Name: Duke Nukem 3D: Atomic Edition
Publisher: MacSoft
Developer: 3D Realms
Mac Conversion: Lion Entertainment
Media: 1 CD
HD Installation: 52.4 megs
Got it for: $9.99, new at CompUSA's "Bargain Bin".
| Patches? |  That's
one doomed space marine... |
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Version
1.2 - Size: 588k Click above to get the patch |
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After
being shot down by alien invaders, while flying over the red light
district of Los Angeles, Duke Nukem uncovers their plot to, yet again,
try take over the world. Using human women as hosts, the aliens are
slowly invading the Earth wave after wave. The EDF(Earth Defense Force)
has been crippled, and is falling fast...there's only one hope for
Earth's survival, the alien ass-kicking king: Duke Nukem! What's it all about? It's a first person shooter...no, correction, it's *the* first person shooter. Heavy on action, gore, humor and just a whole lot of ass whipping, you run around levels in an attempt to find the self destruct mechanism(ie, the exit). Along the way you'll pick up an assortment of alien-wrecking weapons, ammo, health, armor and other items to help you in your fight. At the end of each set of missions, you'll come across a boss, you'll kill it, Duke will say something amusing, then it's off to the next set... |
| Graphics - Though definitely dated, they're still not bad at all...just a bit blocky at times. Thankfully, you can crank everything up to the highest quality, as your Mac can definitely handle it...and this helps quite a bit with the overall look. One of the things that makes Duke so graphically impressive is the wide variety of textures in every level, and their authentic appearances. I mean, the grocery store, the post office, etc, they all look like you'd expect them to. The space station and alien ship levels also have a huge variety of textures, and really do a good job on conveying their "cold space" look. The enemies also look great, with the pig cops being the real highlight...those guys are just too funny. Bosses are absolutely stunning, towering over almost the entire screen and boasting some slick artwork and animation. |  |
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Sound - The music itself isn't bad, it's just a little archaic by today's standards of every game including redbook audio. After hearing the excellent, redone soundtrack on the Sega Saturn version of Duke Nukem 3D, it's kinda hard to go back the old midi soundtrack....but it's really not that bad at all. The only real complaint I have with the sound, in general, is that Duke’s voice volume is a little low at times, and there’s no real way to increase the volume on just it. You can still hear him and all, it's just when there's a lot going on, it's tough at times. |
| Control - For the most part, it's really smooth. About the only issue you may find is that since the game is so old, a lot of newer hardware just isn't recognized and thus, can't be easily configured to work inside the given "options" setup. A good example is a five button(or hell, even a two button mouse); the game had no real options to configure those extra keys, and won't even recognize them. You can, however, use whatever mouse utilities you have to try to have it emulate the keyboard, and that's a quick work around. After that, there aren't any real issues to speak of... |  |
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AI - Vicious. I don't know if it's that the enemies are so aggressive so much as they are just so very lethal...but either way, they come after you...and with force. Though they show some decent signs of intelligence, dodging the slower attacks like the RPG's rockets, etc., for the most part when they see you, they come after you. One nice thing about it though, if they don't see you...they don't immediately know you're there. This can make for some nice traps involving the pipe bombs and laser trip-wires. The bosses can be a bit rough as it seems they just lock onto you, and no matter what you do they never miss a shot. It's frustrating, but during the boss fights there are generally numerous caches of ammo and life, so you'll usually do alright. |
| Replay value - Extremely high. Not only does the game *never* seem to get old or tiring, but there's just so many fucking levels! Each episode has six to ten levels, then one or two secret levels as well, adding up to a grand total of *FORTY* levels. On top of that there's net-play, and virtually an unlimited amount of user-made maps, official add-on packs and complete game-changing mods. You could, literally, play this game *forever*... |  |
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Getting it to run - Easy...as LONG AS YOU PAY ATTENTION to the installer. Right off the bat, as per usual, choose the "Custom" install option. This will allow you to kill about 80% of what the "easy" install wants to put on your HD; not only that, but it'll also prevent it from putting older versions of extensions on your system(which can lead to big-time trouble). Once installed, the game can be configured on the fly, so you're good to go. Oh, one last thing: The game requires the CD to play, so pop that sucker in before you try to start it up….or just make a disc image(that’s what I do, I hate having to get up and grab the damn CD every time I want to play, especially when I am using the iBook). |
| As for control setup, it's a mixed bag. First off, keyboard setup isn’t exactly user-friendly. Essentially, you can assign whatever action to whatever key…but the thing is, if that key is assigned to something else, it will now control both actions, making it so that you have to go over to the other action and assign it another key. Gets to be really annoying, but once you get it setup, you never have to do it again. As for the iShock, with the game's lack of InputSprocket support, you'll have to go into the iShock's config screen and manually set it to emulate the keyboard(again, it sucks, but you only have to do this once). |  |
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Tips
for better gaming experiences: There's quite a few tips I could get into, but I'll just breeze over a few of the more important ones. For more help, as well as some in-depth info into DN3D, be sure to check out the excellent FAQ's over at GameFAQ's. I found the FAQ by "beissermj" to be especially helpful. |
* The game has no “auto save” at the beginning of every level, nor at checkpoints(there are none)...so BE SURE to keep up with it...unless you just like starting over five levels back when you last saved...
