Duke Nukem 3d Vs Doom 2

Better Game Duke 3d or Doom 2

  • Duke Nukem 3d

    Votes: 96 66.7%
  • Doom 2

    Votes: 52 36.1%

  • Total voters
    144
I'd give a slight edge to Doom II for having better weapons and music. The issue with both of those games though is the level design. They both suffer from confusing map layouts that you can easily end up getting lost in.
 
Yea that's why I picked doom 2 instead of 1 because of the even bigger jump that would be
Lmao, that's not what I'm saying. It was more so because of the two year difference, the difference in engines is pretty vast so going by a technical perspective of course the newer game engine is "better", lol.
 
Duke Nukem was the first shooter I ever played, and one of the first games I ever played.
I remember playing it with a Nintendo PC joystick, which didn't seem strange at the time.
And the CD didn't have a label, so I always had to flip over a few times to get it right (precursor to the USB-curse?).

Maybe it's because I was just a kid and didn't find any solutions, but I distinctly remember having to start a major portion of the game over again because I ran out of fuel for the jetpack.
I'm pretty sure that's why I play RPGs without ever using a single item, to this day.


Either way, it gets my vote. There's too much nostalgia involved.
 
I don't think Doom II was ever as iconic as its predecessor. It was more of a standalone expansion. It's great but it wasn't new or fresh, I consider it more like Spear of Destiny.

Duke Nukem 3D really stood out when it came out. Not just for the obvious personality that has been injected, but the fact that it was set in these more grounded locations and it was so interactive. I know some earlier games like TekWar attempted that but Duke Nukem actually did it and still managed to be fun.

That said, the original Doom trumps both.

Sure, the original DOOM made all the impact but DOOM II is the one that lasts until today. 99% of new mod/wads are based on DOOM II, not the first one. The new monsters and the Super Shotgun are pretty much standard, you can't have DOOM nowadays without them.

In fact, the combat and gameplay of the original DOOM is actually pretty boring in comparison, i always feel that way when i replay The Ultimate DOOM. The monster roster is very small and the lack of SSG shows how the first DOOM really had a big gap in it's weapon selection. What really keeps things interesting here was the great level design, which is much better than the gimmicky maps in DOOM II. But that iconic level design doesn't matter when you make new maps. What matters is the gameplay/balance/mechanics/assets you are going to use in your new maps and DOOM II was always better for that.
 
If this was Duke vs the first Doom, Doom all the way, but the second....I had to give it to Duke. I don't care for Doom 2's levels, although I like the addition of the super shotty and new enemies. The level interaction with Duke was really cool for the time as well.
 
Sure, the original DOOM made all the impact but DOOM II is the one that lasts until today. 99% of new mod/wads are based on DOOM II, not the first one. The new monsters and the Super Shotgun are pretty much standard, you can't have DOOM nowadays without them.

In fact, the combat and gameplay of the original DOOM is actually pretty boring in comparison, i always feel that way when i replay The Ultimate DOOM. The monster roster is very small and the lack of SSG shows how the first DOOM really had a big gap in it's weapon selection. What really keeps things interesting here was the great level design, which is much better than the gimmicky maps in DOOM II. But that iconic level design doesn't matter when you make new maps. What matters is the gameplay/balance/mechanics/assets you are going to use in your new maps and DOOM II was always better for that.

This is 100% correct. Shooting hp sponge pinkies & cacodemons with the single shotgun in Doom 1 is not that fun. That said, takin Doom 2's actual campaign into account, I gotta give it to Duke 3D.
 
Doom was just geometric shapes because ID were a bunch of lazy hack frauds incapable of crafting narrative and story. To be fair... By the looks of it, Carmack is mostly to blame for that. Some folks at ID had aspirations.

Dude... Not everybody cares about story and narratives. You remind me of that meme EDGE reviewer who gave an average score to DOOM back in the day because you can't talk to the monsters.

Sure, Duke Nukem 3D has more believable realistic environments, which is awesome. But it also uses a more advanced engine that was created 3 years after DOOM (DOOM II still uses the original 1993 DOOM engine). It's not easy to create realistic looking environments in the DOOM engine, even current community developers have a hard time doing it, especially when they make vanilla compatible maps that don't make use of modern sourceport features. There's even a name for when someone tries to make something realistic in DOOM, it's called "Doom cute". Because it always sticks out and looks cute.

DOOM was made to beat Wolfenstein 3D. That was the standard then. And DOOM completely crushed it, in just one year the difference felt like several generations ahead. Duke Nukem 3D was released 3 long years after DOOM. During that time a lot of things evolved gradually in FPS games. There was never the huge gap like the Wolf3D to DOOM, but there were small advancements. Duke Nukem was just that, another FPS that was a bit more technically advanced than the one before it (which was it? Hexen? CyberMage? TekWar? Something along those lines). But after 3 years of accumulating engine advancements it's unfair to expect the same results in the good old DOOM.

