GT Interactive
PlayStation
Duke Nukem? Can't stand the bloke myself.
He's a buzzcutted, beer-breathed, gun-toting, sexist macho prat who rattles of steroids when he walks.
He's an action-movie cliche who quips the sort of one-liners that makes Arnie Schwarzenegger look like a comedic genius.
Yes, a repulsive fellow all round. Good game though.
Well, strictly in
a role-play shoot 'em up kind of way. Even if its mix of mayhem, maze-mystery and time-warp levels (Old West, ancient Rome among others) it comes with its own brand of puerile dodginess -- Duke keeps ending up in strip bars, Roman bathhouses, saloons and the like as he hunts and kills all manner of "alien scum."
That includes the cops, who are, well, pigs. Pigcops who are on the side of the extra-terrestrials in Duke's chronologically challenged world. Having found the alien time gate in the first level, he's off into history to put things right.
Really, it's somewhere between a testosterone-soaked variation on Tomb Raider and a low-brow spin on Resident Evil 2.
Certainly, it seems that Duke has had swimming lessons from Raider's far smarter Lara Croft.
Graphically it's not quite up there with those aforementioned titles, though it's certainly as gory as Resident Evil (you can turn the plasma levels down). But it's no less involving once you're trying to figure your way through a level. Or wondering what weapon from Duke's potentially vast arsenal might be best employed when the Pigcops, Draks or Necrobrains start ganging up.
As well as the shoot 'em up core of the game, it also offers a two-player variation where you can literally Duke it out with two Nukems against each other on a split screen. Well, it's one way to take out your distaste of blokes like him.
That all-areas Nukem persona -- even its skill levels come marked Wussy, Get Some, Let's Go and Death Wish -- can make you wonder at the brains behind it all. But it's a highly enjoyable game with one bad attitude. Just pray they don't make a movie of it.
-- Russell Baillie, 7DAYS, 05/11/98
