Many years ago gamers had a tough time. For years we suffered until the fateful day came, the day that Doom 4 and Duke Nukem Forever were released. Seriously, it was like the second coming of Jesus for gamers. But unlike Jesus, whom we’re still waiting for, these long-awaited sequels came out, and by God, Doom amazing! Duke Nukem Forever is best left forgotten, but wasn’t Doom amazing?!
Both Doom and Duke Nukem 3D were epic rivals that demanded your attention. Doom was The Godfather of the FPS genre, while Duke Nukem is considered to be the game that redefined it. I’m taking a look back to see which one stands out after 25 years!
I will be looking at the original versions of these games, not the 20-year anniversary editions or any of the re-releases with new levels and extra stuff. It’ll be just the pure, unmodified, untainted original titles we’re looking at today.
Personality
Now by personality, I mean the style and substance of the video games themselves and not the characters. That comes later on, don’t worry.
Now both these games were crammed with awesome visuals, cool locations and plenty of colorful creatures to shoot in the face! Now Doom centered its epic amounts of mayhem in a Lunar base on the Moon and eventually ended up in Hell.
Duke Nukem’s adventure took our loveable rogue through an Alien infested L.A, Lunar Base on the Moon, Alien Spaceships, Secret labs and big budget film sets! While I do love the variety of locations in Duke Nukem, they do tend to repeat the aesthetic and look similar to one another. Now if I was counting the newly released levels then Duke 3D would take the gold. But for the original release, it just didn’t amount to Doom’s epic setting.
Come on, its Hell! Players get to traverse through a creepy looking Moon Base and then journey through Hell itself. Plus Hell looked freaking amazing for the time with surreal images, great variation of color and detail to make it really stand out. Plus, the soundtrack was amazing, setting the mood perfectly for the demon killing.
Sorry Duke, the point goes to Doom.
Gameplay
Now Doom may not have been the first FPS but it was indeed a driving force to redefine the genre and show developers what they could be doing. Doom ignited a long line of ambition developers and designers who created some of the best FPSs around and one of these games being Duke Nukem 3D.
While Doom is pretty awesome, it does get quite repetitive by the halfway point. You’ve seen everything killed everything and ventured into every type of level design two times over by Act 3. While Hell is visually pleasing, it’s not enough to hide the fact that Doom was held together by a single note. It’s a very entertaining single note but one that’s mindless and shallow. The guns and level design were limited, the old find the colored key puzzled had overstayed its welcome and the bosses (awesome visually) were just big, demon themed bullet sponges.
Now Duke, on the other hand, is something else.
Duke Nukem 3D gave was highly creative in every aspect and its impact influenced games like Blood and Shadow Warrior. The level design was brilliant, it had some of gaming’s best weapons and the various set pieces and bosses were epic. Even little touches such as the Jet Pack gave a dynamic boost to combat and exploration. Nothing could top Duke’s adventure in terms of action, exploration and it even added some interesting lateral elements. Okay, there was some find the key card moments but even Duke pointed this out as dated in 1994.
What I’m talking about was the scale of the puzzles and how clever they were. The Shrink Ray segments were some of my favorites due to its awesomeness as a weapon and it’s used for a couple of puzzles in the game.
When it comes to the most entertaining FPS, always bet on Duke!
The Ultimate Ass Kicker
Now let’s discuss who the better man is. Who is the king of the FPS Genre and the Godfather of kicking ass?!
Doom Guy is an awesome, silent protagonist that takes no crap from anyone, demon and authority figures. He does everything due to his primal instinct and his hatred for demons and we love it. Although saying this, Doom 2016’s incarnation of Doom Guy was perfect and is the crowning king of badass-ness.
Back in 1993, he’s just a guy. Don’t get me wrong, he’s a bad ass and even with blood on his face, the guy never gives up! He’s an awesome character but only through that animated gif of his face, he’s not holding a presence like the Duke.
Come on, admit it. Duke is the King. I know his appearance in Duke Nukem Forever was lame but you can’t pin bad writing on the Duke. Back in 1994, this guy was the King and his witty one-liner can do attitude and ego made his desirable. Even when he shouts out in pain it’s manly and just like Doom Guy, he shows pure grit and determination with comebacks. Plus he’s influenced other bad ass characters like Wang (Shadow Warrior), Caleb (Blood) and recently Shelly Bombshell (Ion Maiden).
Sorry, Doom Guy, you do rock but the Duke is King.
Who is the King?
While Doom is an awesome game and one that helped shape the FPS genre. It’s a sure thing that Duke Nukem 3D is the ultimate shooter of the two. Its creativity, leading character and the awesome array of level designs and weapons made this the most entertaining FPS of the 90’s.
All Hail the King Baby!
[…] a game that feels born from the ashes of the ’90s, carrying the legacy of games like Quake, Doom and Blood much like other throwback shooters that have come out […]
duke nukem 3d released in 1996*, there still something doom did better than duke nukem(opinion) i think it because the balance, community support, simple, and probably the most important thing, map making, balance in doom seem to better, for example, all the enemie have painstate which is great and let you hit them more, where in duke3d (duke nukem 3d), enemie like enforcer who appear almost common in like episode 2 and 3, doesn’t have a painstate and you probably lost like 30 health if you not careful, and the level design in episode 2 is also extreme repetitive and boring, it have very absurd level design and it veryyy dark, sometimes i feel like the designer are trolling me like keep respawn enforcer and sentry drones everytime you pick something up (ok maybe not everything) and putting sentry drones in enclosed space is like putting baron of hell in enclosed hallway, except they do that all the time in episode 2, im happy that in episode 3 sentry drones are alot less,i also dislike puzzle idea, i feel like they don’t belong in fps and i always like something more simple, Community support in duke3d is average.. it have alot of user made map but most of them being absolutely garbage, Some mod like shaky ground are absolutely amazing tho, there some mod which is basically brutal doom so im gonna move on there not much thing to talk about mod anyways, oh i forgot about doom community support, well, basically infinite amount of contents, since doom map can be more easily made than duke3d because engine are less complex i guess, i have experience using doom builder and build engine builder that came with eduke32, So, it took me an hour to just build a heigh sector or stair case, probably took me a days to make room over room or even swinging door, feel like you have to ve an engineer to just make duke3d levels, Where in doom, i can just already make 2 levels in 1 day
Sorry, but I have never understood the high opinion of Duke 3d – I always found it to the boring, cheesy poor cousin of Doom. From the uninspired enemy designs, the boring level layouts, the groan worthy craptacularly corny one liners down to the stale bland soundtrack.
Every few years I try and play through DN3D, and every time I make it through about 3 levels before being too bored to continue.
Maybe it is a culture thing? Dunno. Either way, I guess there is no accounting for taste.
The rival of Duke Nukem 3D was Quake!
I feel like all three games were in a healthy competition with each other. I know I personally played Duke Nukem 3D, Quake, Doom, and Unreal all around the same time.
I personally always felt that it was between Duke and Doom as they were both heavyweights for each company. But more importantly, Doom was considered a game-changer and then Duke came along and stole all the thunder. Quake is a great game but I felt it was its own thing in some respects and it’s the only real competitor in many ways was Unreal. If we’re looking at structure, gameplay similarities, and of course, the engines used.