games
The third chapter in the series, and the first with a 3D perspective
(the original Duke Nukem and the sequel, Duke Nukem II, are side
scrolling platform games). This game, set sometime in the early 21st
century, begins in a ravaged LA, which was overtaken by aliens while you
were abducted during Duke Nukem II. Duke, upon returning to Earth, finds
himself with another mess to clean up, and another alien race that needs
exterminating. Duke is a can-do hero who realizes that sometimes
innocent people have to die in order to save Earth, so accuracy of gun
fire is not a real concern to him. :)
This game has a long list of cool things that haven't been attempted in
3D action games, yet. The weapons, for example, kick-butt:
* There's a mine that can be placed on any wall and sends out a
laser trip beam-- perfect for multiplayer games.
* There's also a shrinker ray that reduces an opponent to the size
of a G.I. Joe, at which point they are foot fodder--watch them splat!
* As in Shadow Warrior, you can swim under water, and even shoot
players who are standing outside the water, or vice versa.
What works:
* Basic gameplay seems fine.
* Sound and music.
* keyboard input.
* mouse input.
* Hi-res (what would be "VESA modes" in DOS).
* Windowed/fullscreen support.
* Save games.
* Record and playback demos compatible with the Atomic Edition (1.5).
* Shareware and retail versions should all work.
* BUILD editor works to a large degree.
* DukeBots for multiplayer AI.
* Assembly code all has portable C fallbacks, now.
* TCP/IP Networking!
* Linux/x86 port.
* Windows/x86 port.
* BeOS/x86 port.
* (incomplete) MacOS X port.
What doesn't work/known bugs:
* Joystick input isn't working yet.
* File cases need to be exact in some places, not others.
* Engine (game?) relies on compiler treating "char" as "unsigned" by default...this needs to be flushed out, for sanity's sake. But I'm anal. :)
* Netcode handles packet loss _VERY_ poorly...it's fine for stable connections and LANs, though.
* Configuring a multiplayer game involves editing text files and filling in IP addresses. Not very user-friendly.
* Some text prompts try to read the SDL input queue instead of stdin like they should.
* Probably other stuff. Do NOT consider this stable and complete yet!