Before Master Chief, the most well-known first-person shooter hero was arguably Duke Nukem, the gum-chewing, wisecracking hero who owned mid-1990s PC gaming.
Known for pushing the limits of interactivity in an action game – you could offer money to strippers, relieve yourself in toilets, demolish buildings, and oh-so-much more – Duke Nukem 3D was equal parts hilarious and brilliant. Its multiplayer mode was legendary, thanks to memorable weapons like the Shrink Ray, jetpack, Freeze Ray, pipe bombs, and laser trip mines.
So why resurrect him on
The Arcade rebirth brings a wealth of new features to the table, including eight-player online co-op and Dukematch, recordable and uploadable user gameplay clips, Vision camera support for multiplayer lobbies, and – get this – TiVo. Yes, when you die, you can rewind as far back in the level as you like, be it five seconds or five minutes. No need to save your game anymore!
As great as all this sounds, surely there had to be some other, less obvious reason for Duke’s debut on Xbox. “We saw it as an opportunity to learn the 360 on a smaller project,” he admitted. “Doing all the work for leaderboards, multiplayer, TCR compliance, etc. translates directly into Duke Nukem Forever.”
So, Xbox 360 version confirmed then? Groovy.
We've played the Arcade version, and the good news is that it holds up just fine. The controls -- the only real concern with a port like this, since of course performance isn't an issue -- are just dandy, with the gamepad steering Duke around about as well as the mouse and keyboard did. And the game itself is still fun too, its memorable level design and weapons withstanding the test of time.
We'll have the first review of Duke Nukem 3D for Xbox Live Arcade in the next issue of Official Xbox Magazine.
Tommybomb
September 01, 2008 at 7:34pm
never said it was inspired by halo. If anything, halo was inspired by it. Either way, Duke and the Chief both look totally badass.
Mox Born Again
August 28, 2008 at 2:08pm
@Tommybomb If I'm wrong please correct my but I believe that was box art or manual art from the first Game...I could be wrong but the image looks very familiar.. -mox
chukky1728
August 27, 2008 at 7:47am
Man, I played the crap out of both 3-D and Zero Hour on the N64 system back in the day! It'll be way cool to blast a pig cop in the new millennium. This will definitely suffice until Duke Nukem Forever!!!
Eviltattoo
August 27, 2008 at 7:18am
Unfortunately, this game, visually, hasn't aged very well. In fact, NO FPS games age well graphically. I really wish the developers had gone the Bionic Commando remake route. THAT is the way to remake a game that is 10 or so years old. Unfortunately, I'm not sure the blocky pixels will look well on my 46 inch HDTV. Doom looked like ass, and this probably will as well.
bahama mama
August 26, 2008 at 6:33pm
Im gonna play this game while chewing gum... and im all out of gum! sorry couldnt resist and hopefully DNF comes to 360 too at some point.
Tommybomb
August 26, 2008 at 4:36pm
another thought that just occurred to me: the way Duke Nukem is posed to the left of those screenshots looks an awful lot like the Master Chief on the Halo 2 cover. Awesome.
Tommybomb
August 26, 2008 at 4:30pm
this was before my time, but I look forward to seeing what all the fuss was about. Hey...if this is a learning device for the 360, then could they be prepping for...Duke Nukem Forever??
Kekkimaru
August 26, 2008 at 3:34pm
(http://s7.invisionfree.com/Slagbroder) Not quite 8-Bit, but nice and pixlated to say the least. I remember playing this game years ago when I was only a little kid- I mean 6-7 years old.
