[djdori11]

Do you know about some similar games to Duke Nukem 3D?
I think that Postal 2 and KISS Psycho Circus are similar in some ways...

[Mikko]

Sin maybe. I'm not a big fan of the 1998 game but the newer Source game (Emergence) is among my favorite shooters (although very short since it's just one "episode").

[MrFlibble]

[CaptainObvious]
Shadow Warrior
Blood
[/CaptainObvious]
Serious Sam & sequels
Cube (depending on what similar elements are important to you)

[gibfrag]

There are some games that are not very popular that run on the BUILD engine or just run on an engine that is very similar. CyClones, Witchaven, Powerslave/Exhumed (on the consoles or PC), Nam, Fate (only a demo release), and there's many more.

[Inspector Lagomorf]

Mmmmaybe Dark Forces, given its enormous arsenal, though you could argue that it's more of a DooM clone.

[Mikko]

Dark Forces has nothing Duke-like about it.

[Inspector Lagomorf]

Mikko_Sandt, on 07 May 2012 - 05:54 AM, said:

Dark Forces has nothing Duke-like about it.

Your terseness notwithstanding, I wish to know what might be classified as "similar" to Duke Nukem 3D, because while some classify Serious Sam as being similar, I contend it has nothing in common besides a one-liner-cracking protagonist.

[KareBear]

http://www.gog.com/e...page_collection

Redneck Rampage + Expansion and Redneck Rampage Rides Again.

[MrFlibble]

Right, how could I have forgotten Redneck Rampage! O_o

Achenar, on 07 May 2012 - 06:08 AM, said:

I wish to know what might be classified as "similar" to Duke Nukem 3D, because while some classify Serious Sam as being similar, I contend it has nothing in common besides a one-liner-cracking protagonist.

Sure, Serious Sam has pretty different level design and overall game play. I do however have the impression that the one-liner-cracking protagonist is indeed one of the characteristic features of Duke Nukem 3D that distinguishes it both from many other games of the era and from the later and/or earlier games in the genre. Also, Serious Sam and Duke Nukem 3D share a somewhat light-hearted atmosphere that leans more into the field of comedy.

Of course, this might not be what the OP meant by similarity with Duke Nukem 3D.

I'd also say that I've never thought of Dark Forces as a game that is similar to Duke Nukem 3D, even though I can't tell exactly why. I guess it's just very different in style and atmosphere, even though there are many potentially similar elements. Then again, I've always viewed Star Wars-themed games as something separate from other games, genre notwithstanding.

That said, I think Shadow Warrior is probably the closest thing to a straightforward Duke Nukem 3D clone. Interestingly enough, when I tried to think of a game by any other company that would try to consciously mimic Duke in an attempt to repeat its commercial success, nothing came to my mind at all.

[Kathy]

MrFlibble, on 07 May 2012 - 07:07 AM, said:

Also, Serious Sam and Duke Nukem 3D share a somewhat light-hearted atmosphere that leans more into the field of comedy.

Can't say I found Duke3d's atmosphere "light-hearted". The far we go into first episode the more it becomes serious culminating in outright scary level. Lunar Apocalypse is pretty creepy everywhere. Perhaps the Atomic episode was more light-hearted, but not the original ones.

[MrFlibble]

Well, perhaps it wasn't the best choice of words on my part, but I don't know how to put it better. Compared to Doom or the aforementioned Dark Forces, Duke3D is far more often less serious and much lighter. Yes, there are outright creepy places, especially in Episode 2, but this is not the same tone over the entire game. Maybe it's the colourful palette, I don't know, but I've always had the impression that Duke Nukem 3D is a game that doesn't take itself too serious more often than not. Never quite gets into the territory of outright silliness like Serious Sam though.

BTW, just thought that another distinctive feature of Duke3D is the sheer amount of (pop) cultural references just about everywhere. It's almost like The Simpsons in a way, and once again, I cannot immediately come up with another game that does the same with a comparable frequency.

[Jimmy]

Shadow Warrior, Blood, and the Redneck Rampage series.

[Helixhorned]

Mikko_Sandt, on 07 May 2012 - 04:24 AM, said:

Sin maybe. I'm not a big fan of the 1998 game but the newer Source game (Emergence) is among my favorite shooters (although very short since it's just one "episode").

Agreed, SiN has some of Duke's flair, part of it due to the protagonist (what was his name?) not being mute and unsurprisingly much of it in the mapping department. I enjoyed the original back then, you travel to cool places like an oil-drilling platform and an underwater base!

