Back To Reviews
Rating: Average Duke Nukem 64's biggest flaws stem from the fact that it's on a cartridge and it had to be approved by Nintendo. Nintendo censored the game big-time, taking out the strippers and lewd voice-overs of the original game. This really changes the game since Duke Nukem became so popular in the first place because it had such an attitude and broke all the rules. But even if it were uncensored, the N64 version of Duke just can't stack up to the surprisingly superior Saturn version of the game. First of all, they replaced many of the weapons of the game, which is sure to outrage hardcore fans of the PC version. Second, the cartridge format forced the developers to take out the music due to memory constraints, so while there's still music at the main menu, there's none in the game itself. Third, the one-player deathmatch feature would have been awesome if it weren't for the horribly stupid Artificial Intelligence. Sometimes the stupid computer opponents will make you think, "My God, my dog is smarter than that!" Fourth, the developers chose to go with the incredibly stupid Turok-style control model as the default (where you move around with the directional pad and C buttons instead of the analog joystick). Why the heck would you have an analog joystick if you're not going to use it to move around in 3D space? Fortunately, you can adjust the controller settings any way you want to fix this problem, but it should have been set up right from the start. And lastly, it requires a Controller Pak to save, which is unforgiveable since they could have just added battery back-up at little extra cost and you would be able to save it right to the cartridge. Nintendo 64 owners should stick with Goldeneye.
© 2001 ivan@mastergamer.com