Duke Nukem 3D - Sega Saturn Review
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- Опубліковано 20 сер 2024
- It was at a time when the FPS genre was still young and developing on the PC. On the Saturn, it was something special.
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Opening "Sega" jingle is from Astal for the Sega Saturn.
Ending Music during the credits is from Batman for the Sega Genesis.
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By: Jan Neves
UA-cam Page - / jan3d
Intro by Evan S.
portfolio.tses...
Episode Notes:
1. Captured on real hardware via RGB/Framemeister.
2. It took 15 years for its sequel, Duke Nukem Forever to get released.
3. Opening shots are from both the PC original and the remaster.
4. The Playstation version wasn't bad itself, but suffers a more chaotic framerate.
5. After Lobotomy was bought out in 1998, it was learned that they were already working on ideas for Powerslave 2.
6. What makes Duke Nukem on the Saturn even more impressive is the fact that Lobotomy Software was working on both it and Quake at the same time. They were a small developer taking on two massive games on a machine that supposedly couldn't do 3D worth a damn. They also did both ports for a pittance, which contributed to their demise the following year.
7. The PC version used the Build engine, which was then ported to the Saturn using SlaveDriver. Funnily enough, the PC version of Powerslave used the Build engine as well, which itself is the reason SlaveDriver was created for the Saturn.
8. SlaveDriver used both CPU's effectively. One was used for the walls, while the second took care of everything else.
Lobotomy were gods among men. They didn't necessarily make the style of game that I enjoyed playing much, but man oh man did they make them well considering the hardware. Their engine and talent could have been used on lots of game styles besides FPS and I would've loved to see that as well.
Game Sack is cool.
Good to hear from you Game Sack😁
Joe needs a new Dave. And his name is Mel.
i feel that same vibe wen it comes to argonaut, man did i try to love croc.
@@shaggymcdaniel3216
Nice idea, but I think Mel is too cool to be a Dave. And I don't mean that as an insult to either, love them both!
I walked about 4 miles to get to a rental place just to get this game for the weekend!!! DEDICATION!
Uphill in the snow both ways of course.
I bet it was worth it. This game is a classic and one of the best fps games of the 90's!
Now that's a hump
@@RetroGeek94 you know after that walk the game better hit nice
@@PistolPete1980 And both ways walking reverse, because the wind was blowing so hard, that his face would have frozen otherwise. ;)
1996 was such an amazing time to be a gamer! The shift from 2D to more 3D games was astounding! I remember playing Duke Nukem 3D on the PC and just being absolutely blown away by the whole experience. It took the foundation of DOOM and just made it even better!
The 90's we're a great time experiencing the transformation from 2D to 3D it was mind-blowing.
@@EJHilt It's sad that today's generation will never get to experience the golden age of gaming like how we did.
@@user-dv2hc8zt3o Agreed, unless real strides are made in VR.
Turok 1 and 2 blew me away on Nintendo 64
@@user-dv2hc8zt3o agree !
I said it before in the Powerslave video and I'll say it here again, if anyone from Lobotomy Software is reading this, THANK YOU for making some of the BEST GAMES EVER.
Wait...there's a game called Powerslave?
Any legal history with Iron Maiden, behind it?
@@viktormichael821 In Europe it was called Exhumed.
@@Hektols Also a gore metal band.
They didnt made any game, just ported some good games turning then to a inferior version.
@@guillermoricoy3332 100%
I remember picking this game up for the Saturn in the early 2000s only mildly aware of Duke Nukem from video game magazines. I absolutely love this game. One of the best FPS games I've ever played.
Such a great port. I have all three Lobotomy shooters for Saturn and this is my favorite
I’m just here to say, I like your profile name. I’m not sure if it’s Latin or Latin…type. Either way, I like it man.
For a man who discovered an entire mathematical technique, Carmac sometimes made a couple of interesting choices. To be fair to him, he admitted in retrospect he should have let the original Doom Saturn version get finished and released as it was the far superior version.
