[DUKE]
It's like déjà-vu all over again! *Duke Nukem: Manhattan Project's Grabbag* [CIVVIE]
For Duke Nukem 3D’s
twentieth anniversary… No, get outta here, Randy! Randy! For Duke Nukem 3D’s twentieth anniversary, there was
a new special edition of Duke Nukem 3D released, with a new windows-friendly port,
containing the original 4 episodes, and one new episode created
by the original authors of Duke Nukem 3D’s levels: Allen Blum, Richard "Levelord" Gray, and Randy has a credit on one of these
but let’s forget that happened, fucking... Ohhhhh… Allen Blum was responsible
for some of the original bangers from Duke3D like the first four levels of L.A. Meltdown, the big space station ones
from Lunar Apocalypse, Lunar Reactor and Dark Side,
Duke-Burger and Derelict. Levelord made The Abyss from Episode 1, all but two of the maps
in Shrapnel City, and many more. So the quality of these levels
isn’t really up for debate. But wait, there’s more! The whole episode is scored
with original tracks by Lee Jackson, and those are great. I would have liked it more if they weren’t packaged
with this awful fucking port. I’ve referred to this as the
"Cursed Randy Version" for many, many reasons. Okay, it’s mostly because Randy. BUT!
I do have legitimate criticisms of it too, like the mouselook is terrible,
the True 3D rendering mode runs like ass, "No Civvie, your RTX 2060 isn’t good enough to get
a decent framerate with all these effects!" "All these effects" being
dynamic lighting and ambient occlusion which is swiftly becoming my number 1 "I’m turning
this shit off" option, going head-to-head with Bloom. Everything feels so clunky,
the smoothness of the movement is gone, which is the most important part
of a retro FPS in my opinion, if your movement sucks, it’s the thing
that separates your modern shooters where you move generally worse
than normal human beings because if you went
any faster it couldn’t be as pretty! Forget it,
I feel like I’ve said this hundreds of times. And this port was done by Nerve Software,
who have a good track record with this kind of stuff. But then some greasy company bastard comes in
and makes them add shit nobody wants, I guess. And then there’s the re-recorded
Duke lines from Jon St. John, and even he knows Duke
isn’t the same when he isn’t bitcrushed. [DUKE NUKEM]
I'm sorry, I can't kick ass right now.
I'm too busy doing hot guy shit. Nobody steals our chicks,
and lives. [CIVVIE]
The developer commentary is cool though. You have to turn off
the forcefield right here. Right, right. So yeah, so this one, you know, when...
when it uh, you do it right, it plays a nice sound so you know. You have these multi-switches that...
I don’t remember why we ended up putting them in or not... I forgot about them. Yeah it’s just a good way to slow the player down
and get them frustrated trying to figure out the damn thing. Gotta watch...
some thing are scaled like huge. Right. So this room’s kind of... I fixed mine. Not to mock Randy’s mapping ability with him not here or anything but yeah,
some of these doors are a little large. It’s just accessible that’s all. That’s true, we can make fun of Randy and it’s gonna
all go out and he’s not here to do anything about it. [CIVVIE]
I’m guessing he didn’t wanna be
too heavily involved, you know because Randy Pitchford faces a lotta
backlash online for being so greasy. [CROWD]
How greasy is he? [CIVVIE]
Randy Pitchford is so greasy
that Wendy’s wouldn’t serve him to you. Randy’s so greasy he can ride
a dry slide at the waterpark. Randy’s so greasy they had to keep
the torches away from him at Medieval Times! Randy’s so greasy it don’t matter
he can’t get a woman wet! *Seinfeld theme song* I don’t understand
why anyone would use this port when EDuke has a polymer renderer
if you want the game to look """"PRETTY"""". Fuck. Look at this, it’s like
it’s inverting the depth of the textures, WHY? Why do the dynamic lights
not get blocked by walls? Why is there fucking
DISTANCE FOG now? Who thought Duke needed to visit Silent Hill?!
What the fuck?! The fifth episode, which helps give
the re-release its title, WORLD TOUR, Alien World Order takes
Duke around the world. It’s not bad, and I absolutely
love some of these levels. However, it’s kind of a fuck-up
when they’re best played in a source port that isn’t the one it came with
and the one it was designed to be played with… …to the point where you can't just fucking take it to another
Build engine game because of some fucking hackery, I dunno… So we’re using Raze,
this newfangled GZDoom-like Build port that supports Duke3D, Shadow Warrior,
Blood, Redneck Rampage, Powerslave? I don’t know, I remember
when our Build source port options were EDuke and that Shadow Warrior Classic Redux
that crashes if you sneeze while throwing a shuriken. There are a few differences
I’ll point out as they show up. And one time, it let me cheese.
And then a couple of other times, it didn't… High Times! Weeeeeed duuuude!… Right away, look at all this,
the detail, the increased enemy count and in true Duke3D fashion,
there’s a superweapon right around here in the first… Oh yeah, there we go! Eat devastator!
