Err, It's Duke 3D, but this remaster or remake has some flaws, such as:
-New Duke talks sound forced
-New visuals look weird in some areas
-It doesn't run all that on my machine (yes, it meets all the requirements)
Enough with the negative aspects, I really enjoyed the new episode.
(I played this on PC and on Xbox One S)

Duke Nukem 3D is a title that literally everybody knows, even if they have not even played a minute of it. The titular protagonist's voice, the memorable enemy variety and the overall style of Duke Nukem 3D made the game the classic that it is today.

However, this title was re-released so many times now, that fans of the game literally prefer different versions of it over the others. I played the currently available edition, the 20th Anniversary World Tour, which does not include the 3 main expansions, that are considered good by the community. It only contains the extra chapters called "The Birth" and "Alien World Order".

What can I possibly say about Duke Nukem 3D? It is clearly a decent game, however, I start to see cracks on it's impenetrable nostalgia as the enemy variety and the level design seemingly did not age well at all.

For example, there is an enemy type that literally just flies toward you and explode, which is a fine and tested concept, but these enemies are literal bulletsponges, and very hard to avoid. The pig cops are also very cool in design, but they can be so cheap at times.

The whole game just reeks cool design, despite for every major good idea, there are minor bad ones, that drag down the experience. There are many, and I mean many, different guns in this game, but the last few gimmick weapons are almost useless, as you will probably never use them, aside from a few instances. Shrinking down enemies is fun, it just does not worth it after a while.

The level design is pretty, but the overall chapter/campaign themes are not very consistant and the overall keyhunting aspect is a bit too confusing with this layout. It is not impossible, just annoying on the long run.

Overall, Duke Nukem 3D is still fun, and the whole vibe of the game sells it. The weakest from the Build Engine holy trinity (Duke Nukem 3D, Blood, Shadow Warrior) but that does not mean that it is bad at all, quite the opposite. These 3 games are essential for any FPS fan out there in the wild, as they are stunning games on their own and for their age.

Giving this game such a low rating feels a little disingenuous, because in the nature of heavily DOOM inspired games, a lot of the fun comes after beating it for the first time. But for me, my first time going through, I've gotta say: god this game is mixed.

The level design varies so much in quality it's ridiculous. Generally speaking, the later in the game you go, the better the levels get. And, of course, when it's good, you're moving around, getting in the flow, slowing down and exploring, and having a nice complete lovely package of a game. But sometimes to progress you'll get hit with something so unintuitive it's shocking. E2L4 (Fusion Station) has a door you can't open, and you must to progress. To open it? Go to an unmarked secret door in the wall, travel down its hallway to a small room with powerups with a switch you can barely see on the wall to progress. If I had to compare this to the original DOOM, in that game when I got lost, I'd wander the map for a while before finding where to go. In this game, I'd wander and wander and wander, finally cave and look it up, and it's some bullshit.

E3L7 (Fahrenheit) also has some unintuitive bullshit to progress, but more prominently features another thing I hate with this game: Battlelords, which are kinda like this game's Barons of Hell from DOOM, in that they're the boss of the first episode which later become a semi-frequent miniboss. E3L7 puts one, along with several other enemies, directly in front of a required door, meaning if you don't know what's behind it, you will immediately die. Even if you do, it's such a brutal situation that you'll probably die anyway. Mind you this section is at the end of the level. This game does provide a modern reprieve in that once you die, you can rewind to any point in the level, meaning you can brute force through tough sections. Normally, I'm very against this, but this game has so many bullshit situations (mostly with Battlelords) that I eventually grew completely used to using it. Battlelords, I should add, are very, very strong. They have tons of HP and have a nearly instant hitscan attack that rips through your HP fast, as well as a grenade attack that is of some note. Buuuut, the Shrinker weapon works on it, meaning you can effectively one-shot it. And as a result I feel, the game sees that as an excuse to throw reason out the window and put Battlelords in the stupidest locations ever.