* Anytime you are close enough to do so, always kick *while* shooting your weapon at an enemy. You wouldn’t believe how much faster they go down when you do this.
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* The Pig Tanks are far too dangerous, and eat way too much ammo to actually take head on, instead just run around behind them and activate the self destruct mechanism. Once you do, run for it. |
* Knocking out fire hydrants and toilets, or drinking from water fountains can give Duke his health back one point at a time(using the toilet gives him a one time boost of ten). Though it takes forever-and-a-day to get back up to 100, it’s a real life saver when you’re down to *three* on health and have pretty much exhausted all the health vials in the level.
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There are two Mac-only cheats available for the game: While in the theatre of the first level type "dn1984" and the original Macintosh commercial will play on the screen. Next, at any time during the game type "dnmacs" and all of the security screens will turn into Mac OS desktops. Note: These codes will *not* work on "Damn I'm good" difficulty. |
* You're not 10 years old, and even if you were you'd still want to be sure "Adult Mode" is ON.
* A quick, final tip for the idiot in all of us(especially me) - If you are running on anything over a 68k, be sure to install the Power Macintosh version of the game. If you don't it will run REALLY slow. (thanks to Joe Ottoson for that obvious tip that I somehow missed)
| Still Supported? Yes. Tech support, as well as patch downloads are available at the Atari Support page. |
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My rating: 100(out of 100) - Absolute perfection. This is *the* first person shooter...no question. DK3D just did so many things so very right: Levels that were not only fun to play through, but interesting and well designed, sound that rocked as well as made you bust out laughing, enemies that didn't pound your ass pieces, but weren't pushovers either and gameplay that had a solution for every problem you could possibly run into. Finally, the game is absolutely epic in length, and keeps you glued to the damn Mac and never lets go. Duke is the king, and this game continues to prove it...if you've not ever played it you should be shot in the throat... |  Never played DK3D |
 Baraka's review, from Kitty Couch: Damn this game is great. I've never run across a game that allows me to be the wild, jungle-puss that I am. I can run around like a maniac, shoot everything and hang out with babes! Duke rocks!!! |
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Filling
them with lead in the grocery store...
Pigs
at the Fire Station!
Knocking
out aliens on the Lunar Base.
Duke
always has time for the ladies...
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Fun
Stuff on the CD: Quite a bit! In the "Goodies" folder you'll find the following: 1. Custom Duke Nukem Folder icons that you can use on any folder you wish. 2. Technical info for those interested in making new art for Duke, or even building your own levels! 3. Gamepad/Joystick pre-configured sets for four different pads and sticks. 4. A demo for both the PPC and 68k versions of Duke. This probably wasn't the best of ideas, putting the demo on the same disc as the *full* game... 5. Utilities! This is, by far, the best set of extras. These various apps will actually allow you to do a various assortment of things like extracting game sprites, change files into DK3D file types, group them, etc. |
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More
Duke that you can handle?: The Duke franchise has spawned quite a few great games out of it, among those released I'd recommend the following: |
| 1.
Duke Nukem(Saturn) - The original game, ported to the Sega Saturn.
Lobotomy, the amazing team responsible for its port, went all out
with this incredible conversion. The soundtrack has been completely
redone with actual instruments, the levels have now been built in
full 3D and there are even some ultra-cool lighting effects. If you
own a Saturn and consider yourself a Duke fan, this is a mandatory
purchase. It's fucking incredible. |
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2. Duke Nukem: Time to Kill(Playstation) - An excellent use of the Duke property. In this game you get to play as Duke from a third person perspective as you travel through time to stop yet another alien scourge. It's very cool to see the various enemies in full 3D, while enjoying the classic Duke tradition of pure action. This is what Tomb Raider *should* have been... |
| 3. Duke Nukem: Zero Hour(Nintendo 64) - A lot like TTK, but a lot, lot longer. These levels are absolutely huge, and take at least thirty to fourtyfive minutes or so to get through each one. This is also one of the hardest Duke games out there, with *no* checkpoints or "quick saves" to rely on: You die, you start over on that level. Though it can be unbelievably frustrating at times, it's still a great game. |  |
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4. Duke Nukem OSX - Though technically not really a new port, this new conversion of the DK3D installer, by Ryan Gordon, will allow you to install either the Mac *or* PC version of Duke Nukem 3D onto your OSX disk! If you're stuck on a Mac that won't boot into OS 9, this is the way to go... |
| 5. JonoF's Duke Nukem 3D Port(PC) - A mind-numbingly bad-ass port on the same scale as DoomsDay. Has to be seen to be believed. Sadly, only available for the PC currently... |  |
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6. Duke Nukem: The Manhattan Project - Paying homage to the original Duke games, SunStorm Interactive brings you this 2D sidescroller...in 3D! For more on this game, click here for the quick review. |