[Quacken]

Hello again. You know the drill by now, next Caribbean map. Death count: 3.

The Wavemistress: The Wavemistress is certainly a very interesting map. The start is probably the hottest so far: You've got some Pig Cops running around, a Seagull to mess up your view, and two Sea Monsters who will either kill themselves, or drop down to lob coconuts at you. After this energetic start, you can choose either the red key path or the blue key path. The path to the red key is much more painful, so you're inclined to go there first, but in doing so you'll miss out on a Voodoo Ring and a Coconut Launcher, which would be very useful for the fight with a bunch of submerged Octabrains and Protozoids in dark water. Without either of these weapons, you're forced to clear out the room with Pipe Bombs, resulting in lots of waiting, submerging and resurfacing to make sure you got everything. Following before that is a red hallway populated by three cheap shot Sentry Drones who will take chunks of health off of you if you're not constantly looking up. After swimming in a cramped metal tube and kicking your way out of an even more cramped opening, the crusher sequence is extremely inconsistent, and is what killed me twice in this map. Sometimes it works fine. Sometimes you'll run into the hole in between the middle of the platforms surrounding the crushers and get killed instantly. And sometimes you'll just clip out of the entire cruise ship. This has happened to me twice on separate playthroughs of Caribbean. If you're lucky, you can make a friend with the beach ball you knocked overboard while you wait to get killed.

Jokes aside, the rest of the map is also just simply okay. I don't know why both the paths to the keys involve a lift that happens to have crates shoved inside it, but the result means that this map feels really samey and repetitive. About the only interesting thing that happens is the double Battlelord encounter... and you can get a Voodoo Ring if you look hard enough, so not even this is particularly challenging. I'm not really a fan of this map.

4/10.

[Quacken]

Back with Caribbean. Including Penthouse Paradise, there's 4 more maps left to go (including this one). Death count: 3.

Lost Lagoon: It's okay I suppose. Lost Lagoon seems weirdly signposted to me. Duke literally just tells you what to look for at the start and at the Sunglasses puzzle. Not that this map was particularly complicated anyway, most of the combat doesn't stand out, and if you know where to look for you can pick up a Conchanator and a Coconut Launcher to blow up... Pig Cops and Octabrains. I'm starting to get Robert Travis burnout. I'd complain that these maps are too easy, but it's probably better they're trivial anyway. At least the map kinda picks up after the blue key. The crusher sequence can get you if you panic too much and don't realise that flipping the Battlelord portrait reveals a hole in one of the walls, the Sea Monster brigade caught me at a bad time and made me lose all of my armor, and the triple Assault Commander attack above a lake of slowly rising lava is pretty tense when you don't have much real estate to dodge explosives on. Lost Lagoon is entirely unremarkable, and if I didn't play it today either I was definitely not missing out on anything.

5.5/10.

[Quacken]

The penultimate map of Caribbean! Death count: 6.

Voodoo Caves: After two misses from Wiederhold and Travis, comes the lone submission by Tyler Larsen: An ancient ruins that may be small and packed together, but I think this is a way better map than the previous two maps combined, due to its neat locations such as the cliffside, the ancient temple with the four button sequence and the sunken pirate ship, and the triumphant return of the music, Solitary Man. In terms of its combat, Larsen largely follows the Travis and Wiederhold formula, but he really knows how to place a mean explosive enemy. The Sea Monsters are placed in some corners that are bound to catch you off guard at least once. There's also only two Assault Commanders in this map, but they're genuinely used really smartly. The bridge, a death pit you might drop into if you don't know to aim for the waterfall, and the entrance you come out of being a tight 90-degree turn makes these Commanders quite tricky, especially with just a Pistol and no easy way to an explosive weapon. I only found about half the secrets, but ammo and health in this map are surprisingly scarce. If you get unlucky and don't get a Pig Cop to drop its Soak 'Em (like with what happened to me the first three times I played this map), you'll be stuck with the Pistol and a drip feed of Pineapples to fend you off against a bunch of Assault Troopers, Pig Cops and Octabrains. Imagine fighting Enforcers or even a Battlelord in these tightly knit corridors... I like Voodoo Caves a lot. It's sleek, fun and it doesn't have any dead air in it.

8/10.

[Quacken]

Finally at the end of Caribbean! Sometime later I'll do Penthouse Paradise, but a break will be in order first. Death count: 6.

The Alien Remains: This is a cool ending level. First thing to comment about is the music. "Doomsday's Coming" abandons the tropical influences to deliver a punchy, catchy military base track, and ironically it's one of my favourite tracks in Caribbean. It pairs very well with the aesthetic. Wiederhold was definitely influenced by Lunar Apocalypse, with all the greys, the emphasis on outdoor setpieces, button combination puzzles, and the staircase that leads to two different paths, which was shamelessly ripped off from Lunar Reactor. Wiederhold also tries to pull out the stops for his combat. The Sentry Drones are much more aggressive (but not malicious, like in Wavemistress), there's two Battlelords, and Sea Monsters teleport in to blow you up for failing to answer button puzzles correctly (which is kinda mean). Hearing a few Sea Monsters bounce around at full volume gives me anxiety. The boss fight against the Cycloid Emperor again is much more trivial compared to DC. You get a Conchanator and plenty of coconuts to put his head into the ground. Ruin the Cycloid's beach party, try not to die to the Sea Monsters you left behind in the boss arena, and you're out of Caribbean.
The ending is much better too. It's not sluggishly slow and it feels a lot more satisfying. Not a bad way to end off an expansion.

7/10.

Closing thoughts: I went into Caribbean thinking I'd like it much more than I actually did. Much like its brother DC, Caribbean is a remnant of a bygone era, when texture software was much more primitive, and people didn't have as much of a grasp on old game engines as we do now. As Caribbean was the closing act of Sunstorm's career on the Build Engine, they clearly wanted to go out on a high note, with a polished project that had both incredible style and less incredible substance, and I think Sunstorm succeeded with this. The bar of quality in Caribbean is higher than DC, and the attempts at cohesive storytelling are both remarkable and charming. It's not a slam dunk by any means, but I think Caribbean is a quality product that warrants a replay, even today.

Final grade: 7/10.

[DNSKILL5]

I was able to get the other two levels of Vacation Dukematch done this weekend, and boy was Aleks right about the weapon stay feature needing to be off. It made a big difference, and the previous matches likely would've gone a bit differently had I toggled it off for them as well.


Cruise Ship is a medium sized map that would do well with 3-4 players, but was quite enjoyable for 1v1. It has plenty of sniper/camping spots, and the elevators can add a bit of intensity to the match. There's a good amount of items and weapons to keep things interesting, and I would suggest 10-20 frags for 1v1. The map itself is a fairly small cruise ship that if you try to go overboard you are insta-killed. It's not a bad map for DM, but likely would get a bit repetitive with larger frag limits.


The Docks is another map that is quite small and really ideal for 1v1. I imagine it would get a bit too hectic in larger player-count matches, and it would get boring with frag limits past 10-15. It has a lot of weapons to put to good use, and the coconut launcher is placed in the center of the map in a small boat, which can spice up action between players trying to not only access the coconut launcher, but to get the pearl (atomic health) that can be found aboard it as well. This map also uses my favorite track from Caribbean's soundtack, "Doomsay's Comin'". This map is better than Island Hopping, but it is not as good as Cruise Ship or Hidden Grotto.

So this concludes Vacation Dukematch. If I had to rank the four maps from greatest to worst, it would be like so:

• Hidden Grotto
• Cruise Ship
• The Docks
• Island Hopping

Island Hopping is just too small and doesn't give you many weapons to play with. It would've benefited for it to have an underwater section. The Docks is a great 1v1 map, but it is a small enough map that if played for too long it could drag and get a bit boring, and it would be annoying with more than 2 players. Cruise Ship is a great map, and would work fine for 2-4 players, but more than that may be a tad too many. Hidden Grotto has the best layout, and overall the most enjoyable of the four levels. It would work really well for 4, maybe even a few more than that, but is also a ton of fun for 1v1.

Vacation Dukematch is a welcome addition to this addon, and it makes me wonder how a DC Dukematch set of maps would've been had Sunstorm done that there as well. While I'd argue the D64 maps are better than these 4 maps, these are not terrible, and I feel that anyone who enjoys Dukematch or Caribbean is missing out on a night of fun. I think it's worth checking out and playing with friends at least once!


Now, I'm off to get through Life's a Beach by the end of the month!

[Aleks]

Firstly, I'd like to start with some general thoughts on the Caribbean. I really dig how creative it all is - with new enemy looks and guns, lots of new textures, everything is kept in a cohesive style and somehow not clashing with Duke's original art, yet changing the overall colour composition and vibe of the game. Somehow, it still feels very organic and in line with what you'd expect of a Duke game after 3D, even the distinctive music feels like Lee and Bobby going Caribbean. The maps are fun and intricate in general, even if I do have some criticism towards lazier detailing and bland texture use here and there (which is almost a trademark of Robert Travis maps). The new inflatable seamonster enemy is particularly cool too - such a simple idea, yet they're used so effectively throughout the maps and their sounds are so ominous. Despite playing this for the first time only like 10 years ago, so way past Duke's prime, it still made a tremendous impression on me. Anyway, let's see how the maps play on DIG...

Caribbean Catastrophe

This map is quite a trailer for the whole mode, highlighting all the cool stuff from the very beginning. New Duke line to start it all off, being thrown with the waves, beachball, ladies, new Duke guns and of course, the new style. I have to admit that I was quite afraid of how feasible this will be on DIG/all secrets/no saves, so I did make a quick run on easier skill before to remind myself of the layout and secrets locations (there are 9 in total, but they're all fairly easy to find). The map played really smoothly and was entertaining on DIG, with only a few spots being more challenging. All the weapons can be found in the map, which is a bonus, also there's plenty of freezer ammo and explosives, so getting rid of the bodies wasn't a problem. I like the red key puzzle (which I guess was some sort of inspiration, at least partially, to the (in)famous red key puzzle in Submachine), also it's nice you can just wait there a bit longer and get other prizes, including sandals and hot sauce, so it might be worth your while. The hotel layout is neat and easy to navigate, even if all wallpapered with the same tan texture. There are plenty of these little ledges and stuff that you can jump onto and would lead to some secret or, in one case, to the non-secret voodoo ring. Design-wise, probably the disco is my favourite area, even if Duke apparently hates it. My main problem with this map are the slow elevators, something I know High Treason keeps complaining about, but I'd have to agree here, it's ridiculous. All in all, a great welcome mat for this mod.

Score: 8.5/10

[FistMarine]

Hey everyone! Thank you for all your comments so far! I will now post about the entire Duke It Out In D.C. episode. To not repeat what others said, I will mostly focus on presentation, general tips and some details about the levels. Sorry if my message is a bit rushed, I was quite busy these days and didn't start writing about the levels until very recently!

Introduction and Presentation

Duke It Out In D.C. is the first of the 3 main authorized Duke Nukem 3D expansions and it is also the most popular addon, being included in many Duke3D compilations (such as the Kill-A-Ton Collection). The other authorized expansions are Duke Caribbean: Life's a Beach and Duke: Nuclear Winter. There are also a few other authorized expansions, such as Duke Zone I & Duke Zone II and even Penthouse Paradise is considered a semi-official one, which is why it was chosen for this month, as an extra bonus alongside DC and Caribbean. Oh and there's also Duke, It's Zero Hour that was supposed to be a commercial addon but then it was eventually released as freeware.

Anyway, about Duke DC, it was released in March 1997 (the CD files are dated 21/02/1997) and it requires the original Duke Nukem 3D to play, either versions 1.3D or 1.4. It also works fine in Duke3D v1.5, however there will not be any demos playing in background. The episode contains 10 new levels (9 normal levels + 1 secret level) taking place at Washington D.C.

The story is that the aliens have arrived in Washington D.C. and have kidnapped the president (Bill Clinton). It's up to Duke to rescue him and kill all the alien bastards that stand in his way!