[Jimmy]

You feel the similarities in SiN because Levelord and Charlie Wiederhold were level designers.

[gibfrag]

Although it's 3rd person, Duke Nukem: Zero Hour is very similar to Duke Nukem 3d.

[MrFlibble]

Actually, I'd say that Duke Nukem: Manhattan Project, even though being a side-scrolling platform game, steadily goes on to (re)create the Duke atmosphere perfectly.

[gibfrag]

Yeah, I liked that game a lot.

I think there's many obscure games that were very similar engine wise that didn't use the BUILD engine. There's one called "The Varginha Incident" aka "Alien Anarchy" though I never played it, even though I did download it. Go to Youtube and watch MarphitimusBlackimus's "Series of Obscure First Person Shooters" there's plenty of ones that are total shit, and then there's ones that are just not well known. Again, what did the person that posted this say when asked what he means by similar? I could go on and on with games that are technologically similar, but that may not be what he wants.

[MrFlibble]

Yep, I've seen the video of Alien Anarchy There are quite a few more of less obscure 2.5D FPS games from the era (I'm actually quite a bit interested in the matter), but I don't think any one approaches close similarity to Duke Nukem 3D.

I would dare say that Chex Quest also does bear a certain similarity to Duke, even though the protagonist does not speak a single word. Also, HacX (a Doom II add-on/total conversion-turned-stand-alone-game) may count too.

[Jimmy]

Chex Quest is great, but it's just a Doom clone.

[MrFlibble]

Captain Awesome, on 14 May 2012 - 04:10 PM, said:

Chex Quest is great, but it's just a Doom clone.

Surprisingly, I enjoyed Chex Quest (Chuck's trilogy edition) a lot. It has some kind of a special atmosphere that is not present in Doom at all (the story and settings are that different after all). Even though Chex Quest's story is somewhat bizarre and not serious at all, the level designers have in fact attempted to go for more "realistic" level design that is much closer to Duke Nukem 3D in my opinion than to the semi-abstract style of Doom. I find the "Chex Museum" level (IIRC it's the second episode) particularly awesome, and I laughed a lot at the tongue-in-cheek references to well-known works of art in that level, as well as well-known films in the "Movie Theatre" level (don't remember the exact level title but it's also episode two). I would say that these references, too, make this game closer to Duke.

Actually, when I first learned about Chex Quest I thought that the game is not worth a try because it's for kids. Then I saw the excellently done art and decided to give it a try. And really, the only thing that does make it a kids' game is the difficulty level. Even on higher difficulty settings, it is not too challenging altogether. That, and episodes are also too short (but each level, on the other hand, has a unique and well worked out theme and style). Other than that, the game is excellent IMO.

Rory, on 15 May 2012 - 03:29 AM, said:

Clearly the Blood series and Shadow Warrior as others have said immediately spring to mind, but even though it doesn't run on BUILD, I think Duke Nukem Advanced was quite alike to Duke 3D.
But that's just me.

Never played Duke Nukem Advance, but I remember reading something about it in the wikia. It's a side-scroller, right?

[MrFlibble]

Ahh, I've been thinking about the GameBoy Colour game :)

[Edit] Just watched a gameplay video of Duke Nukem Advance, and I must say it's a pretty good companion/sequel/whatever to Duke Nukem 3D. Makes one regret somewhat that they did not make any more official episodes for the PC game...

[Jimmy]

MrFlibble, on 15 May 2012 - 08:07 AM, said:

Surprisingly, I enjoyed Chex Quest (Chuck's trilogy edition) a lot. It has some kind of a special atmosphere that is not present in Doom at all (the story and settings are that different after all). ................................... [TRUNCATED]

Chex Quest is great, I agree. But I still think it's gameplay is more akin to Doom than Duke.

Rory, on 15 May 2012 - 10:05 AM, said:

My memory is bad, but do you guys think there were ever any cut levels?

There are four levels by the Levelord that got cut (and were later released). They're somewhat unfinished, but completely playable.
Sewer
Sweeney
Chuckles (DM Only)
Cigam (DM Only)

[MrFlibble]

Rory, on 15 May 2012 - 10:05 AM, said:

But yeah it is a shame no more Duke 3D episodes, though I take it your not counting the Atomic Edition?

Why yes, I am counting it (and the PlayStation episode, and the authorized add-ons), but still it would be cool to have more

[Come On And Slam]

Duke Nukem 64 is really similar to Duke Nukem 3D. It's almost like they're the same games!

