Story
Taken from the game booklet:
“Duke has a new nemesis, and this time it’s not scumbag aliens! It may be even worse...”
“Mech Morphix has perfected GLOPP (Gluon Liquid Omega Phased Plasma), a slimy, radioactive substance that mutates living things on contact. After using his own henchman as guinea pigs, turning them into grotesque beasts, he unleashed the ooze on the city of New York. With an elaborate pipeline to manufacture and ship the powerful plasma to a secret lab, Morphix plans to use it to take over the world. (Of Course.)”
“Rats, roaches, and alligators can’t get enough of the stuff, and wherever there’s a puddle of GLOPP, you can bet you’ll see some sort of creature sucking it down and mutating into a nightmarish beast in the service of Morphix.”
“But as powerful as GLOPP is, it’s also versatile. Duke will find special weapons along the way that can harness the slime’s power, and wreck havoc on the mutant freaks affected by it. With these weapons Duke can vaporize enemies of de-mutate them back into their original form where they can be easily crushed under his mighty boot.”
“Morphix thinks GLOPP will help him rule the planet, but Duke’s GLOPP powered weapons just might turn the tables on Morphix’s plan!”
Yet another goofy, silly, and basic Duke story that I can get behind. I should mention that the original villain of this game was supposed to be Dr. Proton, the original bad guy of the duke universe. However, Duke Nukem Forever was still in development at the time, and fearing that the game would use that villain, the main baddie of Manhattan Project was switched to Morphix to avoid any possible trouble. Smart move!
Setting
New York has been interpreted many times throughout video games, and DN: MP is no different. Whereas previous games attempted have more gritty depictions (Most notably Max Payne from 2001), this game attempts to go for a more light hearted look. You start out in the highlights of New York, traverse through Chinatown, proceed through the subway system (Both new & old systems), mow down enemies in a factory, fight through the docks & a tanker, jump around on a oil rig, and finally have an out-of-this-world experience in space. Each of these areas are a experience onto themselves, as they have their own unique feel to them.
If there was one episode that I didn’t like, it would have been the 5th one (Titled “Fearsome Factory”). The first four episodes are respectable in terms of navigation, but this one takes it to almost maze-like proportions. It can be relatively easy to get lost, and there are enough traps to make you paranoid. The 8th episode is like this also, but not quite as frustrating.
Characters
Just like DN3d, the main character is Duke, voiced once again by Jon St. John. He’s still just as macho & crude as he was in DN3d, but I don’t know if it’s just me, but he seems to be a little more.....tame. He still comes across as rude, but his swearing is almost non-existant, and his lines seem far more goofy than in previous games (Go figure!).
About the only other individuals that could be considered “characters” are Morphix and the babes attached to the GLOPP bombs. Morphix feels like a lame sci-fi/action villain from the 80s or early 90s (You only encounter him 3 times: he’s the 1st boss & 8th boss, and you momentarily see him after the first battle with him), and the babes attached to the GLOPP bombs, while varied in terms of ethnicity, all have the same voice actor & lines, making them all the same. Other than them, that’s all the characters you’ll see in this game.
Gameplay
In a throwback to Duke Nukem 1 & 2, Manhattan Project uses classic side-scroller mechanics to create a nostalgic experience. Taking place over the course of 8 episodes (Made of 3 levels each), Our hero Duke stomps, explodes, and de-evolves a horde of mutants & robots using an array of weapons. Unlike Duke Nukem 3d, Manhattan Project attempts to have more of a mix with your implements of destruction, and the following list details what you use:
Mighty Boot (Classic!)
Golden Eagle Pistol*
Shotgun*
Assault Rifle*
Pipebomb
GLOPP Ray (Turns mutants into their original form)
Pneumatic Rocket-Propelled Grenade Launcher (PRPG. Shares pipebomb ammo)
Pulse Cannon (Shares ammo with the GLOPP Ray)
X-3000 (Secret weapon. Has unlimited ammo, and kills everything on screen. While it’s held, you can hear thunder in the distance)
* These guns all use bullets
As you can see, this list of weapons isn’t a complete rehash of DN3d’s arsenal. There’s enough older weapons that things feel familiar, but new enough to ease people into the game.