The levels themselves are quite detailed and have nice new art included but everything else is the same Duke3D gameplay we are all familiar with! This may come a bit as a disappointment that DC doesn't contain any new (or modified) enemies, weapons, music or quotes. There is actually a new soundtrack from 2017 (as mentioned earlier), composed entirely by James Paddock, whose name may be familiar to you, as he is well known in the Doom community, he is a very talented musician and mapper.

The Duke It Out In DC soundtrack can be downloaded here: http://www.duke4.org...edc_music20.zip
Yes, I know, I should have mentioned the soundtrack in the first post, along with the fact there exists a demo version of DC you can download, though it only contains the first level and it appears to be included (as E1L8.MAP in v1.3D, as DEMO.MAP in v1.4/v1.5) in the full version of DukeDC as well. The demo map is just a copy of the first level with a different starting position (it starts you in front of shotgun) and it is the map shown in the intro demo. The only difference I found is that the demo map has 64 monsters present, compared to the full version map that has 63 monsters present. No idea why there is an extra monster present in the demo version, I think it's the pig cop in the hall of the right path you can take.

There is also a DC HRP Pack, if you are interested in playing with the HRP mod.

If you play Duke It Out In D.C. in original DOS Duke3D v1.3D, then you get a few unique things. The third episode is replaced in the menu (normally the original release has hardcoded episode names but in this expansion, as well as Duke Caribbean and a few other mods, they manage to alter DUKE3D.EXE to modify the episode names) and when you quit the game, it shows an unique DOS screen, which isn't visible in ANY other version. You can see the screenshots below:
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For this month's club, I first played the grp version (dukedc.grp) in JFDuke3D, then I replayed the episode (original CD install) in DOS Duke3D v1.3D. The GAMER software (used to install Sunstorm's addons) is quite difficult to make it run on newer OSes, even in DOSBox, so it took a while until I got things right. As I would often get Runtime errors and I made it work by using the updated GAMER software included on Duke Caribbean CD (and then appropriately copying the DC SSI files), then copying all the CD's contents into C drive and install it from there.

For both playthroughs, I went for all kills and secrets, on CGS difficulty and I played continuous with saves.
If anyone wants to know where all official secrets are found, here is a secret guide over the Steam forums: https://steamcommuni...s/?id=141066688

I haven't played the Duke3D expansions since back in summer 2015 (and previously I played them in late 2000s through other means, I never had/played them as a kid, so they aren't as nostalgic as the 3 main episodes, even The Birth is more memorable to me), so it was quite refreshing to replay them after all these years and see if they still hold up!

With all that said, let's begin the review!

Hell to the Chief

Not a bad start for the first map of the episode! You start in front of the White House. You will notice a few aliens and pig cops that are waiting for you. Quickly grab the shotgun in your right and use it against the pig cops (the troopers can be killed with just the pistol since its autoaim will be helpful against targets from far away). After you clear the starting area, grab whatever the aliens dropped for you. You can also use the fountains to refill your health if you need. Armor isn't an issue, as not only there are a few armor pickups present in the map but there are also many pig cops, which means there is a high chance to get used armor dropped from pig cops. Sometimes you can get lucky and have 2-3 pig cops dropping armor in a row. You should then easily end up with at least one or two spare armors left, so you have no excuse to not have full armor at the end of the level!

With that said, while the health is provided in decent amounts (and there are maps that contain at least 2-3 portable medkits, plus most of the levels contain sources of water, only levels 7 and 8 have no water fountains available), there is a major lack of atomic healths in the whole episode. Most levels contain only one atomic health pickup and it's often found in secret areas or unmarked secrets. A few other levels contain 2-3 pickups in total, meaning try your best to save the atomic health for the end of level, so you end up with 150 health for the next level (or 200 for the levels with 2+ atomic healths). This is recommended for people playing continuously. Those who are pistol starting can grab the atomic health when needed and making use of it during the whole level.

Anyway, once you clear the starting area, you have the option to either go the left path or the right path. Both are valid choices, as each one contains an armor pickup that will greatly prepare you for what comes next, unless you already got an used armor pickup from a pig cop earlier, in which case you may want to save the full armor pickup until your current armor drops to around 20-30 (the same applies to used armors, unless it's dropped in your way and you can't avoid the pickup). This tip is at least useful for maps that only contain one or no armor pickups at all, otherwise you shouldn't be having any problems with the armor.

On this level, you will acquire the shotgun, chaingun, pipebombs and a secret Devastator. Since you will want to save the explosives for when you absolutely need, most of the time, the weapons you will use, are the shotgun and chaingun.

A pretty good starting level. Hope that the rest of the episode is just as great.


Memorial Service

This is a relatively short map that showcases the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument. When you first start, kill all those flying troopers with the pistol, then take all those pig cops at the monument, blow up the crack near the statue, drop down, kill a bunch more enemies and then comes the part with those buttons puzzles. I never found this puzzle to be that bad, though I may have been lucky to make it through quickly without taking me many attempts. You just have to use your pistol and hope the shot hits the 3 switches in time while you are running through those doors. At least you don't have to do the puzzle again after that, since it opens a "checkpoint" and you can return to this area later.

There is a single secret to find that doesn't contain anything (unless you count the nearby Atomic Health as part of the secret), at least not in SP. In MP, there is a Shrinker to be found. I figured they don't want to give you all your weapons so early, which is why you will get all your weapons by level 4, whereas in the original Duke3D, you got all the weapons in first level of episodes 2, 3 and 4 (in E2, you got almost all your weapons, as the last two would be found in next level).

If playing the DOS 1.3D version, watch out for the sharks, as they are smaller and more aggressive. The same applies to the rest maps that contain them. On the Atomic Edition, the sharks are bigger and aren't a threat at all, they mostly ignore your existence.

The map was alright, though it could have been a bit longer and a bit more challenging.


Nuked Files

This is another interesting level and it's quite a difficulty ramp up compared to the previous maps. You've got many pig cops present in this level and as with the previous two maps, there is only one atomic health available in the map (found inside one of the secret places). Health and armor pickups are once again plentiful, so for the more tense encounters, it is recommended to watch your health and use the medkit (when falling to less than 50-60 health or just run and find a large medkit) to prevent an unwanted death.

Not much else to say other than the map was pretty good. Will the map be even better? Let's find out!


Smithsonian Terror

This is the infamous level that most people remember from the episode. It is a very long level that is easy to get lost in. I didn't manage to complete this level under an hour, so I ended up with about 64 minutes in JFDuke3D and 78 minutes in DOS Duke3D (the 18 minutes shown in the screenshot is a lie).
I was actually doing better for a while in the recent DOS DUKE3D playthrough but ended up getting really lost at one point for like 10 minutes, not remembering where is that part with the aquariums and then spending a ton of time backtracking for supplies, until I realized I haven't explored one of the bathrooms and a few vents to get the remaining monsters to kill (though I couldn't tell if I got everything or not until I finished the level, as there are no in-game stats in the DOS version).

Also this is where you will find the RPG (the last weapon you acquire) for the first time and it's inside one of the secret places. Don't forget that the RPG ammo is VERY scarce in this episode (you should get 45 rounds by the time you finish the secret level), so I almost never used the RPG. I only used the Shrinker/Devastator to get rid of some monsters quickly, otherwise most of my used weapons were the pistol (only to kill troopers, as even pistol ammo seemed scarce in later levels, I had difficulty ending up with full ammo in some maps), shotgun, chaingun and pipebombs for blowing up cracks.

As mentioned previously, sharks are much more dangerous in v1.3D, as they are smaller, harder to hit and they often swim towards you and bite you. Since some aquariums contain many sharks, you can kill them with the shotgun/chaingun (pistol also works well but sometimes it seemed to miss the sharks even with autoaim, probably because Duke tried to aim for the other shark behind the one in front of me) or just throw a pipebomb and destroy many at once. In fact, you can kill them through the glass. Just launch a pipebomb near the aquarium and detonate it, it will get rid of most/all those sharks inside. At least this worked for a few sections. Of course they can still bite you through the glass and if you don't kill some of them early enough, you will end up with a shark floating OUTSIDE of the aquarium!

There was one interesting "puzzle" towards the end, where following the alien footprints is the intended path that prevents extra monsters from spawning. I didn't figure this out years ago (so I ended up spawning monsters around me and leaving me confused what happened), I only figured this time to follow the footprints and it led me safely to the next area. Though I still ended up activating the touchplates to kill all the spawned enemies at a later time, so I can get all kills. This is important to note from now on, as this detail is easy to miss.

Overall, this is one of the highlights of the episode and despite being very confusing and easy to get lost, it is very fun to explore. There are two atomic healths to find, so make sure you get them and start next level with 200 health!


Capitol Punishment

A somewhat of a "breather" level compared to the previous long map, this map is much shorter, although it's not without its tricks as well. First, when you drop down the sewers and make your way through the destroyed building, you have to watch out for the following things: fire (it really hurts!), random explosions in your face and a "pit" you have to jump when grabbing the yellow card inside the burning place. No idea if that pit is deep enough to kill you instantly, I have always jumped successfully over the hole.

Either way, taking damage from all that fire is a sure way to lose all your extra health you have gathered previously, preventing you from ending up with 200 health again (there is only one atomic health present in the map).
After making your way and clearing a couple more rooms, you eventually end up in a large red room with octabrains and slimer eggs. Here you will find your last 2 inventory items: Boots and the Jetpack. You must fall down there to grab the jetpack and it's THE ONLY JETPACK AVAILABLE IN THE EPISODE, so you MUST find it, as it is not only required to go back to the starting area to finish the level but also to reach a secret (the atomic health secret near the beginning of the map) and it will greatly help later in the episode! Caribbean has similarly a jetpack located in one late level (though inside a secret area), so keep that in mind for future!

Overall, even if the level had some annoying bits, it was pretty cool to explore the crashed Capitol building, so I wasn't disappointed. Maybe there could have been a Mini Battlelord present inside that large room (like how there is one present in the Pigsty map from The Birth) but I wasn't disappointed by the enemy placement, maybe there could have been more enemies spawned when grabbing one of the keys instead of just a single trooper spawned. Let's see the next level...


Metro Mayhem

This level is very similar and inspired by Rabid Transit from the original Duke Nukem 3D! It actually feels like Rabit Transit on steroids, as Aleks said! This time around, there are THREE different trains that travel around and for each track, you don't have to wait for another train to move on the train tracks after the first one already passed (though the tracks are electrified, so keep that in mind! tapping the jump button is a way to get around without consuming your boots/health). In fact, at one point you MUST blow up a crack in the bathroom, go through the crack and get to the next area by going on foot on the train tracks. Before you do that, you should first look for the train, once it passes you, you are safe to go through the cracks and run to the next area.

Unfortunately, this is where I had my ONLY death in the recent playthrough I did, at least in case of DOS Duke3D (in JFDuke3D playthrough I never died at all in both DC and Caribbean). I got killed by what seemed to be two rockets taken behind me by the Commander while I was already busy fighting the pig cops and enforcers in front of me (they were inside the non-functional train) and I didn't even have time to use my medkit, despite having it selected, I ended up with another unfortunate case of pressing the ENTER button right in the moment I died (it has happened to me many times before when playing custom Duke3D maps/mods). To make the death even more painful, I was at nearly full health and armor when this happened, as in I went from 99 health to 49 and then dead, without giving me a chance to react! That was complete and utter bullshit and then once I loaded my save and cleared this room, I committed suicide in front of the train (the first time I just clipped through the train, so I tried again) because I was annoyed at what happened and actually considered pistol starting the map as punishment to see how I would do but THEN I realized I might not have a chance to beat it (or at least not in the mood to try doing this map in this way, even if I can probably do it), so I just quit in frustration and come back after a few minutes and redo the map from the end of previous level's save. I managed to do it much faster the next time, get back in 5 minutes to where I was and do the rest map speedrun style. I promise to do soon the map from a pistol start, might even record a demo.