And Duke Nukem wasn't even the best looking first person game when it comes to realistic looking environments, at release. Because a few months before Duke there was Normality. It was not a shooter but it used a similar looking engine to Duke Nukem and it completely blows it away when it comes to realistic, detailed looking environments. But DOOM in late 1993? There was nothing even remotely close to it.

So allow me to disagree with your "lazy hack frauds" argument.
 
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Duke Nukem 3d was and still is the shit. Beat Doom 2 back in the day. Great enemy design, but shitty levels. Still think Duke Nukem edges out Doom, but that is my opinion.
 
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I remember my classmates prefering Duke Nukem to Quake, because the latter was happening in a non-interactive, slimy-brown dungeon...

PS. Wasn't the name "Duke Nukem" first used for a villain in Captain Planet?
 
Doom 1>>>>Doom 2>Duke Nukem 3D.
I love them all, but the original Doom takes the cake due to how good its level design is. Doom 2 has the Super Shotgun, true, but it also has much worse levels.
 
DN was the first FPS I recall playing that felt like it resembled real world locations, but Doom 2's combat is still superior. Duke at times felt a bit cheap to me, with lots of hitscan enemies that would punish small mistakes, and those sentry drones are still some of the worst enemies ever designed.
 
when i was little my mom took me to her work and left me in the IT guys' room. They invited me to play and they put a game that today I know was Duke Nukem 3D. I sucked and died several times but I had a lot of fun. Now as for Doom, it was the game of my childhood, the one that the cool uncle goes and installs on our computer at home and plays with us. I played a lot of Doom 2 and after I was an adult I played the first, second and their expansions again with community mods. Doom wins easily but I have respect for Duke Nukem. Maybe play one day again.
 
lol, how is this even a discussion? Doom 2 wins this comparison by a country mile.
Duke 3D had puzzles, interactivity, destructible areas, realistic urban settings, a voiced protagonist, deployable equipment and a lot of level design variety overall. While Doom 2 was effectively an expansion pack for Doom with the double barrel shotgun.

It's fine to prefer Doom 2, but there are a huge number of things Duke 3D does that Doom 2 does not.
 
It's fine to prefer Doom 2, but there are a huge number of things Duke 3D does that Doom 2 does not.

I would argue DOOM II has the better combat. It's smoother, faster, more balanced, it flows better. It just feels better, making it more addictive to play IMO. More so than any other FPS. Duke's combat is good, much better than the majority of "Doom clones" but still feels janky in comparison.

It's no coincidence DOOM still has the bigger community who play the game and make maps for it. Duke has one too but it's tiny in comparison.
 
I have been following the Doom 2 community for 20 years. 2>1, no contest. Anyone who thinks the non descript mazes of 1 are better than the actual locations in 2 is out to lunch. With that said, the community does not really differentiate between 1 and 2.

I love Duke, but there are problems. There are a number of enemies that I don't like at all. Open combat is not quite as satisfying as Doom due to there being too many hitscanners. Duke also has many levels which are really bad and unfun, even in the first episode, BUT it also has a bunch of great levels, including what is perhaps the greatest of all time.



The most important of all is the community. Sad to say, Duke Nukem does not have much of a community, whereas Doom has always had a massive and very active community- in fact, probably one of the most legendary releases of all time just dropped recently:


Fwiw, there doesn't seem to be anything but love between the Doom and Duke communities.

PS, this is the most impressive Doom map I have seen- the gameplay is not the best for obvious reasons, though the overall wad probably is.

 
I remember my classmates prefering Duke Nukem to Quake, because the latter was happening in a non-interactive, slimy-brown dungeon...

PS. Wasn't the name "Duke Nukem" first used for a villain in Captain Planet?
Yeah, but apparently the creators of the show didn't register it or something, so apogee was free to use it.
 
I would argue DOOM II has the better combat. It's smoother, faster, more balanced, it flows better. It just feels better, making it more addictive to play IMO. More so than any other FPS. Duke's combat is good, much better than the majority of "Doom clones" but still feels janky in comparison.

It's no coincidence DOOM still has the bigger community who play the game and make maps for it. Duke has one too but it's tiny in comparison.
Well I would say the Half-Life series doesn't have the best combat either. The appeal is in progressing through realistic feeling environments and ambushing enemies, rather than having long free-flowing combat encounters. To me it's apples and oranges due to the original Doom engine not using (faked) room over room and the games not having the personality of Duke.
 
