Duke Nukem: Total Meltdown

Considering the fact that 3D Realms released the shareware version of Duke Nukem 3D in early '96, this PlayStation version feels like a blast from the past. Still, when it comes to the would-be king of first-person shooters, you can bet that people will be ready to "come get some," no matter what time or which platform.

Everyone who watches the evening news knows that sex and violence sells. Hence, The 17+ warning and lurid screenshots on the Duke Nukem jewel case become an alluring advertisement for what's inside. The little black CD fits all three "episodes" from the original game and throws in a final episode to keep things interesting. Playing through the game, Duke visits a host of cheesy locales, including strip bars and skin-flick theatres, eventually finding himself aboard a giant space station. Each soda machine, movie poster, magazine rack, and barroom is luxuriously appointed with beautiful textures, making environments fresh each time you round a corner. Of course, beauty isn't necessarily a protective quality, as you'll quickly find that most objects can be obliterated with a couple of properly aimed gun blasts.

Weapons exhibit an ingenuity that surpasses the Doom model of simply raising the caliber with each new gun. For example, Duke can lob a pipe bomb and wait to detonate it when an unsuspecting creature approaches, or he can reduce befuddled foes to a squashable size with a shrinker gun. There are also original items that can be picked up, such as the jetpack, which gives Duke the power to fly around freely until his jets have cooled. When the novelty of these implements of destruction begins to get old, however, the game as a whole begins to cool down.

First of all, the monsters appear markedly dated. LAPD piggies, flying brains, and spastic, machine gun-wielding aliens are among the humorous nasties you'll meet, but their sprite-based 2D rendering makes the action a little flat. When you combine this with the fact that the animations of fiery explosions and pulpifying creatures seem to be sorely lacking in frames (as compared with the PC version), you may question why Duke ever decided to make another platform jump.

What's more, only three set control configurations are offered. Control style can vary greatly from player to player, especially in first-person shooters. Given this, most people may never get their coordination entirely up to speed in Duke Nukem before another, more option-rich shooter comes along for the PlayStation.

If you want to duke it out deathmatch-style in Total Meltdown, you're out of luck unless you have two PlayStations. Why 3D Realms didn't allow for players to have a slug fest on one machine, or even include AI "bots" to use as target practice (as it did with the N64 version), remains a mystery.

Duke Nukem remains a classic game for the PC. Running on a PlayStation, the game suffers from sketchy graphics and limited control. If nothing else, this PlayStation version will give non-PC owners a chance to sample 3D Realms' ridiculous world of blood and lace. --Tim Soete
--Copyright ©1999 GameSpot Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of GameSpot is prohibited. GameSpot and the GameSpot logo are trademarks of GameSpot Inc.

Average Customer Review: ( 16 customer reviews )
Write an online review and share your thoughts with other customers.

Duke has just been shot down to find aliens in control of Earth and they are trying to take out women. This does not make Duke happy so he must try and stop the aliens.

Play is in first-person shooter mode (like in Doom) and handles pretty nicely. Added to this game, and missing from so many shooters, is a level of humor as Duke wisecracks his way through the game. The controls are not bad but luckily you never have to run, shoot, jump to stay alive. You always seem to have some time to remember the L1, L2, R1 and R2 buttons.

All in all this was a very successful port of the PC game to a console. Games load and save at about the same speed as the original did at its release.

1 of 1 found the following review helpful:

Duke Nukem: THE KING!!!!!!!Jun 16, 2011
By gamerguy1985
Duke Nukem games are old and repetitive. But you know what? WHO CARES!? No matter how old and repetitive Duke Nukem gets, it's still awesome. That's due to the fact that DUke Nukem can make ANYTHING and EVERYTHING look good. Hell, he can even make taking a dump look awesome! The one thing I've noticed about Duke over the years is that he doesn't have and hair on his balls, then I realized that hair doesn't grow on steel!

2 of 3 found the following review helpful:

A good game, when played on a PS2.Sep 12, 2002
By Dr. Kill
Today i saw this game at the store for 12 bucks, and i'm gonna pick it up since i have a PS2. I rented it 2 times (after that the dumb stores got rid of their copies) and it was better than the sega saturn version. The graphics didn't have the neat lighting effects, but the game was a whole lot more like the pc version. If you have a PC get that version, if you have a ps2 get this version, or both. I'm probably one of the biggest Duke fans in my area, i have the origional Duke 3D for PC, the Atomic Edtion , The sega saturn version(my 1st copy), Duke Manhatten Project, Time to Kill, Land of the Babes, the Duke Nukem album, all of the Duke Nukem action figures, The Duke Nukem screen saver pack, and now this. As the great Duke would say "Holy S@$T!" Any way if you are one of the few who don't have a PS2 yet here's what will happen to this game.. You know how these losers say the game looks flat? Lie! You know how they say the N64 version looks better? They fogot to tell you the game is cut up (no nude chix), and the textures are super-low res. But with this vesion, when you set up your PS2 for smooth texture mapping, it will make all the "2D" images get smooth edges, and the textures will be nice and smooth. Since the game is almost all sprites(which isn't realy a bad thing at all, easier to edit on pc) Every image on screen will look close to a PS2 game! The reason i don't give this 5 stars is because you can't edit it like the PC version.

i've got balls of steelMay 10, 2010
By S. Rausch
do i really need to say anything else? classic duke nukem game. one of the first i played for the playstation. great fps with decent graphics for its time. and of course the classic duke nukem "battle cries" always make me laugh.

good classic imo.

See all 16 customer reviews on Amazon.com