Every week, Richard Cobbett rolls the dice to bring you an obscure slice of gaming history, from lost gems to weapons grade atrocities. This week, who want some Wang? What? Nobody? Dang.

How do you follow a hit game like Duke Nukem 3D? Obviously, you scale everything up. People liked interactivity! More interactivity! Vehicles! Pachinko machines! RC cars! Everyone enjoyed the real world locations? There would be more! Streets! Towns! Restaurants! People made a fuss about the sexism! Hah! This time, we'll try comedy racism instead! What could possibly go wrong? Right?



I really hate Shadow Warrior, though I can't really say it's a bad game. It's aged spectacularly poorly, even worse than Duke Nukem 3D, although though for its time it was actually pretty good. It's just one of those games that instantly rubbed me up the wrong way, with sandpaper, right from the introduction of its character - a ninja called Lo Wang, because Japanese and Chinese people are basically the same, right? It's not even the game's pathetic comedy racism that annoys me so much as the fact that it was obviously dumped onto the game because of Duke's success, turning a perfectly solid, polished shooter into one that only seems interested in getting a reaction by acting like a masturbating chimp.



The plot - what little of it there is - is that Lo Wang is a former assassin trying to take down an evil corporation run by a fiend called Master Zilla, along with his army of zombies, suicidal coolies (yes, the game calls them that), killer ape things and giant snake monsters. What made it an interesting game for its time though was that after Duke, the team was much more accomplished with the Build engine - and Shadow Warrior was the game that really put it through its paces, for better and worse.



One of the early puzzles for instance involved driving a remote-controlled car to get a key (a puzzle repeated at the start of Duke Nukem Forever with a fuel cell and more physics). Very occasionally, you got to jump into a bulldozer or similar engine and find out why most games of this era avoided letting you jump into vehicles. The levels were full of incidental details, like rabbits bouncing around your Master's temple that would get it on if they got close enough. There were even some genuinely impressive bits of technology/design for the time, like a (completely faked) portal system, voxel based 3D objects, and real-world pop-culture artwork scattered around from before anime/manga became a big deal in the West.



Like many shareware games, the majority of the memorable stuff was in the first episode - just four levels. The full version added 18 more, plus extra enemies and weapons, and all the other usual details, but while I have played it... none of it stuck. Some of the things that surrounded the game however did. For starters, in the UK, Shadow Warrior was one of the Great Censorship Blunders. For some reason, the government was terrified of things like imported Asian weapons back then, so they were an automatic no-no. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles became the Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles. Weapons like nunchucku were right up there with headbutts on the list of unacceptably violent things. As for Shadow Warrior, it was an 18-rated game and allowed to keep most of its ninja toys, including the default katana and caltrops and machine-guns, but forced to remove its shuriken weapon in favour of...

...wait for it...

...darts. Yes, darts. Regular darts. Because it doesn't hurt to get hit in the face with a fistful of darts. Not at all. And they're so much harder to find in England than imported throwing stars. Thanks, BBFC! Don't know how we'd ever have survived through the 90s without your vigilance!

(Not that England had a monopoly on this stupidity. There was another Build game released around the same time as Shadow Warrior called, simply, "Blood". It was a horror themed shooter, and again, the shareware episode was the best bit. It was however sold in stores, and as often happened, Wal-Mart and possibly a few other places insisted on their own, family friendly version without the gore. In short, they happily agreed to sell a game called Blood... but only if it didn't have any blood in it.)



Now things get really strange. What do you do when you have a racist main character, comedy racism or not, in a stupid world where putting a 'Titsubishi' sticker on a bulldozer counts as a joke? What's that? You commission a novel based on it? Don't be stupid. You turn his direlogue into a song.



Oh, and then you commission two novels.

Game novels are rarely done well, and that's including the ones whose main characters aren't one chim-chang-chong away from The Wild World Of Batwoman. Nevertheless, there were two of them for Shadow Warrior - You Only Die Twice and For Dead Eyes Only. They're both long out of print, of course, but still available if you're willing to wait about a month for delivery. I considered this a while ago, as a complement to the Doom novels, but decided that I'd rather read Baldur's Gate 2 again.

Luckily, you don't have to buy the book to get a flavour of this great work.

Wang, without seeming to slow the spinning knives, snipped off a small piece of the assassin's nose and caught it in his left hand, holding it up for the assassin to see.

"Looks like chicken," Lo Wang said, turning the hunk of nose around in front of the man. "Chicken a favorite of mine." Wang smiled, spun the hunk of nose around slowly in his fingers, licking his lips, then tossed the nose over his shoulder so that it landed near the business men behind the bar. They could keep it as a souvenir of their lunch. Maybe even dip it in plastic, mount it on a nice plaque, and hang in over the fireplace. Then when telling the story to their grandchildren they could point to the hunk of nose with pride.