Anyway, the other details I can offer is that the secret exit is found in this level and that the normal exit path after the red card, shuts off the gate behind you, if you step on the sector where the two large medkits are sitting, preventing you from backtracking. Note that you are safe to fly with the jetpack over that sector or even do a well-timed strafe jump to end up in middle of street, take out the Mini Battlelord and resume your secret exit path without the gate shutting off. In any case, I recommend saving the game beforehand. If doing it saveless from pistol start, then try to visit this area the last, so if you get locked in the normal exit path, you don't have to worry about the missed stuff. It is also possible to lock this path if you step back as soon as the door shuts down, which means you will not be able to kill the Mini Battlelord or reach the normal exit but still exit the map through the secret nuke button. You can also lure the Mini Battlelord (after he has seen you) to the entrance of the gate and kill him there (by shrinking him for example) if you are patient enough. Once again I recommend either strafe jumping or using the jetpack to do this and have a save beforehand.

Overall, this was a pretty good map and one of the more unique ones in the episode. I can't hate it because I had an unfortunate accident/bad luck in it (it just happens). I only wish I didn't have my deathless run ruined by this random shit. Will the secret level be worth finding or not? Let's find out!


Top Secret

This is an interesting secret level that involves a time traveling plot, with Duke going back to the past at one point to recover one of the access cards required to advance the map. The map has a couple annoyances, like the many sentry drones that are often hidden behind crates and ready to surprise you (and that swarm towards the end when activating some spaceship). The Aztec area indeed feels a bit out of place for this mapset but it's also an interesting change of pace.

It is very difficult to mention everything about this map (due to its length) and to avoid repeating myself, I will just talk about the last few parts of the map. There is a room that has 4 compartments you can swim into. One of them (the last one, which also contains an armor pickup) contains a switch that you can activate the front door, which is guarded by a few pig cops. Some of those compartments also have slimer eggs and octabrains in them, which might prevent you from swimming into the place. This room is optional, however and just contains a few goodies.

The second last room is quite tricky with 3 Mini Battlelords. I was lucky enough to carefully shrink 1-2 of them. Since autoaim is enabled by default (at least in DOS version and JFDuke3D), it may be difficult to shrink the Mini Battlelords. You have to aim at their feet around the corners. Once you shrink one of them, watch out for others that are still alive. It's not a good idea to step on a Mini Battlelord while another is shooting you. Most other people play in EDuke32 with autoaim turned off, so they have an easy time shrinking the Mini Battlelords.

Overall, this was a fine secret level, I'd say the second longest level of the pack. In DOS Duke3D it took me slightly over an hour to finish, due to backtracking I did to find the last secret (the one well hidden that contains a Freezer, I think).


Brown Water

This is indeed the blandest map of the entire episode and it's not as memorable as the other maps but I think the map overall is still alright. There isn't much to say other than the sharks are returning and there is a lot of shotgun ammo to be found, far more than you will ever need. There is one section towards the end that gives you 50 (!!!) shotgun shells! Not complaining since this ensures I get to finish the map with 50 shells but since I'm a resourceful player, I tend to save the ammo pickups as much as I can, unless I accidentally grab stuff when I don't need. And even without all those extra shells, I would have most likely ended up with 50 anyway. I don't know, I find weird when I find some rooms having so much ammo included, even if I appreciate the author being generous with resources.

I also wish the map was centered around the Pentagon, it is only shown at the end and it only has a couple of monsters. I feel that there should have been an entire map about the Pentagon and maybe have Brown Water as the second secret level or something like that. That way the episode would have been a full 11-level replacement.

Overall, the map itself is just ok, nothing else to say about it. I hope that next map is more interesting.


Dread October

This is another interesting and unique map, as it takes place inside a submarine, at least most of the map takes place inside the submarine. I know the level title is making a reference to Red October and I find this interesting.
As for the level, you have to kill a bunch of pig cops (and a few other enemies) on the surface and then make your way inside the submarine. Keep in mind that the combat inside the submarine is quite cramped, so you should avoid using explosives (at least the RPG since it's very easy to blow yourself up, the pipebombs and devastators can be used with care)

There isn't much else to tell, the level is overall fine. Just keep in mind there is only one atomic health available, so unless you get very lucky with taking little damage overall, you will most likely end up with around 150 or more health. On my JFDuke3D playthrough, I ended up with 196 health at the end of level, while in DOS playthrough with 162, despite having a very good beginning with taking almost no damage at all, I took quite a bit of damage from the first pig cops inside the submarine. Otherwise, most of the level isn't too bad, just the navigation can be annoying.

Oh and this is the only level in the episode, without any secrets available. I think there should have been at least a secret available somewhere.

Let's see how the final level compares!


Nuke Proof

The final level time! This is an interesting final level, as it is a normal length level with a boss battle against the Cycloid Emperor!
The only major flaw in this level is that there is no armor pickup available at all, at least not in Single Player (see more below). And since there are only a few pig cops present in the whole map, chances to get an used armor is fairly low.

Upon inspecting the map in Mapster, it appears that there IS an armor placed somewhere at the beginning. Sadly, it doesn't seem to appear in the level, which greatly confused me and even remembered that years ago I used to get to the final boss with little to no armor at all. My thought upon first seeing the armor pickup in Mapster, is that it may have been tagged to only appear on skill 4. However, it turns out the armor is actually given the palette 21 for some reason. This unfortunately causes the armor to only appear in Multiplayer mode. By default, items that are tagged as Pal 1 or above, they only appear in Multiplayer. I'm not sure why this particular armor was tagged with Pal 21. Was it done by mistake or intentionally? I guess we will never know.

As for the boss battle, if you have the jetpack, you should have an easier time with the boss. I also recommend having 200 health before entering the boss room, so if you happen to take a rocket to the face, you should survive. Just make sure to stay away from the walls. Circle strafing while flying and using Devastator and the boss should go down quickly.
Once you defeat the Cycloid Emperor, you will see a funny cutscene with Duke rescuing the president and then the reward that Duke will receive for his actions.




Also as bonus, two screens from the demo map.


Overall, Duke It Out In D.C. is a good episode/expansion to the original game! Sure it has its flaws (some of which were mentioned previously) and could have probably used a few more Duke3D puzzles, for example there are no shrinking puzzles (though some levels have mirrors you can shrink yourself for fun) and the crane is utilized only once in the secret level but despite these shortcomings, the level design is overall fairly solid.
Either way, I highly recommend playing the expansion!

Tomorrow, I will be talking about Penthouse Paradise and start the voting for the next month. Some nominations will be changed a bit to bring them on par with the rest nominations, in terms of length and what they will be paired with. You will see what I mean soon!

[FistMarine]

Penthouse Paradise

This is an interesting short/medium length map that was included with the Penthouse magazine in May 1997. This map takes place between episodes 3 and 4 of the original Duke Nukem 3D! Duke's well deserved vacation is interrupted by those alien bastards and it's up to you to help Duke clean this mess!

The map itself is fine as far as remember, based on my last playthrough I've done last year (in the New Year's Eve). Although it has a bugged water sector at the start, which makes it hard to surface from water until you find the correct place to surface. I played the original version of the map in DOS Duke3D v1.3D (in DOSBox 0.74-3, CGS skill, all kills and secrets) and I don't remember if I experienced this glitch in this version (the map may work fine in v1.3D and it's only bugged if played in Atomic) but what I know for sure is that I was disappointed that I couldn't interact with the original babes anymore.

The new art is so-so. While I don't mind the naked ladies, they just DON'T fit well with the rest of the Duke3D art style. I suppose the new art is the map's main attraction but these new babes could have been made interactive (especially since you can't interact with the original ones anymore). As it stands, they act like solid walls.

As for other stuff, there's some funny ads of the then-upcoming game: Shadow Warrior! Considering the map was released around the time when the original shareware version 1.0 of Shadow Warrior was getting released, this was an inevitable thing to do.

There are no registered weapons (7-0) present in the map, which may be disappointing, though all the monsters from the first 3 episodes make an appearance in this map, with the Mini Battlelord serving as the level's boss! Once you defeat the boss, jump into the pool and press on the nuke button to finish the level!

Secrets available:
-At the beginning, behind the waterfall, you can find Atomic Health + RPG
-In the club, behind the curtains, you can find a hidden red room containing Atomic Health + RPG Ammo
-In the bookstore, press on the shelf to get RPG + Holoduke
-In the reception room (after using the blue card), press on the button and it will open a nearby door, inside you can find Small Health + Chaingun Ammo.

Overall, the map is fine, a nice short action map and worth checking out. Sadly, I didn't save any screenshots during the playthrough (if I did, I must have lost them) and I was considering replaying the map in Atomic 1.5 but other things got in the way, so there are no screenshots to show this time. What I can show instead, are the story text files (for Duke DC and Duke Caribbean) from the original CDs, as well as the JFDuke3D screenshots (for defeating the bosses).


And because today is 25th (which also marks the 27th anniversary of THE ULTIMATE DOOM), it's time to vote for the next month's choices!

Billy Boy's Maps + Bob Masters' Maps
Community Build Project Series
Mikko Sandt's Maps + Duke Tournament + MSSP Episode + The Brave New World
NAM (Build Engine Game)
Trilogy Packs (Aqua + JMW + Jungle Tour + KaiseR Land + Lorch + Munasta + Skycity)

As you can see, Billy Boy's maps and Kaiser Land Trilogy have been separated and they were grouped with other stuff that makes more sense. To start with, Billy Boy's maps were combined with Bob Masters who also did 3 very unique maps! While KaiseR Land series/trilogy is now mixed with a whole bunch of other series/trilogies.

I have also added NAM (Build Engine Game) as a nomination (temporary replacing The Gate until next month), which came in June/July 1998 (the game files are dated 02/06/1998), though I doubt it will win, so it might be seen as a joke nomination even if I haven't intended to. I have refrained from nominating even more stuff (that will happen in August and later), to give a chance for existing entries to win. I don't like having to drag months-old nominations and seeing them not winning after all that time. So, starting with July, I may introduce a new rule where if a nomination doesn't get chosen for 6 months, it will get removed from the list (though it can be nominated at a later time again). The rule with Build engine games remains the same as before, having only a single chance to win per nomination.

The rest choices (CBP Series and Mikko Sandt's maps/mods) remain the same. I might vote before the month ends when I see what people are voting for, to "help" with one choice winning. Generally, I'm fine with whatever wins (after all I have participated in every month event) and please choose wisely, as the next month marks the 1st anniversary of the Map/Mod event!

As usual, add a + next to your choice and highlight it in bold, to better show your choice.

In the upcoming days (either on 27th or on 30-31), I will post about Duke Caribbean, then I might vote.

[Quacken]

Quickly got done with Penthouse Paradise, thus completing everything I have to play for this month. Final death count: 6.

Penthouse Paradise is... honestly not too bad. I kinda like it actually. Its unashamedly just an advertisement for Penthouse Magazine, and I'm not quite sure why there are 3 designers credited for this map, but toss Pissed Office Box into any map with a decently fast pace and open setpieces to fight and explore in, and I think you ought to count for something. Even though this could have probably been a job done in 2 hours, Jeffrey D. Erb, Mark Farish and Tyler Matthews actually tried their darnedest at creating a cute little resort for Duke to run around in, even if the progression isn't very clear. The Penthouse Magazine babes are, as stated before, quite distracting and don't really gel well with Duke 3D's artstyle. They just stand there and act like scarecrows, and plenty of them are duplicated throughout the map. The fact that some of them use the Michael Mouse voice lines from Babe Land also personally makes me feel a little icky. Penthouse Paradise was an advertisement in 1997, and 25 years later it's a 10 minute distraction and curiosity.

6.5/10.

As for my vote:

Billy Boy's Maps + Bob Masters' Maps +
Community Build Project Series
Mikko Sandt's Maps + Duke Tournament + MSSP Episode + The Brave New World
NAM (Build Engine Game)
Trilogy Packs (Aqua + JMW + Jungle Tour + KaiseR Land + Lorch + Munasta + Skycity)

[Aleks]

Sorry for dropping map by map write-ups, but I barely have time to play, on the other hand I'm doing some quite tedious stuff at work right now, so plenty of time to write posts...

