Duke's in town and there's nothing he hates more than an army of alien punks crowding his space. From L.A. to the moon - it's the ultimate fun-filled fragfest featuring the most unbelievable collection of enemies and weapons ever assembled.

Discussion
There are games that can stand the test of time because of their design – Super Mario Bros., Tetris, and Pac-Man by example. There are those that can weather the decades due to a great sense of humor, like Maniac Mansion, Monkey Island, and the like. For some games however, survival is based on a simpler platform – boobs and dick jokes.

Thus, the legacy of Duke Nukem was born, and eternally retold.

Now, we can safely side-step all the Duke Nukem Forever jokes since, for the love of god, that is finally coming out. The real question though is, for that game to be mired that far down in lore, comedy, and controversy, how well does it’s source material hold up? The truth is rather surprising.

Duke Nukem: Total Meltdown on the PlayStation, and Duke Nukem 3D on the Saturn are probably one of the best examples of how bizarre game play design can still function perfectly in the modern era. This game was a sequel to Duke Nukem II on the personal computers, who were actually 2D side scrolling games. The ship that Duke crash-lands and ejects from in the beginning of this game was the one he stole from the defeated aliens in II. From there, it’s all about kickin’ some alien ass.

With the 3D element added in at the time, the problem of control comes into play. With the console versions, in order for Duke to look up or down, you would have had to hold the shoulder buttons, since dual analog control for first person shooters hadn’t truly kicked in yet. The catch though – is that you technically don’t need it during shoot-outs. The game is programmed to auto-aim at anyone out of Duke’s forward view. Meaning if you’re looking at a guy on a crate, and your reticule is on the crate below him, when you fire, you’ll hit the target, not the crate. While it may seem cheating at first, it helps immensely with characters in flying cars or partially obscured by level elements. It also allows you to strafe more often, which is always nice in the game’s open areas. Ironically, this lack of required angle changing allows you to then spend your time looking around for the game’s many secret areas.

This is actually where the game’s legacy can come into question depending on how you like your secrets. Like Doom and other games at the time, Duke’s secret areas are mix of coy hints and completely wild guesses. By example – in the first level, you can leap onto a crate, and then with some quick looks realize you can hop a building’s edge to another building ledge and discover an RPG. Yet, a level or two later, you need to know which random bookshelf to go up to and hit the action button. This randomness includes in-game items, like Access Cards. I was stuck for about 20 minutes in the bar level when I realized I had to Action a counter and then kneel down to grab the card hidden in the bar’s lower cabinets. Combine that with the game’s peculiar level design (blowing up a building just to find an Access Card) and the trip down memory lane can be either confusing or enlightening.

What hasn’t changed over the years is the game’s bizarre sense of difficulty in terms of damage ratios. I tried both versions on the hardest setting and got stomped on from all sides. If there are even just two characters on screen, death is swift and unforgiving. I had to use the Saturn’s built in God Mode and a PlayStation GameShark cheat just to play through for the screenshots. I suck at video games, okay? : ) If you hang around the Medium difficulty settings, the game can becomes a challenging, not frustrating experience.

Here on the PlayStation, the game suffers only in the resolution department – the game runs a smooth frame rate, and even looks good running on the PS3 in HDMI. Curiously they allow a filter and a Frame Sync options, but they really aren’t needed. There are some minor, minor censorship issues with the female hostages (they’re more covered), but that’s about it for the negatives. As for positives, the PlayStation features an exclusive Scenario with multiple levels (Plug n’ Play), and also allows for Dual Analog control. It’s not as promising as you think, as the right Stick only controls Strafe, but it’s the finer touches that help. There’s also a two player split-screen versus mode, but that gets old fast.

Granted, the game is available on the PC in its native state, or now available on the Xbox 360 with modern day Dual Analog controls, which sort of renders this version technically outdated. If you only play the consoles, I’d say stick with the 360 version, but if you want some little extras not found anywhere else, the PlayStation version is more than worth a few bucks and a couple of hours.

Come get some.

• This game was also available on the Sega Saturn, and currently Xbox 360's Live Arcade service. It was originally a PC game.
   
• While the game's structure and engine are obviously compared to Doom, the game's decision to go with stupid humor and various in-jokes helps keep it fresh. I still giggle every now and then while playing it.
   
• For those of you that have never played this due to being to young to remember, and love uncovering hidden locations in games, this is the program for you. Half the hidden locations in this game require you just running up to random things and hitting the action button.
   
• There's a peculiar issue with the game, both with the box art and the manual. The back of the box doesn't mention the game supports the Analog controller. More so, if you do use the analog sticks, the right stick doesn't work how you would expect it to. Instead of having a 360 degree full control of your view, it controls the left and right strafe option. Very confusing to use.
   
• You read that Memory Card Icon right - 7 Blocks. 6 for the standard save, 1 for the Quick save.
   
• The PlayStation version features an exclusive set of levels.
   
• If you're bored, read through the manual. The authors had some fun with the copy.