The assassin's eyes were almost bulging out of his head. Blood poured from his nose and down the front of his face, spurting slightly at the beat of his heart. Wang moved the still-spinning knives closer to the assassin's face, then began to lower them slowly.

"Zilla?" Wang said, staring into the assassin's eyes while smiling and lowering the spinning knives toward the man's belt. "Or do I find a piece that look like pork?" Somehow the assassin's eyes got even bigger, then through the blood he sputtered,

"I don't know where Zilla is. But Tanaka does."

Wang backed the spinning knives away slightly and the man signed, which came out almost like a gargle because of all the blood.

"Tanaka?" Wang asked. "He have another name?"

The problem with the name Tanaka was that it was so common in Japan. Much like Smith or Jones in the United States. Without another name the information would be almost useless.

The assassin again shook his head, spraying blood in all directions. "Only Tanaka."

Wang nodded, discouraged. He could tell the instant a man began to speak the truth. This man was doing so. Of that, there was no doubt. But at least Wang now had one lead to Zilla's location. Now all he had to do was find a first name. Wang turned and started away. "I will let you live," he said, loud enough for the assassin to hear.

Then, without turning around, Wang flicked both knives underhand and backwards at the assassin.

Thunk. Thunk.

The knives cut off both ears of the assassin and pinned the man's head between the knives.

Wang laughed to himself. "Assuming someone can stop bleeding."

Wang knew that would not be possible. But the assassin deserved a slow, lingering death. He had broken down and given away his boss. There was no honor in such cowardly action. Better to die with lips sealed then live with hole in honor. Wang moved back to the Sushi bar and leaned over to look at the two businessmen who stared at the nose on the floor in front of them. "You can finish lunch now," Wang said. "Speak well of me to grandchildren."

The businessmen both nodded, but didn't stand. Wang turned and headed for the front door and the busy New York City streets. This time he would go the extra two blocks to China Town before stopping for lunch. And meat first. No soup. Just in case he was interrupted again by another group of assassins who wanted a piece of Wang.

With prose like this, it's amazing the Booker Prize went to anything else!

(Although it is still better than Command and Conquer: Tiberium Wars...)



Despite trying far, far too hard to get attention, Shadow Warrior didn't do anything like as well as 3D Realms hoped, and the franchise died a quick, not particularly dignified death. There were three expansion packs from various places, although only two of them made it out and none of them were released commercially. Even at its release, Build was in an uncomfortable position, being light-years ahead of Doom-level engines, but visibly creaking at the seams next to the full 3D of games like Quake and Terminator: Future Shock. Luckily, 3D Realms knew this, and it had a Plan.

Shadow Warrior hit the web on May 13th, 1997.

But on April 28th, Duke Nukem Forever had already been announced. For 1998.

Is it worth the wait? Of course not, don’t be ridiculous. How could any game possibly be worth waiting 14 years for, especially one that only ever aspired to be a low-brow comedy first-person shooter? There’s no reinvention of the genre here, no real attempt at grandeur. More than anything, Duke just wants to party like it’s 1997.

Check unrealistic expectations at the door and forget the ancient, hyperbolic promises of self-deluded developers before you even consider buying this suddenly corporeal ghost of PC gaming history. The development-time-to-awesomeness ratio isn’t impressive. If you can do that, Duke Nukem Forever can at least mostly succeed in its aspiration. After all of its tumultuous history, it’s ended up as an entertaining FPS wrapped in juvenile, smut-laced humor. Its gameplay is a hybrid of old-school and new, and it won’t wow players with stunning visuals—its window of opportunity for that passed years ago—but it does put on a good show of alien ass-kicking by working what it’s got.




Like a hyper-violent, over-sexed Peter Pan, Duke Nukem refuses to grow up. Though 12 years have passed since the events of Duke Nukem 3D, he’s the exact same trash-talking, cigar-chomping, muscle-bound man of action, still rocking that ’90s-style buzz cut and red tanktop. The source of his superhuman action-hero powers is his own ego, which doubles as a literal recharging shield over his (also recharging) health. It’s reinforced by an entire world of people who worship him as an infallible man-god and sex idol—women want him, men want to be him. He’s the stereotypical teenage boy’s power fantasy personified and turned up to 11. Sure, he’s a ham-fisted action hero parody, but Duke remains one of the most memorable characters in gaming history for a reason: he’s simply more fun to play as than SERIOUS FACE ARMY MAN.

As two-dimensional as Duke himself, the story gets right to the point: intergalactic sex-criminal aliens are re-offending, and Duke must defy orders and step in to defend Earth’s chicks. Even that flimsy B-movie tribute plot is resolved (sort of) half way through—DNF becomes simply about shooting aliens ’cause they’re ugly, and bits of the script are little more than profane Mad Libs. Lazy writing or pointed critique of the state of story in first-person shooters? I prefer to think of it as the latter.



