Story
If the story for Duke Nukem 3d was ridiculous, then the story for this pack goes beyond them. As he’s enjoying Christmas in L.A., he gets a telegram (Who uses telegrams in the 90s?) From a rather familiar elf:
“Duke, you must hurry to the North Pole. The aliens you defeated last season have returned and are being supported by a splinter group known as the Feminist Elven Militia. They have brainwashed Santa and are going to use him to try and take over the world. COME QUICK!”
“Dr. Herbie Elfnic, dds”
Yeah, my first reaction when I saw this was “WHAT!?”
Setting
Just like the original game (Minus the second episode), Nuclear Winter takes place entirely on Earth. The first two levels took place in the original first two levels of DN3d, and the others...wait, I should talk about this for a second.
In perhaps one of the laziest moves ever, the developers have taken the original two levels of DN3d (Hollywood Holocaust & Red Light District) and basically made them so you go through them backwards. They’ve become a little more Christmasey, as snow & decorated trees are seen all over the place. What shows of the laziness the most is the fact that the levels have largely been untouched, and the secrets have stayed in place for the most part. I will admit that it was funny in the Hollywood Holocaust redux to see the movie that was playing changed.
After going through the reversed levels, things take on more of a Christmas vibe. Tragically, not all of the levels do this well: the 3rd level is meh (It partially parodies Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, but there’s an odd cameo from Mario. Just as odd is the portion of the level that is modeled after a portion of the first level in the original Doom), while the 4th, 6th, and 7th level really does the Christmas thing well. The worse culprit of the bunch is the fifth level: it’s basically a sewer system/factory that has does next to nothing as far as Christmas is concerned, apart from an occasional tree or two. It is also the most boring of the 7 levels, as there’s nothing that really stands out, apart from 2 odd underwater battles with Octobrains (The only times you see them, btw).
Characters
Taken from my Duke Nukem 3d review:
“Unlike DNF, Duke is pretty much the only character to speak of in this game. There are absolutely no other characters for Duke to interact with, and that's okay, cause Duke Nukem 3d is a one-man show. Just like with Duke Nukem Forever, Jon St. John provides the bravado and machoness for his signature character, and gives a great performance like he always does.”
Same applies here.
Gameplay
Just like DN3d, the gameplay in Nuclear Winter is exactly the same. Run & gun, find ammo & health, find keys, exit level. In this pack though, things have changed a little.
For starters, the enemies in this game have been given Christmas clothing. The Pig Cops look like miniature Santas, the Troopers are wearing snow hats, and the Enforcers are wearing antlers. This is very reminiscent of the enemies in Duke Caribbean: Life’s a Beach, where the enemies had new skins, but that’s for another review.
We also have some new enemies. These include stationary Snowmen, Snowmen that float around & act like the Assault Commander, Snowmen that drive around plows like the Pig Cops in their tanks, and female elves from the militia (One dressed in blue with a shotgun, and another dressed in camo with a chaingun). The elves are interesting in the fact that when they die, they sometimes drop a present. When the player walks over it, they’ll receive either ammo, weapons, health, or armor. A fun way to keep up with the Christmas theme, if you ask me.
Curiously, we barely see either the Octobrains, or the Protozoid Slimers. As I said above, there’s the two underwater battles in the fifth level with the Octobrains, and a section of the first level is the only place to encounter the Slimers. More curiously is the fact that they don’t have any Christmas skins on (It would be cool to see the Octobrains wearing snow hats, and the Slimers look more like piles of snow rather that green goop).
Finally, we have Santa Claus (Spelled Santa Claws in the game) as the final boss. Despite not being rather smart, he’s surprisingly tough. He has four weapons on him at all times (Shotgun, Chaingun, RPG, Devastator), has access to the jetpack, and moves around rather quickly. I died at least 2 to 3 times before I managed to kill him successfully, making him one of the toughest bosses I’ve ever encountered.
