. I don’t want to play it to find out though it might really dissapoint me.
I spent my childhood playing Quake 2 myself.
26/02/2009 at 18:06 BooleanBob says:
Duke taught me what the other kids at school were learning from their older brothers, FHM and their dads’ porn stashes. Namely, what women carried under their tops. It was also the first media-carried message I was exposed to that painted the police in a negative light. In addition, it was the first videogame I played to feature swearing, drugs and gibbing; my first exposure to a red light district, simulated or real. It felt like a hot package of sin beamed directly into my brain. It was crass, yes. Almost horribly so (the ‘mercy-killing’ of female captives was physically sickening – I’ve never known why 3DR felt that was necessary). But at the same time, this was a game pitched at adults, not kids. At the stage of my life when I had one foot in either camp, it was a significant part of my wider transgressions into adolescence, along with heavy metal, staying out late, being mardy to my folks, underage drinking and furtive investigation into internet pornography (dial-up speeds ensuring that every jpeg was worth its filesize in gold).
So yeah, Duke was very much a figure of legend to me. He was two kinds of exotic other – an invincible, gun-toting Saturday morning action figure of childish fantasy and a symbol of all this crazy stuff adults didn’t want you to know about – wanted to keep to (and for) themselves. And – crucially – it was a damn fun game as well.
Although for a few months I did carry around some strange misconceptions about the anatomical status of nipple tassels as a combinate result of the low-res character sprites and Apogee’s belated, gestural self-censoring.
26/02/2009 at 18:08 Og says:
Has anyone bought this ? Can it be played from the get go with proper mouse control ? I remember ages ago fiddling to hell with trying to get it to work and it was near impossible.
26/02/2009 at 18:14 MetalCircus says:
I used to go to a friends house just to play Duke. Couldn’t give a toss about him, I was just using him to play some duke!
Duke 3D is awesome. Play Duke 3D you pussies!
26/02/2009 at 18:23 cyrenic says:
Still holding out that we’ll get to see the old LucasArts games on GoG. We’d get the adventure games and the space sims, a veritable holy grail of old school gaming.
26/02/2009 at 18:30 Chandrose says:
@Og
The way I understand GoG’s mantra, they do all that dicking around for you. So while I haven’t tried it myself, I doubt they would put it on the site if you had to fiddle with it.
I missed Duke3D on the PC, I didn’t get a taste until the watered down Nintendo 64 ‘PG’ version came out a few years later. Although I don’t think I’ll ever forget shrinking and proceeding to mushify my friends under my size 12 Duke boots in multi-player, the single-player doesn’t seem to have left many memories. Except for those pig-cops, pig-cops were awesome.
26/02/2009 at 18:45 Patrick says:
@Og and @Chandrose
I am a huge fan of GoG and have purchased many games off of their website. They do take much of the fiddling out of the equation but not all of it. They modify the install package so that it will install to an XP/Vista machine. They do not guarantee that it will work at modern resolutions or with modern conveniences like a mouse.
Several games I bought of GoG I have fiddled with for instance Fallout and Fallout 2 I installed the High Res mods and Freespace 2 the open source upgrades. The good news is that GoG has a very robust community and someone else is probably wrestling with the same problem as you. For instance look at the link below (your exact question is asked). Eventually someone else usually comes up with a (relatively) easy way to fix it.
http://www.gog.com/en/forum/duke_nukem_series/__/1235673472/
26/02/2009 at 18:59 Theory says:
If you’re running Vista with UAC, you’ll need to run the program as an admin. There’s an option for it in the compatibility tab.
What I want to know is why they aren’t shipping it with EDuke and the High Resolution Pack.
26/02/2009 at 19:05 Chis says:
I remember enjoying Duke at the time, but Blood was and is far superior. More creative and consistent level design, and more enjoyable weaponry and sense of humour. Kicking heads around and blowing stuff up with TNT STILL makes me curl up, the sheer cheesiness of the screams and graphics. The mad monks chattering away, muttering vaguely pythonesque taunts. I hope it makes its way to GoG soon, too. (Perhaps also Shadow Warrior?)
26/02/2009 at 19:12 catska says:
Does this have all the upgrades that the Xbox Live Arcade release of Duke3d had some months back?
26/02/2009 at 19:22 Gexecuter says:
@catska
unfortunately the game doesn’t have any of the Xbox live arcade improvements since it’s the original version.
26/02/2009 at 19:24 Scandalon says:
Never got to D3D until it was too late. Besides, Doom/Doom2 were so much better. :P Chis is right though, Blood was great fun, esp. in multiplayer. “It burns! It burns!”
26/02/2009 at 19:29 toni says:
yes, it’s part of my “childhood” in gaming.
learned some good profanity to round out my english language skills and enjoyed blasting pigs and using the jetpack the most. with the duke HighDef Pack the game doesn’t even look THAT bad. it may be a crude piece of entertainment but it gives you all you need an more (scuba gear, jetpack, pipebombs, holoduke), which cannot be said of some current games.
