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Could it be said that Duked 3D is overall a 10/10 game?

User is offline   pacman 

#1

I mean just put it in a 1997 context.. the levels, textures, music, sound, .. it was so immersive, even more than modern games somehow in my book. It was a proper fps, always surprised on every level and made me want to reach the next level to see what was next. The enemy design was also very nice and every enemy was very recognizable and had personality. The Battlelord was insanely scary back then specially as you went deeper into The Abyss reaching the spaceship, that gave me nightmares. It had sense of going deeper into something big and mysterious on that level, it was awesome and so impressive how they reached that level of immersive experience with such limited technology back then, and without endless cutscenes and dialogs.

Even if it came out today as a retro style game it would be a killer. I wouldn't really add or get rid of anything so it makes me think this is a 10/10 game. Maybe the only complains I have is that the ambient sounds were a bit glitched sometimes, making that characteristic click noise when you went in and out of the radius of the sound. Other than that I don't remember noticing any mistakes.

I just wish we got a proper 3 new episodes with new enemies too (actual new enemies like the protector drones and the queen in Atomic, and not like the firefly which is some strange looking thing that felt rushed to me just like some of the levels.

This post has been edited by pacman: 08 November 2018 - 08:38 PM

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User is offline   Ninety-Six 

#2

I am, of course, heavily biased so take this post with a grain of salt:


Yeah, in my opinion, it's about as good as a game can get. The biggest flaw I used to have with the game was kinda pointed out to me recently to not actually be a flaw at all. I mean, there's no such thing as "perfection" and there are still problems, but, at least for me, they are extremely minor and can be ignored in most cases.


I like it more than Doom because it addresses one of its biggest flaws: no random damage. Damage values are set for the most part. Plus the vertical and slightly more realistic level design (but not so realistic it stops being fun) gives it another edge over Doom I feel.
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User is offline   oasiz 

  • Dr. Effector

#3

It was far from perfect I think. It did many things right but few of the levels ended up being just filler, especially some in EP3. Platforming mechanics were quite bad too and some enemies like drones really had bad use, and weapon/enemy balancing was a bit off at times. Still in my top 5 as the game did so many things right to stand on it's own despite it's flaws.

It's a great game still, but calling it 10/10, I would say that nostalgia blinds a bit :rolleyes:
Note that 10/10 game in my eyes is a perfect / near perfect game.
I consider a 6-7 / 10 still "better than average" and 4-5 / 10 around average/ok or below
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User is offline   NNC 

#4

It will forever be my favourite FPS game, sorry Shelly.

The weapon arsenal is great, much more balanced than in Doom IMHO. Every weapon except for the Tripbomb has it's rock-paper-shotgun type of use.
The leveldesign is topnotch, particularly Allen's maps, which are probably my favourite maps in any game (like Hollywood Holocaust, Death Row, Toxic Dump, Spaceport, Fusion Station, Dark Side, Freeway, Duke Burger, Derelict, Mirage Barrage, Golden Carnage)... Levelord had his moments too (The Abyss, LA Rumble, Flood Zone, Sewer)
The texturing and sounds are also topnotch even today despite their low resolution. Since the game doesn't have a gimmicky theme, it's great for modding as well, that's why the community is still alive after 20 years. The Build is such a versatile engine with incredible potential, it never ceases to amaze me.

What should have been better:

Monster AI is so-so. The alarming system is poor compared to Doom for example. The lack of infighting also hurt the gameplay's depth and variety a bit, although it requires a different playstyle, so I don't know if it was actually bad.
They also made a mistake of not using some more variety of mid-tier enemies. Overlord and Cycloid with Commander rockets and like 800 HP would have added some extra depth in the beastiary.
Some levels were cut to half or dumbed down due to framerate issues, others like Raw Meat, Movie Set, Fahrenheit, XXX Stacy or most boss and secret maps are rushed late additions. They are still better than most random game's leveldesign of the era, but there are some quality differences through maps. Also, E1 is the only episode which felt like an adventure. The rest are map collections IMHO.