You also have temporary powerups that can be found throughout the game (You have no inventory, save for keycards). There’s a double damage pickup (Duke says “It´s clobberin' time!” every time you pick it up. It gets annoying rather quickly), an invulnerability pickup, and the jetpack (The only thing to return from Duke Nukem 3d). They always show up at a time when you need them, like finding a jetpact to traverse a wide space, or double damage to mow through a horde of enemies.
Unfortunately, Duke Nukem: Manhattan Project’s biggest weakness is the gameplay. Despite what I said above, the game comes down to the following:
1) Kill Enemies
2) Find Weapons/Ammo
3) Find Key
4) Find GLOPP Bomb & disable it (There’s 1 bomb in each level with a babe attached to it.)
5) Fight mini-boss/boss
Doing this in the first 2 episodes isn’t so bad, but by the time you get towards the end, it gets incredibly repetitive and boring. I didn’t have a problem with this as much as other people did, but I can definitely see where they’re coming from.
Unlike DN3d, Manhattan Project uses a checkpoint system when saving. Unlike a lot of other games that do this, the checkpoints are plentiful, and really help when you’re tackling a difficult level.
One final aspect of the gameplay is the nukes. Scattered through each of the levels in a set of ten, collecting all of a level’s nukes slightly increases your health (Called EGO) and ammo capacity. Collecting all of the nukes gains you a permanent bonus, depending on the difficulty you selected at the start of the game. The bonuses are:
- Double the strength of the Mighty Boot (Easy difficulty)
- Damage the player receives is halved, and turns Duke's shirt blue (except for in the end-of-level cutscenes) (Normal Difficulty)
- Player gains the X-3000 (Hard difficulty)
All you have to do to activate these bonuses is simply restart a game, and they’re automatically there.
Graphics & Sound
When Manhattan Project came out back in 2002, it was alright looking (It’s wasn’t ugly, but it wasn’t anything magnificent). Time has not been kind to this game: models look rather blocky & jagged (For Duke, the Babes, and Enemies), textures and backgrounds seemed matted, and overall is just plain ugly. Luckily, the game does know how to use color, and there’s various environment, so that balances things out...for the most part.
Luckily, the sound quality has managed to withstand the passage of time better than the graphics. Jon St. John’s reprisal of Duke still sounds great, and doesn’t feel like he’s clenching his teeth when he speaking his lines. You have the standard grunts, squeeks, and screams of the mutants & robots.....and then there’s the music. Unlike DN3d, where there was a different song, there were only a small handful of level tunes, adding more to the repetition of the game as a whole.
Overall & Rating
It’s easy to see why Duke Nukem: Manhattan Project got swept under the rug. With highly repetitive gameplay, it gets boring rather quickly. Having said that, I had a lot of fun playing this game. It’s cheesy Duke goodness, and despite the repetitive side-scroller game mechanics, they were surprisingly refreshing back in 2002, and somehow seem more refreshing today. It also helps that Jon St. John voiced Duke (As he’s always done in the past & present), and that this game somehow seems goofier than Duke Nukem 3d.
Duke Nukem: Manhattan Project gets a 7.5 out of 10.
See you all next week. Until then, stay Otaku!
*
Oh, one last thing. When the game first came out, it was packaged with a metal keychain in the shape of a coin (On one side there was the Duke symbol & Statue of Liberty, and on the other side was a NYC subway token imprint). Unfortunately, later releases of the game didn’t contain the keychain. This caused two editions of the game to come out: one with a sticker that said “All New Duke: Special Edition Keychain Inside!”, and another that simply said “All New Duke”. A later release of the game had no sticker on it at all.
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