26/02/2009 at 19:33 N says:
Not to mention Caleb pwnd Duke…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5P47lVeGncY
26/02/2009 at 19:48 Mil says:
Misogyny? As far as I remember, all the monsters you shoot appear to be male (or sexless).
26/02/2009 at 19:52 Alex says:
What are you, some kind of bottom dwelling, scum sucking algae eater?
26/02/2009 at 20:20 Igor Hardy says:
I had a lot of fun with Duke, although I still keep preferring Doom. Other bitmapy 3D shooters I am really fond of are Outlaws and Dark Forces.
On the other hand I never could get into Blood or Redneck Rampage and Shadow Warrior was fun for a while, but became boring fast.
26/02/2009 at 20:25 Nuyan says:
Never even completed the first level to be honest. Couldn’t get the version I had to run when I was young.
I did play around with the Duke a lot in Death Rally though. I totally loved that game.
26/02/2009 at 20:37 Still annoyed says:
I bought it. You can use mouselook, but it’s pretty primitive. Still, fun game, and playing it again made me realize how cool the level design really is. The levels are surprisingly well made, better than in many new shooters.
26/02/2009 at 20:42 Tei says:
@N
hehe.. on youtube theres a video of the doom marine killing duke, duke killing the doom marine, cale killing the doom marine, and the doom marine having a affair with a imp in a tropical island (?).
people is crazy
26/02/2009 at 20:46 Bidermaier says:
I have discovered than pressing “U” actives the mouse aim mode, so it works like a normal shooter. With that and a bit of remaping work the game should work pretty much like a modern FPS.
26/02/2009 at 20:50 Frankie The Patrician[PF] says:
guess I will buy D3D for the third time, as I have never played the expansion :)
26/02/2009 at 20:55 wyrmsine says:
I remember the multiplayer being fantastic. The pipebombs, shrink-gun and holoduke contributed to a shocking level of deviousness missing from everything else I could LAN at the time.
26/02/2009 at 21:07 Noc says:
I was very little when I played this, so a great portion of the adultly themes sailed blissfully over my fuzzy little head.
On the other hand, I was impressed and astounded by the fact that the game’s environments looked like real places, when my only previous exposure to 3D spaces in games had been the vague brown corridors of Doom and Quake.
26/02/2009 at 21:11 karthik says:
I played this about the same time I played Blood and Hexen (and this obscure little FPS called Chasm, I think)- and I was too young to play any of them. This was before I knew the Internet existed, and my only remaining memory of Duke3D is that it was a very hard game, more so than Blood.
And the shrink gun. More games need shrink guns. Dark Messiah is the only game in the past few years that incorporated a shrink gun(spell).
26/02/2009 at 21:22 Big D says:
I was 16 when dude was out, it was the game that made me a PC Gamer and to this day I still am and I don’t own a console system! I’m a PC PURE BLOOD! :)
Duke just blew me away, I really want DNF to be great, but i fear for it…
26/02/2009 at 21:22 ChaosSmurf says:
What nasty Duke Nukem Forever business?! It’s coming this year, haven’t you heard?!
26/02/2009 at 21:23 Big D says:
DUKE rather! :P
26/02/2009 at 21:29 ascagnel says:
DN3D is still awesome, but nothing beats The Duke List: http://duke.a-13.net/
Fun fact:
26/02/2009 at 21:38 MrFake says:
Even as a kid I was fond of the level design. At the time, I had been playing Doom 2 non-stop, and actually shooting things up in what looked and felt almost like a real place was more fun than blood, gore, and nipples (combined? no that’s not fun at all). Quake came soon after, and it failed in my eyes just because of the poor design. That era in gaming needed something like D3D to temper the FPS craze, though it certainly did not age well, maybe because of its focus on design and not playability.
The irreverence did make multiplayer so much more … quote-worthy, especially for us teenagers. Other than that, multiplayer was easily superseded by Quake.
Aw, fudgenutters, I see Noc said the same thing I did. Ah well, Opinion away!
26/02/2009 at 21:47 Optimaximal says:
Chasm will fondly be remembered as the first true 3D FPS that out did Quake on performance for me… You could also blow the limbs of creatures.
The rest of the game was wank :D
26/02/2009 at 22:26 qrter says:
Even as a kid I thought Duke Nukem was unfunny.
26/02/2009 at 22:39 Funky Badger says:
Duke was great – up there with Tie-Fighter (well, just behind Tie-Fighter). Also, greatest cut-scene evah: “I’m ganna rip off your head and shi…”
26/02/2009 at 23:12 Nick says:
I enjoyed the sort of real world level design of a lot of it.. the weapons were mostly fun, it had some interactive scenery, mirrors (clever trick ones, but still) and a level building engine I could actually use. I loved it.