John Carmack had a very clear and singular vision: he wanted to make game worlds that felt solid and real. The wobbly polygons and warping textures of the 32-bit consoles ran counter to that idea, so he was very single-minded about not allowing their use in ports of his games. Of course it massively hurt the playability of Doom in the end, and he later admitted to have made the wrong judgement call. It's easy to forget he was only in his mid-20's at the time and lacked some of the perspective that comes with age.
> For a man who discovered an entire mathematical technique
Are you referring to the fast inverse square root? That was falsely credited to Carmack. It was designed by a pair of mathematicians in the early 80s (Cleve Moler and Gregory Walsh)
@@jimb12312 oh that's so interesting! I keep seeing it being referenced in videos to this day.
@@sohatyi It's also made out to be a much bigger deal than it actually is. Yes it's a very clever technique and yes it helped speed up some of the game's math, but it's often presented as if it's THE reason why Quake 3 is so fast and that's just nonsense. The reason why Quake is so fast is because of smart design, tight and efficient programming, thorough optimization, and overall strong discipline on the part of the entire team at id Software.
Duke Nukem was one of my favorite Saturn titles growing up. Death Tank was a hit amongst my cousins and neighbors! Great era!
Same here, we had long sessions of Death Tank Zwei, with pizza and Dr. Pepper!
@@ShinobiWan1 lol I still reunite with my friends (we're all in our 40's) at least once a year to play Deathtank zwei and Saturn bomberman together!
@@ShinobiWan1 That's a proper pizza party right there!
Is there any other way to play death tank? My Saturn is long gone and I used to love it.
Possibly the best looking game on the Saturn. IMO it still looks impressive today, especially when compared to PS1 and N64 games of the time.
I always wanted this back in the day and I finally picked it up a few years ago NIB. It did not disappoint, and it is much more playable with the 3d control pad.
Those alien bastards look pretty decent on the Saturn. Lobotomy was an underrated developer.
Absolutely. They're still gonna pay for shooting up our ride!
Very glad to have experienced dn3d on the Saturn back in the day, I've still got my original disc with also quake and exhumed
I constantly have to remember that exhumed is the UK version of power slave. That is just such a weird name change.
Good times indeed, I wish I had both Quake and Powerslave, but my brothers and I played Duke 3D and Hexen on the Saturn.
Exhumed! That brings back memories, I remember the demo
Wish i got these games instead of Loaded ..Or NBA LIVE 98 Payed full price back then and neither game was worth a damn. Live 98 was good on ps1 but oh the Saturn was awful. Still had UMK3, STREET FIGHTER ALPHA 2 ,X MEN CotA,DIE HARD TRILOGY, RESIDENT EVIL and still own all of these in their og giant plastic cases. Guess i wasnt into fps or just never seen these advertized so i never asked parents for them or saved for them. I was obssesed with finding anything like Twisted Metal 2 after playing it at my cousin s . I chose Saturn ,He N64 and his adopted brother had ps1. The quality of these 3 fps games is very impressive on this weird machine.
Pardon me for being cheapy BUT! ..why did I burnt the PAL Exhumed/Powerslave, me reading the Wikipedia article? Definitive variant?
It's been forever I still a relatively new M1 owner and no no such thang as storage here all my toys stay n jacked in!
I had this on N64, my friend and I would play this, extreme-g, Goldeneye and Rush until 4am when we were 18
Based
It just goes to show you that with the right game development team at the helm, you can accomplish some amazing feats even with limited hardware.
I am amazed they got this game to run pretty well on the Saturn.
Back when getting janky ports was basically par for the course this was a beautiful thing. It's a shame more people couldn't experience it at the time as I think it's diminished quite a bit by time. Still amazing for the time but less so now.
The saturn had far less limited hardware than the playstion.
@UnjustifiedRecs
I honestly hope not.
But it does seem to be that any good thing goes away sooner than later.
@@drunkensailor112 not true.
@@DOYLETWAT great argument.
The dynamic lights are what do it for me. We didn't really have those (light emissions when duke fires) on PC, that looks noice.
Also the explosions look way better. Surprised no one made a modded Duke 3D with a Saturn lick of paint.