Although the gameplay remains the same, elements have been screwed around that might make playing the old episodes difficult. Here are just two examples, taken from the Duke Nukem Wiki:
“Unlike the Enforcer's and Troopers new sprites that replace their original counterparts, the Christmas Pig Cop sprites in this don't replace the original Pig Cops since for unknown reasons the original Pig Cop's sprites are replaced by Santa Claws and the Christmas Pig Cop sprites replace other sprites. ”
“The Episodes that come with the original Duke Nukem 3D are rendered almost unplayable while Nuclear Winter is active due to sprites being replaced. (The Battlelord, The Overlord and The Cycloid Emperor are inactive etc.). A particularly notable change is all the original Pig Cops encountered in the Normal Episodes will be replaced by Santa Claws since he overrides their sprites; so if there was five pig cops in one area normally the player would have to face five Santa Claws' instead and if the player killed one it would automatically end the episode and the players chances of survival against more than one Santa Claws would be quite low in any case. ”
One other screw-up involves one of the elf enemies. Specifically, the elves wearing the camouflage can occasionally fire a steady stream of shrink rays instead of their standard chaingun attacks. Curiously, I only notice this about halfway, three-fourths through the pack, and I don’t actually know if it’s a glitch or not. I just found it to be weird, that’s all.
There’s another screw-up that I’ll talk about, but it’s relatively minor compared to the two mention above. In the 6th level (Christmas Village) of the pack, after you acquire your first red keycard and go through the buildings, there’s a 2nd red keycard on Santa’s desk. This is really weird, since there isn’t another door in the level that needs a red keycard. Whether it’s around due to the laziness of the developers, or a strange program bug, that’s never been confirmed.
Perhaps the biggest screw-up comes from the pack’s multiplayer. Unless I’m missing something, this is the first Duke game in which there are bots available for the player to fight against. Sadly, the bots are incredibly stupid. They constantly wander around the map, often bumping into things and getting stuck. On top of that, they only fight with their pistols, and only change to other weapons when they walk over them.
If I can be perfectly honest, Nuclear Winter is the easiest of the 3 Duke packs, even on the 3rd difficulty setting (I dare not try it on the 4th difficulty, strangely though). It just seems like you can breeze through the whole thing in about a single hour. There really aren’t any obstacles that pose much of a threat, and even if there is any, it can be easily passed around. In fact, since I discovered the pack back in 2009, I’ve made a Christmas tradition for myself to play the whole thing on Christmas Eve before I go to bed.
Graphics & Sound
Although the Build engine looked great when it first came out, by 1997, it wasn’t looking so good. Quake had beaten Duke Nukem 3d in the graphics department, making it look so much more dated. It still holds true today: the Build engine looks incredibly primitive, the textures are meh, and the 2d enemies really stand out, but not in a good way. Although the new textures breath some life back into the engine, it’s doesn’t breath enough for it to come back to life.
To quote myself from my Duke Nukem 3d review about the sounds:
“The sounds also haven't aged well, as the aliens and weapons don't sound as fierce as they used to be. with only two exceptions. The first is Duke's voice, as it still sounds...well, kickass! The second exception is a little more surprising. Despite sounding incredibly basic, the music in the game still sounds great, as in conjures up images of a more nostalgic time, where games weren't as complex as many of them are now.”
I will say that instead of the standard songs used in the original game, we have Christmas tunes to listen to as we’re blasting aliens. Only one track repeats (It was first used in the 2nd level, and reused in the 6th level), but the songs really add to the Holiday tone of the pack (Which is ironic, cause there’s two carolers in the 2nd level you can kill).
Overall & Rating
It’s understandable why this pack is considered to be the worst of the Duke Nukem 3d packs. The graphics are beginning to look dated, the coding is screwed up in places, the beginning two levels of the original game were rehashed, and the rest of the levels were relatively uninspiring. Despite those problems, I had fun playing this pack! It’s interesting to see a Christmas vibe applied to one of video games’s most iconic badasses, and despite the first two levels being rehashes, it’s cool to go through them backwards, and there’s kind of a happy holiday vibe throughout the whole thing.
Duke: Nuclear Winter gets a 5.5 out of 10.
See you all next week, when we’ll get a little apocalyptic. Until then, stay Otaku!
* The developers of this pack have become something of a legend among the Duke Nukem community, and the gaming community at large. The link below is perhaps contains some of the best information about them, despite there being little info:
http://dukenukem.wikia.com/wiki/Simply_Silly_Software
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