What was the first time you really clicked with a First Person Shooter? Some will say DOOM, others Call of Duty or Counterstrike. Maybe something a bit different like Left 4 Dead or Half-Life? For me, it really began with trying 3D Realms’ Duke Nukem 3D on my uncle’s PC.
I’d grown up embracing sci-fi and horror, as well as over the top 80s action films, so after going through an opening level, set in a war-torn Downtown Los Angeles, that was full of just that, a teenage me was naturally left in awe of Duke Nukem 3D for a variety of reasons.
Duke Nukem 3D sees the titular musclebound action hero saving the world from an alien invasion the only way he knows how, by reeling off one-liners and blowing shit up. Duke’s appearance and attitude was a blender full of 1980s action heroes. A frothy mixture of Stallone, Schwarzenegger, Kurt Russell, Bruce Campbell, and Roddy Piper, with a crude sense of humor targeted directly at teenage boys. It veers into absurd parody of the action movie genre and pokes fun at its then rivals (the eviscerated DOOM guy Easter Egg was mindblowing to me at the time).
This was, of course, an incredibly violent game for the time, albeit with tongue lodged firmly in cheek (Duke threatens to rip a boss’ head off and shit down his neck, and in a cutscene after the fight, keeps that promise) and the pixelated titillation that accompanied it (A strip club is an early setting, and undressed ladies are a common sight throughout) made sure it wasn’t destined to be sitting in many kids’ Christmas stockings.
Graphic, violent games were almost taboo to me at this stage of life (and still a relative rarity in the medium). I could freely read horror books, and my parents were fairly good about letting me watch violent action and horror films (they were less into me and my brothers watching wrestling because siblings and choreographed violence ends in foosball tables being shattered by one kid throwing another off a bunk bed), but video game violence? Not something that was so readily accepted, especially given how high profile they’d been made by newspaper hysteria.
So getting that whiff of Duke Nukem at my uncle’s house was rarefied air. Just as it had been when I got to play slivers of Mortal Kombat, DOOM, and Resident Evil at a friends house (I saw right up until the first zombie showed up in Resident Evil before that friend refused to have the game on again).
We were lucky enough to be getting a PC for the first time soon after that experience, and my Dad managed to get my uncle to sneak a copy of Duke Nukem 3D in amongst some more ‘family-friendly’ fare. You bet your behind I got to playing that game as soon as I could.
The opening level of Duke Nukem 3D was already taking up residence in my impressionable young mind after that brief taste, but after that first week actually getting to play it properly at home, it was permanently burned into my brain.
Beneath the perviness, gore, and quotes ripped from films (I thought the ‘All Outta Gum’ line from They Live was from this game only for a few years before finally watching the movie) was this game full of cool secrets. Hidden switches and doorways, fun Easter Eggs, and grubby jokes were the reward for exploring what are, by modern standards, relatively small spaces. Yes, Duke was, and is, a shallow game when it comes to its characters and story, but as a 3D space to be explored? It was incredibly deep.
Level, after level, Duke 3D offered up a slew of secrets to uncover alongside its satisfying selection of alien-slaying arsenal (shrinking enemies and crushing them under your boot didn’t get old for a long time). A slew of expansions and mods kept me coming back again and again, and I naturally hoped for more from the Duke.
But maybe Duke Nukem was always set up to fall from grace.
After all, the cigar-chomping parody of 80s action heroes built a reputation on violence, sleaze, and misogyny, and while it once worked on a satirical level, the point only had to be missed once or twice for it to turn sour. Which it inevitably did.
Action movies were already moving away from that style, and first-person shooters were beginning to evolve at an alarming rate (the Nine Inch Nails-scored Quake would debut later the same year Duke Nukem 3D came out, and Half-Life was just a couple of years away).
A long-gestating ‘true sequel’ became a meme, as Duke Nukem Forever took an absurd amount of time to finally release, and Duke, unfortunately, didn’t get the same late-career revival as his action movie star inspirations. Duke Nukem Forever ended up being a nostalgia-baiting flop, a game way out of its time, and one that clearly misunderstood most of the reasons behind Duke Nukem 3D’s success.
For me though, Duke Nukem will always be defined by Duke Nukem 3D. A game of thrilling discovery with more depth to it than the abundance of strippers and alien guts would imply. One that stands alone in getting the balance of smarts and sleaze just about right.