This was the only version of Duke 3D I had played until very recently. I actually had no idea about the PC version's warped geometry when looking up and down due to the Build engine until just last year, kind of surprised you didn't mention that it's a non-issue on the Saturn due to Slavedriver. For a time, the Saturn version could have possibly been argued as being the definitive version of the game for this reason alone.
Of course, you can't go wrong with any version of Duke 3D. Hail to the King, baby.
"Of course, you can't go wrong with any version of Duke 3D. Hail to the King, baby." The MegaDrive version of Duke 3D says hello!
@Vicious Alien Klown World I think the Saturn version may suffer from some rare polygon clipping (not sure what it's called exactly) at times. Like in the second level or so when you first encounter the pig cop in a flying vehicle and enemies show up from behind the corner early in that level I would sometimes see frames of the enemies through the wall, which I don't remember having on PS or PC but I have never played any version all the way to the end so for all I know Saturn may have had less graphical bugs than the rest.
@@homiedclown L0L on the real
Duke 3d and Doom famously have no z-buffer which leads to the distortion.
I was super jealous of my PC gaming friends too and this was my first experience with Duke 3D.
I dig your name. Very cool
I'm glad you mentioned "analogue support", although you literally only mention it. Playing this game with the Saturn 3D controller for Nights was a sheer joy - so smooth, intuitive and controllable! I actually preferred this to the PC's mouse and keyboard setup.
Damn I was expecting a jank port but instead it’s a work of art. Incredible what the Saturn was capable of.
LOVED this port. Loved all things Sega. From master system to the Dreamcast.
My fav FPS hands down is Duke Nukem 3D. I was 15 when it came out and I remember putting the PC version in layaway and cutting grass, chores, etc to save up for it. Needless to say was estatic once I finally got to play the full version.
I used to be big into the custom maps also even going as far as to make several levels based on my high school at the time. Never new this game ran so well on the Sega Saturn. I think what I liked so well was you actually felt like you were in a real place. So many other FPS made these large elaborate areas that didn't feel real. With Duke Nukem 3D you felt like you were in a city, restaurant, alien ship, canyon, etc.
Honestly, I'm just happy to encounter someone else who remembers the first two Duke Nukem games. I don't think I'd realized that DN3D continued directly from the second game's ending.
I always feel completely nuts when I think about the first two games, because the tone was so completely different. I mean, Duke was still fundamentally the same character, a pretty cliche (in an entertaining way) action hero, but the first two games weren't exactly adult material and then suddenly Duke Nukem 3D had strippers. Hell of a thing to discover when you're 11. >_>
Just in time for my evening snack, and let me tell you man you are killing it with the content, love your saturn videos
The movement is somehow nauseating (it would take me few levels to get used to). But hell! I can´t believe how fluent it is. Porting done right! :)
I noticed that the view point tends to tilt slightly as the player turns corners. Not something you see a lot in first person shooters. I'm usually pretty prone to motion sickness in certain games, especially when they have lots of dark areas (I still haven't finished Alien Trilogy, and never even got to see the alien in the latest Alien game as a result). However, I didn't get that feeling while watching this video, although admittedly, I haven't played this game myself.
Also the horrendous texture warping when viewing walls at shallow angles (see 3:10). The tilted view and warping textures create a really disorientating, almost surreal experience at times.
Its interesting how this generation of consoles came right at that awkward phase when the console manufacturers and game developers were still trying to figure out how 3D graphics and gameplay should work. Each console's 3D capabilities were compromised in ways that they wouldn't have been with the benefit of hindsight.
SLX dropping the goods on this fine Monday afternoon!
When I was deciding between a Saturn and N64, this game was definitely in the "Pro Saturn" column.
It does look better doesn't it? I don't remember music in the N64 version either.
was wondering when a new episode would happen then I checked and it was 15 minutes ago,timing gotta like it
Interesting that the Build engine wasn't used on this port. The dynamic lighting when you shoot your gun looks really good
love this game. Played it more than Doom, back in the day. Great review 🙌
Not played Duke Nukem 3D in time, great game! Awesome video :)
their Slave-Driver engine was a thing of beauty back then... they made the Saturn sing
Slave drive engine should've been used on doom on the saturn.
