#28
Posted 06 April 2022 - 12:33 AM
Okay, confession time. I actually blew through all three episodes in a single night, the very first day this thread hit. In fact I continued on into DC (which I always play after Shrapnel City due to the congruent gameplay with none of the extra additions from The Birth), and it just took a week for me to do this first write-up. At first I wondered if I should even bother; I literally play this game 2-3 times a year start to finish, all expansions, and a few choice mods. But then I decided screw it it's another excuse to play through my favorite FPS ever made and like one of my top 5 games of all time.
i like this game a lot ok leave me alone
I briefly considered using DOSBox, but then I decided I wanted to actually enjoy the game. I paid my dues in playing the DOS version all the way up until like 2010. It's very hard to go back (and I'd argue pointless outside of historical purposes) with all the QoL improvements eduke32 brought, and the bugfixes both they provide, as well as Darkus' game.con fixes which I almost never play without anymore unless a mod forces me to. I don't really do the whole nostalgia-service thing, so I don't feel bad bumping up the feel of the game to make it even better.
I also decided I would do something a bit different this time. Instead of just reviewing the levels, I thought it would be better to be ultra subjective and explain my personal experiences with these levels throughout time. I don't remember my life outside of the game during the quarter of a century I've played this thing (for the better probably), so I'm going to focus strictly on my relationship with the levels on their own. To help with that by making the levels feel fresh again, I also turned on the voxel pack and used the classic skyboxes.
So with that said, let's start with episode 1. Every single level was done on CGS, with 100% kills and 100% secrets, and this is true for every episode and every level I play.
Hollywood Holocaust
I have no recollection of my first time playing this level, or how I was even introduced to the game. The only thing I remember is that my uncle was the first to have it (and later gave his copy to us. Worth noting that he had the Atomic Edition right out of the gate so it took me a while to figure out why Stadium seemed to have a complete ending despite there being a fourth episode). He presumably showed my father, and then somehow somewhere I was showed the game and allowed to play it. My father didn't exactly care about the game's violence or sexual content (which let's be real, all the women were naturally covered up in some way); his logic was always that it's fine for kids to play this sort of game as long as you were the good guy.
I wish I had any sort of memory of the first time I played this game, this whole new world of (somewhat faked) 3 dimensional gaming but I just don't. I just know I played it with the joystick and keyboard like they did, and that for a long time I never knew this was the third entry in a series.
What I can say, however, and without any hyperbole or exaggeration, is that in the time since I first played this game I have come to learn this level better than some of the places I've lived in. That's simply how much I have played this damn game, and this first level in particular.
You know how when you read a book or something, you tend to visualize environments using familiar places to you as a base? Well... the L-shaped street is ingrained into my mind so much that it is unconsciously used as such a base. There are like three locations total that have ever been so imprinted into my mind from a video game to ever accomplish that, and one of those remaining two is Red Light District.
As for the level itself, I don't think there's anything I can add that hasn't been said a million times before. The only thing I can contribute is to the often-commented fact that you get every E1 weapon in this level, which was unique for the time (and even today, really), and that's all true.
But what I don't often see mentioned is that that's true for almost every episode start. The only one that doesn't give you all weapons is Spaceport (and even then you're only missing the Freezethrower).
There's not too much else I can add here. As a kid I never picked up on the fact that it was a porn theater, and honestly even as an adult I needed someone to point it out. The "film" itself is generic enough that I could accept that it had nothing to do with pornography and was just an exotic dancer, and the theater is oddly high-class for such a function.
"Stalker" is a classic song, by the way.
Red Light District
The other level whose layout is permanently etched into my mind, again particularly the street area. Additionally, when I dream about playing Duke 3D, a lot of the time the level showcased in the dream is in some way based on RLD, or otherwise straight-up is RLD with a few dreamy changes here and there. I have no idea why.
I believe this level marks the first time I was ever scared by a video game. The octabrain in the sewer was terrifying for me. Its noise and the face it makes while doing its mental attack was too much for my kiddy self, and I wasn't able to even watch the game for a good while (Ironically, this very same frame of the Octabrain would later be scientifically proven to calm me down as an adult). I actually can't remember if I encountered it while playing myself or if I was watching my uncle play it.
As an encore, I would then go on to be traumatized by watching his daughter (my cousin) play, I think, Jump Start 4th Grade where the opening cinematic has all the children turned into zombies, and also watching my father play King's Quest VIII.
I am very glad I never played Doom as a kid. Imagine what an easily-scared kid would do upon seeing a 10 ft. tall skeleton shriek at the top its nonexistent lungs.
