One of the most irritating things I hear is when people talk about the Duke Nukem license post-Duke Nukem Forever. The terrible writing - a complete character assassination by people who had no idea what really made the character so beloved - and the fact it was a truly boring videogame ensure that everyone seems to think that Duke Nukem is a busted flush in 2022. So, I went back to play one of the other Duke games that I enjoyed to see how things hold up in the present day. Needless to say, I think its really silly to let such a bad, misguided mess of a game colour your opinion of an entire series.

Time To Kick Ass.

I went back to play the first few Tomb Raider games earlier this year and was pleasantly surprised by how strong the exploration and puzzle elements are and how they've stood the test of time, despite the controls and camera falling apart in anything but the most simple of combat encounters. Lara Croft was designed for exploring long lost catacombs and temples, with the entire gameworld being built around her stiff but precise movement. There's very little you have to do in Tomb Raider that you would call "fast paced" and the handful of times it does require you to handle multiple enemies and rapid movement to stay out of danger, it was clunky in 1996 but in 2022 it simply feels like you haven't been given the correct tools to do the job.

Duke Nukem: Time To Kill feels like the polar opposite. Released in 1998 when Laramania was running wild and the first batch of Tomb Raider clones were dropping into the market, Duke came with - unsurprisingly - a much greater lean towards the action side of things. You've still got large environments to explore, solve puzzles within them and make your way to an exit but the Duke is just significantly more 'able' to deal with any threat that gets in his way, which gives Time To Kill a much different feel. It's a PS1 game that doesn't properly support the then recently released Dualshock controller, so understand this is far from what you would consider modern third person shooter controls but with strafing mapped to L2/R2 and a really generous (and necessary) auto aim, you can get through some pretty hectic firefights with minimal fuss, once you've gotten your head around a few basic fundamentals - like what range will trigger the auto aim, for instance.

Unfortunately, Duke's platforming abilities leave a little to be desired and there's nothing resembling Lara's precise, grid-based movement. Everything feels a lot looser and although this might initially make running and jumping across platforms feel more responsive, it ends up being far more of a hindrance. See, when Lara Croft walks to the edge of a platform and takes that one big step backwards, you know - categorically - that you are getting the maximum distance covered from a running jump and everything is built around that rule. In Time To Kill, there's no such thing, no accurate measuring marker and once the jumps get a bit more challenging in the later levels, you can find yourself under or over shooting platforms with alarming regularity, usually resulting in a highly damaging fall or death. In the grand scheme of things, Duke's lack of platforming grace is less of a dealbreaker than Lara Croft's inability to handle complex combat situations, so although it's definitely Time To Kill's weakest element, it is certainly not enough to ruin the overall experience.

Where Time To Kill really shines, however, is in the sheer variety on offer. Duke finds himself having to jump around through various points in history to stop this alien menace, paying visit to the Old West, Medieval England and Ancient Rome, as well as stop offs in present day Los Angeles, albeit one shaped by the events Duke is trying to stop. Not only is every level a very different look and vibe from one another, there's so many extra details that a lesser game would've just gone without. Enemies change their look to fit in with the era, while Duke himself also dons an appropriate outfit, as well as finding period specific weapons to add to his ever growing arsenal.

The arsenal, oh boy. It's a healthy sized one. You've got all the Duke Nukem staples - the mighty foot, pistol, shotgun, pipebombs and RPG - as well as a couple of new pieces, like a Minigun, flamethrower and a new alien weapon that throws out spinning laser beams. There's also the aforementioned period specific weaponry like crossbows, bolt action rifles and even the extremely deadly holy hand grenades, straight from Monty Python. Duke's equipment is also present, so you've got night vision goggles, portable medkits and of course, the jetpack, which can be used to take the edge off of some of the more frustrating platforming sequences. Finally, there's power ups, like double damage and invincibility and, on some levels, a really well hidden token that unlocks a bonus game when you finish the stage. Kill all the enemies against the clock and you unlock permanent upgrades for some specific weapons, turning the shotgun into a rapid fire Super Shotgun and transforming the minigun into a plasma spewing laser minigun. All of the weapons have their uses and none of them feel useless, something that the upgrades help mitigate.

Now, I'm not saying it is constantly inventive in the same way a Mario game is - far from it - but there's always something new to do in every level in Time To Kill. For instance, the Wild West levels aren't just all set in the cliché Western desert town you start in, you battle your way over to a mine and then down through it, offering three quite different stages in terms of their structure and visual design. Most levels are built around a larger overall puzzle that requires you to track down three items to solve and you can usually approach this in the order you see fit. Like Tomb Raider, there's an emphasis on exploration and searching every nook and cranny of a level, each one filled with secrets for those who are willing to go the extra mile. It's not a long game - you can blast through it in about eight or so hours - but there's very little repetition.

This is a game that just highlights how truly awful Duke Nukem Forever is. It isn't just about the fact its a sub-par modern shooter, with limited weapon slots and automatic recovering health that seem at odds with the expected balls-to-the-wall action, but about a fundamental misunderstanding of what makes Duke Nukem DUKE NUKEM. Duke Nukem Forever's dreadful humour, that is a bit grim and juvenile at best and creepy as fuck rape jokes at its very worst, have coloured the whole series as some sort of guilty pleasure, full of stuff that just wouldn't fly in 2022 and that any sort of modern take on the series would be best served as almost mocking the previous games and attitudes, casting Duke Nukem as some sort of out-of-touch relic.

No. No no no no no. NO.

Duke Nukem, like the action movies that act as the inspiration behind the whole thing, is supposed to be fun. Daft, power fantasy fun. You're Arnie, Stallone and Willis combined, chomping cigars with a blonde flat top. A walking, talking, shooting Planet Hollywood. You're cracking wise, killing all the bad guys and saving the world (and the babes) while you're at it. Even the 'adult' stuff is, at its heart, more comic book than it is top shelf. This isn't about examining the human condition or redefining what masculinity means or anything more cerebral than "big man shoot alien, say funny thing". It doesn't need to grow with the times or adapt - you don't think the same thing when you're watching Die Hard, right? It is possible to write this character and retain everything that makes him Duke Nukem without resorting to some of the horrid stuff that came up during Duke Nukem Forever. The issue with Duke Nukem is not the character - its the people writing the character. And probably Randy Pitchford.

Here, in Time To Kill, Duke Nukem is a larger-than-life macho man blasting his way through large maze-like stages full of enemies and puzzles and creative set-pieces, delivering cheesy one-liners, sleazing his way around the levels and making now hilariously dated references. That's what he always was and what he always should be. It's not for everyone but it was never intended for everyone. In fact, the worst possible thing you can do to a character like this is try to turn them into something palatable for the mass market, exposing them to people who were never going to like them in the first place. Time To Kill is far from the best Duke Nukem game but its a great example of Duke done RIGHT and when you play a game with such attention to detail and clear love for the source material, it's hard to be too mad about the weaker aspects. It has its own identity, something sorely lacking from Duke Nukem Forever, which felt like it could've been any late 360/PS3 generation console FPS with the Duke Nukem license awkwardly shoehorned into its skin.

Time To Kill was a nice reminder that, at one point, there was a bit of hope for the Duke Nukem license. Cool ideas and optimism, all of which were thrown directly into the bin once Gearbox got their hands on it. Tragic.

THANKS FOR READING.

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