Market Melee
Despite having some good moments, this is, in general, a weaker level, perhaps my least favourite in the whole episode. The theme of the level, which is the market, is mostly in the elaborate secret place that also has the secret level exit, which is also IMO the strongest point of this map. Other than that, the map is lacking a strong sense of place/location and instead is a mish-mash of locations that don't necessarily work next to each other - something Fahrenheit is criticised for, but I think to an even larger extent. It can be argued that the general "festive" theme allows this, but a lot of the locations simply don't make much sense, especially being next to one another. Now for the combat - with a lot of cramped corridors, tight corners and maskwalled curtains, this once again isn't a particularly strong aspect of the map. Furthermore, there are these traps with enemies respawning right behind you, which is kinda dickish when the monster in question is the inflatable seamonster. Speaking of these guys, their placement is kinda unfortunate most of the time, as they're either behind corners or in places where they tend to blow themselves up. Now about the good parts, I like the jailbreak sequence at the beginning, also as I've mentioned, the elaborate secret with the market is probably my favourite area, which is well designed, has some nice combat encounters and is generally enjoyable. This contrasts with the very ending being my least favourite area. The secret places once again didn't give me much trouble to find, I admit I kinda remembered some of the locations though, but it still didn't require much of a memory stretch. I'm not sure what to think about the secret ending - you just fall there through an unmarked hole fairly early into the level, so there's a possibility of either missing a large chunk of it or just starting the next level - pitting you against 2 pig cops - completely unprepared. But it does fit the map and was genuinely surprising the first time I've found it, so I guess I'm more for it than against it. As for how the whole map plays on DIG, it's definitely more challenging than the first level - the health items are scarce (although there's a fair amount of portable medkits) and I've almost run out of most of the explosive/shrinker/freezer ammo I've gathered in the previous level.

Score: 6.5/10

Also gonna vote already.

Billy Boy's Maps + Bob Masters' Maps +
Community Build Project Series
Mikko Sandt's Maps + Duke Tournament + MSSP Episode + The Brave New World
NAM (Build Engine Game)
Trilogy Packs (Aqua + JMW + Jungle Tour + KaiseR Land + Lorch + Munasta + Skycity)

[ck3D]

Billy Boy's Maps + Bob Masters' Maps ++
Community Build Project Series
Mikko Sandt's Maps + Duke Tournament + MSSP Episode + The Brave New World
NAM (Build Engine Game)
Trilogy Packs (Aqua + JMW + Jungle Tour + KaiseR Land + Lorch + Munasta + Skycity)

Look at me go and still not playing but voting, busy as shit these days but definitely making some time whenever is Billy Boy's month.

[Aleks]

I'm glad ck3D answered the topic, so it won't look like I'm talking to myself here

A Full House

On the opposite of the previous level, this one played and looked much better than I remembered. There were enough supplies to replenish my declining explosive/freezer ammo and despite ending the level with around 100 killed enemies, the fights didn't seem too challenging. There's been also a fair number of respawning to keep things interesting while backtracking, which wasn't that bad as the map had a neatly interconnected layout. There are technically 0 secret places, but in reality, plenty of locations could be marked as a secret. I think I've never found the secret room with a conchonator behind the speakers in the bar/karaoke before, which was particularly handy as I'm playing on DIG. Design-wise, the casino looks neat with its slight elevation changes and texturing. The restaurant also has a neat design and I particularly like the tall aquarium that spans two different floors and can be seen from the bar and from the restaurant, nice idea connecting the whole layout together and giving a lot of sense of 3D space. Overall, a surprisingly funny level that could easily have been kept as a regular, non-secret one - perhaps the only issue with it is seemingly a lack of outside areas, besides the docks at the end.

Score: 8/10

[Aleks]

Mr. Splashy's

A bit like Babe Land, but done properly, it's generally a fun level, even if a bit repetitive along the 2 last rides. The layout is nicely interconnected and the progression is pretty clear, even if there's some backtracking along the tours to be done. I really liked some of the simple design ideas, like how everything is clearly made with wooden props, so all the decorations are only done properly from the visible side, doors with "parallaxed" sky texture and the cute installation where a pig cop is chasing Mr. Splashy the frog. Combat wasn't too challenging, having now enough heavy guns to deal with all the bodies, although I kinda dreaded the last bit, remembering there was a wave of monsters. Somehow they didn't respawn when I was going for the switch though, and only on my way back, so they got instantly hit with a wave of shrinker projectiles (and so did I, but nothing a bottle of hot sauce couldn't fix). The fact that the shrinker kept shooting even inside the crack at the end was a bit annoying though. Took the 2nd door to the left and ended up with the freezer as my reward, could have been the conchonator, but oh well.

Score: 8/10

The Wavemistress

Design and layout wise, this is probably my favourite level so far - the cruiseship theme is sold really well, particularly the main deck part. There's some annoying enemy placement, especially sentry drones exploding right into your face in tight corridors and troopers getting stuck at parts of the ceiling. Unfortunately had to redo this level due to getting softlocked - at the part where you get the blue key, I jumped from the little vents and ended up without a possibility to recall the elevator down there, which was honestly quite a stupid design flaw. The box maze is in general my least favourite part. Now for the cool stuff, I like how you turn the power off on the main deck from this part. Also the other engineering part is much better, having some puzzles like compactors and nicely coloured lights to fit the theme - this reminds me a bit of Shrunk Machine chapter from DNF, which makes me wonder if there's a chance that Wieder was behind that one as well. The idea to collect both the keys in any order to progress through the final door was also genuinely nice. Some of the encounters were more tricky here, perhaps the double Battlelords would be as well if it wasn't for the shrinker. Turned out the most problems I had with small enemies but in more cramped spaces. Also this time there was an abundance of ammo for heavier guns, so I could easily pack them all up before I finished, also ended up leaving one of the pearl healths untouched.

Score: 7.5/10

[Aleks]

Am I the only one still at it here? Ah well, close to finishing already, just one more level left after this post anyway...

Lost Lagoon

First of all, this level has my favourite music track from Caribbean - even if all of them are really good, this one especially stands out for me, having that jungle/mystery/adventure vibe akin to Indiana Jones movies. And it really fits the map, as this is basically what this one is all about. I gotta admit it might be one of the best Travis maps and one of the highlights of the episode, with all the creative puzzles and the intense change of vibe and pace from the previous maps that is really well executed. Here we finally leave the tourist resorts and dwell into the unknown, which is mostly jungle, caves and ruins of some ancient civilization, full of traps and puzzles. And IMO it does better as that kind of map than other "Indiana Jones" type levels, such as RT's own Aztec, Aztech and Himalayan Hell from The Gate or that old Indiana Nukem level, which all used various tricks from the movies. Here we have all the classic stuff, with the coloured pyramids being the key points along the way, done in a fun and challenging way. Now I have to admit being quite annoyed with the last puzzle involving jumping on some floating platforms accompanied by some commanders, as this is where I perished twice - and playing with no-saves, this is more punishing than normally... First time I didn't really know what to expect so a commander's sudden appearance and a rocket to the face pushed me from the platform into the oblivion and 2nd time I've tried to do it to carefully and ended up with the commanders destroying one of the platforms (should have used hot sauce for a longer jump I guess). Turned out the best way was to jump across the path really fast, as it takes a few seconds before the commanders appear. Anyway, even with these unwanted adventures, I still think highly of this map. There's most puzzles along the way and I think there's like 6 specific Duke lines for some of them. Level design-wise, this map is also particularly interesting for the kind of effects it uses - I think there's 2 areas that are made twice to resemble state before and after some effect, but both of them done so smoothly you can't even notice the transition. As for combat, there's plenty to do here - while the sole number of enemies may not be too large, the encounters are quite fun and challenging - like the commanders I mentioned above towards the end that are fought on a restricted space (BTW, in the instance where I managed to pass it, I also shot myself with an RPG in the face during the fight, luckily had 200 HP...), pig cops, inflatable seamonsters and octabrains usually attacking in large mobs, etc. There's also noticable pacing with the monster placement, so it's usually some silence, then a larger fight, which works well for keeping the players on their toes and adding some tension. As for the weaker parts, I guess one might argue over the linearity of this level, it's really like a one long snake with not much else to explore/get lost besides the main path, but it works here quite well due to the fact the level keeps throwing new and original stuff at us. And of course, the super slow elevator at the helipad is just ridiculous. Still doesn't change the fact it might be one of the best levels of the pack.

Score: 9/10

Voodoo Caves

This is the last we see of our beloved Kobayashi Maru (the reference which I only got many years after playing this the first time when I watched Star Trek - perhaps also my favourite film from the franchise, with said reference being one of my favourite motives in it) boat that takes us through most of the levels in this episode. Once again, we visit the caves, but this time around there's more room for exploration, but also more cheap traps and annoyingly fast auto-closing doors that may see you lose some HP to your own explosives, especially when that's the main guns you're using. The enemy placement and general crampedness of most of the caves in the first part of this one doesn't help either with navigation or really enjoyable combat, as it's all based on how fast can you spot whatever is shooting at you right after entering a room. I like the puzzle with shooting buttons to get the red key, but besides that and quite nice design with lots of nooks and crannies, this part is rather mediocre. The real fun starts after we emerge outside, there's also the single jetpack in the whole episode AFAIK in one of the secrets, also the enemy encounters from this point on seem more challenging rather than dickish. The ammo balance is also quite good, there's neither any scarcity or over abundance here. Finally, the best part is at the end, where we have to dive into a sunken ship to get the keycard from inside a treasure chest (also I like the creative use of projectile sprites here for other shiny stuff in the chest, instead of going the cheap way with new art). Generally, this is quite fun and fairly challenging level, but not really one of the best in the episode.

Score: 7/10

EDIT:
Just notice Quacken's post about Penthouse Paradise and his vote, which came at the same time as I was writing my post before apparently, so one of the votes didn't get counted. Fixed the results (probably wouldn't matter, since Billy & Bob are quite spectacular winners right now anyway):

Billy Boy's Maps + Bob Masters' Maps +++
Community Build Project Series
Mikko Sandt's Maps + Duke Tournament + MSSP Episode + The Brave New World
NAM (Build Engine Game)
Trilogy Packs (Aqua + JMW + Jungle Tour + KaiseR Land + Lorch + Munasta + Skycity)

[Aleks]

The Alien Remains

A very strong ending to this episode, with really solid design, original theme, creative puzzles and pretty challenging combat. Duke finds himself in some kind of an alien structure built partly underwater, which is a nice mix of alien hi-tech and some ancient runic shit. We need to collect two keycards, but besides the main progression route, there's quite some to explore as well, like the underwater/rock part (I like how conveniently the designer placed lots of snorkles and sunglasses around this area to allow for easy exploration). There are two routes to take, both have some fairly easy puzzles to solve, which base more on mere observation skills rather than hard thinking. These are both nicely presented (I especially like the one with setting up the glowing symbols underwater, somehow I completely forgot about this one or never really paid attention to it before?) and everything is packed with quite demanding combat - especially the inflatable seamonsters are placed in some dangerous positions here, the 2 ones on the opposite sides of the stairs flights leading downward fucked me up quite badly. Finally there's the massive build-up to the Cycloid, which works better than the one in DC IMO - the corridor with sentry drone screeches as you approach the final gate was especially a nice touch that got me all up on my toes. The final battle isn't trivial either, as there's 2 seamonsters guarding the boss, so it's wise to focus on them first. I've had my jetpack from the previous level, which I put to good use here to make the fight better, still ended up getting hit with one of the rockets that got me down to 75 HP, but nothing a medkit couldn't fix. After we're done killing, we get a neat ending told in panels, similar to the one in DC - this one in particular reminds me of one of the Bond movies, I think it was The Spy Who Loved Me, which ended up on a similar note with the escape pod.

