UPDATE: September 24th, 2009
Duke Nukem 3D recently got a much-needed update which addresses our main issue: controls. Now the analog sticks perform mostly as you would expect, and while they are not as silky-smooth as what you get in Modern Combat: Sandstorm, they do their job well enough and make this port much more playable.
We're raising our rating from avoid to caution. If you enjoy Duke Nukem, this is a decent port for your iPhone, and the controls are a bit easier to tolerate now. Hail to the king, baby!
Duke Nukem is a classic franchise that has been progressively dying lately. Ever since the cancellation of the long-standing Duke Nukem Forever project (now known by fans as Duke Nukem Never) and announced bankruptcy of 3D Realms earlier this year, the future of this macho and controversial hero has not been so bright. This rotten port of the 1996 FPS Duke Nukem 3D further digs his grave.
In this game you play as Duke Nukem, a strapping badass who chews his iconic cigar, spouts catchy one-liners, saves the world from an alien invasion, and still has time to wave money at strippers in nightclubs. His adventure takes him through interesting locations, like a porno theater and a slimy alien spaceship.
Due to these awful controls, Duke can't kick ass and chew bubblegum at the same time.
The main issue that makes the game fall flat on its face are broken controls that render the game unplayable. The first control choice is analog, which consists of two joysticks. However, they will often respond incorrectly or ignore you altogether. The other option, digital, has arrows all over the screen and was an immediate turn off. Tiny action buttons underneath the pause button initiate jumping, door opening, and crouching.
Shooting is slightly easier, as you can tap anywhere to shoot whatever is underneath the crosshair. However, the weapon selection button (which is invisible) often gets in the way and opens an extra screen, which we found quite annoying.
After this bad game, we're going to need a little R and R.
The controls can be moved around the screen to your liking. We ended up placing the arrows from digital mode in a D-pad fashion, although this still seemed quite unresponsive and overlapping controls (something that was not avoidable due to large buttons) created issues.
A feature of this game that reminded us of the far better Wolfenstein 3D port was that all the levels are unlocked from the get-go. This way, those who have already beaten the game in its previous iterations who want to skip to their favorite part can do so, while others can start from square one.
One positive point to bring up about the game is that Duke Nukem’s character has remained unchanged. He still makes hilarious remarks about strippers, aliens, and his surroundings. The personality from the original is still one of the best parts of this game, but it's much harder to enjoy because of the shoddy port.
Duke Nukem 3D is a port that has been beaten and bruised to the point that it no longer functions correctly. We highly recommend staying away from it until some serious updates are released.
18 Comments
this is a huge disappointment. waiting for updates... hopefully great ones.
"Unplayable" seems to me be the most carelessly tossed around adjective in the iPhone game review lexicon. The controls are bad, no question about it. However, with some fiddling you can achieve something that is tolerable (check out the TouchArcade threads on the game for advice). Once you do, you end up with 20+ hour game with tons of action, personality, and humor -- in other words, the best FPS currently available on the App Store. To call the utterly repetitive Wolfenstein 3D "far better" is simply perverse.
Of course this is all opinion, but we happened to like the port of Wolfenstein better than the port of Duke Nukem. In all fairness, Wolf 3D does not include looking up and down so the developers had less to worry about.
About having to maneuver controls: On TA, the only advice I saw was to fiddle with your device settings. You cannot honestly expect customers to go through hoops to be able to correctly play your game. It is the developers responsibility to make sure the controls work properly. Workarounds don't count.
Tim, please check out the more nuanced response below. On Wolf 3D, I don't disagree that Carmack and Co. did a very nice job porting the game to the iDevice, and there's no denying that it's a classic of the genre. Unfortunately, as a game it is extremely repetitive, with boring graphics and a zero-personality protagonist (this is all just my opinion, of course). Duke Nukem is in a different class altogether.
Sorry...but thats just one more stupid review!
You guys seem to rate a game basically based on the controls.
You claim that you care most about the content of a game rather than on it's name...still you ignore the genious gameplay...the awesome presentation and every single good bit of the game because you found yourself incapable of using the controls properly?
Same thing with worms....
"If the content of a game is available on other devices, we don't care about it at all...we just care about controls"
I for one...enjoyed and still enjoy this awesome port...and with a litle bit of correct button placement, practice and passion you totally get used to iDuke Nukem 3D!
It's just sad that you guys from slide to play don't split you ratings into categorys....if you would, duke would possibly get a 1 at controls or usability...but gameplay, grafix, sound (effects, taunts, style) and replay value at least get 3's...
With a fair rating system neither Worms nor Duke could have been rated like you did!!
Games are about fun, not ONLY about controls!
Thanks for the comment. Many of us here played this port, and fighting with the controls is definitely not fun. We are looking forward to the day when the developer figures out how to make the controls work, and then we'll update our score accordingly.
For me personally this port is a huge disappointment. Yes, the graphics and level design are all intact, but what good is that if you can't adequately move or shoot? I played dozens of hours of the original game on PC and found this version to be an utter mess.
Games ARE about fun, and controls that don't work completely kill fun.