You alien bastards are gonna pay for screwing up my weed tourism. One thing about the design of these newer levels
compared to the old ones is that they’re a bit more linear, more like arenas connected together. That’s not "bad" by any means,
it's just different. And then the game hits you
with this Lunatic Fringe shit here. [DUKE]
Wow, that's some good… "coffee"! "No way, not possible,"
they said, but it's true. [CIVVIE]
This is what weed
does to you, kids, totally, not that I would know, I have
never smoked the reefer, nor will I, lest this show become
weird and incomprehensible. This Build engine trickery masks
an absolutely brutal assault from a couple of mini-battlelords
and the new enemies, the Firefly Troopers. They light you on fire, you see,
they get a flamethrower before you do, and someone thought
having them shrink was a good idea. I will usually try to deal with them
by nuking any surrounding area and letting the splash damage do the work. Otherwise, they’re a bit hard to hit. And the way they’re introduced on lower skills,
might be a bit less unforgiving. So many of them spawn here,
along with the battlelords, making this one of the tougher fights
in an already tough episode. [DUKE]
Trippy! Next time I have "coffee",
I better add some cream and sugar! [CIVVIE]
Duke, stop being such a pussy
and take this edible, yeah, the whole thing. Do it, bitch! [DUKE]
I'm back in the U.S.S.R., baby! [CIVVIE]
It turns out Levelord lives in Russia and this Moscow level
is his baby, and it’s pretty good. And difficult. [DUKE]
I wonder if the Siskova sisters
still live here. Hmm… Natasha and Nastya!… [CIVVIE]
I don’t understand this reference,
please leave a comment if you understand this reference, but leave it in Russian,
and also don’t leave a comment. From the streets, you make your way into a bunker
housing an absolute metric shitton of aliens, the measurement they use
outside of the US. The game will give you the Incinerator here, which shares the same weapon slot
as the freezethrower and is actually really useful. It will light enemies on fire,
and while they’re on fire, they can’t attack. Lower enemies will die from one hit,
the weakest ones will go up immediately. If you shoot it at the floor,
any enemy that walks into it, - which, let’s face it, it's Build engine AI
so that’s all of them - will be set on fire. Hey, did you guys know? Randy Pitchford's
so greasy that he powers the Incinerator! This episode is tough, and this weapon helps a lot.
And ammo for it is everywhere. So just do what I do:
SET IT & FORGET IT! [Infomercial]
Set it & forget it! You just set it and forget it! Set it & forget about it! You just set it
and then forget it. [CIVVIE]
Here’s a Raze issue, I think, because I didn’t run into this problem
with the EDuke Stopgap version or the original port. This one mini-overlord dies
like normal, but the next one... well... *Super Mario Bros. 3 Sky Land Theme* He’s still bleeding though. [DUKE]
If it bleeds, I can kill it! [CIVVIE]
These levels do a good job
of building to an interesting climax. This one has nuclear missiles,
an old favorite of Duke Nukem games, and a battlelord, and two mini-overlords, one of which will not die in this port. I work around it. I tried again and it worked perfectly so I guess this was
a "one-time freak accident" kind of bug?… There’s supposed to be a big one in there too,
this episode goes nuts with these bosses. This is the one that
Randy helped with, allegedly. Absolutely savage. It starts out at the World’s Theater, standard stuff,
before you go through a green police box … What’s wrong, Gearbox?
You worried about getting sued?! And then you’re outside the British House of Commons
or something, the geography in this level is a little confusing. A small army, a couple mini-bosses, tanks,
and just a crushing amount of enemies before getting inside and fighting the cycloid emperor,
who rules over the House of Commons, I guess, in a fairly player-unfriendly arena. You have some pillars to hide behind
but the splash damage can still get you. From England,
you’re off to Mirage Barrage. One of the more positively-
viewed maps in the expansion... Well, what’s neat about this map
is that I based it off the real pyramids... and this whole area here... You mean the shape? Yeah, the shape... That’s uncanny. [CIVVIE]
Too many drones. It’s actually really cool despite
how simple the opening maze parts are. [DUKE]
Why so serious, Sam? [CIVVIE]
You blow a giant hole
in the pyramid, drop into it, run around doing a Fifth Element reference. [DUKE]
The Fifth Element is always Duke! [CIVVIE]
If you say so. I like the final part on the alien ship, too. This level has so much more
detail and work put into the terrain that you would never see in older Duke levels because
they weren’t designing maps that could be run with... Hold on, I have this! This is from the original Duke3D manual, right, the minimum system requirements
for this cutting edge 1996 interactive experience: An IBM or 100% compatible
486 with 8 Megabytes of RAM, A VGA Graphics card, 30 Megabytes of free space,
a CD-ROM drive, and a sound card. But it was recommended
that you have 16 megabytes of RAM. The secret exit is in this level behind a fake wall,
which bugged me when I first noticed it. I saw this on the map and was looking
for a switch to open it but nah, you just walk through. Prima Arena.
