Video Game History - Duke Nukem 3D
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Video Game History - Duke Nukem 3D
Duke Nukem 3D box art
In the mid 1990's id software was the most prominent company when it came to first person shooters. However a man named Ken Silverman had been producing a new game engine called the 'build engine' that would allow for more advanced graphics than id's games. Ken's build engine would be more powerful than id's tech, as it would allow for destructible environments, sectors that could overlap each other and more. In 1993 just a month before Ken was due to attend his first semester at college he had signed a contract with Apogee software to create a new 3D engine. Soon his programming would overtake his college classes and he would work on the engine full time. It would took Ken 3 years to finish the 'Build Engine' that was to be used for 'Duke Nukem 3d'.
Ken Silverman
For the game apogee decided to give the Duke his own personality. When the first 'Duke Nukem' was released in 1991, Duke's character had been inspired by comic book heroes and 1980's action movie stars but due to technical limitations they couldn't flesh out the character fully. Thanks to the power of Ken Silverman's build engine however Duke would now be able to speak and never before in a first person shooter did you have a character who could speak and react to the world around him during the actual game play.
To breathe life into the character Jon St. John was hired to do voice acting for Duke. Jon St. John was instructed to think of Clint Eastwood's performance in Dirty Harry but with a lower pitch to reflect Duke's larger physique. It was one of Jon St John's earliest roles in the video game industry and by far his most iconic. Like Id Software's games, Duke Nukem 3d stuck to the typical first person shooter formula of collecting key cards to progress throughout the levels.
However Duke Nukem 3d would feature real life locations to make it stand out. Throughout the game Duke would visit many real life locations such as cinema theatres, bookstores, and strip clubs. You could also interact with certain objects in the game. Using a urinal will give you ten points of health for instance. You could also use items in your inventory such as night vision googles, med-kits,a jet pack, and scuba gear. Throughout the game Duke would quote one-liners from numerous movies most notably the evil dead series. And the cover of the game bears a heavy resemblance to the cover of the film 'Evil Dead army of Darkness'.
The game would create some controversy by including sexual content meaning the game would be given an M rating. Because of the sexual content Germany and Brazil banned the game, and the game received plenty of criticism for it's objectification of women. However the game still sold over 3.5 million copies. Duke Nukem 3d did eventually receive a sequel named 'Duke Nukem Forever' which is better known for having one of the longest production times in video game history, than for it's actual gameplay, which was poor. But in any case Duke Nukem 3d will be forever known as one of the most important games in video game history because it helped to popularize the first person shooter genre alongside id software's games.
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