Includes the original three episodes, the fourth "The Birth" episode that started being included with Duke3D releases starting with Atomic, and an all new fifth episode exclusive to this package that was made by the original developers. This new episode also includes new music by the original composer, a new enemy and a new weapon. What's missing compared to previous packages are the threeIncludes the original three episodes, the fourth "The Birth" episode that started being included with Duke3D releases starting with Atomic, and an all new fifth episode exclusive to this package that was made by the original developers. This new episode also includes new music by the original composer, a new enemy and a new weapon. What's missing compared to previous packages are the three licensed expansions: Duke it Out in D.C., Life's A Beach, and Nuclear Winter. It also doesn't include the N64 or PS1 versions of Duke Nukem 3D, but no bundled release has done this yet (though the since cancelled Android collection was planned to include these and be the first truly definitive version - with the major downside of it only being available on Android). This collection is also missing the shovelware unofficial and unlicensed map pack collections, but those were extremely low quality and I only bring it up to mention they aren't here.
This release also includes a developer commentary mode which, when enabled, puts hovering interactive voice files all over the game that can be used to get more insight into the history of Duke Nukem, as well as some insights into the development of this release. There is also a "Playback" mode that can be enabled or disabled. When enabled, this allows you to rewind to any earlier section in your playthrough on that mission, so if you don't want to need to spam saves throughout every mission, or routinely forget to save and end up losing progress, you'll want to leave this on. It's worth noting this game doesn't autosave, not even when starting a new mission, so you will still want to make hardsaves.
Has some pretty brutal input lag which is caused by vsync, which can't be disabled in-game. You can however disable vsync by forcing vsync off through your GPU's control panel. Once you fix the input lag issues, this version controls the best as far as official releases are concerned, however the mouse control still doesn't feel as tight as what can be experienced playing the original in eduke32. It isn't reading the input as well for some reason. The Megaton version that has since been pulled from Steam had worse mouse input issues of its own that never got resolved. It also used an OpenGL renderer, as opposed to putting the game in a new true 3D engine, which is what this version does. You can turn on SSAO, and you can also switch between the classic and new engine with the press of the "C" key. The immediate difference is that the FoV has been corrected, and there are more light sources in addition to an improved lighting engine to make the game world look less flat. The improved lighting is nice visually, but also has the side effect of removing some of the game's tension, since a few areas that were once dark are now clearly lit.
I didn't play this version at launch, but have read that this release used to use different sounds than the original. That must have been addressed, because ever since I've been playing this, it sounds the same as the original. The sound effects and music don't seem to have as much depth as they could though. Duke's lines have been re-recorded with the same voice actor to get more audio depth to the old recordings - as well as having some new lines - but if you don't like the way the new lines sound, you can turn on the "Legacy Duke Talk" option, which lets you use the original tracks. Some of the sound effects (mainly the alien noises) still have a lot of distortion to them, it was this way in the original as well so it's hard to tell if this was intentional for an effect or audio clipping that occurred and they never went back to fix it. Either way it's really obnoxious and should have been fixed for this release, although it would have required re-recording those sound effects to be properly addressed.
Has an integrated game browser for coop and deathmatch multiplayer support, up to 8 players in both cases. I've never been able to find a game, so can't comment on multiplayer beyond the mention. It does allow for you to do offline vs bots (no coop with a bot however), but that gets boring fast.
I recommend this because despite missing the three licensed (but unofficial) expansions, the mouse input not being as good as has been seen in Duke ports in unofficial engines (though still very playable once vsync is forced off), and several sound effects still having distortion/audio clipping issues, this is the best official collection that has ever been available. If all these issues were fixed, this would easily be a 9/10. If they had done all this and also included bug-free, hi-res, multiplayer supported versions of the N64 and PS1 takes on Duke3D, making this the truly definitive all inclusive "World Tour" version of Duke Nukem 3D, this would be a perfect 10. As it is, it's an 8.… Expand
Duke Nukem 3D: 20th Anniversary World TourYour Score0 out of 10User Score
