Duke Nukem 3D at 30: The Loudmouth Shooter That Helped Shape the FPS Genre – Green Man Gaming Blog

Blog | Editorial

If id Software program’s DOOM is usually thought to be the ‘godfather’ of the first-individual shooter style, then Duke Nukem 3D should certainly be its wayward, beer-consuming, loudmouth, blond-headed stepchild. With numerous P.I.G. cops wasted, innumerable wisecracks delivered, and sufficient gooey gibs to fill a small continent since its unique launch in 1996, it’s now, on its thirtieth anniversary, that we take a step again in time to look at how Duke Nukem 3D revolutionised the first-individual shooter style.

Construct It, And They Shall Come Get Some

Though the Construct engine made its debut only a few months earlier with the a lot-underrated and oft-forgotten first-individual melee fantasy effort Witchaven, it was arguably with 3D Realms’ Duke Nukem 3D that this outstanding piece of recreation-engineering arcana achieved sustained international fame. Merely put, the Construct engine represented an outsized technical leap over the DOOM engine that preceded it. Introduced into being by the gifted Ken Silverman, the Construct engine not solely enabled way more dynamic maps and environments – the place rooms might seemingly be stacked atop each other – but additionally allowed gamers to swim via deep expanses of water, soar via the air, and luxuriate in an exhilarating sense of verticality that DOOM might solely dream of.

This, in flip, gave Duke Nukem 3D’s stage designers fertile floor upon which to dream up tremendously intricate and expansive ranges for gamers to discover and blast their approach via. Additional afield, the Construct engine was additionally notably person-pleasant, permitting aspiring stage designers to assemble their very own maps shortly and simply, share them inside the neighborhood, and lengthen the lifespan of Duke Nukem 3D’s adventures even additional.

Interactivity On An Unprecedented Stage That Made Each Map Really feel Genuine

Past its technical improvements, the Construct engine additionally endowed Duke Nukem 3D with a stage of interactivity the style merely had not witnessed as much as that time. Lengthy earlier than EA’s Battlefield franchise ever demolished its first wall or diminished its first constructing to rubble, Duke Nukem 3D was already doing so years earlier. Gamers might blow holes in the sides of buildings, shatter inside partitions, smash furnishings into splinters, and sometimes set off explosions that may raze total buildings to the floor.

The defining properties of the Construct engine weren’t restricted solely to destruction, both. In Duke Nukem 3D, each map was practical in ways in which have been completely new to style followers at the time. There have been totally usable pool tables, CCTV terminals that could possibly be snooped on, working mild switches, and bathrooms that could possibly be flushed – or promptly destroyed and drunkenly imbibed from to regain well being. In one other technical first, the recreation additionally featured correctly practical mirrors that precisely mirrored the participant. And sure, dancers could possibly be tipped with greenback payments as nicely.

Along with these components, Duke Nukem 3D’s many ranges have been grounded by a definite sense of place. Supermarkets, strip golf equipment, burger joints, and metropolis streets all served as battlegrounds in opposition to the encroaching alien menace intent on enslaving humanity. These areas have been a refreshing change from the oppressive warehouse greys and limitless browns and reds that typified a lot of id Software program’s personal output at the time.

An Outlandish Hero With An Outlandish Arsenal To Match

Whereas shooter followers had hardly grown uninterested in the conventional lineup of pistols, shotguns, chainsaws, rocket launchers, and miniguns supplied by earlier style entries, Duke Nukem 3D nonetheless went all-in on a bespoke arsenal of weaponry. It straddled the acquainted (pistols, shotguns, pipe bombs, and machine weapons) with the unique, together with shrink rays, freeze rays, expander rays, and laser journey bombs. The end result was an arsenal that made every new acquisition really feel like a real thrill from one stage to the subsequent.

These weapons additionally enabled Duke Nukem 3D to introduce a stage of tactical play in its multiplayer mode that the style had scarcely seen earlier than. Somewhat than everybody merely dashing for the rocket launcher or shotgun, as was widespread in multiplayer shooters of the period, crafty gamers might fortify areas with laser journey bombs and make use of the new stock system. This allowed them to spice up themselves with pace-enhancing steroids, strap on a jetpack, or deploy a ‘Holoduke’ to create a decoy model of Duke to distract enemies.

The Final Motion Hero – How Duke Nukem 3D Gave The FPS Genre A Persona

Maybe greater than anything, Duke Nukem 3D will probably be remembered for giving the first-individual shooter style one thing it desperately wanted in its adolescence: character. Breaking away utterly from the mute protagonists that had dominated shooters till then, Duke Nukem 3D featured a essential character who merely by no means stopped speaking. Dropped at life by the gravelly but gloriously over-the-top supply of Jon St. John, our blond-haired, impossibly buff, all-American motion hero took goal at every little thing – and everybody.

The recreation’s endlessly quotable protagonist additionally took playful potshots at id Software program itself. These included nods to the developer’s previous – “One other DOOMed house marine” upon discovering a mangled corpse – and its future, with the immortal “I ain’t afraid of no Quake!” uttered as an earthquake levelled a complete constructing. Although pointedly, whereas id Software program’s Quake would certainly usher in a totally 3D period for the style, it could be greater than a decade earlier than Duke Nukem adopted go well with.

The Aftermath And The Surprisingly Nice Copycats That Would Comply with

Between the launch of Duke Nukem 3D and the sadly risible Duke Nukem Without end, a few years later, 3D Realms’ marquee shooter would go on to straight encourage a number of different video games. These titles not solely leveraged the Construct engine but additionally launched their very own wisecracking protagonists who thrived in distinctive settings. From Blood, the macabre but darkly humorous cultist revenge shooter, to the outrageous antics of Shadow Warrior and its eye-rollingly named company ninja anti-hero Lo-Wang, Duke Nukem 3D didn’t merely encourage a wave of copycats. It reminded gamers and builders alike that the first-individual shooter style couldn’t meaningfully evolve with out the character and charisma wanted to push it to the subsequent stage.

John-Paul Jones

Scribbling about videogames since 2005, John-Paul Jones first stoked his love for the business with the Atari 65XE at the age of 4 earlier than continuing onto the ZX Spectrum, Amiga and past. Nowadays, he finds himself unreasonably enthusiastic about Sega’s Yakuza franchise, overseas cinema and usually making an attempt to maintain his trio of sausage canine from burning his home down. Clearly, he’s residing his greatest life proper now.