I think that the major point here is that you consider Duke Nukem 3D to be a "standard FPS". You have to understand the 1996 context in which it was released. Prior to that, the "best and most advanced" FPS was Doom. There was no "real 3D", whole maps where flat. You could never stack monsters and players and items over a Z axis.

Duke Nukem 3D brought the 3D into FPS. Because of this 3D, aiming with the mouse became the standard for generations of games. A few months later ID Software published Quake, which was also mind bending. I don't feel like FPS have evolved at all since that time. Better story lines, more guns and spells, more details in the physics engines, but the 3D is still the same for the vast majority of large studio productions.

This is why Duke Nukem is so mythical (and Quake 1), it set the foundation for modern FPS games. Over the time, people forgot about their 1996 experience but where kept on the bandwagon by "Duke Nukem Forever in the following year".

Now I'll agree that the probability that this game lives up its expectations tends toward zero but hey, its like a software game soap opera going on!

Duke Nukem 3D used a 2.5D engine; it was like Doom, in that the map was strictly 2D with ceiling and floor heights: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Build_engine

I can't agree with you that FPSes haven't changed since then; it's only true if you are very selective about what you consider important about a FPS. What you have said implies that you don't care about story line, realism of physics simulation, gameplay, etc., which I'm quite certain is simply not objectively true of the gaming marketplace. Even if you think it's the "3D" that matters, then things were vastly better in Quake than Duke Nukem, where you could look directly up and down without bad distortion etc.

And then, one needs to ask, what quality is it of the 3D that matters? Simple things like decent texture scaling (trilinear filtered mipmapping, anisotropic filtering etc.) and antialiasing make a big difference, but are often only viable at high resolution in 6-month old games with the latest hardware, such are the demands of the processing.

> I can't agree with that FPSes haven't changed since then

Yeah, I found Portal by Valve Software a couple of years ago the same groundbreaking experience in terms of gameplay that I felt with those first 3D games. Some of my friends said the same about HalfLife before it.

It was a 2.5D engine, but there were a lot of hacks put in to make it feel more 3D.

For instance you couldn't do proper floors above floors, but there were some rendering tricks you could use to do bridges.

It also supported slanted floors, which helps level designers more than you realize. Also there were invisible teleports to fake a real 3d layout.

But the most important part was that the level designers were very good at using those tricks to hide the limits of the engine.

…and the groundbreaking 'Build' rendering engine was written by an 18-year-old kid!

Thief, System Shock and Deus Ex were clearly a nice departure from Duke Nukem and Quake in terms of game play.

And they are still playable today. (At least if you substitute System Shock 2 for the original System Shock. The original's controls did not use the now-standard mouse-look.)

Well that explains it perfectly. Thanks.

> I don't feel like FPS have evolved at all since that time.

Halo later brought in regenerating health, but yeah, that's all I can think of.

Vehicles?

Oh, yeah -- that was Halo too, right?

I think technically Halo did however I'd also suggest Battlefield 1942 as really fleshing out vehicles.

And saying that, multiplayer in general seems like a big step (although not sure how well multiplayer was in the 90s)

Quake had nice multiplayer from the beginning.

I think DN was the first game I played where you walked about a real environment with realistic objects and furniture etc. instead of empty rooms on a spaceship. I remember seeing it at a friends house and being totally blown away that... he was running around outside on a street. It was also the first FPS game 'with attitude', Grand Theft Auto style. Also had some cool gameplay mechanics like CCTV terminals. In fact I think I only had a demo of it, not even the full game, and it still made an impact on me.

Oh god, I feel a little sorry for you.

This game was like seeing The Matrix without anyone telling you the basic plot. Your first hacker news post where pg actually responds to it. Your first bungee jump. Your first go on a real gun. Your first pvp kill in eve online.

It was ground breaking. It blew your mind and sent a chill up your spine.

It's just one of those things that when it came out it was so ahead of its time. It opened your eyes to what could be done. Now it seems dated, then it was amazing.

I guess those that had that the first time round are all hoping it will do the same thing again.

Ha--great answer. Thanks.

So it was technologically groundbreaking? Novel game-play? Both?

My game like that was either Ocarina of Time or maybe Goldeneye 64.

Technologically it looked very well for its time, but mostly it stand out as a game with "character" (art design, levels, weapons, sound effects, voice acting, writing).

It was so cheesy and over the top that it became masterpiece (like Tarantino / Rodriguez movies, or recent Old Spice commercials).

id soft may have had technologically superior games (Quake is about the same age and had full 3d models instead of just sprites) but they were incomparably bland compared to Duke Nukem.

Also, gameplay was really fun. There were some very inspired gameplay elements: shrink and freeze guns, laser traps, remote triggered pipe-bombs, jetpacks. I still fondly remember multiplayer Duke sessions late in the night at lab in my university.

I had a CAD class in high school that was basically Duke Nukem 101. It was awesome:)

Both. IIRC, the only alternative FPS to play was Doom 2 or Quake, which had very little character and focused on the action.

The Duke Nukem engine was (from my point of view) on par with Doom's engine, but their level design made playing the game a lot of fun. From seeing yourself in the mirror, to kicking toilets and fire hydrants, the world seemed much more alive than any other game at the time.

The game had a fun boy-ish "I'm gonna kick ass" vibe to it that isn't really seen today. Most FPS action games nowadays, while fun and entertaining, seem to take themselves too seriously. Musclebound Marcus Fenix is too brooding, and Roach too focused on terrorist plots to really portray the giddiness that was found in kicking a pig in the face with your manly boot.

Plus, it came with a level editor! Oh, the hours I wasted with BUILD.EXE...

Dude, none of the things you mentioned in the level design were possible in Doom's engine.

I think you are right. I remember Duke as technically more advance than Doom 2

I found something here: http://doom.wikia.com/wiki/Duke_Nukem_3D

"While Doom and Duke Nukem 3D feature similar technology, Duke Nukem 3D could in most respects be considered technically superior. The player can jump, crouch, and aim up or down. The rendering engine features slopes, overlapping and moving sectors, arbitrary scaling of textures and strong scripting capabilities"

Ah, chalk it up to fuzzy nostalgia. I swore that the mirrors actually were functional, and you could damage stuff that was on the sidewalk with the boot-kick. Maybe I'm mixing it up with other FPS games of the time. It's been a while.

(and chalk the reply up to poor reading comprehension. I understand what you mean now)

There is a lot of technical detail about the engine from it's creator here: http://www.advsys.net/ken/default.htm

I have to note that Ken's story is one of the things got me into programming as a kid, back when DN3D was still fresh.

Compare "Seinfeld is Unfunny" (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SeinfeldIsUnfunny).

To be honest, the 80s Movie Tough Guy parody was derivative and already tired when DN3D was released.

Every FPS before it was super serious. Then comes Duke, a trash talking, stripper payin, badass mofo who is all out of bubble gum. Also it has holo-duke which I contest is the best FPS feature ever created. Many a friend parished from my holo-duke + room lined with pipe bomb combo.