So last night I played Duke Nukem 3d past midnight, checked socials later and found... the skyrim mod Skyblivion presents the work they've done so for.
In one of the levels within episode 3, you can approach a building that explodes in an impressive shower of build engine glory. On it, a sign that reads "Quake Warning", prompts Duke to say the following.
"I aint afraid of no quake"
This line being in reference to id's Quake which would be releasing near Duke 3D's release and for the time, would be heralded as a big step forward for video game graphics and its engine innovations would be the groundwork for games in the future. Any other game, would've been mocked for a jab like that. Such a cocky, pretentious, petty taunt would be lauded as a meme if it were said nowadays. For a game that looks comparatively outdated when placed next to Quake, it had some balls to act defiant against its competitior.
And Duke Nukem 3d had balls indeed. Balls of steel because the game slaps. It slaps hard.
Dukes world of red light sleaze and gritty action hero gruff was a cornerstone of the build engine trilogy, that built their legacy around the theme of cheesy exploitation movies, with shadow warrior covering martial arts kung fu movies and blood invoking the gothic horror films. Redneck Rampage only barely counts in this example.
The weapon roster demonstrates a geniune display of its main characters attitude with punchy ballistics, charged energetics and bombastic explosives, rendering any alien foe that graces your path into another statistic to be included in the end of level bodycount.
The levels in duke nukem 3d charmed a lot of folks with level enviroments that had some interactive elements to them. The toxic dump level in episode 1, to name an example, has that area with the conveyor belts and the crane moving objects, enemies that you killed on those belts would have their bodies carried by the belts before being picked up and dropped onto a different track to continue their journey. Going around and getting lifted up from one place to the next, each stop being dropped and hitting the ground with a wet squelch, like the worlds most morbid crane game. Not just window dressing to act as the background for your crusade, a lot of levels had some objects that the player could use, some of them awarding the player for their curiosity. Cracks in the walls necessitating an explosive to open up shortcuts in the level and some secrets hiding caches of ammo and health. You could even use a toilet for duke to relive himself and even recover some health for the act.
The game was great sure, but theres one aspect I really didnt like and it was that you couldnt save the babes. Women who were kidnapped and strung up in cocoons by the alien menace, begging you to kill them. You could save them in the n64 port but originally? Nah, you gotta leave them behind or perhaps comply with their request. And that sucks, Duke would never leave them behind. Heck he swears vengeance on the alien invaders for kidnapping them, he wouldnt leave a babe behind. Course what Duke is or does has been a matter of debate amongst the modern audience...
The Duke has had a rocky time since Duke 3d, with following games not meeting the height of 3d's success and with Forever going down as a tale of waiting for over a decade just to be presented with a wet fart. The character of Duke Nukem has been scrutinised and picked apart until it became disregarded as "a product of its time" and nothing more.... until nowadays at least. The internet has certanly turned Duke from an expy of every 90's action hero to funny meme guy, a change that is promoted heavily thanks to voice actor Gianni Matragrano's shitpost videos that features the duki nuki man himself.
The version of Duke Nukem 3d I played was the Megaton Edition that was once sold on steam before a certain randy delisted it in favour of a different version titled world tour. And world tour wasn't much of an improvement over megaton, mainly because while the new episode was neat, it didnt have any of the expansions that were available. No duke it out in DC, no Caribbean, not even the christmas one. That kinda sucks. I hope the duke manages to escape the randy pit and gets another game, one that takes inspiration from the memes and shitposts in the same way Doom took inspiration from brutal doom and the rip and tear meme.
Anyways, news. You played Skyrim I am assuming. Why wouldnt I, its been released to several platforms and will only stop being rereleased when elder scrolls 6 comes out. But until that time, lets discuss the game that came before Skyrim, Oblivion.
Oblivions been my first Elder Scrolls game and I enjoyed it for what it was, a neat lil open world fantasy rpg that young me mainly played with the tgm cheat to activate god mode. So far, bethesda hasnt tried to remaster the older elder scrolls games (thank goodness) though fans have been working on mods that recreate those older entries within Skyrim. Skywind is one example that rebuilds Morrowind within Skyrim and it seems to be making decent progress, though the one i'm gonna talk about today is Skyblivion.
Recently, Skyblivions development team has released a video preview of the work they've accomplished, focusing mainly on the town of chorrol and a couple of quests. Its looking pretty damn good and I hope to able to play it around the 2025 release date. Assuming bethesda doesnt "update" oblivion and end up completly breaking a lot of mods, which is partly the reason why the fallout 4 mod, fallout london, requires you to downgrade to an older version. We shall wait and see.
Anyways, see you all tomorrow. Feel free to leave game suggestions and feedback. Anons are currently on.