Reloaded
Action-wise, the single-player game fulfills its obligations as a successor to Duke Nukem 3D. It’s fast-paced run-and-gun battle against diverse, love-to-hate ’em monsters, using weaponry ranging from conventional boomsticks toover-the-top sci-fi, and fought through a long series of corridor levels where there’s almost always something unique to see and interact with. Almost every original weapon (except Duke’s boot) returns—and after taking the Shrink Ray and Freeze Beam for a spin, it makes me wonder why few shooters have appropriated the joy of killing enemies in two-step attacks. Sure, shrinking enemies and then squashing them or freezing and shattering isn’t as efficient as double-tapping to the head, but it’s more fun. There’s also the Devastator, a ridiculously powerful, double-barreled, rapid-fire rocket launcher that never pauses to reload until it’s spent.



Duke’s trusty pistol, shotgun, Ripper chaingun, and rocket launcher may not be anything particularly unique or special (and certainly not realistic, lacking even a hint of recoil) but they’re loud and potent alien killers. The new weapons, a rail gun sniper rifle, an alien laser, and a triple-missile-launcher called the Enforcer Gun are pretty ho-hum—no new classics here. The biggest sadness is that DNF has adopted the Halo-style two-weapon system, which frequently forced me to abandon my beloved Shrink Ray for lack of ammo. Even with all of that heavy weaponry, I still died quite a bit—despite the regenerating health system, Duke Nukem Forever is one of the more challen­ging shooters I’ve played in years.

At least the signature remote-detonating pipe bombs, laser tripwire mines, and Holo-Duke decoys (plus melee-enhancing steroids and pain-mitigating beer powerups) exist outside this limitation, allowing you to set all manner of devious traps in the diverse range of linear, corridor-style levels and lure enemies into them. Duke battles the aliens through his high-tech Duke Cave, his self-styled opulent casino, the aliens’ disgustingly organic hive (complete with Prey-style sphincter doors that open when tickled), a Vegas skyscraper, a Dukeburger restaurant, Hoover Dam, construction sites, Nevada canyons, underwater, and more.





Oh yeah, and there’s a shameless strip club level with no combat—it’s mostly a showcase for boobs and a playground for the many interactive games (pinball, air hockey, billiards, video poker) and gross-out moments in the bathroom. No two settings are alike, and with plenty of Easter eggs scattered around that boost your health when interacted with, exploring the world is a frequently rewarding high point.

Blast from the past
At the end of these levels lie some old-school-tough boss battles. Almost all of the hulking beasts took me out at least once before I figured out and exploited their attack patterns (notable exception: the final boss). Fights against a mothership, a massive alien queen, an underwater leech, and others are more about the spectacle of fighting huge unique monsters (plus an excuse for Duke to nut-punch something for an ego boost) than creating interesting gameplay.



The old-style design is probably due to the fact that DNF should’ve come out years ago. (Hell, 2K’s recommended PC is built from five-year-old hardware.) Here and there, it shows; while alien monsters look pretty cool—particularly the iconic Pig Cops and flying, tentacled Octabrains—humans and many of the environments look well behind the curve. But thanks to the aliens’ comical massacre of EDF (Earth Defense Force) troops, you don’t spend a lot of time looking at people, so it only really offends when the incompetent President waves his unarticulated fingers in your face.

Pop culture references are similarly out-of-date—even growing moldy. Considering that the freshest ones I caught date back all the way to 2004’s Team America: World Police (excluding reenactment of Christian Bale's 2009 meltdown in the opening and a crack at Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare tacked on at the end), most of Duke’s one-liners were probably recorded in the early half of last decade. Though Duke still delivers several chuckles per level by quoting ’90s films like Pulp Fiction and Starship Troopers and jabbing at Halo, it’s noticeable that he’s been living under a rock for quite some time.



Meatheaded
I encountered a lot more puzzles (of the jumping, physics, and switch-throwing varieties) than I’d expected, and few are befitting of Duke. Dropping barrels into one end of a shipping container to tilt it and create a ramp is too mundane a task for a super badass—Duke’s not making fun of the puzzles other shooters started using a decade ago here, he’s imitating them. Poorly.

The more innovative puzzle gimmick is shrinking Duke down to a few inches tall and sending you scurrying through levels made for man-sized play. Being action-figure sized gives you a new and interesting perspective on the world—jumping around a vast kitchen battling rats and mini Pig Cops among the shelves while using mustard jars as cover is a very different experience, and one encounter in particular makes an epic battle of what would normally be a one-shot kill. However, running any significant distance on tiny legs can get tedious.



