You are supposed to be here! 22 years of the release of the legendary game Duke Nukem 3D
"Dolph Lundgren's texture, Schwarzenegger's charisma and Bruce Willis's sense of humor." The combination, of course, is a killer. You can even say - nuclear. However, our hero is so called - Nuclear Duke. He - Duke Nyukem. Brutal blond with powerful fists, regularly saving the Earth from various evil creatures, a great connoisseur of female beauty and the author of "patsansky" sayings, relevant in almost any life situation. Especially critical. In general, the personality is remarkable.
It is not surprising that the computer game of the same name dedicated to Duke is one of the cult in the industry. This is not just a classic and legend, it is a whole cultural layer. Duke Nukem is a game of images and quotes that “sprouted” in the most unexpected places - from popular songs (remember at least Spleen's “Sugar-Free Sugar”) to fashionable catwalks (trend for a perhydrol blond you think from where?). Well, about the popularity among gamers, you can not even talk separately: everything is clear.
In the run-up to DukeCon, a one-day festival dedicated to the game of Duke Nukem, we recall how steel was tempered. More precisely, how this game series developed and changed over time and what it gave to the world.
It all began with a simple two-dimensional arcade: in July 1991, Apogee Software released a fun game called Duke Nukum . Apogee Software was at that time an obscure, modest developer headquartered in the suburbs of Dallas, Texas. Nobody (including the company itself) particularly believed that the small game developer, located in the outskirts of the gaming industry, would make a breakthrough in it or at least be remembered by the public with something interesting. But the stars converged differently.
')
It would seem that the new game did not pretend to be more original: Duke Nukem demanded that the player jumps on numerous platforms and turn countless monsters into piles of meat. Brutal blond Duke cheerfully moved from level to level, each time encountering more and more dangerous enemies. However, from other similar games, "Duke" was distinguished by a fair amount of self-irony: the main character drenched monsters with an inimitable smirk (as far as it could be depicted in a two-dimensional arcade) and jokes, jokes. In general, Duke's behavior was much more memorable than the plot of the game.
But not only that was remarkable (and important for the success of the game). The first Duke was distributed by the method of "Shareware". This means that the complete passage of the Duke Nukem game was not immediately necessary, players could download one episode for free and try it out. If you liked the game, you could purchase the full version of your favorite creation. As you understand, Apogee essentially created the concept of a “demo” game, which has become one of the main process of presenting a new product to the public. In general, the charismatic character, the game itself and the way it was spread became a winning combination. The birth of Duke Nukem 'and could be considered valid.
From 1991 to 1996, Apogee continued to innovate and promote products using the shareware distribution method. In 1993, the second part of Duke Nukem came out: the image of the hero visually changed a bit (the red shirt replaced the dubious pink T-shirt), the scenery of the game changed - from urban to space, and the gameplay was enriched with new characters. Despite the fact that the gameplay has not changed much, several new "chips" were added: now Duke could squat, hang on objects, shoot up. Even the weapon had several types of ammunition. Enemies, unlike the first part, became more aggressive and it became harder to kill them.
But this is not the main thing: realizing that the future of the gaming industry is in 3D games, the company formed the 3D Realms division, all efforts of which were logically aimed at developing the best in 3D. And, of course, the brutal merry fellow Duke Nyukem was the first in line, who was supposed to be in a marvelous new - three-dimensional! - the world. So in 1994, 3D Realms began work on Duke Nukem 3D , which was undoubtedly one of the best games ever created.
The basis of the new game was a powerful graphics engine developed by 3D Realms. Duke Nukem 3D has significantly raised the bar in graphics, sound and gameplay. But the most important thing is that the three-dimensional image allowed not only to depict and detail the game world, but also to give the player the opportunity to interact with any objects around him. 3D Realms designated it as “interactive interaction”, and this format changed not only one game taken separately, but also the industry as a whole. Now, after the conditional RDR, where you can hunt deer, aimlessly go around the neighborhood, or just watch squirrels in the forest, it’s hard to imagine that everything was different in games once. However, it was, and because Duke Nukem 3D for 1996 was a revolution.
