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Duke Nukem 3D Code Review
alancronin writes "Similar to Fabien Sanglard's previous code reviews of other games such as the Quake and Doom line of games comes a review of the code base of Duke Nukem 3D (split out over 4 pages). This will be a very good read for anyone interested in understanding the mechanics of a highly addictive game or anyone that wants to learn more about game design."
DN3D came out when I was in my late teens, about 18 months before I went off to university and got a net connection good enough for online gaming. At the time, it was DN3D, rather than Quake, that was the LAN multiplayer game of choice for my friends and I.
Partly that was because of the actual gameplay. While Quake was a better twitch-shooter, DN3D had a real, nasty, sneaky dimension to its multiplayer. You could use the pipebombs and holoduke in particular to make traps for opponents that were just like something out of Spy vs Spy. Much more potential for hilarity than a simple rocket to the face.
But it was also the ease of level creation. Once we were bored of the levels that came with the game, it was trivially easy to fire up the bundled level editor and make new maps. We'd been doing that before with Doom and, if anything, despite having "2.5d" levels (as opposed to Doom's straightforward "2d" levels), DN3D level creation was even easier due to the quality of the tool. By contrast, creating "3d" Quake levels was massively more difficult and time consuming.
Once I went to University, of course, it became much easier to download new maps from the internet and the superior network infrastructure underpinning Quakeworld, Quake 2 and eventually Half-Life multiplayer moved my gaming in that direction instead.
Duke Nukem 3D was the first FPS to inject a healthy dose of humor into the game. That is what stands out in my mind over actual gameplay mechanics.
"But this one goes to 11!"