26/02/2009 at 23:20 bhlaab says:
I don’t know if the GOG version will work, but google the eDuke source port for mouse control, graphics overhaul, etc etc
26/02/2009 at 23:52 Wedge says:
Yeah, I do hope Blood gets released over this eventually, though I think the source code is lost or something, so might not work out to well. Blood is by far the best Build engine game and I’d say still stands up to a lot of FPS games today. The dynamics and destruction in the level design are something youl’d be hard pressed to find in any games these days…
27/02/2009 at 00:13 redrain85 says:
@bhlaab:
You just need to copy the .GRP (map/asset) files from the GOG release over to eDuke32, add the Hi-Res and Duke Plus mods to it, and you’ll have the best version of Duke 3D: that looks a lot more up to date and adds new features. (Check out the before and after shots.)
Yeah, it’s a bit of work to put it all together. But it’s worth it. And I’m sure that, soon enough, someone will create some kind of tool to automate adding the updates to the GOG release.
27/02/2009 at 01:03 wcaypahwat says:
Is it the fully uncensored version, though?
I have fond memories of trawling the net for the adults only access code on a very, very slow modem :)
Oh, my hair in 95? I was rockin a flat top
27/02/2009 at 01:21 El Stevo says:
My memories of Duke centre around going round to a friend’s to play it using his flight stick. I have no idea why he used a flight stick. I was young, and it had swearing and boobies.
Then years later I bought it for the Saturn so I could play Death Tank Zwei.
27/02/2009 at 04:18 Spanish Technophobe says:
Still holding out hope that one day GOG will release the Thief series. That series was near and dear to me after only one play.
27/02/2009 at 04:56 Max says:
Duke 3D is one of the best FPSes ever. Hopefully 3D Realms knows what they did right and incorporates that into DNF. The map design was incredible, the weapons were unique, and the game had tons of little secrets and interactions that were amazing when you discovered them for the first time.
27/02/2009 at 05:23 Mr_Day, Pioneer of Yawning Indignity of Man says:
I still believe Duke Nukem Forever to be an elaborate hoax to see how long we will wait for a game to be released.
Just look at the title. Forever! Clue is in the name, eh?
Massive agreement about Thief series on GoG. In fact, might just go vote for it now.
27/02/2009 at 07:52 Inglorion says:
The first game I ever bought for my first PC, and I believe the first game I paid for myself.
27/02/2009 at 07:56 Balerion says:
Doom was great, loved it, but that’t it. It was a great game. Duke Nukem 3D was more than that, it was full of win and awesome.
As for Duke himself: Best character in gaming history. Period.
For me, Duke Nukem 3D is more than just a game. :P
27/02/2009 at 08:40 Pavel says:
Duke was awesome.I will never forget when I first played it on my dad’s computer, he had his repro system outside (for parties) connected to the computer inside (where I was playing), so when I was shooting with a pistol or that awesome machinegun, realworld pedestrians were scared and ran away : )).
Yeah, Duke was awesome, theme song perfect, other songs cool too, his “COME GET SOME” too.Loved it.
27/02/2009 at 08:51 Irish Al says:
Install the hi-res pack, and JonoF’s OpenGL engine which makes it proper 3D, and this is *still* a load of fun to play through.
http://www.jonof.id.au/index.php?p=jfduke3d
27/02/2009 at 08:54 randomnine says:
I loved it back in the day, until Quake came out. I was twelve.
I tried it again a few months ago and it left me cold. “Old fashioned misogyny” just about sums it up – it’s insultingly crude, really. Still, the range of weapons and the realistic environments were nice for when it came out.
27/02/2009 at 08:54 Hmm-hmm. says:
I remember having a blast playing Duke Nukem. Wasn’t too into the whole ‘cool Duke is cool’ thing, but fun, yeah.
Can’t remember when or how I got my hands on it, strangely enough.
27/02/2009 at 08:56 Phillipa Kettle says:
This game is LEGENDARY, and I’m so glad GoG have picked it up to introduke (sorry) to a new audience.
While Doom reveled in slick shooty action, it could be a touch…sterile. Duke reminded us that shooters could still be made with tons of personality, humour and fun. The first level still ranks as one of the best game openings ever put together by human beings – by the time you’ve played through that you are in no doubt about who Duke is and what type of game you’re playing.
If you’ve never tried this I URGE you, IMPLORE you to pick up this slice of gaming history: you won’t regret it. I’m only sad that I don’t have time to revisit this tonight as my GF is coming over! (But then again, do I really need a girlfriend….?)
27/02/2009 at 09:01 Nny says:
Now bring Blood out, please.