Praima Arena. Off to Rome, this is a killer secret level. Really good shit. It’s tough as nails,
you’ve got a battlelord here in the center that’s supposed to be one
of the big ones but it isn’t in Raze, so when I find the jetpack in this level,
- it's right here, go and get it, you won't find many - and I got a shrinker in the last map,
so I feel really dirty doing this. Listen, don't give me shit about this, I've beaten
this episode with the cursed Randy version, okay? Originally made as a deathmatch map,
it’s still really cool and has a lot of paths
you can take to avoid that battlelord. Chances are you won’t have
the resources to kill him right away, so take a side trip to the underground,
stock up, come back up and take him out. Good god, look at all of these aliens! [DUKE]
Hmm…
Smells like someone cut the fromage! [CIVVIE]
This one’s a little more subdued
than the giant gladiatorial arena... I mean, it would kind of
have to be, wouldn’t it? A lot of tight corners and a room
designed to kill you when you enter it. No, really. It feels like I should go this way. It does. What I want you to do
is do that the first time. And then you get in there, the door shuts,
and you’re gonna get killed, you can't survive. That’s my intention,
for you to like, "Damn it!" [CIVVIE]
It’s difficult, even more so
when you get into the underground. So then, in these caves, there’s a mini-
cycloid emperor AND a mini-overlord, and assault commanders, I’m kinda surprised they’re not using the Firefly troopers more,
I’d actually prefer them to all the fucking drones. The level ends inside of a spaceship where
there’s supposed to be a giant, boss-sized battlelord... BUUUUUTTTT!… Yeah, fuck you. [DUKE]
Looks like San Francisco
is a sanctuary for illegal aliens. [CIVVIE]
Now this... this level is fucking mint! This level is top-tier Duke 3D. It’s enormous, feels like you’re waging a one-man war
on those alien bastards and it’s the penultimate level of the episode
so they throw everything at you. They’ve got submarines,
with the inside copied from the one in Death Row. [DUKE]
Die, you son of a bitch! [CIVVIE]
They’ve got a boat to take you
across the destroyed bridge, they’ve got Alcatraz in the skybox, they’ve got San Nicholas Island
over there too, what's… Oh, fuck! Apogee-3D Realms shared universe, when? They get the rights to Duke back
from Gearbox and Take Two... Oh no, I made myself sad again… This one part towards the end on top
of Fort Point a real place, by the way, two mini-battlelords, sure, okay,
but the turrets are just mean. You just get a rocket launcher...
it’s stupid easy. Because of the autoaim. Makes it nice and easy. [CIVVIE]
Oh... right... autoaim. I should leave that on
in Build engine games from now on, meaning whenever I get around
to Powerslave, or Witchaven II, or Legend of the Seven Paladins,
or Extreme Paintbrawl… Jesus Christ,
there were too many Build games! Even after everything this episode
has thrown at you, the final room is a lot. Get your devastator ready for it! Like a bookend,
here we are back in Hollywood. A short map that puts about as much resistance
between you and the boss as possible. But you’re the Duke, you’re A-Number-One
and this is your town! Not Vegas, fuck Vegas,
why is Vegas Duke’s town anyway? He went to Vegas in ONE game,
he’s been in L.A. in like ten different games. That’s like saying Manhattan is his town. So you’re climbing a mountain, [SHATNER]
Why is he climbing a mountain? [CIVVIE]
you can see the Hollywood sign in the background,
you can actually destroy that sign, in maximum cool-ass-Duke Nukem style... And the boss is a joke. [DUKE]
I’m gonna roast your nuts over
an open fire, you flaming alien bitch! [CIVVIE]
It’s the cycloid emperor... Again! But this time, he’s a bit spicy! Not too spicy.
see he has a flamethrower, and the octabrain attack he had before
is replaced with one where he spawns Firefly troopers. That’s kind of a pain,
the flamethrower attack though doesn’t have much range
and he uses it as if it does… [DUKE]
Die, you son of a bitch! [CIVVIE]
And Duke, a man of his word. [DUKE]
I wish I knew how to quit you. [CIVVIE]
Oh, man, from Brokeback Mountain.
I remember that meme from like… two thousand and… People kept telling me
this episode is shitty, and if you’re playing with
the Cursed Randy Port, it is less good, mostly because of the mouse issues turn autoaim on, I guess,
I don’t know, fuck me up, I’m gonna get comments about this, "Civvie has a bad take on Alien World Order,
yeah, fuck Civvie, Civvie sucks," "when are you gonna do
Red Faction, Civvie?!" Was that a hint that
I’m doing Red Faction next? No! Because I’m doing Prey (2006) next! *How'd I Do?*