I never played it on Saturn, but I love Duke Nukem 3D!, it's one of my favorite games.
Great review as always. One of my favourite Saturn games of the era.
One thing though - I completely understand the control frustrations, however if you have an analogue controller you can input a cheat to enable Jevons Control which allows you to play in a more modern control method and you dont have to pause whenever you want to use an item:
On the analogue pad, pause the game and press YYZZXXYXZ. Unpause the game and you'll see the message Jevons Control: On.
The analogue pad will always make you look up, down, left and right. The other controls are as follows:
A: Open Door/Drink/Action
B: Backward
C: Strafe right
X: Use item
Y: Strafe left
Z: Walk Forward
L: Shoot
R: Jump
D-pad Up/Down: Select item
D-pad Left/Right: Select weapon
Thanks!
It was a great game on Saturn. Very nostalgic.
I got this game not knowing anything about it. What a trip haha
You got me hooked with your top 10 videos. But I absolutely love these in depth breakdown of games and their history. Great job. Thank you, keep up the GREAT work!
Worth a mention that the UK s Official Sega Saturn magazine seemed to have a great kinship with Lobotomy. Jevons one of the staff was invited to their HQ and did some interviews regarding Duke and Quake. Jevons famously gave them the idea of the different control scheme. Using the 3D analogue to look. Using YZB&C for strafe and movement. Freeing up the dpad for items select and use. Triggers as jump and fire! So impressed by the suggestion. It's dubbed the Jevons code in the game when activated and also Quake features the layout to.
Don't forget the best part. It also has Death Tank and works with the multi-tap. Playing Duke Nukem 2player co-op was fun also
Hell yes. Can't wait for that Powerslave port as well
I don't think it was a port. I think the Saturn version was the original.
@@heilong79 Powerslave/Exhumed was a multiplatform game. All of the versions (Saturn/PS1/PC) are the original.
This is quite impressive. Dang! That Saturn runs this legend of a title, proper.
Nice one SLX. :)
I bought Duke 3D not long after getting my Saturn, I was amazed at how good it is and the addition of lighting effects blew me away.
another top tier SLX review of one of my fav saturn games
This was easily the best console port of that era. Btw, check out Doom 32X Resurrection. Loads of new features, entirely new engine and It puts the Saturn version to shame (not hard though lol). I'd like to see more videos on this kind of stuff, it's often more interesting than the same old official games.
Saturn version is the only one I can actually play. Everytime I try another port, I can't help but see everything that is missing. The Saturn port runs on a true 3D engine, and you have these tilts effects when turning that only exist in this version, as well as the ambient lighting. The game is also smooth enough to be perfectly enjoyable on a CRT, so that's how I end up replaying this game every once in a while. Back then, FPS had fantastic level-design.
I was a person who had both a Sega Saturn and a pentium 120 at the time and Duke 3d ran great,never had the Saturn version ,played the n64 version and liked it but always wanted this version
I have the Duke Nukem collection on my Switch, it's still so awesome to play today!
What a great port that I had no idea existed. The only thing I can notice that's off is the excessive head bob while strafing
I wonder where the developers went off to. Where did they end up? Would they be willing to share dev tips or opinions?
You hope they went off and did something awesome it would be such a shame for such talented people to just before us to disband and disperse.
Looking it up they were making Exhumed/Powerslave 2 on the PlayStation and they were bought by Crave Entertainment and Powerslave 2 and another project they were working on were cancelled. They were then forced to work on a Ceasars Palace Gambling game on N64 (Which to me sounds real shitty).
There's an interview with one of the members circa 2015 (I would post it but whenever I leave links UA-cam removes my comments) where he says him and another buddy from Lobotomy went back to work at Nintendo of America (They came from NOA before founding Lobotomy).
That's about all I can find without a deep dive.
Edit : Paul Lange one of the cofounder of Lobotomy went to work at Microsoft. Currently he's "Project and program management contract with Microsoft Studio Alpha."