Score: 9/10

Final thoughts: While I don't have much nostalgia for Caribbean as I've never played it as a kid, I think that all things considered it is a better episode than DC, putting Build engine and its quirks to better and more elaborate use. As I pointed out in my first post about this, the new graphics, weapons and enemies are all kept consistent both between themselves and with regular Duke's art. And while I really like the "resort" levels, I'd say the episode really picks up in the 2nd part where we are stranded out there in the wild, with more abstract and original puzzles and strong, but fitting shift in theme.

[NNC]

Alien Remains feels like a Blum map, isn't it? The staircase area somewhat reminded me of Lunar Reactor. The secrets, especially the outside one is awesome too. Only the ending was fucked up with the muh recoloured boss room. Also, Cyclops is not really a fit there, it's more like a Battlelord area.

[FistMarine]

Sorry for taking forever to review Duke Caribbean: Life's a Beach! I feel guilty that I wasn't more active and that some people had to create many posts in a row (like 4 consecutive posts). I generally prefer to write more in a single post rather than 1-2 maps reviewed at once. Now it's time to wrap up the last post for month! I have to split the post into two parts, so the second part will be posted tomorrow! Sorry for the inconvenience!

Introduction and Presentation

Duke Caribbean: Life's a Beach is the second of Sunstorm Interactive's expansions for Duke Nukem 3D and it is also the last released commercial expansion for Duke Nukem 3D (at least until 2016). Because Caribbean was released relatively late, in January 1998 to be exact (the CD files are dated 09/01/1998), it missed the opportunity to be included in the Kill-a-Ton Collection (which was released in late 1997). This makes the expansion much harder to acquire, at least it used to be harder to buy/find, until the recent times.

The story of the addon is that the aliens interrupt Duke's well deserved vacation (after the events of Duke It Out In DC? I'm not sure if the expansions are connected to each other and if yes, does Caribbean take place after Duke It Out In DC or after Nuclear Winter?) and it's up to you to help Duke get rid of these alien bastards!

Unlike Duke DC which only included new art, Duke Caribbean goes above and beyond. It not only includes brand new art (which fits very well the original Duke art) but also new music, new Duke speech, new enemies (Beach Babe, Sea Monster and Seagull are the new enemies, although the Beach Babe isn't really considered an enemy, while the rest Duke enemies are reskinned and wear cool new clothes/sunglasses, etc), "new" weapons (reskinned weapons) and a new cutscene! It even comes with a new launcher that is actually a pain to get it working on latest version of DOSBox (see more below).

Note that the expansion was mainly made to be compatible with v1.3D (rather than being made Atomic only), which is also why you won't find Atomic resources included (there's no Expander ammo, Protector Drones, Pig Cop Tanks, etc in the maps). The Caribbean CON files also appear to be based off 1.3D CON files, so you get 6 pineapples (pipebombs) per pickup, the sharks are still aggressive, etc. Though playing in v1.3D will result in a few differences (see more below).

As with DC, I first played the grp version (vacation.grp) in JFDuke3D, then later I played the DOS version (for Duke3D v1.3D) in DOSBox-X. Both were done on CGS skill, all kills (possible) and all secrets, continuously with saves.

I mentioned DOSBox-X because Caribbean, much like older shareware versions of Shadow Warrior, does not run in latest official build of DOSBox, there is a problem with the CARIB.EXE file that DOSBox doesn't seem to run it correctly, so it incorrectly renames the files and because of that, the files will get corrupted and you can't run the addon anymore, thus requiring a reinstall of Duke Caribbean. Having backup folders helps in situations like these.

I used DOSBox-X 0.83.25 (which is the latest version at the time of writing) to play and it worked perfectly fine. I initially used latest DOSBox SVN build (to run the game, take a few pictures and watch the demos) but then switched to DOSBox X for my whole playthrough, which is why you will notice most of the screenshots are taken at my laptop's desktop resolution instead of the original resolution 2x that is the default choice for DOSBox. I only noticed this after taking a couple screenshots from the first level and I hope that it won't impact the quality of the screens.



Here is the secrets guide for Caribbean at the Steam forums: https://steamcommuni...s/?id=141508373

Before I start with map reviews, here are a couple important tips in general to remember about Caribbean:

1) The new enemies are acting a bit glitchy. They don't seem to add up to enemies killed tally. This is because all 3 of them (Beach Babe, Sea Monster, Seagull) replace different frames of the Enforcer, which is why the Enforcer never shows up in the episode. I only realized recently that ALL 3 of them replace the enforcer, I always thought that there were different enemies replaced.
2) Additionally, whenever the Seagull poops, it adds as an EXTRA missing enemy, as seen on this topic here (a somewhat recent discovery): https://forums.duke4...ophe-100-kills/
Because of this, it is recommended to kill the Seagull as soon as possible whenever encountered, to avoid the glitch happening. It's impossible to tell in-game how many enemies killed/missed when playing in original DOS Duke3D (only at end of level you can see the stats) but in source ports, you have the option to enable level stats (highly recommended). Then look at the amount of monsters (killed and total) whenever you encounter the seagull and try to kill it as soon as possible.
3) Related to the above, there are a few red troopers present in some maps (such as the second, sixth and seventh) that will NOT come back again after turning invisible/teleporting! It is recommended to kill them as soon as possible. Since it is impossible to distinguish them in Caribbean due to replaced art, just kill any trooper you come across quickly. If you see one doing the teleporting animation, you can't kill him anymore, so just load your save if you care about getting all the kills.
4) Sea Monsters are the most annoying monsters in the whole expansion and they will mess you up badly if you don't kill them quickly or else you take many coconuts to the face! Thankfully they don't have much health and they often kill themselves in the process.
5) There are a bunch of unofficial secrets that I will try to mention (unless I forget about them) in the maps, as they can be easily missed by the average player.
6) Some maps have only one Pearl Health (Atomic Health) present, so save those for the end of the map. Other maps (such as the last one) have multiple ones present, so you should grab a few during the map (to prepare you for some nasty ambushes), you will see why below. Otherwise, maps usually have plenty of health available and half of them also contain water fountains to make sure you never run out of health!
7) Some maps have a point of no return at the end of the level, so grab everything before getting to the exit. Additionally, the fifth map (Lost Lagoon) is fully linear, so it might be wise to grab every item you see, (e.g. ammo and health) instead of saving them for later.

With all that said, let's start with the map reviews!

Life's A Beach

Caribbean Catastrophe

The first map of the episode, which is a nice intro map that opens up the episode. Here you will find ALL your weapons (provided you look for secrets, both official and unofficial), as well as most enemies. Here are a few helpful hints:

1) If playing in the original version 1.3D, take note that paletted enemies have twice as much health. This makes paletted enemies (pig cops and even commanders and sea monsters!) much more dangerous and you will have to spend more ammo to kill them, while avoiding their attacks. If you find Caribbean too easy in Atomic 1.4/1.5 or EDuke32/JFDuke3D/Megaton or whatever, then you can play in v1.3D to get an extra challenge! Not to mention the colorful monsters are quite commonly encountered. There is, however, a small advantage of playing the expansion in DOS Duke3D v1.3D:
2) There are two stands at the beginning of the level. You may notice that only one opens that reveals the required access card. The OTHER one ONLY opens when playing Duke Caribbean in the original Full Version 1.3D in DOS! I don't understand why it works in this version and it is broken in rest versions. I took a picture showing both stands opened (in DOS version 1.3D). The stand in the right is the one that always opens and reveals the yellow access card. The one in the left contains a beach babe and only opens in DOS version 1.3D.
3) There is a hidden Voodoo Ring (Shrinker) present in the level. It is found near the beginning. Right where the first seagull is found, you have to jump over the wall that holds a crate of bananas (the portable medkit replacement). This is easily done by jumping inside the vent after taking the elevator (this is harder to do).
4) At the part with the prizes, it is recommended to pick up the goodies as soon as possible! Quickly check which switch opens which door and be quick when grabbing the item wanted! One of them is a red access card REQUIRED for progression! If you miss it, wait until it gets back to you. Otherwise, grab EVERY item you can, as soon as it gets in your line of sight. Unfortunately, there are rare situations where an item becomes inactive and can get stuck on the conveyor, impossible to grab anymore, as inactive items aren't carried on conveyors/water currents unless they see you to get activated again. I have experienced this myself with only the health items (bananas and crate of bananas) but thankfully I've always grabbed the rest more important items. I've seen once, many years ago, a video of someone on YouTube who was unfortunate enough to not get the red card and he was forced to cheat with DNCLIP! So make sure you don't end up in a similar situation!
5) You can press on various vending machines (like the ones near the ice machine) to temporary reveal a bunch of goodies nearby, such as health/ammo.
6) At the beginning, you can press on one of the telephones to reveal nearby health items (bananas).
7) It is impossible to get ALL kills in this level! Even if you get every kill (including sharks, slimer eggs, babes, etc) and don't get missing "monsters" from the seagull, you will still have missing 4 monsters! Maximum I was able to get is 80/84 kills on CGS difficulty (in JFDuke3D) and 86/90 kills (in DOS version). To further clarify, at the beginning of the map, there are 76 enemies present, 3 pig cops will spawn at some point in the level and a couple troopers from killing the dancing babes. I don't know any more details than that, so I don't know what could be those missing enemies other than maybe the beach babes that don't seem to add to kills but still count as actual enemies?
8) At the end, you get captured, so make sure you get everything before stepping into the ending sector!

Overall, this was a fine intro map. Let's see how the next one compares.
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Market Melee

The second map is a good follow-up to the first one. Despite getting captured at end of the first level, Duke retains his weapons and he has to evade somehow! The solution is getting close to the bars, then stepping backwards quickly when the bus crashes into the cell and allows you to escape! Funnily enough, that bus has the DUKE NUKEM 3D logo displayed on it!

As with the previous map, there are 3 seagulls, so it's recommended to kill them quickly to avoid the missing monsters glitch. There are also a few red troopers present in the map that will NOT come back again after turning invisible/teleporting. It is recommended to kill them as soon as you spot them. This isn't the only map that contains them!

Despite all of that, even if you get all the kills, you will still have a missing enemy at the end of level (104/105 kills on CGS, both playthroughs). I suspect that while the sharks have been fixed to properly count and add to kills, the slimer eggs weren't and will still inflate the kills counter when destroyed. Since there's only two slimer eggs present in the level, that will offset 2/3 seagulls that don't seem to add to kills when you kill them. Which still leaves you with a missing enemy in the end. I don't know a better explanation for that. Thankfully, when completing the rest levels, you shouldn't have any missing kills (if you have an enemy missing, you may have missed it somewhere).

The secret exit is found in this level! Inside one of the market places, jump into the shelf (shown in the second screenshot) and you should fall through, landing safely into water! Make a save before that, as there is NO WAY BACK, so you might want to grab everything left behind before leaving!

Overall, a nice map!
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A Full House

Probably the best map so far (and one of the best in the episode). It is very fun to play and the locations are very nice to visit.
The only flaw in this map is there are no official secrets. Instead, there are MANY unofficial ones. I actually missed the Devastator + ammo + pearl health in the club, which is the secret that Aleks mentioned above. This means I missed 45 devastator ammo (at least in the DOS playthrough), though I still ended up with 99 ammo eventually later in the episode (with full ammo on everything by the time I finished the fourth level). I suppose this will be useful to know into the future, especially if I plan to beat the episode on DIG skill. I don't have much else to say about the map.

Overall, this map is very nice and well worth playing! Highly recommended!
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Mr. Splashy's

One of the most memorable maps in the episode, Mr. Splashy's is filled with fun atmosphere! Though the map can get a bit confusing at times, so for the part with the fun ride, you need to toss a pipebomb pineapple above the wall to blow up a crack. You can also fit through that low space when jumping over the wall.