Well I would say the Half-Life series doesn't have the best combat either. The appeal is in progressing through realistic feeling environments and ambushing enemies, rather than having long free-flowing combat encounters. To me it's apples and oranges due to the original Doom engine not using (faked) room over room and the games not having the personality of Duke.
Fast, free flow combat has it's place and some people might prefer that over other things. So it's not completely crazy for someone to prefer DOOM over Duke, despite the later game's more advanced features.

And personally, i never liked the first Half-Life that much. I didn't like it's completely linear design and after playing Goldeneye to death, i thought the fact that it doesn't have as good hit detection or body part specific damage and animations was a huge step back.
 
Dude... Not everybody cares about story and narratives. You remind me of that meme EDGE reviewer who gave an average score to DOOM back in the day because you can't talk to the monsters.

Sure, Duke Nukem 3D has more believable realistic environments, which is awesome. But it also uses a more advanced engine that was created 3 years after DOOM (DOOM II still uses the original 1993 DOOM engine). It's not easy to create realistic looking environments in the DOOM engine, even current community developers have a hard time doing it, especially when they make vanilla compatible maps that don't make use of modern sourceport features. There's even a name for when someone tries to make something realistic in DOOM, it's called "Doom cute". Because it always sticks out and looks cute.

DOOM was made to beat Wolfenstein 3D. That was the standard then. And DOOM completely crushed it, in just one year the difference felt like several generations ahead. Duke Nukem 3D was released 3 long years after DOOM. During that time a lot of things evolved gradually in FPS games. There was never the huge gap like the Wolf3D to DOOM, but there were small advancements. Duke Nukem was just that, another FPS that was a bit more technically advanced than the one before it (which was it? Hexen? CyberMage? TekWar? Something along those lines). But after 3 years of accumulating engine advancements it's unfair to expect the same results in the good old DOOM.

And Duke Nukem wasn't even the best looking first person game when it comes to realistic looking environments, at release. Because a few months before Duke there was Normality. It was not a shooter but it used a similar looking engine to Duke Nukem and it completely blows it away when it comes to realistic, detailed looking environments. But DOOM in late 1993? There was nothing even remotely close to it.

So allow me to disagree with your "lazy hack frauds" argument.
Normality is a funny pull, I would compare that more to like Under a Killing Moon. I liked that game but, I think TekWar feels like a more direct point of comparison.

Terminator Future Shock deserves more credit than it gets too. That game innovated mouselook, had fully 3D enemies and environments, and attempted more grounded reality based level design of the sort id wouldn't attempt until at least Quake II if not Doom 3.
 
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Fast, free flow combat has it's place and some people might prefer that over other things. So it's not completely crazy for someone to prefer DOOM over Duke, despite the later game's more advanced features.

And personally, i never liked the first Half-Life that much. I didn't like it's completely linear design and after playing Goldeneye to death, i thought the fact that it doesn't have as good hit detection or body part specific damage and animations was a huge step back.
I agree. The post I was replying to seemed to be suggesting that is crazy to even debate this, because Doom 2 is clearly better. When in reality the two games have pretty different strengths and weaknesses.
 
Sure, Duke Nukem 3D has more believable realistic environments, which is awesome. But it also uses a more advanced engine that was created 3 years after DOOM (DOOM II still uses the original 1993 DOOM engine)

Legend of Seven Paladins was made in the Build Engine and released in 1994. Witchaven and Tekwar were released in 1995.
 
Legend of Seven Paladins was made in the Build Engine and released in 1994. Witchaven and Tekwar were released in 1995.

Legend used a leaked, unfinished version of the engine that doesn't have all the features.

The others also used an earlier version than the one Duke uses. This is important because Duke's version has some big additions and advancements. For instance, none of those earlier games feature slopes, which was a pretty big deal in Duke Nukem's levels. They even show them off in the very first area you start from.

DOOM 2 also uses a later version of the DOOM engine (1.666 initially) with the final version being 1.9 in Ultimate DOOM. But the differences between those versions aren't as big as those Build engine versions. They are more about bugfixes, sound improvements and multiplayer features.
 
I assumed the question was between the two games at the time of release - not decades later (where obviously - Doom has evolved far more).
But D3D at its time was perhaps the best multiplayer shooter out there - I certainly found it far more interesting than any of the Doom releases, and even later fully 3d stuff didn't quite live up to it until end of the century.
 
I love the first episode of Duke Nukem 3D known as L.A. Meltdown. The rest is probably worse than any Doom game as a whole. I still prefer Wolfenstein 3D to the classic Doom games as I do not much enjoys its enemies or aesthetic. I also have a soft spot for Zero Tolerance.



 
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