But besides the technical innovations in the game there was something else. Actually, Duke himself was in it - not just an impersonal hero with a gun in his hand, but a character with his own unique character, recognizable manners and bright speech. Duke is the best and only special agent of the near future, famously moving between planets and epochs. Of course, saving the world from vile invaders from space, who want to steal all the women of Earth for vile experiments, they threaten humanity with new space weapons.
In Duke Nukem 3D, the visual image of the main character was supplemented with black glasses, which, as it turned out, are appropriate to wear, including at night or in dark catacombs. Duke developed habits - for example, smoking thick self-twisted cigars or visiting a strip club to unwind after another successful mission. But the main thing - the nuclear arsenal of Nuclear Duke was greatly enriched with flowery phrases and jokes on the verge of a foul, which turned the killing of monsters into a matter even less remarkable than commenting on this process by Duke.
Well, the last thing that cannot be said about is the abundance in the game of “easter eggs” and explicit or hidden quotations from famous works of popular culture, which Duke acquired a new interpretation.
All together: progressive graphics on a three-dimensional engine, freedom of action in the game world, gameplay that turns the levels into one fascinating story, and a brilliantly invented hero - turned Duke Nukem 3D into a game that was not just a talent-made, but a cult one.
The staggering success of the 1996 game, of course, had a logical continuation. Over the next five years, Duke Nukem 3D was ported to a variety of consoles, from the PlayStation to the Sega Saturn. Even Nintendo could not resist - although for the sake of release on the family console I had to cut out some particularly piquant details. The game also appeared on the ancients, like a mammoth, and backward consoles: the craftsmen made a “downgrade” project under the Sega Genesis and the portable black and white Game.com platform.
In addition, original products with Nyukem appeared on various consoles: Duke Nukem: Time to Kill, Duke Nukem: Land of the Babes (PlayStation), Duke Nukem: Zero Hour (Nintendo 64) and even Duke Nukem Advance on Gameboy Advance.
Duke Nukem: Land of the Babes (2000)
All this brought 3D Realms millions, and they all went, of course, to develop a new original game about Duke: in the same 1996, the company announced the release of the game Duke Nukem Forever.
However, the conditions for creating a new product were not very favorable. The team lost several key employees at once. Almost immediately after the release of Duke Nukem 3D, Duke ’s father, Todd Replough, actually left the team. He left game development altogether and concentrated on buying property in a small Oregon town, without even thinking about returning.
Richard Gray third left
Another loss was Richard Gray, the designer of key game levels. However, he did not “tied up” at all, but only changed his place of work. His new residence was the studio Ritual Entertainment, later noted by several hits - SiN and Heavy Metal: FAKK2 - where he still played the role of level designer and came up with a number of outstanding maps.
Left the ship and Ken Silverman. For some time he brought to mind the rest of the company's projects on Build, but later they expected a new engine from him. Ken had nothing to offer to his colleagues, so he chose to leave and focus on education while he was old enough.
Another surprisingly unfavorable factor was the financial success of the game, which allowed 3D Realms to relax and delay the development of the game in search of “better” solutions.
The result of this was very sad: in total, work on Duke Nukem forever lasted for as many as 15 years, and he himself became an example of “vaporware” - that is, a project that flashes for a long time in the press and is constantly being announced as it is about to be released. , but most often never appearing on the market. And even though the game was finally made, the overall residue from the prolonged wait remained.
The release of Duke Nukem Forever was held in 2011. The game was waited so long that its appearance caused a wide resonance, and not all reviews were positive. In 1997, when the game was just announced, its first screenshots amazed with their cinematography and advanced graphics. After almost 15 years, all that “innovation” has significantly lost in price: the fact that the modern player was amazing in Duke Nukem 3D was no longer surprising.