[MrFlibble]

For some reason, a game that really could be called a Duke Nukem 3D lookalike from the same era has almost completely slipped out of my mind - Eradicator. It uses a 2.5D engine that is similar to Build in many aspects (fully functional mouselook, sloped floors, limited use of true 3D surfaces for ROR environments, breakable glass windows and other props etc.), has rather talkative characters, optional switching between third- and first-person view, strategic use of security cameras, lots of various powerups and so on.
Eradicator demo v1.0 gameplay video
Eradicator full game v1.0 playthrough
Video showing the use of security cameras and remotely controlled robots
Download Eradicator demo v1.0 from Demu.org
Download Eradicator demo v1.1 from the DOS Multiplayer Archives
Download Eradicator demo v1.1 from FilePlanet

[Jinroh]

Whoa nice, that looks really cool. Eradicator looks sweet, I'll have to check that out later. ^^

The Rex Blade games by Xtreme Games LLC used a 2.5D engine and had some advanced features. You could program withing the game using some pseudo-BASIC language. Andre' LaMothe was the mastermind behind these ones but they were quick projects for the ValueWare market at the time. Not that they weren't chock full of interesting things, but they were done in a rather short time period.




Some of Andre's commentary on the subject.

Quote

I had to write that game in 45 days from concept to shrink wrap. That schedule was the problem. The engine is an advanced ray caster that I wrote, but simon and schuster wouldn't give me time to finish the 2nd version, so the engine we had to use wasn't in high rez, and had to go with 320x200. But, the graphics are similar to doom, it had advanced lighting, shading, glass, and other effects. The 640x480 engine had to be shelved. But, the game had 10-12 different planets, each with its own graphics and theme, the shear amount of art, graphics, etc. made it nearly impossible. But, bottom line, finished a FPS from scratch in 45 days, sold about 100K copies. I needed a good 9-12 months to do something really clean. However, the game has ideas in it that were way ahead of its time. For example, there are computers that you access to do things like exit, etc. But, these computers are REAL, you can program them, so they work -- and you can write games on them, or hack the level and turn things on/off, open doors, so it was a thinking hacking aspect to the game never fully explored.

Finally, the game had REAL AI, the actors have memory and communicate to each other about weapons location, ammo, food, and plan accordingly. If you put the game into god mode and look down you can see that the creatures are all doing things. Unlike doom and other games, the characters just sit and wait for you to flip a virtual switch then attack. But, I was trying to create something that had an ecosystem that was alive and worked.

But, 45 days -- shit, most people can't write "hello world" in 45 days let alone a million lines of computer code and publish a game, so I am very happy with it nevertheless. It was just bad timing, bad publisher, bad schedule, with a good concept, GREAT character and idea "Rex Blade" rocks as a concept and if you read about it, its interesting since I invented it 5 years before HALO, but Rex Blade is very similar to the Master Chief, he was used in a time of war, hyper advanced, genetically modified, and the game starts off by re-starting him in his orbiting capsule since he was in hypersleep.

Anyway, after Rex blade, we did 2 more follow up packs to the game and I decided without real funding, $1-5M a game, and 1-2 years a project there is no way to do what I want, so I started doing the casual games and that worked really really, 1-6 months a project, they cost $5-50K and all made at least 10x their cost, some 100x, so amazing ROI.

But, you never know... I might bring Rex Blade back some day and give him justice.

Andre'

Fileplanet Demo
http://www.fileplane...Apocalypse-Demo

[djdori11]

It will be nicer to see Duke Nukem 3D (or just Duke Nukem in general) style newer games other than 1996-1998 games... Do you know some?
Like Painkiller: Overdose has some humor, mature content, 1-liners and overall old-school fps style gameplay!

[MrFlibble]

What's more, Rex Blade had been re-released under the title Domination when the developers parted with the publisher and went to distribute the game on their own via the Scott Miller model. Here's what Andre himself has to say about the decision to break up with the publisher:

Quote

I did "Rex Blade" I,II,III in 1995/1996, I re-released them as Domination I,II,III -- publisher by SSI, only sold like 20-30,000 copies since I only had 45 days to write the original engine, game, etc. -- nightmare -- 1-2 more months I would have been able to really make it a good game.

He also goes into a lot of detail about what went wrong with the game in that thread, and what could have been done if all ideas were implemented properly.

