Duke Nukem 3D

Duke Nukem was the epitome of the 1990's and the Clinton years. An overconfident, womanizing, foul mouthed, beer swilling, ass kicker of alien species defines the character of the Duke. Duke Nukem was the last first-person shooter in which I only used the keyboard to play. Meaning I used the directional arrows to move and the ctrl key to shoot. When Duke Nuked 3D was released on XBLA it was good to see 3D Realms dig into their past and give a new generation of gamers a chance to experience the Duke.

Duke Nukem 3D plays exactly like I remembered it did back in 1996 and has eight-player deathmatch in the XBLA version. Another new feature for the game is user clips which can be shared or uploaded with friends to show where secret areas are or how to complete the level in the quickest time. The last new feature for this re-release is the painless death feature which allows you to either pick back up where you left off or at the very start of the level. This feature helped me tremendously on the last boss which I got stuck on. The final boss of the game is a battle underwater and I didn't have any scuba gear left so I kept dying from the lack of air. Using the rewind feature allowed me to go back to an earlier part of the level and not use up all my gear.

There are four chapters in the game with 39 levels in total. Take the fight to the aliens who are reeking havoc in Los Angeles, a moon base, Hollywood, and their own mothership. All the original weapons are in the game which include pipe bombs, shrink ray, shotgun, and the RPG to name a few. Also, in Dukes arsenal is the holoduke (shows a projection of Duke like in the movie Total Recall), a jet pack, night vision goggles, and a first aid kit.

All your typical alien species are in the game including the mutated pig cop who works for the LARD police. Their are the foot soldiers that are easily dispatched with your boot or a pistol, the pig cops who carry shotguns, a dinosaur looking alien that sports a chain gun, the octobrain, and many more.

Sound

This game sounds like it is from 1996. The music sounds retro but on the 360 feels a little cleaner than I remember. What really catches your attention is all the "catchphrases" Duke Nukem says. I'm sure you've heard them on various message boards so no sense in repeating any here. The music and snazzy catchphrases will make your inner 12-year old self erupt in nerdgasm....that is if you were 12 when the game originally came out like I was.

Final Thoughts

In an economy in steady decline most people will be trying to save their hard earned paycheck to survive. We gamers don't fear a crappy economy so for only 800 MS points this game is a steal. Of course, you could just steal the game off the Internet but that would make you a bad person and a pirate. Do you really want to be labeled as a pirate?

Conclusion

Duke Nukem 3D ends a very successful summer for Xbox Live Arcade. With online co-op, multi-player deathmatch, and leaderboards this ends up being a better deal for you and your friends to play than Castle Crashers. Maybe not a better game overall but defiantly more affordable for what you get. A fun, nostalgia FPS title that took the formula of Doom and did more than most Doom clones even tried to do.