On the topic of fear, RLD is also the first time I think DN3D's famed atmosphere really starts to kick in. The drab music, the unattended but open store and bar, and the phones. As a kid, and even as an adult, interacting with the phones to get just a buzz tone is eerie. It's the first time the whole alien invasion thing really paints itself, alongside the fact that you're in the heart of overrun territory. If you're lucky, you'll hear the occasional distant sound of the only other nearby human forces plummeting to their deaths.
I'm pretty sure it was this very level that made me ask either my father or my uncle where everyone went, only to be told they were dead, captured, or turned into pigs. I remember that grim notion hit pretty hard back then, but I didn't let that keep me from playing even though at the time I detested such tones (of course these days I love that sort of thing).
I don't have much to comment on regarding the strip club. Contrary to what Aleks has said... I didn't really care all that much as a kid. Even when interacting with the strippers, I didn't really think much of it. If anything I was more interested in seeing if there was a limit to how many dollars Duke had on him. And as an adult, I still really don't think much of the strippers since there's not much to see. They have tassels beneath their tops so it's not much even now.
That didn't stop them from being turned invisible once my mother threw a fit (more on that in episode 3). That was the first time I noticed the effects of the parental lock, and also its shortcomings. They were still there, and you could even tip them, but they were just invisible. Made it obnoxious during the club fight since I couldn't see where they were and hadn't memorized their locations. Of course that wasn't the worst thing that the parental lock did. It killed the end-of-episode cutscenes, which I did actually miss.
Something I did as a kid and still do as an adult (during runs where I'm taking my time at least, like this one) is to play pool. The only difference in how I play is a better understanding of the rules. I now like to play a variation of 8-ball, but obviously it's not perfect due to the very simple implementation of ball physics. I don't usually win.
As for the level itself, I do have a few more things to add. I caught on to the porn store actually being a porn store much earlier on thanks to the storefront sign. Of course, it would be a little while yet before I caught on to what the booths were and why they had toilet paper in them... I do appreciate the joke of calling that area the "arcade."
As for it being "not that impressive..." I quite disagree. It's the first (and possibly only?) vanilla level to build itself around having two huge setpieces, both of which show the power of the Build engine. The destructive scripting of the condemned building (which I think still holds up today if only because you don't really see whole building demolition in modern games at all, so the competition isn't exactly cutthroat), and the multiple colored lighting for the strip club that you battle in. That last one might not be as impressive today, but then again you don't see those kinds of arenas period anymore so...
Death Row
Not as much to say about this one. It sticks out in my mind as being the level responsible for us owning Duke 3D. For reasons I'm still not sure of, the game always crashed on my uncle's PC almost every time he left the prison into the courtyard. Fed up with it he just gave it to us, and we didn't have that problem.
It also sticks out in my mind as one of the first levels where I managed to piece together the situation myself. That is, that Duke was literally in the electric chair in an attempt at execution. Of course, that fact makes it all the more fun to achieve 100% kills. Because what's more badass than breaking out of the electric chair, kicking guards to death until you get a gun, and then killing every last motherfucker in the prison before making your escape aboard a submarine? Leaving a trail of corpses in your wake with a building half-destroyed is peak 90s FPS.
That said, as a kid, for some reason I didn't care as much about this level. In some of the levels way back then, I used to like to play pretend scenarios in the levels, almost like a playset. I wasn't as interested in the prison for whatever reason; I preferred playing that kind of thing in Pigsty (in another execution room no less, completely missing the meaning of that room).
Also it took me until playing this level with the HRP that I noticed the map in the level was actually a map of the level. Felt pretty dumb afterwards.
Side note, are there a pair of NVGs at any point in the level before you exit the sewage pipe? I know there's a pair right outside the front doors to the prison, by then you would have already made your escape. I ask because of the message in the death row holding cell that's supposed to give you a hint on how to escape. Always bothered the hell out of me.
Toxic Dump
I always thought the way Duke said his opening line was very strange. Alien Armageddon interprets the line as "this sub" instead of "the sub" and I'd actually argue that's probably true. It would explain why that part always sounded so odd.
It took me a while to realize we started this level in the submarine we ended the last level in. ...Okay that's not quite accurate. I know that's where we were supposed to be, but I couldn't visually link the two. It wasn't until I was in my teens that I realized the white squares were the floor and the "emergency hatch" was the same hatch we entered from. The fact that one of the secret compartments was aligned to the sunken version and covered by what appeared to be plungers didn't help in linking the two locations (and when I did I kinda realized, "hey Duke you ended the last level by hitting the Auto-Destruct. Maybe it wasn't the aliens who blew up the sub?").
I really don't have any particular memories about this place, other than the one switch you have to shoot to get the smashers to carry you to the other side being a pain in the neck. It still is, honestly.
I also don't have a lot of strong feelings about the level itself, either positive or negative. It's just kind of there. I mean I remember in the DOS version, thanks to my controls where I jumped with one button and crouched with the same one but double-tapped, I discovered the exploit that shrunk your hitbox without actually needing to be shrunk. Doing it that way seemed to even make it easier to execute.