When you reach the last part of the level (with the waves), be sure to look behind when going towards the switch, as MANY enemies will spawn behind you! Somehow I got through this part with little to no damage at all but if you are caught unprepared, you can even die here. Once you clear this part, you need to make a LONG jump to reach the switch to activate the shrink rays (the first time you get to shrink in the episode, the second time is in last level to reach a secret area).

Go through the small vent. The captured babes will get killed by the explosions and spawn a few pig cops. They will most likely get shrunk in the process. Wait after you return to normal size, then quickly step on the shrunken pig cops. Be careful to not get shrunk again. Once you are done, if you have anything saved earlier in level, now it's time to grab all the stuff you left behind, as there is NO WAY BACK from this point on!

You have to decide between 4 choices. All of them lead you to the exit boat, except each contains a different weapon. You will most likely already have all the weapons up to this point. The only difference is the extra ammo you get, so try getting a weapon that you have less ammo for.
Here are all the choices from left to right: Devastator, Freezer, Chaingun, RPG.

Overall, despite a few annoying/confusing parts (and random screams that can distract you), this is a fun map!
png]

The Wavemistress

An interesting map that takes place at night, though it also has plenty of insta-kill traps (or just invisible walls you can run into and get killed, based on my past experiences and watching videos on YouTube), so I will mostly focus on the more important parts.

At crushers area, here is a helpful hint: I discovered back in my previous summer 2015 playthrough (which was also done deathless). When going through the second crusher, DON'T HOLD the crouch button or you will fall down and then crushed. Crouch once to fit through the place, let go the crouch button near the crusher and then strafe run (while timing it correctly), you should make it on your first attempt! Then at vent and at gears, be careful how you are going through them. I have watched a few playthroughs on YouTube and it appears that sometimes you get warped outside of map, then there is nothing you can do if that happens to you. The gears can also randomly crush you if you don't time your jump. Be careful and make sure you save your game before and after this part, as it's easily one of the most annoying parts in the entire expansion!

At the area filled with boxes, be careful of the hidden sentry drones that can blow up in your face and the two mini battlelords you will encounter in next room! Once you are done, look out for the spawned monsters on your way back.

There are 3 seagulls present in the map. One at beginning, one on the other side and another is present at the balcony later in the map.

Despite the annoying parts, to me this was an overall fine map! I used to dislike this map in the past (since it was often the map that killed me at least once or twice, I don't remember having too much trouble with other maps in the episode in the past decade) but after replaying it recently, it was somewhat fun, at least on a continuous playthrough (it might be different on a pistol start). Not much else to say other than it's up to you which path you choose first.

Will the next map be better or worse? Let's find out!
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Lost Lagoon

Since this map is linear, it is recommended to GRAB EVERYTHING you can before advancing further, as there will not be any back! This means you have to find every secret as you progress and also grab every item that you might have saved for later. This also means to pick up health/armor/ammo even if you don't necessary need it at that time (example to grab large health pickup at 90 health).

Because of that, I have to point out where the secrets are:
1) When reaching the point with activating a hand switch to flood the place, be sure to jump down on the ledge, the secret will reward you with 2 packs of pineapples (blow up the crack to get back).
2) When at the part with the slowly crushing ceiling, quickly press on the two Battlelord faces to unlock one of the secrets that rewards you with a pearl health and skips this part with the crushers. Be quick when doing this (may also take multiple tries, as it seems for me it only worked on second attempt, so have a handy save before this part).
3) Towards the end, before the part with the crashed plane (which is before the door requiring red access card), run against the water currents in the opposite direction (you will meet a few monsters along the way), then go through the waterfall, you will find a few slimers, a dancing lady and two large health pickups + Devastator ammo.

At the part where you must find the blue card to continue, you have to blow up a pillar in order to continue. A hint is provided inside the cave (where you find a pair of sunglasses to read the message) but this hint is easy to miss and I actually had to look up on YouTube to remember what to do next.

Once you get to the part where you get to decide which path (left, middle, right), I HIGHLY recommend the MIDDLE path! It seems the safest one! No matter which path you take, it leads to the same destination. After this part, collect the ammo, then you have to do some platforming and then WATCH OUT for those two commanders when you reach the last platform! Kill them quickly with your Coconut Launcher and then watch for two more commanders coming after you press the switch! At this point, the lava will rise to your level, so you no longer have to worry about falling into pit. Just be sure to dodge the commanders' missiles and you should be fine!

Something interesting to note is that the part with the crashed plane seems to resemble the Caribbean intermission screen (compare the second screen with the third one). I should have taken the screen at a better angle to show what I mean.

The only weird thing is in DOS version (forgot if this happened in JFDuke3D), I got a missing sky texture halfway into the map, it was just a HOM effect in the sky (everything else was fine). No idea what exactly happened, as I think it might have been caused by taking a picture and quitting the game for a short break, then when I came back and loaded my save, the night sky was gone.

Overall, the map is alright but I found it a bit weaker than the rest. I suppose I didn't like the fact it was very linear, despite the fact you get to revisit a few places, they aren't the exact same place you visited earlier (note the different item placement). Let's hope the next map is a bit better.
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Voodoo Caves

This map is quite cramped at times, which makes combat a bit more annoying, especially the sea monsters that launch coconuts at you, guaranteed to make you lose large amounts of health! Health/armor supplies are also a bit scarce in this map (mostly until towards the end), at least that's how it felt in the DOS version where I kept taking coconuts in the face and even one or two octabrain projectiles. At least I managed to survive, though I had to use two crates of bananas and was desperately in need for more armor (until I grabbed the suntan lotion from a secret area and by the end when it was gone, I backtracked to get an used dropped one). OK I admit I did a couple of save/load just to get 75 armor points, because the used lotion often gave me 50 points and felt like I could get more.

There is a secret that contains the only JETPACK in the episode! It is located in the area at end (when you get to the bridge). You have the option between jumping directly into the water or take the elevator (which counts as another secret and rewards you with another pearl health). I recommend taking the elevator, it is safer.

10 assault captains are also present in the level, so be careful to not have one disappear or else you won't get all the kills! When entering a new area, kill all the enemies you will see. Don't let any trooper teleport or he will disappear forever!

As with the previous map, honestly I found it a bit weaker compared to the rest of the episode, partially because of the placement of the sea monsters (at least I remembered the one that is revealed behind you when you approach the bridge, so he didn't get me by surprise).
For the good things, I also liked the sunken pirate ship at the end of the map and the treasure chest was also nicely done.

With a bit more work, this could have been a better map. I liked what I played but I did feel a little bit disappointed at times.
Will the final map be better or it will disappoint? Let's find out!
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The Alien Remains

The final level! This map was very interesting overall and made for a nice boss map! That part with the stairs also reminded me of Lunar Reactor from the original Duke3D!

For those switch puzzles, there are hints shown in the level and if you get a switch wrong, it will spawn sea monsters behind you! The solution for the one in the dark room (that contains the shrink ray), is activating those 3 switches (in the previous room that contains two mini battlelords) and looking at the shapes that get formed underwater. Look at the window to see the shapes moving.
When having to choose the correct puzzle buttons, I generally recommend activating all buttons anyway (since you also get extra health spawned). DON'T ACTIVATE ALL BUTTONS AT ONCE! Just activate one at the time and quickly turn around to see if there will spawn a sea monster behind you. I do that to get all kills anyway.
The puzzle near the fast conveyors has the solution directly above you, on the alien logo (the logo appears many times throughout the level). Just look carefully at the symbols and you will figure out the solution.

Correct solutions for the puzzles (from left to right):
Room with the fast conveyors (alien symbol puzzle): 3-3-2
Room with the shrink ray (color/shape puzzle): 2-3-1

Once you solve the puzzle correctly, you will unlock the respective card. However, some monsters will also spawn on your way back, so be prepared! Those sea monsters were a pain in the ass in this level, at least on the DOS version, costing me a lot of health at times and keeping things tense (I got saved by the bananas I had in the inventory)!

Speaking of which, I had a few weird things happen to me in the DOS version. First, when I started the map, as soon as I was killing the first couple of enemies, one pig cop managed to shoot the pineapples behind me (near the pipe) which caused me to lose nearly half of my extra health from the explosion, knocking me to around 120 health (armor was also damaged in the process). I decided to reload, probably for the better (I still lost a shit-ton of health in this level overall but thankfully I survived in the end and still ended up fully maxed).

Later, when I tried to jump into the pipe (to submerge to water section), I somehow got warped to the secret "deathmatch" rooms (with the teleporters and lava) and then got stuck near the boss corridor/room with no way back. Obviously this required loading the last save to continue. I never had this happen to me before, so I found this just weird.

When entering the secret that requires you to shrink, first blow up the pipe (notice two pineapples standing here) to collect a pearl health. Then, you may notice you can swim into the small pool. To get further, press on the UP arrow to reveal a nearby switch. Then push/kick the switch, it will open the path behind you. Swim further and once you surface, prepare to fight octabrains and slimer eggs. Kill them and be rewarded with an unofficial secret place, which contains a bunch of goodies (health, armor, etc).

The two access cards (required to open the corridor leading to the final boss) can be grabbed by getting near the pillars and jumping, Duke will somehow be able to grab them. I didn't do this trick in my playthrough, I just watched speedruns in past and found this interesting to point out.

As with the previous map (and the second one), a few red troopers will be present in some places, so quickly kill them before they vanish forever!

Before entering the final room, I suggest to use rockets to get rid of those babes in the boss room, as they may get in your way during the boss battle. I forgot to do this in my JFDuke3D playthrough but I made sure to do this in the DOS playthrough. This leads to mixed results because the babes may protect you from eating a coconut if they get hit instead. In any case, it is difficult to not eat any coconuts during this battle but if you have maximum health and armor, you should survive at least 1-2 direct hits. You may also want to get rid of those two spawned sea monsters before taking down the reskinned Cycloid Emperor. Thankfully, I survived in both playthroughs, with a bit of luck (using the Jetpack helps a bit to avoid the Emperor's coconuts). You should also have everything at maximum (assuming you played continuously and found every secret so far and conserved resources, etc) before entering the boss room, to ensure a higher survival chance.

Once you defeat the boss, you will get to watch a new cutscene, which is similar to the one from DukeDC! In this one, Duke gets to escape in a pod and end up on the surface surrounded by beach ladies. Duke finally gets to enjoy the holiday!

Overall, this was a great final level! But wait, we aren't done just yet...
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[LakiSoft]

I know i am joining bit late, since it's end of May already, but better late than never. I finished Caribean on Tsunami skill level (DIG Equivalent)

My thoughts of each level:

Level 1 - As other people already stated, it's nice first level to begin exotic adventure with.
Level 2 - A bit frustrating at times but very creative and original
Level 3 - Mister Splashy is highlight of this expansion
Level 4 - Confusing at times, but very interesting layout
Level 5 - Lost Lagoon is very mystic and fun level to play
Level 6 - Honestly the least favorite level of this episode but still somewhat interesting and fun
Level 7 - The final level and the best one. Level design and puzzles are fantastic!

Overall, Duke Caribean is great exotic refreshing expansion pack. It would have been even better if brought 3 new brand episodes than just one (not counting DukeMatch 4-level episode here.)
It's my favorite expansion pack\spinoff\sequel for Duke Nukem 3D.

I will see if i found time to beat Duke DC today as well. Very good choice this month my friend @FistMarine! Your reviews and detailed reviews are amazing and very helpful! Keep up good work!

Some Screenshots:



(Screenshots of Level 7 being complete and its stats screen got corrupted for some reason so i couldn't post here, sorry about that though)

[FistMarine]

Thanks my friend! Your screenshots are nice too! Although it would have been cooler if you also had a couple gameplay screenshots (maybe a bunch of screens combined into one, like you posted in past) and sorry to hear about the Level 7 screenshots getting corrupted, I think it has to do with the ending (in my previous 2015 playthrough, due to having to use unofficial caribfix.exe, I had the ending crash on me unless I skipped it quickly, to show the ending stats). Anyway, I will post the second part of the message from yesterday (had to split it into two parts, as it was too long and reached 20 MB upload limit for screenshots) and hopefully wrapping up everything about this month's club event.

