hegyak wrote:
The title says it all. What makes Duke such a big deal, after all these years?
Not sure I can tell you what makes DNF a big deal, since I haven't seen too much of it but I can tell you about a few things that I like about Duke Nukem 3D.
First, Duke Nukem 3D is considered by the majority of the Duke Nukem fans to be the best Duke Nukem game released to this date, so I will be focusing on the features that I like about it, in order to give you my view on Duke's popularity factor.
Duke Nukem 3D is more than just a boring shooter not just because it features strippers like you said in the shoutbox (which btw are still unique from any other fps, even to this day) but also because of many other elements like, innovative level design that revolutionized the way fps games can be played, cool looking and powerful weapons, dark humor present even in the design of the enemies or in their activities or in other art found through levels, the 90's ghetto ambient in the first levels, the perfect gameplay balance between health, ammo, powerup items, enemy variation and their numbers, level traps, the massive amount of interaction which was revolutionary to the fps genre, cool secrets that lead to fun areas and gameplay revolutionary powerup items, the massive variety in the game's chapters that take the player from a 90's ghetto city with porn cinemas, arcade rooms and fully usable bathrooms to canyons underwater buildings and space ships.
There's also the sadistic/gore/erotic mature element to the game that also revolutionized the fps games and pushed the bar so much, that nobody else managed to get all of these elements combined in a game since then.
Then there is the level music and sound effects that add so much to the game's portrayed ambient and uniqueness.
All of these combined with some very cool voiced one liners by none other than the John St John voice actor that shapes up Duke to be this unique bad ass iconic character.
Another cool feature that went very well in the game is the parodying of popular events which happened close to the release date of the game, like movies, politics, other games, etc.
Before Duke Nukem 3D, all fps games were considered Doom clones but Duke Nukem 3D was the first to bring a shitload of new elements to fps games that never existed before.
Duke Nukem 3D is one of those few fps games like Doom, Half Life, Deus Ex that revolutionized the industry so much when it came out, that other developers tried to steal from it and make their own games.
From that point on, many fps games that appeared after Duke 3D were no longer called Doom clones but Duke clones.
The most prominent Duke clone "wannabe" being Serious Sam, which also features a muscly character with lots of big guns and also has one liners and his own logo on his shirt and weapons in an almost similar way Duke Nukem has.
Even the name Serious Sam is parodied on the same note in which Duke Nukem's is.
My problem with Serious Sam is that his one liners are dumb and voiced in a very forced and annoying way.
Also the ambient of Serious Sam, level design and the hordes of dumb enemies coming your way is really cheap and boring and provides no real fun other than shooting lots of 3d moving stuff on the screen through the most part of the game while running on big empty boring landscapes from one check point to the other and back...
Without a doubt Duke Nukem 3D revolutionized the FPS industry and also brought a great character that was further consolidated by "Duke Nukem: Manhattan Project" which was another great game (not as revolutionary as Duke 3D but it still managed to be a great game that sold very well, even if it was just a 3D side scroller).
Duke Nukem as a character, has also been strongly consolidated through DNF's legendary development time, industry jokes spawned from it's development time and through the huge secrecy and small amount of art and info released in drops to it's fanbase.
Duke Nukem Forever being a sequel to Duke Nukem 3D will never live up the hype created in the last 13 years and will most likely not revolutionize the industry in the way Duke Nukem 3D did in it's day but without a doubt it will at least bring more of what Duke Nukem 3D fans liked, all coupled with the graphics found in today's triple A games and a more serious approach that's shown right from the start of DNF where you play the last level of Duke 3D with Duke Nukem inside his own game! DNF aims to be an even darker and more humorous game than DN3D was and if you have played DN3D in it's day, you will appreciate DNF more than anybody else that hasn't!
It's clear to me that people who never played Duke Nukem 3D or just played it recently are the ones that will just play DNF and either like it like any new games that gets released today or they will simply hate it and fail to understand it's point.
I am definitely going to enjoy DNF if it sticks to the DN3D recipe and tries to enhance it!
I know there are and will be haters of DNF but I don't really care about them because in 99% of cases they are kids which I don't really care about.
A good scenario would be that kids end up liking it too so they buy it in order to get another sequel!
This being said, you can consider this a summary of the things that I like about Duke Nukem and why I think it's popular and should remain a big deal until the end of times!
If you care to read a simpler more ignorant version posted by somebody else go read it here
http://gbxforums.gearboxsoftware.com/sh ... p?t=111274
Forum rules
IRC (Chat)
Non-Steam FAQ
Register
Search
Login
| 
Heretic/HeXen which came out earlier. But that time, my love was fully dedicated to Wolfenstein 3D (already in early 90th I knew that killing "people" is better than killing "monsters") 