The only complaint I have about this level is that it's the one level that stretches the continuity aspect the most (without plain giving up). There doesn't seem to be any way for the sub to have entered that area.
Launch Facility
My father was the one who discovered the secret exit to this place, and in turn showed me. Never quite bridged how you got here from there, but I learned honestly only recently that where you end is the exact same slime river the previous level ended at. You can even see the exact same area on Toxic Dump's map. Don't get me wrong, I knew the places were related but I thought this level ended further downstream or something, not at the exact same place.
I now find that fact super neat.
Was always kind of bummed you never saw the rocket take off, but the destruction sequence is cool at least. I also liked that you could then view the wreckage if you so chose. It was also possibly one of the most grim moments in the game considering you're knowingly blowing up the rocket with two podgirls in it. It's a mercy kill but still.
The Abyss
I think this was the level that made me the most uncomfortable as a kid. Sure there are plenty of obvious reasons why that would make sense, but I don't think I was aware of them as a kid. Just the general vibe was... unpleasant. That's not a mark against the level, of course. It's one of the peaks of this game's dark atmosphere. The fact that it made my idiot kid brain hesitate without even knowing why is a testament to that.
In fact, this level was the first discovery of what I always thought was the game's creepiest mystery: the messages in the dark. (Death Row doesn't count because I didn't find that message until years later for the reason I already explained). Who, exactly, is leaving these hidden, somewhat cryptic messages in the darkest corners of the levels?
I mean the obvious answer is the level designer. And sure, yeah, that's true, but where do they come from within the context of the levels themselves? The ghosts of the native americans that used to inhabit this canyon? Then why are they in other levels deep within the city?
The fact that some mysterious person, or group, or otherworldly thing was writing these messages to you in the dark, without ever being seen, and always one step ahead of you... the notion always creeped me out, and it still does. These aren't old messages; they're reacting to even the aliens. ("Go with the flow", because that's where the alien ship is).
For the record I'm not counting the easter egg message that Levelord actually signed.
Speaking of, 50% of the time as a kid I would get stuck at this level. I'd try to fly right towards the end, but the various touchplate triggers hadn't opened the next path yet. I'm not sure if that's a level design flaw or not because it's something that only affects you if you get the secret jetpack from the secret level.
One final note. Despite the starry night above, it sure is bright in this canyon, despite there being no source of artificial light. I kinda see why Serious Duke 3D set this level in the morning instead.
Faces of Death
I usually play this level as a part of Plug And Pray, but I decided why not (though I still saved this for after episode 3 but I'm talking about it now because it's technically a part of this episode). I used the WT version of this level (and thus the WT version of the Abyss, but still in eDuke32) so that it could actually be beaten.
I think it's a pretty alright level. It's obviously a dukematch map but it's not unfun to kill the battlelords with every weapon from 1.3D available to use. It has one unique texture not seen anywhere else in the game, aaaand...
Yeah not much else to say. And since in the DOS version you could only reach this level by cheating or glitching the hell out of the Abyss, I have no experience with this level as a kid. Didn't play this for the first time until like 2009 or something, when I learned it was even a thing.
I do have this level's music assigned to a hotkey, though. I think it makes a great boss fight song (except Stadium where I use the default (because it's only a boss fight), and The Queen where I use It's Green instead (also on a hotkey)).
User Map
Didn't play this time. Seen it before; a really tiny octagonal arena with a roof held up by four columns. There's really no reason to look at this in single-player. Maybe it's a good DM map but it's not even interesting in SP like the original version of Faces of Death.
That's it for episode 1. Hopefully my E2 write-up won't come as late, but it might because I have a lot to say about Lunar Apocalypse. It's my favorite episode of the whole game, for a few reasons but one particular reason I know I've talked about before. And yeah I'm gonna talk about it again because of how it made me completely rethink this game, elevating it from "a childhood favorite" to "a masterpiece" in my mind.
As for episode 1 itself on the whole, I appreciate that the levels are a whole journey, chronicling Duke's return to Earth, capture, escape, and then heading to the source of the alien invasion only to find out the situation is much worse than it first appeared. It feels like a stronger and proper journey, especially compared to other FPS shareware episodes like Doom's, Wolfenstein's, or ROTT's. I think the only other shareware FPS episode to match this sort of feeling was Quake, but even then Duke feels alot more cohesive despite the varying locations. It's probably because of the gradual increase in desert, wasteland textures and the slow erasure of urban/mechanical ones, whereas with Quake it's more that you just change texture themes between certain levels with no gradual shift.
This post has been edited by Ninety-Six: 06 April 2022 - 01:01 AM
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