Anyway, the first (shareware) episode, called Domination: Episode I - First Contact, is eligible for free non-commercial distribution and is identical to the earlier commercial Rex Blade: The Battle Begins. You can get the shareware episode here or here. The shareware episode includes three planets, with three levels per planet. In addition (more of historical interest actually), there's a three-level Beta v0.999 release of the first episode which can be found on the PC Gamer January 1997 issue cover disk (which has the large "Betony" demo of The Elder Scrolls: Daggerfall).

Personally, I don't like Domination too much, to say the least. It has lots of various issues, but what got me most is that whereas the engine is clearly less sophisticated than Build, the game has higher system requirements, and even runs noticeably slower in DOSBox than the Build games in high resolution mode. The levels are also pretty repetitive, in spite of each planet boasting separate sets of textures and enemies - they're all pretty much the same thing. Another annoying thing is the "power" that you need to keep your HUD online, and when the power is down you get the HUD constantly blinking, with only the option to turn it off. I have no idea why this was done because all it does is inconvenience the player: the energy runs out pretty fast (unless you use the savegame "cheat"), and you can still turn the HUD for a while to check your stats even when it's blinking (BTW, turning the HUD off while it still has power does not stop it from using up the power in the shut down state). Also, you can save your game at any given spot, but when you re-load it, all items and monsters will be respawned for some reason (giving way to cheating, sort of). You can't pick up a weapon if you already have it, and sometimes weapons lie across narrow paths, potentially blocking them. All of those things may be insignificant on their own, but they add up to become pretty annoying really soon.

Here's a rather detailed review of the game (and a rather unfavourable one too):
http://superadventur...ins-ms-dos.html

By contrast, a 2.5D FPS that's really worth checking up but was greatly underrated (YMMV as usual though) is In Pursuit of Greed. While it looks like "yet another Doom clone", it has some interesting and really innovative features, which could be characterized as introducing multiplayer elements into single-player (perhaps for the first time in the genre). Within a level, items, powerups and monsters respawn randomly, and instead of just getting to the exit, you need to collect several target items (one primary and a few secondary objective items), as well as score a certain number of points by either vanquishing enemies or picking randomly spawned "bonus" items that only lie around for a limited time. The game also features a soundtrack by Andrew "Necros" Sega of Unreal fame.
Download In Pursuit of Greed demo v2.0
Download In Pursuit of Greed demo v4.0 and above (different set of levels)
In Pursuit of Greed demo v2.0 gameplay video
In Pursuit of Greed demo v4.0 gameplay video

djdori11, on 22 May 2012 - 12:20 PM, said:

It will be nicer to see Duke Nukem 3D (or just Duke Nukem in general) style newer games other than 1996-1998 games... Do you know some?
Like Painkiller: Overdose has some humor, mature content, 1-liners and overall old-school fps style gameplay!

djdori11, you can try Nitro Family (it uses the Serious Sam engine), but my impression is that it's terribly tasteless.

You can also give a try to Will Rock (especially if you enjoyed Serious Sam), it has decent one-liners, a neat and diverse arsenal of weapons (with several rather gimmicky ones), a can-do protagonist, and some very impressive Ancient Greek landscapes to run around

[Edit] Ahh, I've just been looking through the review of Rex Blade I've linked too above, and remembered the thing that really got me most about that game. There are minigames available in some of the terminals, which in itself is nice and fine. The first planet's minigame is an Asteroids clone, which you can see on a screenshot in the review. However, the second planet's minigame is called Quest and is a top-down vertical shooter. What's wrong with that you'd ask? Almost all the sprites for ground and turrets were shamelessly swished away from Tyrian, while the ships are ugly blocky things. I love Tyrian, and not in the least for its beautiful art by Daniel Cook (BTW, he had once been involved in a RTS project called Hard Vaccum, which, were it completed, would have been the second RTS game in history, right after Dune II), so I was rather upset to see the graphics stolen to serve as placeholders in a project of this quality. I'm all for supporting "underdog" projects, but such "liberties" with other people's work is outrageous IMO.

[Kathy]

djdori11, on 22 May 2012 - 12:20 PM, said:

It will be nicer to see Duke Nukem 3D (or just Duke Nukem in general) style newer games other than 1996-1998 games... Do you know some?
Like Painkiller: Overdose has some humor, mature content, 1-liners and overall old-school fps style gameplay!

What about interactivity and complex levels?

[djdori11]

Burnett, on 22 May 2012 - 01:23 PM, said:

What about interactivity and complex levels?

No interactivity. But there is kind of complex levels, they're pretty linear but there are secrets and you can back track.. No puzzles though.
Oh and MrFlibble thanks for the great post...