Vacation Dukematch

There is an extra DM episode included in Caribbean, replacing E2 in game. It consists of 4 DM maps: Island Hopping, Hidden Grotto, Cruise Ship and The Docks.
The maps were already covered by DNSKILL420, so I don't think there is any reason to repeat myself. I didn't play the maps with bots or human players, I just explored them alone.

In JFDuke3D, I accessed the first one by starting the episode and the rest by going through USER MAP menu. They had no name (just the map filename) if accessed as User Maps, so I had to use DNSCOTTY cheat to warp to them and get the proper level name and the correct song playing in the background.

In the DOS version, due to having to use CARIB.EXE to launch the expansion (so I can't use the usual DUKE3D.EXE with command line parameters), I ended up doing the same as in JFDuke3D, using DNSCOTTY202-204 cheat in-game to access the rest maps, as only first one you can access directly from main menu. The rest three require the level warp cheat. Strangely, in the DOS version, they didn't have their own names, they showed something like VACATION DM1. Indeed, looking now at the CON files, in Caribbean v1.3D con files, they have VACATION DM1-4 names. But in the v1.4/v1.5 con files (as well as vacation.grp), they show the correct/proper name.

As for the maps themselves, they are nice and short and that's about it. Most of them are missing the Voodoo Ring and/or the trip mines (the first one only includes the Super Soak'em and the Coconut Launcher). Despite their short size, I imagine they are pretty fun for Dukematch (for 2-3 players at most), at least based on the videos uploaded by DNSKILL420. I will only post a screenshot for each, so they can be quickly viewed and see what are these maps about.



From what I noticed, the third map is basically the short DM version of The Wavemistress, taking place at day instead of at night. The rest seem to be original (?) designs or meant to be for more SP levels, if they intended the Life's a Beach episode to be longer than just 8 levels.

Overall, Duke Caribbean: Life's a Beach is a major improvement over Duke It Out In D.C. and as a result, Caribbean is the most well-liked of the Duke3D expansions and it's VERY FUN to play throughout, although the expansion is not without its faults/flaws, which may have been pointed out earlier. To not make it any longer, I will jump to the conclusions.

Final Thoughts: DukeDC and Vacation are both absolutely worth playing even to this day! They come very close to the quality of the original episodes! Just make sure you are using the patches linked in first post to convert the SSI files into GRP, assuming you have the original CDs and want to play in source ports (though newer versions of EDuke32, maybe also RedNukem, allows to detect and load the SSI files directly) or alternatively, buy the version sold at Zoom-Platform and you don't have to do any extra work!

Penthouse Paradise is also a nice one map addon, though I highly recommend playing a GRP'ed version of the addon in your favorite source port, in which case you get to decide between the official Zoom Platform version (for Atomic Edition and source ports) OR the free Addon Compilation Version (for EDuke32 only).

If you have to decide between which version of these addons to play, then my personal recommendation (assuming you have the original discs) is to EITHER go with DOS version for v1.3D (both DUKEDC and VACATION felt a bit more vanilla for 1.3D) or the GRP version for source ports. For Penthouse Paradise, I recommend the Addon Compilation version for EDuke32. I don't own the Zoom Platform release of Duke3D, so I don't know if the expansions have some extra changes made for them (such as map fixes, con fixes, etc), in which case it will be interesting to check them out.

My only death(s) in this month was caused by sixth map of DukeDC (DOS version only). If it weren't for that epic fail that ruined the flawless run, it would have been a flawless run this month! Oh well, at least I'm very happy with how things turned out and I suppose the next time I will replay the expansions, I will try beating them on DIG skill! I forgot to beat that particular DC map from a pistol start without saving (while recording), so that will happen another time when I get to revisit the addons! I still have to beat the other versions of the addons: DukeDC (for Plutonium 1.4) and Vacation (for Plutonium 1.4 and Atomic 1.5). Maybe one day.

As for my ratings, personally I would rate Penthouse Paradise as a 7/10, while DC and Caribbean both as an 8/10, possibly 8.5/10 had they made an entire episode replacement (11 maps in total) and in case of DC, possibly including new art for enemies and maybe a few extra DM maps as well (instead of that pointless DEMO.MAP).

Thanks everyone for participating! This month has been once again a blast! And now with more official content finished, it's not long until we will play through the remaining official content. There will be enough time for later this year to play through The Birth, Alien World Order (World Tour), Nuclear Winter, Duke Zone II, Duke Xtreme and Duke, It's Zero Hour. Duke Nukem 64 and Total Meltdown (Plug N Pray) are also to be considered at some point, probably next year if I can't fit them in this year's schedule. Most of these will also be combined in same choice/month, usually 2 of them at once. Can't reveal more to not ruin the surprise for their eventual nomination.

As for the winners, it appears the choice with Billy Boy & Bob Masters has won with THREE votes! It doesn't matter whether I vote or not, as the winner is already decided.

Also it's nice that Aleks noticed that Quacken's vote hasn't been counted (I noticed the same thing a few days ago but forgot to point out until I was done with my last review).
To make this clear from now on in regards to voting system, you add a + to your highlighted choice and then the next poster/voter has to copy that whole selection and add another plus to their choice, meaning that if voting for same choice as previous poster, it will now have two pluses! There can be very rare cases where two people post at same time (which is what actually happened in last posts), so you have to double check the votes. Hope it's all clear now.

Anyway, the new topic will be up tomorrow! I will gather all necessary download links in the meantime, since the maps aren't contained in a single pack, so the maps have to be downloaded separately. This applies to all the maps by both authors (Billy Boy and Bob Masters). They don't have many releases but those maps are quite lengthy, so I hope you are prepared for the next month's club event.

As a bonus, here are my times from JFDuke3D playthroughs of DC and Caribbean, to compare with the DOS version 1.3D stats (in the screenshots posted previously).

DUKEDC Maps Stats

Spoiler

DEMO
Time: 12:48
Kills: 64/64
Secrets: 3/3

DUKEDC1
Time: 18:33
Kills: 63/63
Secrets: 3/3

DUKEDC2
Time: 17:43
Kills: 68/68
Secrets: 1/1

DUKEDC3
Time: 35:35
Kills: 133/133
Secrets: 3/3

DUKEDC4
Time: 64:32
Kills: 191/191
Secrets: 7/7

DUKEDC5
Time: 18:00
Kills: 60/60
Secrets: 5/5

DUKEDC6
Time: 26:16
Kills: 76/76
Secrets: 4/4

DUKEDCSL
Time: 52:28
Kills: 229/229
Secrets: 5/5

DUKEDC7
Time: 22:40
Kills: 89/89
Secrets: 3/3

DUKEDC8
Time: 27:20
Kills: 86/86
Secrets: 0/0

DUKEDC9
Time: 23:33
Kills: 100/100
Secrets: 3/3

VACATION Maps Stats

Spoiler

VACA1
Time: 35:20
Kills: 80/84
Secrets: 9/9

VACA2
Time: 30:15
Kills: 104/105
Secrets: 7/7

VACASL
Time: 31:27
Kills: 90/90
Secrets: 0/0

VACA3
Time: 35:55
Kills: 136/136
Secrets: 5/5

VACA4
Time: 34:00
Kills: 149/149
Secrets: 5/5

VACA5
Time: 22:02
Kills: 85/85
Secrets: 3/3

VACA6
Time: 29:46
Kills: 99/99
Secrets: 9/9

VACA7
Time: 28:56
Kills: 128/128
Secrets: 5/5

Have a nice day! And see you on the next month's Map/Mod Club!

[Aleks]

The Watchtower, on 29 May 2022 - 01:56 PM, said:

Alien Remains feels like a Blum map, isn't it? The staircase area somewhat reminded me of Lunar Reactor. The secrets, especially the outside one is awesome too. Only the ending was fucked up with the muh recoloured boss room. Also, Cyclops is not really a fit there, it's more like a Battlelord area.

That's a good point about Blum and Lunar Reactor in particular resemblances in this map! I don't mind the ending though, it fits the general theme of the episode. As for the Battlelord area, there doesn't seem to be too much room for cover in this room, but I guess the connection might also have something to do with that final build-up to the boss area being somewhat akin to The Abyss finale? Speaking of the original maps' vibes in Caribbean, I've always considered the first level to be similar to Raw Meat, in aspects such as its flow, locations ("white rooms", then karaoke/disco, then some water) and general design.

FistMarine, on 30 May 2022 - 09:00 AM, said:

Note that the expansion was mainly made to be compatible with v1.3D (rather than being made Atomic only), which is also why you won't find Atomic resources included (there's no Expander ammo, Protector Drones, Pig Cop Tanks, etc in the maps). The Caribbean CON files also appear to be based off 1.3D CON files, so you get 6 pineapples (pipebombs) per pickup, the sharks are still aggressive, etc. Though playing in v1.3D will result in a few differences (see more below).

Something interesting I've noticed that might explain this - it seems like they started working on the addon even before Atomic was released (or before they got their hands on it), then they decided to actually take some assets from Atomic. Proof? This cardboard box texture from Atomic that can be found in some places seems to have been retrofitted, here the mapper missed an easy to miss spot of top of the boxes stack, which already had the wooden box texture (so not the base texture from the floor) before - screen is from Mr. Splashy's near one of the secrets:

Quote

1) The new enemies are acting a bit glitchy. They don't seem to add up to enemies killed tally. This is because all 3 of them (Beach Babe, Sea Monster, Seagull) replace different frames of the Enforcer, which is why the Enforcer never shows up in the episode. I only realized recently that ALL 3 of them replace the enforcer, I always thought that there were different enemies replaced.
2) Additionally, whenever the Seagull poops, it adds as an EXTRA missing enemy, as seen on this topic here (a somewhat recent discovery): https://forums.duke4...ophe-100-kills/
Because of this, it is recommended to kill the Seagull as soon as possible whenever encountered, to avoid the glitch happening. It's impossible to tell in-game how many enemies killed/missed when playing in original DOS Duke3D (only at end of level you can see the stats) but in source ports, you have the option to enable level stats (highly recommended). Then look at the amount of monsters (killed and total) whenever you encounter the seagull and try to kill it as soon as possible.
3) Related to the above, there are a few red troopers present in some maps (such as the second, sixth and seventh) that will NOT come back again after turning invisible/teleporting! It is recommended to kill them as soon as possible. Since it is impossible to distinguish them in Caribbean due to replaced art, just kill any trooper you come across quickly. If you see one doing the teleporting animation, you can't kill him anymore, so just load your save if you care about getting all the kills.

Interesting about the number 1 here, didn't know that. As for number 3, it seems to be fixed in EDuke or perhaps the CONs that came with Megaton Edition, but I didn't notice the captains not coming back after teleporting.

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1) If playing in the original version 1.3D, take note that paletted enemies have twice as much health. This makes paletted enemies (pig cops and even commanders and sea monsters!) much more dangerous and you will have to spend more ammo to kill them, while avoiding their attacks. If you find Caribbean too easy in Atomic 1.4/1.5 or EDuke32/JFDuke3D/Megaton or whatever, then you can play in v1.3D to get an extra challenge! Not to mention the colorful monsters are quite commonly encountered.

Hah, and this completely didn't occur to me actually, so nice find!

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4) At the part with the prizes, it is recommended to pick up the goodies as soon as possible! Quickly check which switch opens which door and be quick when grabbing the item wanted! One of them is a red access card REQUIRED for progression! If you miss it, wait until it gets back to you. Otherwise, grab EVERY item you can, as soon as it gets in your line of sight. Unfortunately, there are rare situations where an item becomes inactive and can get stuck on the conveyor, impossible to grab anymore, as inactive items aren't carried on conveyors/water currents unless they see you to get activated again. I have experienced this myself with only the health items (bananas and crate of bananas) but thankfully I've always grabbed the rest more important items. I've seen once, many years ago, a video of someone on YouTube who was unfortunate enough to not get the red card and he was forced to cheat with DNCLIP! So make sure you don't end up in a similar situation!