Even Duke himself has changed. He was accused of being frankly overplaying a stick in many places and simply exuding rudeness. “We used Duke’s street habits as a kind of seasoning for steak. Enough, but not too much. I pay tribute to the executive producer of the game George Broussard for finding this balance, ”says Duke Nukem 3D creative director Greg Malone. “But it seems that in the new part Duke is clearly overdoing it with the“ manliness ”, the topic of exploitation of women, teenage humor and so on. I am sure that a wonderful group of people worked on the project, but at some point they decided that making the character deliberately defiant would be the easiest way to success. ”
Many rightly believe that Duke Nukem Forever would be better to stay vaporware. It was a beautiful story with a halo of ideality around it, a feeling that 3D Realms makes a dream shooter - not only ours, but ours. Duke seemed almighty, Duke seemed eternal, Duke seemed to be the best - but after the release of 2011, many realized that Duke would have stayed better in 1996.
With all this in mind, it is logical that the next release in this series of games was the reissue of the famous Duke Nukem 3D, timed to coincide with its 20th anniversary, - Duke Nukem 3D: 20th Anniversary World Tour. Some of the technical features of the original Duke Nukem 3D caused difficulties running on modern computers. Therefore, it was decided to make a reissue, which was released in October 2016. In addition to the PC, the game also appeared on the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. They included an additional fifth episode (four of them were in the original), added new enemies, remade some visual effects, added new music, and re-recorded cues of the main character.
As can be seen, the cult Duke Nukem 3D still does not lose its position and serves as a source of inspiration for gamers and game developers. That is why RUVDS, together with colleagues from the Museum of Soviet Gaming Machines , the unions of Retro Tech Squot and Legacy Z, decided to hold the first Duke-con in Russia - a one-day festival in honor of the 22nd anniversary of the first release of Duke Nukem 3D. We, as fans of retro games and new undertakings, strongly support such initiatives!
The festival will be held on June 1 in the St. Petersburg Museum of Soviet slot machines. The program includes tournaments in the cult game with a mouse and without it, a retro exhibition with Duke Nukem on various platforms and consoles, a live performance by GearX2 and a lecture by legendary game designer Richard Levelord Gray, who created the best levels of Duke Nukem 3D. Free admission. Read the tips from Richard here , see and read the interview here .
The registration for the lecture by Richard Gray is already closed, but it can be watched live on our VK page .
It is not surprising that the computer game of the same name dedicated to Duke is one of the cult in the industry. This is not just a classic and legend, it is a whole cultural layer. Duke Nukem is a game of images and quotes that “sprouted” in the most unexpected places - from popular songs (remember at least Spleen's “Sugar-Free Sugar”) to fashionable catwalks (trend for a perhydrol blond you think from where?). Well, about the popularity among gamers, you can not even talk separately: everything is clear.
In the run-up to DukeCon, a one-day festival dedicated to the game of Duke Nukem, we recall how steel was tempered. More precisely, how this game series developed and changed over time and what it gave to the world.
Part 1
It all began with a simple two-dimensional arcade: in July 1991, Apogee Software released a fun game called Duke Nukum . Apogee Software was at that time an obscure, modest developer headquartered in the suburbs of Dallas, Texas. Nobody (including the company itself) particularly believed that the small game developer, located in the outskirts of the gaming industry, would make a breakthrough in it or at least be remembered by the public with something interesting. But the stars converged differently.
')
It would seem that the new game did not pretend to be more original: Duke Nukem demanded that the player jumps on numerous platforms and turn countless monsters into piles of meat. Brutal blond Duke cheerfully moved from level to level, each time encountering more and more dangerous enemies. However, from other similar games, "Duke" was distinguished by a fair amount of self-irony: the main character drenched monsters with an inimitable smirk (as far as it could be depicted in a two-dimensional arcade) and jokes, jokes. In general, Duke's behavior was much more memorable than the plot of the game.
