Retro gaming can be a double-edged sword at times. I can't count the number of times I've popped in an old NES game only to realize the game that I loved so much as a child has not aged well and is painful to play now 20 years later. Once the feeling of nostalgia wears off, all you're left with is an inferior game that simply isn't enjoyable to play. Duke Nukem 3D was and still is a fantastic game, even 17 years later. I think I may even appreciate it more now that I'm older than I did when I was a tween.
For the past five years or so, the first person shooter market has been dominated by modern military shooters. Duke Nukem 3D is a first person shooter of an entirely different breed. Gone are the linear level designs and scripted action sequences, Duke Nukem 3D was innovative nearly 2 decades ago for its open and interactive level design. These levels still hold up today, with numerous paths you can take and levels littered with secret areas hidden behind cracked walls and access panels. You can interact with nearly everything in a level, from buttons, light switches, pool tables, strippers and even urinals. This encourages players to explore every inch of a level. Surprisingly, for a game this old, it's a breath of fresh air from the majority of shooters on the market today.
At its core, Duke Nukem 3D focuses on its fast and frantic game play You won't have to pick and choose what weapons you want to bring with you, you can bring them all! You'll need them too since the gameplay can be brutally hard and unforgiving. Duke Nukem is a bad-ass and you'll need to play like one if you hope to survive to the end of the level. All the weapons in the game are a lot of fun to use, from your standard pistol and shotgun to the more outrageous freezethrower that freezes enemies in their tracks and allows you to kick them into pieces. My favorite weapon is the shrink ray, which can shrink even the most difficult enemies and allows you to squish them under your boot.
The game play and level design in Duke Nukem 3D have held up well over the years, but the graphics definitely look a bit dated. The 3D in the title is a misnomer, since the game actually employs 2D sprite graphics to emulate a 3D environment. This is blatantly obvious when you look at objects from above, and the enemies and objects appear to be cardboard cutouts. The graphics have been touched up slightly and the game runs well on modern PC's in HD, but the original art assets in the game have remained the same for the most part.
Duke Nukem 3D Megaton Edition is the definitive version of the game. The main campaign is split up into 4 episodes, with each episode containing multiple levels. Also bundled with the main campaign are the three expansion packs: Duke It Out in DC, Duke: Nuclear Winter, and Duke Caribbean: Life's a Beach. There is a lot of content to be played here, with each episode taking an hour or two to complete, more if you want to be thorough and find all the secret areas or if you're not a wimp like me and played on a harder difficulty.
Final Score: 8/10
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