Reviews
Game
Duke Nukem 3D was not only a technological advancement, but also a really fun FPS. The game has all the staples of a FPS of the late-90s. There are lots of enemies to shoot, lots of guns to shoot with, and a very weak plot. However, the game features plenty of gimmicks to keep it entertaining. Aside from starting the game in the red-light district, complete with XXX stores and strippers, there are plenty of very memorable one-liners from Duke like, "it's time to abort your whole freaking species," and, "nukem 'till they glow, then shoot 'em in the dark."
Ken Silverman created the all new Build engine for the game as well which featured several enhancements like sloped walls, basic reflective surfaces, swimming, and sectors on top of each other. This alone gave the game a one up on all of the other 3D engines at the time and wasn't technically challenged until the Quake engine came out four months later, however the Build engine was used by more games in the long run.
Unlike most of the FPSs of the time that were gloomy and dark, Duke Nukem 3D kept the spirit of its predecessors alive by maintaining an over-the-top cinema-style humor to it which was very well appreciated by the fans.
Music
The music is quite competent. The soundtrack fits well into the various levels of the game adding to the ambiance. By itself however, the soundtrack is merely average. None of the tracks are really that memorable, but they do properly fit the game.
Ripping
The music is located in the Duke3d.grp file and is in a special MIDI format called EMIDI that was designed by Jim Dose and Lee Jackson, although it's similar enough to MIDI to be played by all standard players. The music was ripped with Csabo's eXtendable Wad Editor and recorded using Winamp. The track titles are from the meta data of the MIDI files and the track order is the same order of the levels in the game.
Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_Nukem_3d
|