Duke Nukem looks like the short haired Jeff Jarrett that we saw back in the Attitude Era and WCW days and yes, Jarrett also wore sunglasses back then. I can't help but think that Jarrett's look back then was influenced by the Duke Nukem videogame character.
My friend gave me the shareware version of this on CD-ROM. I ended up buying the Kill-a-ton collection a few months later on my birthday. I didn't realize how much I would miss 1997. *sigh*
"It's time to kickass and chew bubblegum, and I'm all out of gum."
My brother won a copy of this in a CVG magazine competition. Still proud of him to this day!!! Big up Bert
Was a big fan of Duke Nukem 3D all the way back in 96 when it came out on PC. Played an ungodly amount of Dukematches with my friends, though, I never paid much attention to the console ports, figuring they'd simply be watered down versions of the PC game. It was only a couple of years ago that John Linneman from Digital Foundry made me aware of how unique the Saturn port actually is, and so after hearing that I decided to finally try it out. Ended up playing through all of it, and on original hardware no less. Really good stuff :)
I love the rearrangements they did for the Saturn soundtrack (funny enough, most of them seem to come from levels not in the Saturn version, either as they're part of the Plutonium Pak or cut secret levels) Amusingly to get to 27 levels, they counted certain levels twice (as the Saturn version splits Toxic Dump, Fusion Station and Dark Side in two parts)
I have a question, will you review some of the amazing homebrew Saturn games? Or are you only going yo review those wich released during the system's life
What?! Saturn Homebrew? Details please.
@@DARS_04 there are amazing Sega Saturn homebrew that pushes the hardware to its breaking point, like HellSlave made by XL2 a 3D FPS whit 3D enemies, weapons, light sourcing, animated reflections and a rock solid framerate, plus 4 player split screen multiplayer, also Cube Cat by 7shades altought not a graphical marvel but Its extremely fun, whit cleverly designed levels and obstacles and many more amazing games, im actually developing one for the Saturn a fully 3D Sonic game Sonic Ringworlds, we've gotten our 1900 poligon test map running on real hardware at 60fps, so yeah the Saturn is still kicking whit some grade A software
Whit 32x32 textures
@@am.2572 Dayum. I was thinking of cool 2D stuff, but thats on a whole 'nother level. Ok then, is the blue rat a 2d prerendered image or a 3D model like Sonic Jam?
@@DARS_04 a 3D model as It uses less Vram from VDP1 so we can have bigger and more textures
It was amazing on the saturn such a big game and ran like magic on that box. For me its up there with Sega Rally as top Saturn games.
I love that they left in the tipping camera when you turn, just because they could.
Nice Blade Runner reference towards the end @12:15
I can't believe they got it to run at a decent framerate on an engine more powerful than the original Build on PC...lighting aside, you can really tell when looking up or down; on the PC we got a weird kind of forced perspective, here it's actual 3D projection (like the openGL version). Quite impressive really.
It’s great to see at least one American dev cared about Saturn development
I loved Duke Nukem 3D on PC and grabbed the Switch port recently. I spoke with Jon St John (voice of Duke) for a podcast recently and boy, he's a fun guy to speak with. Awesome review, I haven't yet played this port. 🎮
Had alot of fun with this on the Saturn back in them days.
The absolute KILLER for this game was no in-level saving. Everything else about this game's port was G-d tier. But man, having to beat each level straight up was enough for me to put it back on the shelf after an hour.
Very good stuff brother
Lobotomy were arguably the best third party developer for the Saturn. I think Traveler's Tales could have gone a lot more too given how good their Sonic R engine was and just how good they were in general
That head bobbing is throwing me off so hard 😂
Wow this is really impressive . I had no idea the Saturn port performed this well!!
Duke Nukem 3D on the Sega Satrun is the best version i've ever played!
I remember playing this game at 8 years old and loved this game on PC. My grandfather was a big gamer all the way back to Atari and Nintendo entertainment console playing super Mario brothers back then. Priceless memories me and grandpa playing Duke nukem 3D together.