But not only that was remarkable (and important for the success of the game). The first Duke was distributed by the method of "Shareware". This means that the complete passage of the Duke Nukem game was not immediately necessary, players could download one episode for free and try it out. If you liked the game, you could purchase the full version of your favorite creation. As you understand, Apogee essentially created the concept of a “demo” game, which has become one of the main process of presenting a new product to the public. In general, the charismatic character, the game itself and the way it was spread became a winning combination. The birth of Duke Nukem 'and could be considered valid.
Part 2
From 1991 to 1996, Apogee continued to innovate and promote products using the shareware distribution method. In 1993, the second part of Duke Nukem came out: the image of the hero visually changed a bit (the red shirt replaced the dubious pink T-shirt), the scenery of the game changed - from urban to space, and the gameplay was enriched with new characters. Despite the fact that the gameplay has not changed much, several new "chips" were added: now Duke could squat, hang on objects, shoot up. Even the weapon had several types of ammunition. Enemies, unlike the first part, became more aggressive and it became harder to kill them.
But this is not the main thing: realizing that the future of the gaming industry is in 3D games, the company formed the 3D Realms division, all efforts of which were logically aimed at developing the best in 3D. And, of course, the brutal merry fellow Duke Nyukem was the first in line, who was supposed to be in a marvelous new - three-dimensional! - the world. So in 1994, 3D Realms began work on Duke Nukem 3D , which was undoubtedly one of the best games ever created.
The basis of the new game was a powerful graphics engine developed by 3D Realms. Duke Nukem 3D has significantly raised the bar in graphics, sound and gameplay. But the most important thing is that the three-dimensional image allowed not only to depict and detail the game world, but also to give the player the opportunity to interact with any objects around him. 3D Realms designated it as “interactive interaction”, and this format changed not only one game taken separately, but also the industry as a whole. Now, after the conditional RDR, where you can hunt deer, aimlessly go around the neighborhood, or just watch squirrels in the forest, it’s hard to imagine that everything was different in games once. However, it was, and because Duke Nukem 3D for 1996 was a revolution.
But besides the technical innovations in the game there was something else. Actually, Duke himself was in it - not just an impersonal hero with a gun in his hand, but a character with his own unique character, recognizable manners and bright speech. Duke is the best and only special agent of the near future, famously moving between planets and epochs. Of course, saving the world from vile invaders from space, who want to steal all the women of Earth for vile experiments, they threaten humanity with new space weapons.
In Duke Nukem 3D, the visual image of the main character was supplemented with black glasses, which, as it turned out, are appropriate to wear, including at night or in dark catacombs. Duke developed habits - for example, smoking thick self-twisted cigars or visiting a strip club to unwind after another successful mission. But the main thing - the nuclear arsenal of Nuclear Duke was greatly enriched with flowery phrases and jokes on the verge of a foul, which turned the killing of monsters into a matter even less remarkable than commenting on this process by Duke.
Well, the last thing that cannot be said about is the abundance in the game of “easter eggs” and explicit or hidden quotations from famous works of popular culture, which Duke acquired a new interpretation.
All together: progressive graphics on a three-dimensional engine, freedom of action in the game world, gameplay that turns the levels into one fascinating story, and a brilliantly invented hero - turned Duke Nukem 3D into a game that was not just a talent-made, but a cult one.
Part 3
The staggering success of the 1996 game, of course, had a logical continuation. Over the next five years, Duke Nukem 3D was ported to a variety of consoles, from the PlayStation to the Sega Saturn. Even Nintendo could not resist - although for the sake of release on the family console I had to cut out some particularly piquant details. The game also appeared on the ancients, like a mammoth, and backward consoles: the craftsmen made a “downgrade” project under the Sega Genesis and the portable black and white Game.com platform.
In addition, original products with Nyukem appeared on various consoles: Duke Nukem: Time to Kill, Duke Nukem: Land of the Babes (PlayStation), Duke Nukem: Zero Hour (Nintendo 64) and even Duke Nukem Advance on Gameboy Advance.
All this brought 3D Realms millions, and they all went, of course, to develop a new original game about Duke: in the same 1996, the company announced the release of the game Duke Nukem Forever.