But you can't have any fun if the controls suck. I would much rather play a somewhat repetitive game with smooth controls like Wolfenstein 3-D, than a game with frustrating controls like Duke Nukem or Assassin's Creed: Altair's Chronicles. I absolutely hate poor controls, and the rest of the game is pretty irrelevant if the game cannot be controlled. Therefore, I agree with 1 or 2 stars for a review of a game with profoundly frustrating controls. I don't play a video game in order to be frustrated.
I absolutely agree with this. Trying to have fun with a game that has bad controls is a very difficult prospect. I usually don't have enough patience to try and get used to a terrible control scheme, even if they are customizable. I usually end up giving up long before I find the "magical" combination that some people seem to be able to.
I actually signed up her just to comment on the review: or rather, comment on the comments!
First of all, I don't think the reviewer gave the "digital" controls enough of a chance. It's no good just dismissing them as ugly, you need to try playing the game with them. I think you'll find they work ok. Not great, but arguably well enough to turn that "1" into a "2".
Right, now that's out of the way, I wanted to voice my agreement with this site's emphasis on controls. Controls are important on the iPhone as a gaming device, more so than on any other machine- even the DS and Wii which at least have d-pads and buttons to fall back on, unlike the iPhone. I see the on-screen d-pads and buttons as stop-gaps at best (and cop-outs at worst) because we're missing the tactile feedback of normal controllers and the accuracy which goes with that.
Developers are still finding their feet with this exciting new platform, and lessons are being learned by devs and gamers alike (imo twin-stick shooters work great, for example; pixel perfect platformers don't). It's important that sites like S2P, and us gamers in the app store reviews, don't pull any punches, because until unofficial standards emerge for different genres, devs are just as much in the dark as the rest of us. Just as Spider deserves praise for well thought-out controls which feel natural on a device with no buttons, Duke deserves criticism for shoehorned-in controls which pay no attention to the possibilities AND limitations of the device. Glossing over such flaws does a disservice to gamers and devs alike.
Controls are important on this device at this time. Hugely important.
I did give the digital controls a chance and actually found they worked a bit better than the analog sticks (which were absolutely unusable). Also, you can fade them out. Still, it was awkward to figure everything out and too cluttered.
Otherwise, I definitely agree with you. Cracking down on games with broken controls such as this is necessary to push developers to go above and beyond.
Also, welcome to our site!
I think you're right that the digital controls are "workable" but they don't compare well with the "state of the art" in iPhone first person shooter controls.
And the title's default "dual analog" controls are so bad that the developers were nuts to foist them on the unsuspecting public, so we can't help but tell people to avoid it.
The controls are perfectly fine for me - the digital controls anyway. They seem to not register from time to time, but after some tweaking, the game is perfectly playable. The original PC version was controlled by keyboard as well (mouse was only an afterthought), so go figure.
The port is also pretty efficient - it only takes about 10-15 megs of RAM on 3G (I've tried it with Backgrounder and I had 30 megs free with Duke running in the background).
wow. one of the longest discussions since exzeus.
Disclaimer: I have not played the game
I agree with the STP guys. Doesn't matter how good the game is, if the controls suck (on iDevice) then the game is just trash. I really tried to give Brothers in Arms a chance... but the controls are so terrible and missions are so confusing that I couldn't take it any more. Same went with Terminator - great presentation and control scheme, but the control responsiveness turned me off and I was glad I only downloaded the Lite version.
Bad/Unresponsive controls KILL iDevice games. Period. If its too frustrating to play then it isn't worth playing.
Personally, I cannot rate this game because I haven't played it. But the rule goes across the board.
tim
Look, I understand that for many people the controls are a deal-breaker, and frankly I have no quarrel with your "1" rating -- it reflects your experience with the game. My problem is with Tim's hyperbolic language. First, the term "unplayable" is meaningless in this context, since many people have managed to actually play the game (and, horror of horrors, enjoy it). Unplayable is a categorical statement that is easy enough to refute with counter-examples. Second, if you take a step back and look at the game a bit more objectively, what you have is a port that includes all original levels, the full original story and voice-overs, excellent graphics (for a vintage game), and a great frame-rate through out. Sure, they blew the controls, but if this is a "rotten port," what the heck to you call Prey? "Extra super rotten?" How about Golden Ax (and all those crappy Sega ports)? "Double extra horrible?" The fact is, if 3D Realms manages to put decent controls on this baby, it will rapidly become one of the best games on the platform. The same cannot be said for a lot of other misbegotten ports.
Fortunately, the reviewer gives plenty of description to go along with the score so you can judge for yourself if you want to buy it. The reviewer may think that the poor controls kill the fun of the game. If you are more tolerant to poor controls or have a particular affinity for a franchise then you might be happy to buy it and not worry about the control issues.
In this case Tim went into great detail about how the controls work, giving readers plenty of information with which to make an informed decision. There is always going to be some degree of opinion in a score, so STP adds a detailed, well-reasoned, and factual description to accompany it. Together they should present a complete picture of whether or not the game is right for you.
Does the update improve the controls. And is it compat. with 1st gen now? Should I spend my last $3 on this now?
Thanks lol
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