The biggest problem is however is that developers and IP owners from George through Scott to Randy have always been douches, and never supported the game after release. No bigger bugfixes, no extra stuff like finishing up the voxels, releasing the betas. They don' care about th community at all. Even guys like Allen never showed up here. The game and IP would be in much better shape today with less mean spirited devs and owners honestly. Lee Jackson deserves huge credit for being a great man and caring about the community, also his work is still top quality as shown in WT.

This post has been edited by Nancsi: 09 November 2018 - 12:21 AM

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User is online   Lunick 

#5

No perfect game lets you get crushed by doors... :rolleyes:
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User is offline   OpenMaw 

  • Judge Mental

#6

For sheer volume of fun and time spent with it?

Yeah. It is. But it's a "warts and all" ten out of ten. It's like a family member.
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User is offline   pacman 

#7

View PostNancsi, on 09 November 2018 - 12:19 AM, said:

It will forever be my favourite FPS game, sorry Shelly.

The weapon arsenal is great, much more balanced than in Doom IMHO. Every weapon except for the Tripbomb has it's rock-paper-shotgun type of use.
The leveldesign is topnotch, particularly Allen's maps, which are probably my favourite maps in any game (like Hollywood Holocaust, Death Row, Toxic Dump, Spaceport, Fusion Station, Dark Side, Freeway, Duke Burger, Derelict, Mirage Barrage, Golden Carnage)... Levelord had his moments too (The Abyss, LA Rumble, Flood Zone, Sewer)
The texturing and sounds are also topnotch even today despite their low resolution. Since the game doesn't have a gimmicky theme, it's great for modding as well, that's why the community is still alive after 20 years. The Build is such a versatile engine with incredible potential, it never ceases to amaze me.

What should have been better:

Monster AI is so-so. The alarming system is poor compared to Doom for example. The lack of infighting also hurt the gameplay's depth and variety a bit, although it requires a different playstyle, so I don't know if it was actually bad.
They also made a mistake of not using some more variety of mid-tier enemies. Overlord and Cycloid with Commander rockets and like 800 HP would have added some extra depth in the beastiary.
Some levels were cut to half or dumbed down due to framerate issues, others like Raw Meat, Movie Set, Fahrenheit, XXX Stacy or most boss and secret maps are rushed late additions. They are still better than most random game's leveldesign of the era, but there are some quality differences through maps. Also, E1 is the only episode which felt like an adventure. The rest are map collections IMHO.

The biggest problem is however is that developers and IP owners from George through Scott to Randy have always been douches, and never supported the game after release. No bigger bugfixes, no extra stuff like finishing up the voxels, releasing the betas. They don' care about th community at all. Even guys like Allen never showed up here. The game and IP would be in much better shape today with less mean spirited devs and owners honestly. Lee Jackson deserves huge credit for being a great man and caring about the community, also his work is still top quality as shown in WT.


Yeah im probably biased by nostalgia. Now that you mention it, AI was pretty poor, the boss fights were cool back then when I was a noob but right now I realize it's pretty limited, just circling around the guy and shooting. It's so easy to kill the Cyclops that it's insulting, just blast devastator on it. The Battlelord fight at least you had a small minigame of taking cover in that ramp thing in the middle of the room and shooting there and changing sides. But to be fair even today enemy AI is pretty poor.

But all things considered it feels close to 10/10 if they could have polished some rought edges before release.

Too bad it has turned out like this and not like Doom which has a huge community and tons of new maps. I have a hard time finding new maps to play for DN3D unfortunately. We don't even have proper multiplayer decades after which is insane and has hurt the game so much. We have a bunch of idiots in charge of the IP as you said. Just imagine if we had proper multiplayer and script system like ACS/Zscript for Doom, possibilities would be endless.
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User is offline   NNC 

#8

The biggest joke is: the bossfight in The Abyss is by far the hardest of all 4 in the game. No Devastator, and you're facing a hitscan juggernaught. Second hardest is The Queen, then the other 3 are all jokes. The "episode5boss" doesn't even deserve to get a fail rating.