However, the conditions for creating a new product were not very favorable. The team lost several key employees at once. Almost immediately after the release of Duke Nukem 3D, Duke ’s father, Todd Replough, actually left the team. He left game development altogether and concentrated on buying property in a small Oregon town, without even thinking about returning.
Another loss was Richard Gray, the designer of key game levels. However, he did not “tied up” at all, but only changed his place of work. His new residence was the studio Ritual Entertainment, later noted by several hits - SiN and Heavy Metal: FAKK2 - where he still played the role of level designer and came up with a number of outstanding maps.
Left the ship and Ken Silverman. For some time he brought to mind the rest of the company's projects on Build, but later they expected a new engine from him. Ken had nothing to offer to his colleagues, so he chose to leave and focus on education while he was old enough.
Another surprisingly unfavorable factor was the financial success of the game, which allowed 3D Realms to relax and delay the development of the game in search of “better” solutions.
The result of this was very sad: in total, work on Duke Nukem forever lasted for as many as 15 years, and he himself became an example of “vaporware” - that is, a project that flashes for a long time in the press and is constantly being announced as it is about to be released. , but most often never appearing on the market. And even though the game was finally made, the overall residue from the prolonged wait remained.
Part 4
The release of Duke Nukem Forever was held in 2011. The game was waited so long that its appearance caused a wide resonance, and not all reviews were positive. In 1997, when the game was just announced, its first screenshots amazed with their cinematography and advanced graphics. After almost 15 years, all that “innovation” has significantly lost in price: the fact that the modern player was amazing in Duke Nukem 3D was no longer surprising.
Even Duke himself has changed. He was accused of being frankly overplaying a stick in many places and simply exuding rudeness. “We used Duke’s street habits as a kind of seasoning for steak. Enough, but not too much. I pay tribute to the executive producer of the game George Broussard for finding this balance, ”says Duke Nukem 3D creative director Greg Malone. “But it seems that in the new part Duke is clearly overdoing it with the“ manliness ”, the topic of exploitation of women, teenage humor and so on. I am sure that a wonderful group of people worked on the project, but at some point they decided that making the character deliberately defiant would be the easiest way to success. ”
Many rightly believe that Duke Nukem Forever would be better to stay vaporware. It was a beautiful story with a halo of ideality around it, a feeling that 3D Realms makes a dream shooter - not only ours, but ours. Duke seemed almighty, Duke seemed eternal, Duke seemed to be the best - but after the release of 2011, many realized that Duke would have stayed better in 1996.
Part 5
With all this in mind, it is logical that the next release in this series of games was the reissue of the famous Duke Nukem 3D, timed to coincide with its 20th anniversary, - Duke Nukem 3D: 20th Anniversary World Tour. Some of the technical features of the original Duke Nukem 3D caused difficulties running on modern computers. Therefore, it was decided to make a reissue, which was released in October 2016. In addition to the PC, the game also appeared on the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. They included an additional fifth episode (four of them were in the original), added new enemies, remade some visual effects, added new music, and re-recorded cues of the main character.
As can be seen, the cult Duke Nukem 3D still does not lose its position and serves as a source of inspiration for gamers and game developers. That is why RUVDS, together with colleagues from the Museum of Soviet Gaming Machines , the unions of Retro Tech Squot and Legacy Z, decided to hold the first Duke-con in Russia - a one-day festival in honor of the 22nd anniversary of the first release of Duke Nukem 3D. We, as fans of retro games and new undertakings, strongly support such initiatives!
The festival will be held on June 1 in the St. Petersburg Museum of Soviet slot machines. The program includes tournaments in the cult game with a mouse and without it, a retro exhibition with Duke Nukem on various platforms and consoles, a live performance by GearX2 and a lecture by legendary game designer Richard Levelord Gray, who created the best levels of Duke Nukem 3D. Free admission. Read the tips from Richard here , see and read the interview here .
The registration for the lecture by Richard Gray is already closed, but it can be watched live on our VK page .
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/453950/
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