Action is also varied up with frequent turret-shooting scenes, most of which are thankfully short and punchy, and two separate driving sequences: one as mini-Duke in an RC car, one in an oversized monster truck. Both are longer than they probably should be, as the uncharacteristic lack of guns on Duke’s cars limits you to repeatedly running over enemies and turbo-boosting over jump after jump.

One category in which DNF has surpassed its predecessor by leaps and bounds is in its uncensored nudity, particularly in the first half. Breasts abound, some attached to shapely but dead-eyed ladies, some to other, less appealing things. If that kind of thing bothers you, you’ve probably already been warned away by the long-as-your-arm ESRB rap sheet—but my personal taste threshold was exceeded only once, by a mid-game incident that goes just a little too far in mixing boobs, comedy, and gore.





Other points of pain are the checkpoint-only save system, which is at least courteous enough to only rarely respawn me farther from the point of death than I’d have liked, and mercifully brief quick-time events—mostly just tapping Space bar for feats of strength.

Duking it out
DNF is a throwback to the age when shooters were long single-player experiences first and multiplayer games second, and as such the eight-player multiplayer modes aren’t going to challenge Call of Duty or Battlefield for the competitive crown. It’s often hilariously effective at showing us a good time, though—the 10 maps, which are diversely designed with the same wide range of locations as the campaign, are built to create goofy and memorable moments when combined with Duke’s weapons. Moments like shrinking and squishing a guy carrying a babe-shaped flag back to his team’s base, or hitting a jetpacking enemy with the Freeze Ray, causing him to fall to the ground and shatter. And those laser tripwire mines? Hilarity ensues.



There’s a persistent character progression system, but fortunately (in my opinion) leveling up only unlocks cosmetic items to make your Duke avatar distinct with silly hats, shirts, and glasses and not weapons and perks. Bonus: it supports Unreal Tournament-style mutators, such as the classic rail gun insta-gib.

Checking “flying a jetpack” off the list (in multiplayer only, sadly) meant that the reasons I loved Duke when I was 16 are all present and accounted for in DNF. They’re no longer new, and I’m not 16 anymore, but the combination of nostalgia and juvenile humor can still crack me up.



It’s a healthy chunk of game, too. The Steam clock read “10 hours played” when I’d finished the single-player run on normal difficulty, and that’s without devoting time to posting a high score on the pinball machine or conducting a thorough search for secrets. Completing the game unlocks classic, why-doesn’t-anyone-do-this-anymore cheats like character head scaling, and I might have to replay at least part of it just to see that absurdity in action.

I’m sure that years of anticipation will spoil Duke Nukem Forever for some—there’s no getting around that at the end of that long road is only a good game and not an amazing one. It is what it is. He may not be at the top of his game, but even after all this time, Duke still knows how to party.

Gearbox announce that who pre-ordered Duke Nukem Forever, or bought the Game of the Year edition of Borderlands can now download the Duke Nukem Forever playable demo. All you have to do is whack your code into the box on the Duke Nukem access site and get downloading. Gearbox haven't mentioned a date for a full public release of the demo, but it seems likely it'll hit alongside the release of the full game on June 14 in the US, and June 10 everywhere else. Don't worry if you can't play the demo yet, console yourself with the new launch trailer, released yesterday.

Welcome to bizarro-world. The Duke Nukem Forever launch trailer is upon us, and it's ashamedly gratuitous as you'd hope, or at least expect from the Duke. Shrinking rays, pole dancers, bad language and breasts all make a predictable appearance. The game's out everywhere except the US next Friday. The Duke hits the US on the following Tuesday. Will you be picking up a copy?

Members of the Duke Nukem Forever First Access Club and owners of the Game of the Year edition of Borderlands will get the first slice of Duke Nukem DLC for free. Gearbox haven't said what the update will include, but a "source familiar with the situation" has told Kotaku that it's "a full DLC. Not some silly skin." The voice of Duke, Jon St. John dropped a hint, saying that it's "something that may involve singing. I'll leave it at that." Duke Nukem karaoke, anyone?

Duke Nukem Forever surprised the world recently when it finally went gold. It's coming out on June 14 in the US, and June 10 everywhere else.

This week, Head Intern Anthony assembles a team consisting of Lucas, Chris and PCG's newest editor, Tyler Wilde (formerly of GamesRadar) to stop the Reapers and save the Galaxy. But first, they must discuss the topics of the week that was. Stories include Modern Warfare 3, League of Legends' new Tribunal system, Age of Conan going free-to-play, the announcement of Ghost Recon Online, Windows 8 and Duke Nukem Forever finally going gold. We also do a round of Truthiness and Falsity, answer your questions and say our goodbyes to Anthony.

PC Gamer US Podcast 274: Hello Tyler. Goodbye Anthony.

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