Too bad the nerfed Overlord and Cycloid didn't made into the game. One with fast projectiles, the other with spreading projectiles, like the Arachnotrons or Mancubi in Doom.
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User is offline   NNC 

#9

As for the new maps, we shouldn't forget that Ion Maiden (semi Duke) will be released next year, and maybe the update of the great DNF 2013 mod will see the light of day soon as well. Also AMC TC is in the making, and Alien Armageddon had been released recently. The era of standalone usermaps seem to be over sadly.

This post has been edited by Nancsi: 09 November 2018 - 04:45 AM

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User is offline   pacman 

#10

View PostNancsi, on 09 November 2018 - 04:39 AM, said:

The biggest joke is: the bossfight in The Abyss is by far the hardest of all 4 in the game. No Devastator, and you're facing a hitscan juggernaught. Second hardest is The Queen, then the other 3 are all jokes. The "episode5boss" doesn't even deserve to get a fail rating.

Too bad the nerfed Overlord and Cycloid didn't made into the game. One with fast projectiles, the other with spreading projectiles, like the Arachnotrons or Mancubi in Doom.


Im not really into nerfing bosses, it makes them less special. It's cooler if they only spawn at the end. They should have made a couple new enemies for episode 3 since I think by the time you finished episode 2 you already saw all enemies except.

I cant believe how good the new enemies in atomic were, the design is great both the protector drones and queen, yet years later we get a firefly blurred out glitching think and a red cycloid. They really don't deserve to own the Duke IP.
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User is offline   Aristotle Gumball 

  • banned!

#11

All of my favorite games are from the 90s and none of them I'd consider to be 10/10 when viewed through the lens of modern game design, but in proper historical context I think Duke 3D is pretty damn close. I sure enjoyed it way more than Quake back in the day.
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User is offline   Hank 

#12

I appreciate Duke, because it came with the Build editor; to date, the easiest editor I ever worked with.
As for Duke 3D being a 10/10 game, at a Duke Forums? LOL - It's up to you, not me. :rolleyes:
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User is offline   Micky C 

  • Honored Donor

#13

View Postpacman, on 08 November 2018 - 08:32 PM, said:

Even if it came out today as a retro style game it would be a killer.


This comment in particular has some nostalgia goggles going on. Many areas of the level design are just plain empty by today's standard (first example to mind is the outdoor street area in HH, with just one dumpster and an out-of-place box).

A retro shooter in Duke style would have to have levels more along the lines of Ion Maiden. Not necessarily as super-detailed, but certainly approaching that standard. A lot of retro games should really be aiming for what we "feel" the games looked like at the time, and IM certainly achieves that. As you say, at the time Duke 3D had relatively detailed levels, and in the 90's context it scores very highly. As a retro shooter today, the details would have to be better. Then again, since maps like the original levels could be churned out quite quickly (a few days each), potentially such a game released today could work if it were on the cheaper side of the spectrum.
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#14

View Postpacman, on 08 November 2018 - 08:32 PM, said:

The Battlelord was insanely scary back then.



That fucker still scaring me nowdays too, hidden in some dark corners and starts to scream in your face , between the bosses/minibosses i think is the most complete.
On the N64 version the grenade launcher was bugged against him, indeed the grenades won't reach him properly, and i thought was a skill of that bastard related to "Its deafening roar splits the air (and then the grenades as well)" :rolleyes:.


View Postoasiz, on 08 November 2018 - 10:58 PM, said:

It was far from perfect I think. It did many things right but few of the levels ended up being just filler, especially some in EP3. Platforming mechanics were quite bad too



We can talk for long time about the EP3 and its bugs, train/platforms/cells/doors etc... that will kill the player so easly, i realized after the first time that certain things are stronger than Duke, but a door?

The arsenal is surely nice aswell as the maps in both Pc and N64 versions, i still dream about a mod that will merge items, weapons and ammo togheter, the Dum Dums bullets are something of ridicoulous about the amount of damage.
I mainly like the city maps, but i don't hate EP2 maps for this.

The only thing that i can add is that the game may be not a 10/10, but for its era it was surely impressive, counting also that patches and update were impossible, the games were tested as much as possible before being released.

