MachineWorks Northwest has done it’s best to try and bring Duke Nukem 3D to the Iphone but they’ve come perilously close to squeezing all the joy out of gaming’s favorite bad boy by shackling him with controls that nearly push him into the abyss. Yet, if you stick with our hero he’ll show you his grit by overcoming perhaps his toughest foe yet to give Iphone gamers their first noteworthy FPS.
It’s a tribute to 3D Realms and the creativity that was poured into the original Duke Nukem 3D that this ported Iphone version can provide any degree of enjoyment at all given the frustrating controls. There’s two control choices analog and digital. The digital consists of no less than eight pill-sized control buttons lined up around the edges of the screen along with 4 buttons on the screen for shooting, jumping, ducking and action. It’s a frightening sight. I lasted about 2 minutes trying to get off the roof of the first level before I went into brain lock. There’s also a tap to shoot option that makes things easier.
The analog controls look normal with two virtual control sticks, left for movement and right for look. Unfortunately, they’re unplayable out of the box and must be tweaked by turning down the speed of all your movements. Even then you’ll find yourself sliding back when you want to strafe right unless you carefully place your thumb on the correct section of the pad. It took me a half level of careful slow movement to get use to the controls. Thankfully, Northwest provides a slew of adjustment options to make the game playable and in the end quite enjoyable.
Once you’re somewhat comfortable with the controls, you’ll find an amazing port of the wise-cracking Duke Nukem complete with the fantastic level design, secrets and all the innovative game play that made Duke such a bad-ass on the PC. MachineWorks is to be commended for smoothing out the graphics and providing a game with over 20 hours of play unlike so many Iphone games that can be completed in an hour. It’s probably the longest playing game in the app store with 3 complete episodes with from 7 - 11 long levels each . The episodes are thoughtfully unlocked from the start.
The great thing about Duke is that there’s no hint of the repetitious or boring game play that infects other FPS like Wolf 3D or Prey. There’s always something new and exciting to see and do around every corner making it a joy to revisit an old friend 13 years after his initial release. Or perhaps this enjoyment is due to the fantastic interactive environments or mind-blowing weapons, shrink-rays, trip mines, holograms, jetpacks or strippers. Who knows? Either way, I’m glad to have Duke in my pocket.
The game is fast loading and has good speed on my Iphone 2G although it is prone to an occasional slowdown which is most noticeable when using the chain gun. This can be fixed by a shutdown of your Iphone to free up memory. Since I favor the shotgun it’s not a crippling issue. There are 16 save slots with one auto save and no multiplayer.
Until MachineWorks updates the controls, Duke Nukem 3D gets 3 ½ stars yet it still rewards the determined gamer with the longest and most satisfying free-roaming FPS currently on the Iphone.