Battlelords aren't the only enemy I despise though, there's also Sentry Drones. God. Have you ever played classic Castlevania and had to deal with Medusa Heads, those annoying assholes that are hard to hit and wreck your shit? That's Sentry Drones. They lock onto you at fairly high speeds, have a surprising amount of HP, and explode once they hit you. If you're in the middle of fighting some enemies and a Sentry Drone comes out, you have to stop everything you're doing to focus on them, and if you slip up a little, whoops! You got blown up and lost like 30% of your HP! These guys often come in packs, too, so they can just shred you apart. I think part of the reason I started enjoying the later parts of this game was because the devs realized this enemy sucks and proceeded to put them in very limited numbers only.

Moving on, the first level is so fucking cool, with so many little things you can interact with, it's a beautiful introduction to the game. But it doesn't ride that energy at all, and fairly quickly becomes an average shooter with the occasional funny voiceline from Duke. Episode 3 (Shrapnel City) takes you back to Earth, but Episode 4 (The Birth) really plays into it, and some of the locations here are funny as fuck. Like Duke Burger, a burger joint themed after Duke Nukem ran by aliens (also one of the worst levels to play in the game). There's also a place called Babeland, which is like Disneyland (with a Mickey Mouse-esque NPC) but every attraction is themed around sexy women. The women in this game are pretty much exclusively done in a sexual connotation (some of them even flash you, which genuinely shocked me), but it's so over-the-top it's honestly funny. A large part of the aliens' goal is to capture babes, like come on, that shit is funny. It feels like it'd be easy for that sort of thing to quickly become gross to see, but the game spaces these bits out enough that it felt played out just enough.

A couple final sporadic notes:

- The 3D cutscenes that play after every episode (and at the start of Episode 4 I think?) are fucking 10/10, absolute peak. The highlight of the whole game.

- The last boss of episode two literally paralyzed me with fear when I first saw it, which I can definitely say is a rare thing for me.

- I completed E3L5 (Movie Set) in 52 seconds. The par time was 2:30, and the 3D Realms time (which is like a challenge time) is 1:04. Was a very confusing moment.

- I didn't complete Episode 5 because, like DOOM, it's basically DLC and is much harder than the rest of the game. But I did play level one (High Times) and the whole Little Green Man Coffee Shop is very fucking funny, especially the "no tobacco" bit on the menu. Also you can just get a Devastator with 75 ammo under the boat which is ridiculous lol.

- The Rocket Launcher's projectile hitbox is jank.

- I never figured out how to use the Expander correctly.

- YOU CAN'T FUCKING SEE WHAT CARDKEYS YOU'VE GOTTEN. THIS HAS FUCKED ME UP SO MUCH DURING THE GAME. IT'S IN THE ORIGINAL WHY IS IT NOT HERE.

Overall, a fun game when it's fun, but when it's not fun, good fucking lord.

Me ha sorprendido el nivel de interacción con el escenario que tiene para ser un shooter de los 90. Hay ambición técnica en los escenarios y una clara intención de conectarlos narrativamente, pese a que ello suponga que en ocasiones sean absolutamente poco intuitivos. Sobre el gameplay, el arsenal es original pero se nota desequilibrado. Al principio puede parecer un juego con un humor algo rancio, pero lo cierto es que tiene referencias a la cultura popular muy bien llevadas en ese sentido. Divertido ante todo.

Sobre la expansión de The Birth, añade un poco de variedad y se enfoca más en la "comedia", pero sigue acarreando los mismos problemas. Tiene un Unabomber cameo y eso me parece mágico.

En cuanto a la expansión moderna de Alien World Order, Los nuevos mapas son modernos, bonitos y divertidos, pero por alguna razón pierden el nivel de interacción con el escenario que era tan característico; un detalle el cual da que pensar sobre el rumbo que ha tomado el género. Las limitaciones técnicas de la época obligaban a utilizar de forma creativa el propio escenario como principal medio narrativo. Este es otro caso de como se extinguen las limitaciones técnicas mientras se obvian las alternativas creativas que hacían tan especial a la obra.