[Arkonite]

I'm new to this game and wondering what does people consider as the most complete way to play Duke Nukem?

[MusicallyInspired]

The only legal way at the moment is to play the 20th anniversary World Tour rerelease. The standalone DOS version used to be available but Gearbox removed it when they obtained full rights to the franchise and back catalogue. It still hasn't reappeared on GOG even though they said "Duke Nukem will return..." sigh

[Phredreeke]

I like playing with the voxel pack and Fox's skyboxes...

[RunningDuke]

I personally recommend looking for the Kill-a-Ton collection on eBay, if you are looking for owning a physical copy of the game. It is the most complete collection, giving you Duke Nukem 1, 2, 3D (both versions 1.3D and 1.5), Duke It Out In D.C., Duke Xtreme and Duke Zone II. It doesn't include Duke Caribbean, Duke Nuclear Winter and the first Duke Zone but the simple fact that you can obtain BOTH versions of Duke3D (meaning you can run all maps and mods!) just by getting the first CD means that it is definitely worth getting this collection!

Notes:
-There are 3 CDs in this collection, the first CD includes the main games, the second CD is only in the US edition and is sort of an interactive guide and the third CD includes the addons. The UK release only contains the first and third CDs, omitting the interactive guide entirely.
-Not all Duke Nukem 3D Kill-a-Ton listings on eBay include the 3 CDs, so make sure you look at pictures and read the description carefully.

Now for the digital versions, there used to be the GOG version (included Duke3D Atomic 1.5), Megaton Edition (included Duke3D Atomic 1.5, Duke DC, Caribbean, Nuclear Winter, all running in OpenGL port based off JFDuke3D, with Atomic running in DOSBox as bonus) and currently the only version available to buy is 20th anniversary World Tour. I recommend waiting for a sale if you want to get the 20th anniversary World Tour edition.

EDIT: If you are referring to what is considered the best way to play Duke3D, then that is with the EDuke32 source port, which is compatible with all versions of the game. Though it doesn't fully support the new World Tour episode at the moment.

[NightFright]

Considering how Gearbox handled World Tour code, I doubt we'll ever see full EDuke32 support for it. The fact that the stopgap still isn't complete indicates there are significant obstacles in the way. Afaik it's mainly about the Firefly, the Flamethrower and the new boss. Maybe someone could just recode these from scratch, probably better than before.

[Fauch]

RunningDuke, on 11 February 2020 - 11:52 AM, said:

I personally recommend looking for the Kill-a-Ton collection on eBay, if you are looking for owning a physical copy of the game. It is the most complete collection, giving you Duke Nukem 1, 2, 3D (both versions 1.3D and 1.5), Duke It Out In D.C., Duke Xtreme and Duke Zone II. It doesn't include Duke Caribbean, Duke Nuclear Winter and the first Duke Zone but the simple fact that you can obtain BOTH versions of Duke3D (meaning you can run all maps and mods!) just by getting the first CD means that it is definitely worth getting this collection!

I played all of them, but now you mention it, I don't think I've ever had the first Duke Zone. But I don't remember Duke Zone II being very good, so it may not be worth it.

[NightFright]

DukeZone II = DukeZone + 3 SP episodes. DZ was just a shovelware collection of bad levels and the episodes are just insignificantly better.

[RunningDuke]

Fauch, on 23 March 2020 - 01:31 PM, said:

I played all of them, but now you mention it, I don't think I've ever had the first Duke Zone. But I don't remember Duke Zone II being very good, so it may not be worth it.

Duke Zone II isn't that good, it's actually worse than Nuclear Winter in terms of quality as far as I remember but it's not too surprising because both DZ2 and NW were made by Simply Silly Software. The first Duke Zone is even worse, which is just 500 random user maps downloaded from internet back in 1996 and most of them are terrible. I got a while back the first Duke Zone (since as mentioned above, it isn't included in the Kill a Ton collection, despite the fact that Duke Zone II CD includes the first Duke Zone as well) and I will be playing through all these levels, maybe sometime this summer. Right now I've got other things to do. :P

There is a video on YouTube by Psychedelic Eyeball that goes through a bunch of random Duke Zone maps, you may be interested in watching it, however I recommend lowering the volume a bit:

[Fantinaikos]

To play DUKE ZONE II on Eduke32 at best, you need to apply this bug fixing patch: http://www.duke4.org...c/dukezone2.zip

[Fauch]

That reminds me when I used to download most of the new user maps every day on timesplitters and far cry 2. Most where shit, but it was cool when you found out a guy no one knew made something impressive.

Actually there is one map from Duke zone II I still remember

[NightFright]

@ Fantinaikos
By now that's actually the full version. I discontinued the bugfix after realizing nobody cares about releasing the abandoned addons as long as you don't go commercial. See Alien Armageddon.