That DeathTank game had me and my friends playing into the wee hours of the morning more than once. Still have the multi tap for 8 player mayhem. unlocked it the hard way by destroying every toilet in the game... or you could have a saturn quake save and unlock it automatically.
Nice Blade Runner reference. :D
I've own 3 differents versions of Duke 3D, but never played the Saturn version! Can't wait to have my way with it on my Mister in the coming months... 😋
I always felt shorter in the Saturn version. Mabie something to do with the removal of crouch.
The secret game Tanks was amazing. Me and my buddy spent hours on that.
What made Duke Nukem 3D so special was, his like similarity to 80´s action stars like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis and Sylvester Stallone.
Duke Nukem is still a walking cliché, and this is what made those games so special.
Hail to the King!!
Great port that I'll only see here since i can play this and Quake on Switch. Lobotomy Software did a great job on this no doubt. I vividly remember when the og PC version came out i played the on my dads pc on 1996.
Duke Nukem is a great game series
I love the MEGADETH "Duke Nukem Theme"
I bought my pal Saturn with this game as a gift ..and it's in my top 10 best of all time games easily..had to rent quake for the death tank mini game back then..
Memories..
I had no idea the Saturn received a Duke port! That it was good is surprising. To discover that Lobotomy was responsible is not. Yet another informative review from SegaLordX, well worth watching.
Jevons control method makes this infinitely more playable.
That little twist in the camera when the view is rotated is not in the PSX version, I love that little movement, it gives it a lot of immersion in my opinion.
This was one of the Saturn games I really wanted since I was never really a PC guy. Eventually I first experienced it on Xbox Live arcade.
Duke Nukem 2D....I remember playing that and Commander Keen on W95 at school. Damn I'm old
Hell, I find pausing the game to switch items not to be a problem at all, in fact it can make using healing items even easier as it pauses the action while you get to select your healing item, vs having to shuffle thru items while under fire. I think it's perfectly fine.
“I’m here to kick ass and chew bubblegum! And i’m all out of bubblegum.
Amazed how many vids you produce , great channel
I loved the Saturn version and while playing it, all it did was make me mad about the past released games, lol
Great video as usual and added to my SLX nighttime playlist
I am a big fan of Duke Nukem 3D, and I credit the Sega Saturn version for that (I wasn't a PC gamer at the time, though I had played it on PC at a friend's house). The PlayStation version just didn't control well, and the Nintendo 64 version, while it offered a fun 4 player split-screen mode, I didn't like the censorship. At that time Duke Nukem 3D on Sega Saturn was the best overall version in my opinion, and it also is the first console game I had beaten in online co-op, so I'll always remember it just for that.
I love duke 3d. Still remember playing it as a kid on my pentium II.
Did not know there was a Saturn port.
love this game, still a fav, playued it for many of systems. Will get it for steam some day!
"OK the game is good. Now let's make a sequel."
"How will we call it?"
"Duke Nukem... Forever!"
The saturn version has an arranged OST? Sounds great.
I am going to try on my new Fenrir 21 pin!!!!!!
The 'Build Engine' was underrated IMO.
Yes but this version is actually running on the slavedriver engine.
@@Gatorade69 yes, but still.
The thing I remember most was how the manual incorrectly tells you how to use the jet pack and scuba gear, because of this magazines back in the day had to tell people how to correctly change verticality. The game does cleverly use an autocrouching feature so Duke can get through areas that absolutely require it, but I would have much preferred if they provided a crouch button or something in the control scheme that allows users to assign it.
Finally! I was waiting a lot for this review.
Between Duke nukem and Exhumed (powerslave) lobotomy were absolute genius. Both games were brilliant and I played them to death explorer every level over and over again....
loved this back in the day thanks!!
Deathtank! ready for action! yeah!
Hey man, thanks for the flashing lights warning. I know it's just kind of a throwaway thing that people do but it does make a difference in people's lives. It can be very frustrating when artists blithely include strobe lights and don't warn anyone. Ehhh whatever, you know what I mean. God bless you, Sega Lord!