The first time I played Duke Nukem 3D was at a friends place. It has just been released and he was lucky enough to have a PC that could handle it, and the game itself.
We spent several hours walking through just the first level, there was so much to see! You got your explosive scenery, your secret areas, your generally badass weaponry (which IMO is still unmatched by ANY shooter today) a host of unique enemies and level design that introduces recognizable landmarks (cities, bars, strip clubs, prisons etc.) which, for it's time, was a great stride ahead!
And of course, then there's the interactivity, also unmatched so far. You could play a match of pool, burn your fingers on an electrical outlet, hand money to strippers, or shoot them, blow up most any decorative object in the game, as well as have Duke interact with an object, only to have him give one of his trademark one-liners.
Which brings me to another great aspect of Duke 3D, The one-liners. Although some of them where not exactly 'new' and taken from popular movies from back in the day, each and every one of them where humorous and usually highly appropriate quotes that really set Duke's personality.
It's been a long while since I've seen a game character have that strong of a personality without the overuse of Cinematic cut-scenes and FMV's.
3D Realms have truly shown what shooters should be like: Fast-paced, comical at times and very immersive.
But after all this I left 1 rather important thing out: Multiplayer! Essentially Duke Nukem 3D's multi-player modes are either Deathmatch (dubbed DukeMatch) or Cooperative Play.
In DukeMatch the goal is simple: Kill as many other players as you possibly can. With weapons like the Freezer, the shrinker, the RPG and Tripbombs this could either turn into your frantic killing spree or attempting to lure the enemy into your own traps.
With Cooperative play the goal was to finish the Singleplayer campaign with multiple players. For this purpose 3DRealms had added additional weapons, extra buttons (to evade certain 'lock-up' situations that might occur in single-player) and other useful stuff.
Duke Nukem 3D is a classic and IMO deserves to be PC Game #1 ever. In combination with JonoF's port (a result of the source code release) this game can even be played on Win32 systems.
Hail to the King baby!