Yeah besides not carrying inactive items, apparently conveyor belts seem to offset the items a little bit with each loop, so at some points they will end up outside of the conveyor belt sector. In this case, this is probably avoided as the sector is all white-lined I guess or perhaps it carries the items so slowly that it would take a long time for this to happen. However, I wonder how they managed the scene where Mr. Splashy is running from a Pig Cop in the 3rd level with a constant conveyor belts loop that is quite fast? Wonder if that would also offset to hell after a while.

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2) When at the part with the slowly crushing ceiling, quickly press on the two Battlelord faces to unlock one of the secrets that rewards you with a pearl health and skips this part with the crushers. Be quick when doing this (may also take multiple tries, as it seems for me it only worked on second attempt, so have a handy save before this part).

You only need to press the switch to the right (then go into the opening on the left), the one on the left just blows a hole in the fence blocking your way, but you don't need it to progress.

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Later, when I tried to jump into the pipe (to submerge to water section), I somehow got warped to the secret "deathmatch" rooms (with the teleporters and lava) and then got stuck near the boss corridor/room with no way back. Obviously this required loading the last save to continue. I never had this happen to me before, so I found this just weird.

Are these "deathmatch rooms"? They seemed to be perfectly accessible in single player for me, also all of the teleporters were possible to open.

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When entering the secret that requires you to shrink, first blow up the pipe (notice two pineapples standing here) to collect a pearl health. Then, you may notice you can swim into the small pool. To get further, press on the UP arrow to reveal a nearby switch. Then push/kick the switch, it will open the path behind you. Swim further and once you surface, prepare to fight octabrains and slimer eggs. Kill them and be rewarded with an unofficial secret place, which contains a bunch of goodies (health, armor, etc).

Oh, didn't know about this one!

Gingis Khan, on 30 May 2022 - 06:04 PM, said:

Level 5 - Lost Lagoon is very mystic and fun level to play

Finally someone who can appreciate Lost Lagoon! BTW, after finishing the first 3 episodes, then DC and Caribbean on DIG, I'd say that Life's a Beach felt like the most balanced one on this skill.

[Quacken]

I knew the Sea Monster replaced the Enforcer, but I didn't know individual frames of monsters could be taken and replaced with new entities, leading to the Beach Babe and Seagull using the Enforcer's frames. Now I'm wondering what the beach balls from Caribbean Catastrophe and Wavemistress replace. Do they replace something else or did Sunstorm really get good mileage out of those Enforcer frames?

[LakiSoft]

Started playing Duke DC on Default Skill level Let's Rock. Just finished first level. I have no any complains about map quality and architecture here. It was very well done!



Duke Nukem 3D - Duke It Out D.C. - Level 1 - Gameplay video
Watch here: https://files.fm/f/ng8y3t65y

[LakiSoft]

Continued playing Duke DC. I just have beaten levels from 2 to 5 on Default Let's Rock skill. Here's my thoughts:

Level 1 - As i already said in my previous post, very well designed and detailed map.
Level 2 - Once again, i liked the architecture and design. It really actually gives you the feeling you are in actual real life place. I liked beautiful Greek letters behind the entire structure the most. Only small complainant would be bullshit explosion trap down in toilet. Otherwise map is perfectly solid and well designed.
Level 3 - Some parts could have been done better but otherwise very good and solid map.
Level 4 - I used to be lot confused on this map when i was kid. Once i mastered it actually flows pretty easy. Details are realistic and amazing. Some parts are even Mystic.
Level 5 - Capitol Punishment are one of my favorites, not too long, not too short map either. IMO, really enjoyable experience! The parts of this map are reminding me of actual Atomic Edition's E4L5 Pigsty level. As a kid i often confused which is which sometimes. But overall it brings me good childhood memories and it's very fun to play.

Screenshots:







Duke Nukem 3D - Duke It Out in D.C. - Levels 2 to 5 - Gameplay video
You can watch video here: https://files.fm/f/24h7yzgdj

Aleks, on 31 May 2022 - 10:19 AM, said:

Finally someone who can appreciate Lost Lagoon! BTW, after finishing the first 3 episodes, then DC and Caribbean on DIG, I'd say that Life's a Beach felt like the most balanced one on this skill.

BTW, i also forgot to mention that MIDI Music of Last Lagoon is one the best soundtracks i ever heard in any video game.

[Aleks]

Quacken, on 31 May 2022 - 02:15 PM, said:

I knew the Sea Monster replaced the Enforcer, but I didn't know individual frames of monsters could be taken and replaced with new entities, leading to the Beach Babe and Seagull using the Enforcer's frames. Now I'm wondering what the beach balls from Caribbean Catastrophe and Wavemistress replace. Do they replace something else or did Sunstorm really get good mileage out of those Enforcer frames?

Just checked and apparently they replace the Duf Beer dirigible.

[FistMarine]

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Something interesting I've noticed that might explain this - it seems like they started working on the addon even before Atomic was released (or before they got their hands on it), then they decided to actually take some assets from Atomic. Proof? This cardboard box texture from Atomic that can be found in some places seems to have been retrofitted, here the mapper missed an easy to miss spot of top of the boxes stack, which already had the wooden box texture (so not the base texture from the floor) before - screen is from Mr. Splashy's near one of the secrets:

Nice catch! I also noticed in Market Melee the shelf textures from Shop-N-Bag. I did have a feeling they used a few textures from Atomic, just like how Penthouse Paradise used some food items from Duke Burger, although they weren't interactive in v1.3D at all since they acted like solid objects. Which reminds me of how the donuts prop is non-interactive in v1.3D (in Atomic, you can interact with and destroy it with your kick).

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Interesting about the number 1 here, didn't know that. As for number 3, it seems to be fixed in EDuke or perhaps the CONs that came with Megaton Edition, but I didn't notice the captains not coming back after teleporting.

About the captains not coming back, I noticed it only in DOS version after reading it on Duke Nukem Wikia many years ago (in 2015 or so) as I might not have it noticed before (only since 2015 I care about getting all kills and secrets). It is possible the external con files in Megaton Edition (located in addons folder) fixed this error, although looking at it right now inside the folders, only Nuclear Winter has external con files (and one of the files is wrongly named nwdes.con instead of nwdefs.con), while the addons in general only have "modified" maps (to add coop support and fix various little bugs, they were patched by NUKEMDAVE if I'm not mistaken). The grp files (dukedc and vacation) included in Megaton Edition are IDENTICAL to the ones created by the patch I linked in first post (Megaton's nwinter.grp is identical to the original CD's NWINTER.GRP). I compared them, they are identical and they function similarly (they both get loaded by EDuke32 on the startup window). I guess they left it like that to make the files compatible with source ports.

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Hah, and this completely didn't occur to me actually, so nice find!

Thanks! I mentioned for people who dared to play the expansion in v1.3D to get a more difficult challenge (due to abundance of paletted pig cops and a couple colored commanders and sea monsters as well), though it seems Laki/Gingis already beaten Caribbean on DIG in DOS version 1.3D (and without even finding all secrets! nice job my friend!), so I really should start playing more stuff on DIG.

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Yeah besides not carrying inactive items, apparently conveyor belts seem to offset the items a little bit with each loop, so at some points they will end up outside of the conveyor belt sector. In this case, this is probably avoided as the sector is all white-lined I guess or perhaps it carries the items so slowly that it would take a long time for this to happen. However, I wonder how they managed the scene where Mr. Splashy is running from a Pig Cop in the 3rd level with a constant conveyor belts loop that is quite fast? Wonder if that would also offset to hell after a while.

I think in first level's case, there are silent teleporters that teleport the items to the other side (reminds me a bit of how in Babe Land, the part with the ducks and atomic healths, have silent teleporters as well), so there won't be the offset glitch. I looked in Mapster to confirm, as these areas are unreachable without DNCLIP cheat.
No idea about third level. I think regarding the objects on conveyors, this isn't an issue until you reach the location and those objects/items SEE you, then they become active. So in case of Caribbean first level, those items will not be active until they see you, at least most of them (I think some other items are always active without having to see you first).

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You only need to press the switch to the right (then go into the opening on the left), the one on the left just blows a hole in the fence blocking your way, but you don't need it to progress.

OK thanks. I will keep this in mind from now on.

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Are these "deathmatch rooms"? They seemed to be perfectly accessible in single player for me, also all of the teleporters were possible to open.

I meant these secret areas that were probably intended mainly for deathmatch, at least that seemed to me. I know they can all be accessed in Single Player but that one time I got stuck with no way out, I was able to make my way from those lava rooms into the room with the Octabrains and kill them, then have no way out (the way to the boss wouldn't open and the main door obviously requires two cards to open). I think this glitch was caused by the overlapping sectors, as I've also had pineapples disappear into thin air when trying to blow up that pipe, so maybe they got warped into those rooms.

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Finally someone who can appreciate Lost Lagoon! BTW, after finishing the first 3 episodes, then DC and Caribbean on DIG, I'd say that Life's a Beach felt like the most balanced one on this skill.

I would have appreciated Lost Lagoon more if it was possible to backtrack, at least in some cases (very few times you can backtrack to some earlier parts, otherwise there's many parts where you can't even return to the previous area), though the level itself was still solid, I liked every level overall, there wasn't anything to dislike. I only thought that Lost Lagoon and Voodoo Caves weren't as memorable as the rest levels in the episode. Also hearing about Caribbean being most balanced episode for DIG (partially because of getting all weapons in first map) encourages me to play it on DIG one day. Though that only comes with a limitation of not being able to access the rest DM levels anymore (only the first one) in the DOS version. I may be able to start DUKE3D.EXE instead of CARIB.EXE and then use command line parameters to warp directly to those maps, just hope all the con files get loaded properly.

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I knew the Sea Monster replaced the Enforcer, but I didn't know individual frames of monsters could be taken and replaced with new entities, leading to the Beach Babe and Seagull using the Enforcer's frames. Now I'm wondering what the beach balls from Caribbean Catastrophe and Wavemistress replace. Do they replace something else or did Sunstorm really get good mileage out of those Enforcer frames?

Beach Balls replace the blimp from Stadium (and obviously they never spawn loads of stuff anymore). Aleks already beat me to it while I was writing this message.

Also Gingis, nice screens my friend! I can't wait to watch your DukeDC videos.

The new topic will be up later today! I have most of the topic already written in the text document, the new June 2022 topic will be up in next hour or so, just need to gather a few download links/mirrors for the maps and probably something else I'm forgetting at the moment.

Thanks everyone for the participation this month and see you on the next topic!

[LakiSoft]

FistMarine, on 01 June 2022 - 01:52 AM, said:

Also Gingis, nice screens my friend! I can't wait to watch your DukeDC videos.

Thanks man! BTW, i just finished second half of Duke DC. But i didn't took any screenshots this time, Sorry about that. But i did recorded the gameplay video though.

Here are my thoughts of each level:

Level 6 - This level had mystic impact for me, especially when i was a kid. How to actually reach secret level properly, without warping or using EDuke32's User Map menu , i just discovered recently, about few months ago.
Level 10 (Secret Level) - This is an amazing and very detailed secret level. Everything is so mystical and great. Only part with that Time Travel machine was bit annoying though, but overall this level is amazing!
Level 7 - Personally i never understood why this level received so much hate. For me it brought good childhood memories and mapping inspirations of my own. I also never had any problem how everything is connected with Pentagon.
Level 8 - Dread October is okay level. The interior of submarines is very well designed architecture wise and very well detailed.
Level 9 - Very Good Looking Boss Level.

Overall, Duke DC is an good looking, very polished and very detailed episode, at least IMO. I definitely recommend both Duke DC and Caribean for every Duke fan out there.


Duke Nukem 3D - Duke It Out in D.C. - Levels 6 to 10 - Gameplay video:
You can watch video here: https://files.fm/f/qjdaf3n74