Even though people have pointed out pretty much everything that had to be said, here's my thoughts on all of this:
Duke Nukem 3D got all the attention because it was simply the BEST game at the time when it came out (and it still is one of the best, it's also my favorite game of all time). There was no other game at that time that had a large interactive world with a lot of cool features (powered by the BUILD engine!), a talking protagonist, a lot of pop culture references, the erotic elements and so on. It was a step in the right direction from the Doom clones at that time, although there were some other good games around that time but nothing felt as fresh and new as Duke3D. Of course Quake came out later in same year with its 3D technology but even if Quake was a good game on its own, I still preferred the interactivity, the humor and the charm that Duke3D had.
Since there was a recent topic created about LameDuke, it makes me wonder what would have happened if 3D Realms decided to polish LameDuke and release it as Duke3D? Would Duke3D have been as big as the final release of the game? Of course not. I don't think it would be too different to differentiate from the Doom clones at the time, so I'm glad 3D Realms went with the changes to make it more unique. I know I should probably make a new topic to talk about that.
To answer why Duke3D is more known compared to the rest BUILD engines at the time is simply because it came at the perfect time and the others came at a much later time when people already moved on to the games with their 3D graphics.
Blood and Shadow Warrior are both underrated games. Even though I still haven't played Blood so far (the only version of Blood I played so far was the alpha version that was included on a CD with games, which back then wouldn't even run and it wasn't until a few years ago when I played it for first time and discovered it's a totally different version than I expected), it's something I'm looking forward to play soon when I have some free time as recently I managed to get an original CD copy of One Unit Whole Blood in sealed condition from eBay (only the Jewel Case). I heard mostly positive things about Blood (aside from the really high difficulty the game has), so I'm positive I will enjoy the game as I'm pretty good at all these classic FPS games. I will probably start with the third (default) difficulty for first playthrough, considering I want my first playthrough of the game to be done in DOSBox and then maybe I can do on higher difficulty with the recently released NBlood source port.
Shadow Warrior I have played first time a couple of years ago and while I enjoyed the game, the level design isn't as good as Duke3D. Some levels are ok but others are kinda meh and I get bored pretty easily. Although I finished the main game once on Who Wants Wang, I have also finished its expansion Twin Dragon but again once and one of the levels was bugged and didn't end, so I had to warp to next level with sword and it was painful until I recollected my weapons. I will play Wanton Destruction as soon as I'm finishing with the main game on No Pain No Gain but the laptop controls made it quite annoying to play (as I play the original version in DOSBox with keyboard controls) and I managed to reach level 6 and stopped there as I lost interest. Mind you, I haven't played it since last summer.
![:D](https://forums.duke4.net/public/style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif)
Maybe I would get more interest in the game if we would finally get a proper source port and then maybe it would get more mappers interested in the game too.
In the end both Blood and SW are good games that I'd highly recommend playing (in case of Blood, judging from the videos/reviews I have watched on YouTube) but they just weren't as good or as popular as Duke3D.
Now for Redneck Rampage...
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As to the original question, as others have pointed out - Duke did it first and Duke did it the best. Shadow Warrior and Blood were too late to the party, came across as "Duke clones" (which they sort of are), and their themes were more niche than Duke's. Redneck Rampage was just a terrible game from the start and did better than it deserved.
Pretty much this! I know I ranted quite a bit about RR before in two different topics (after having played through main game, addon and sequel) but it AMAZES me how did this piece of shit of a game become so popular! I have looked on YouTube on reviews of the game and even user reviews and surprisingly, a LOT of people appear to enjoy the game but I'm sure back then a lot of reviewers gave the game a low score, while these days some people are wearing the nostalgia goggles and drooling over the game, ignoring ALL the issues that the game had. Seriously the game had so many issues that felt like a poor Duke3d clone or some sub-par game but even then somehow the game sold so well that it warranted an expansion AND a sequel (although to be honest the sequel improved the game a lot but it still felt shitty)! Meanwhile SW didn't even have the expansions released in stores and even then only Twin Dragon was released initially as a free download in 1998, followed later by Wanton Destruction (initially thought to be lost) also released as freeware in 2005 and I'm positive Deadly Kiss will be released one day. I know I may be exaggerating a bit but to me it just felt like a poor game, maybe not one of the worst games ever but it sure doesn't compare with the Big Three Build games!
Now back on topic and focusing on Duke3D.
Unfortunately after DNF was released, a lot of people in mainstream media started disliking Duke Nukem and think negatively whenever they hear the name Duke Nukem. The thing that pisses me off the most isn't that DNF was a poorly received game that killed Duke as a character (personally I think it was a MEDIOCRE game, not the worst from what I played but I agree it harmed the character and the series) but what pisses me off is that nowadays a lot of gamers when they play or just think at Duke3D, they say it's outdated and that it hasn't aged well (in my opinion it AGED fantastically, much like the classic Doom games) and whatever other insults they give to shit on the game and character just because of DNF that destroyed Duke's reputation. I know someone posted around the forums something similar in past few years (I can't find the topic anymore where was this posted) but basically what I'm saying is that since when DNF was released, it changed the way people perceive the series, even the classic Duke3D, like how it was shown/proved when Duke3D World Tour was released in 2016, many people had mixed views on the game and kept saying that Duke as a character isn't relevant anymore and that he should stay dead. I'm sorry if I couldn't explain what I meant exactly but I tried my best.
EDIT: Minor spelling fixes.