27/02/2009 at 09:04 Phillipa Kettle says:
Hmm, GoG’ve got Rise of the Triad on the way, too…while not quite as good as The Duke I seem to recall having some fun times with that as well. :)
27/02/2009 at 09:14 Ian says:
Gotta love some Duke.
“It’s time to kick ass and chew bubble gum” etc.
27/02/2009 at 09:22 Bobsy says:
I loved Quake. Quake was utterly lovely. But coming to Duke3D AFTER playing Quake it was…. just as good. What impressed me most at the time was that a previous generation 2.5D game like Duke could hold its own against TEH FUTURE. So yeah, a lorra lorra fun.
27/02/2009 at 09:24 Schmung says:
My enduring memory of Duke3D is of about six of us crowded around the PC in schools computer room that I had managed to install it on and the baying mob behind me imploring me to kick everything to death and make the girls get their titties out. I think I was about 13 at the time.
Bizzarely though, I never finished the full game. I was far, far more interested in rumours I’d read about this game ‘Quake’ and spent more time with other build engine games like Shadow Warrior and ROTT when they came out that I ever did with D3D.
27/02/2009 at 10:07 Malgate says:
I like the fact that it’s taken longer to develop Duke Nukem Forever than it took for the creation of the first nuclear weapons. If they can recapture what made Duke 3D so good, then they might have a chance.
One of the best things I enjoyed about Duke 3D was some of the expansions. I think it was Atomic edition where there was a level based around Mission Impossible, where you had to go through an air vent, past the laser trip bombs, then hover in front of the computer terminal with the jet pack. Fun stuff, I especially liked some of the space station levels too, and of course that one time where you find the San Andreas fault… more of that kind of thing please.
27/02/2009 at 10:21 Corvus says:
Duke 3D takes me back to a time when I used to love visiting my cousin, as he had one of these new-fangled computer thingies my technophobe parents still hadn’t got round to buying yet. Bouts of Duke and Quake were common (I think my first encounter with the shambler is going to be etched on my consciousness forever).
Recently, however, I bought the Live Arcade version of Duke, and realized that the humour hasn’t dated well – it’s definitely something aimed squarely at horny teenagers. It’s still fairly fun to play though – I think I could just do without the mercy killings.
27/02/2009 at 10:32 Corvus says:
@Malgate
Did you get that from this site by any chance?
http://duke.a-13.net/
I was amused that the entire career of The Beatles, from forming to splitting up, actually took less time.
27/02/2009 at 12:03 Malgate says:
@Corvus, yes I did, because ascagnel posted a link to that very site further up the thread. It’s easy to forget that there were still a whole bunch of other duke games being released in that time, heck I’ve even played and iirc finished one of them on the N64. ’twas a weird 3rd person affair with time travelling and less misogyny, wasn’t half bad actually.
27/02/2009 at 12:20 Jerricho says:
XCOM, DoomII and Duke3D. Ah, such happy times. I recently bought the ID package on STEAM when it was on super sale. .. and also XCOM actually.
I first met Duke on a magazine demo-disc and was amazed by the graphics. So clean and crisp. I got the full game as a Christmas present which led to many MANY hours playing with the Build engine.
@ BooleanBob
“(the ‘mercy-killing’ of female captives was physically sickening – I’ve never known why 3DR felt that was necessary)”
It WAS an 18s rated game, also it was a nod to ‘ALIENS’ with the women saying “please kill me.” Not that it made it any less disturbing.
27/02/2009 at 12:44 Nick says:
The Atomic Edition levels were great.. the theme park one was my favourite.
27/02/2009 at 12:48 Syneval says:
I never cared much for Duke. Even my testosterone-addled teenage brain understood it was much too crass and vapid to be worth anything. It really isn’t, you know … the whole game falls apart 1/3rd of the way through anyway.
Realms of the Haunting, now THAT was a creepy shooter. Pity almost no-one played it.
27/02/2009 at 13:49 aoanla says:
I never played Duke3D when it came out, having an Amiga and all. Even when I got a PC (sometime in 1997), I played Doom and Quake, but never even really noticed that Duke3D had ever existed.
So, my first (and only) encounter with it was playing multiplayer deathmatch in it in 1999 – one of the computers involved was in a cardboard box, the original case having been lost or something, and wasn’t capable of playing anything more demanding… After having played through Half-Life the previous year, I suspect I wasn’t primed to consider it an awesome peak in PC gaming.
27/02/2009 at 18:14 Matt says:
Duke Nukem 3D is probably the watermark of all my teenage PC gaming, particularly for the level design and, yes, the titties. The Atomic Pack continued the “real world” theme that made it great into marvellous new territory – the supermarket level sticks in my head as well.
@Malgate: That was Duke Nukem Zero Hour, which was pretty accomplished in its way. A lot of atmosphere throughout, which is no small thing.
Sadly, after all this time, DNF will clearly be rubbish. Ho hum.