Looks like that what does matter now is just graphics and slow paced games with detailed plot, every 5 mins of gamplay you get a 10 mins of bla bla bla, DAMN if you warn me before, i will go to the cinema to watch a Sci-fi movie that is made on purpose for this!
Give me some tits and hot arses at least... what? The game need to be a PEGI 18 for this content? AAAAW

P.S: Edited many times because of a weird "<br> <br>" codes that was messing everything Posted Image

This post has been edited by The Battlelord: 10 November 2018 - 01:18 AM

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User is offline   Danukem 

  • Duke Plus Developer

#15

I would judge Duke 3D in comparison with other 3D shooters of its era. I think I would give it a 9 out of 10, but maybe that's a little generous.

I didn't get Duke 3D until the Atomic Edition and I was playing Doom 2 and Marathon 2 at that time (Quake did not interest me). I remember Duke not running as well as Doom or Marathon, but that was to be expected since it was newer. Duke was a better game in terms of immersion. Doom 2 had more replayability and Marathon 2 had better story. Duke had the most detailed world, the most interactivity, and a kickass protagonist with a personality that the other games lacked. Gameplay was solid -- better than Marathon but not quite as good as Doom. The boss battles in Duke were disappointing, and level design was somewhat inconsistent -- it ranged between amazing and average. The user made content kept me coming back to Duke, though. I got bored of Doom 2 WADs while I kept playing Duke maps, because the BUILD engine is just better.
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User is offline   axl 

#16

I don't think I would ever call a game "perfect". Nonetheless, I would rate Duke Nukem 3D along with Doom, Blood and Street Fighter 2 Turbo as my favorite games of all time.

Duke Nukem 3D is in many ways almost perfect. But as already mentioned by some others, it has its share of flaws: some levels in episode 3 feel rushed and the boss fights are way too easy. But the same can be said of Doom: level design in episode 2 and 3 is less good than in episode 1 and the Spider Mastermind is also way too easy. Moreover the starting pistol in Doom is quite useless.

But I'm nitpicking here. Duke Nukem 3D is, although a bit flawed sometimes, a timeless classic and one of the best games I have ever played.

This post has been edited by axl: 10 November 2018 - 05:31 AM

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User is offline   necroslut 

#17

Probably. Not 100/100, but 10/10. It's still in my view the best FPS ever made. There are others which surpass Duke 3D in one or some aspects - like Doom, Sin or Half-Life - but I haven't played one that surpasses it as a complete package. Doom in particular is often brought up as "more perfect", and while this might be true it's also a considerably simpler game so that's a lower bar to reach.

There are some big flaws - the simplistic AI makes some features that are awsome in multiplayer (HoloDuke, Tripbombs, shooting out lights) almost useless in singleplayer. Weapon balance is great in that every gun has its use, but ammo capacities seems like an afterthought when the single-hit-kill shrinker carries as much as the lowly shotgun. There are some movement glitches such as straferunning that make multiplayer jerkier than it should be.
Also the game doesn't really know if it's made for auto-aim or not. Without auto-aim smaller enemies like the turrets and slimers become a nuisance to hit, but with it on you can't prioritize enemies properly and utilizing explosive barrels effectively often becomes impossible. Vertical targeting is pretty wonky overall. Then there's of course the matter of not being able to look fully up or down.

Many of these are just signs of the times, or related to technological limitations, but still harm the game. Still, even today, I don't think it's been truly surpassed - which is a shame.

View PostMicky C, on 09 November 2018 - 09:22 PM, said:

This comment in particular has some nostalgia goggles going on. Many areas of the level design are just plain empty by today's standard (first example to mind is the outdoor street area in HH, with just one dumpster and an out-of-place box).

A retro shooter in Duke style would have to have levels more along the lines of Ion Maiden. Not necessarily as super-detailed, but certainly approaching that standard. A lot of retro games should really be aiming for what we "feel" the games looked like at the time, and IM certainly achieves that. As you say, at the time Duke 3D had relatively detailed levels, and in the 90's context it scores very highly. As a retro shooter today, the details would have to be better. Then again, since maps like the original levels could be churned out quite quickly (a few days each), potentially such a game released today could work if it were on the cheaper side of the spectrum.

