Fail to the King

Two years ago, during X06, Microsoft announced a bunch of stuff for the then fledgling XBOX 360 that got a lot of people excited for the system. However, there was one surprise announcement during the X06 news conference: Doom for Xbox Live Arcade. The bigger surprise? It was released the same day it was announced.

And honestly, I completely dug Doom for XBLA. For some reason, the pixelly look and fast shooting, along with it's unabashedly rough look still has a charm with it that, to this very day, is still a blast to play.

Since then, Marathon: Durandal was released on XBLA as well, with an updated graphics engine and a boost to 60 fps. Result? A decent XBLA shooter with an uncanny ability to make the end user nauseus after 20 minutes of play. As you can probably guess, I stopped playing it well before.

And now, the next in the PC classics that are being released on XBLA is the foul-mouthed, yet revolutionary Duke Nukem 3D, which paved the way for the shooters of today with its interactivity and personality.

Like Doom, very little of the game has been changed or redone. The vintage, pixelized look and the cheesy one-note lines remain lovingly intact from the original source. All the levels and the secrets are just the way you remember them.

And for people who are still fans of Duke Nukem 3D, that is some great news.

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Now for my prespective:

I used to love Duke Nukem 3D. When it first came out on PC, it was the one game I played very often and actually convinced me in some sort of way that I was into PC FPS' (that actually turned out to be false).

The thing is, I had a very protective mother when it came to the games I played and the movies I watched at the time of its original release. So...you guessed it...she bought me the CENSORED version of the game. That means no blood, no strippers, no foul language and no dirty double-entendres.

And I know what a lot of you are thinking: "You definitely played the wrong version of the game...you were meant to play it as it was originally intended!" So, I was actually looking forward to playing it on XBLA.

My opinion? I completely hate Duke Nukem 3D. The game itself is so crass and unnecessarily raunchy that it becomes highly annoying just to hear Duke speak.

Now, don't get me wrong, I was a fan of Conker's Bad Fur Day, which is one of the most raunchy and crass games ever made. However, Conker was intelligent in the way of making a game that parodied other games in some ingenious ways. Duke, however, is raunchy for raunch's sake. Even if you believe he's a satire of 90's action films, it still isn't funny no matter how you look at it.

And, I don't know why, but the verticality of the game feels very off. It doesn't really feel like your jumping correctly in its platforming sections, where most of the secrets end up being stashed away. When you feel like you're jumping and that the placement at the end of your jump doesn't feel right, there are definitely problems.

In the end, Duke Nukem 3D almost seems pointless to be on XBLA in my eyes. It's also incredibly telling that I found the game more fun in its more subdued and censored version, then the crass and vulgar uncut version that lies here today.

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However, one idea I do have that they should consider as the next release on XBLA: Unreal Tournament. To me, this game still holds up to this day.

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Finally, I'm playing Lock's Quest for the Nintendo DS. So far, it's not a bad base building game, but it's nothing extraordinary. I just can't seem to understand why this is getting such great buzz around it. Kind of wishing I bought Dragon Quest IV instead.

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And that is all kiddles. Bryan and I will be recording the podcast on Friday, to be released sometime this weekend. We will also release the special episode with our faves of the year so far and are most looking forward to games. Be sure to download!

- Brad Wiswall now gets why Duke Nukem would randomly pull out a $20 in the censored version for no apparent reason.