Ion Maiden plays quite differently from Duke, I'm not sure its levels or level of detail would have worked with Duke's gameplay. Adding details can add to immersion, but can easily harm playability in the process. This is especially true for fast games, or games that rely a lot on exploration. Duke kinda does both.
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User is offline   NNC 

#18

View Postpacman, on 09 November 2018 - 10:40 AM, said:

Im not really into nerfing bosses, it makes them less special. It's cooler if they only spawn at the end. They should have made a couple new enemies for episode 3 since I think by the time you finished episode 2 you already saw all enemies except.

I cant believe how good the new enemies in atomic were, the design is great both the protector drones and queen, yet years later we get a firefly blurred out glitching think and a red cycloid. They really don't deserve to own the Duke IP.


Episode 3 barely introduced anything. The lowly shark, and the boss. Nothing else, and no new weapons. No new sound effect apart from the Born to be wild music, no new girl types, very little new texturing and other art, no new sector effectors etc etc. The whole thing felt like a rushed afterthought. I still believe the original concept was to have a space station for episode 2, and moonbase for episode 3.
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User is offline   NNC 

#19

View PostMicky C, on 09 November 2018 - 09:22 PM, said:

This comment in particular has some nostalgia goggles going on. Many areas of the level design are just plain empty by today's standard (first example to mind is the outdoor street area in HH, with just one dumpster and an out-of-place box).

A retro shooter in Duke style would have to have levels more along the lines of Ion Maiden. Not necessarily as super-detailed, but certainly approaching that standard. A lot of retro games should really be aiming for what we "feel" the games looked like at the time, and IM certainly achieves that. As you say, at the time Duke 3D had relatively detailed levels, and in the 90's context it scores very highly. As a retro shooter today, the details would have to be better. Then again, since maps like the original levels could be churned out quite quickly (a few days each), potentially such a game released today could work if it were on the cheaper side of the spectrum.


I think the space levels don't need any further details by today's standards. Fusion Station, Lunar Reactor, Dark Side look good even today. Also, levels like Derelict looks insanely well detailed and realistic (and complex) by today's standards, except maybe the underwater sea section with those walls.

Levels that aged the worst are the city levels IMHO. But HH somehow still looks interesting and fresh despite beling simplified for FPS issues. Also Duke Burger looks surprisingly good by today's standards.
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User is offline   ReaperAA 

#20

Duke 3D is easily a 9/10 for me, even if i am strict.

But its not a 10/10, why?
Because it has some bugs and balance issues like:
- door can kill u
- weird platforming feels/ jump physics
- OP shrinker ray which shrinks/kills Battlelord sentry in one hit (which is supposed to be the most threatening non-boss enemy)
- Ep4 shrinking aliens which can f*ck u up even if u r at 199 health/100 armor
- Ep1 boss is the hardest boss in the game.
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User is offline   OpenMaw 

  • Judge Mental

#21

View Postnecroslut, on 10 November 2018 - 07:16 AM, said:

Ion Maiden plays quite differently from Duke, I'm not sure its levels or level of detail would have worked with Duke's gameplay. Adding details can add to immersion, but can easily harm playability in the process. This is especially true for fast games, or games that rely a lot on exploration. Duke kinda does both.


It's the big trick when making games now with lot's of detail: readability. It's very important to be able to easily read what everything is at a glance. The more detail you add, the more you have to work to make that happen.

It's something Hugo and Marty talked about when showing off Doom Eternal. It's why they brought back some of the more classic-y looking designs. They read much easier even at a distance. You know that blue circle thing is a health vial even from across a big room.
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User is offline   necroslut 

#22

View PostCommando Nukem, on 17 November 2018 - 11:32 AM, said:

It's the big trick when making games now with lot's of detail: readability. It's very important to be able to easily read what everything is at a glance. The more detail you add, the more you have to work to make that happen.

It's something Hugo and Marty talked about when showing off Doom Eternal. It's why they brought back some of the more classic-y looking designs. They read much easier even at a distance. You know that blue circle thing is a health vial even from across a big room.

Which is why "photo-realism" is a dead end for action games. Because no matter how hard you work, there's still such a thing as "too much detail".
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