LameDuke Review by André C. Viens - The original review by yours truly. (stingray@cygnusloop.com)
http://cygnusloop.com/lameduke/andre.htm

Clearly the 3D Realms programmers have no shame. To celebrate Duke's one year release date, they have released a very old beta version of Duke Nukem. Of course, this is all done in fun. No one expects you to like this old version. So if you have no life, like me, feel free to download the 4MB file. I am simply providing a link to the file from my page here, I don't actually have it in my archives.
Download Lame Duke 3D

There is a catch of course. Since this is a real old beta version, 3D Realms is providing NO support for it. If it doesn't work, it doesn't work. It's not expected to work the way it should. If you'd like to know, I've downloaded it, played it, and everything works as best as it can. Since it is a beta, there are things that the program does that's unexpected, however you can get by them all.

Of course, I wouldn't just put this page here just for you to download it without reading anything about it first. I've gone through and played some levels, watched some demos, used the weapons, and listened to the sound effects and music, and I've found a few interesting tidbits.

First off, there is no Duke Talk in this version at all. This most likely was an idea they thought of later to add in.

They had a laser sight on the pistol in this version, but then later removed it, probably because it wasn't very effective.

The jetpack produced flames from underneath it. It resembles the way Duke used to fly around in Duke Nukem II with a trail of flames. I kinda like this effect, but it does look a little crappy.

I can't seem to run it in SVGA mode without crashing. I get a DOS4GW protected mode error.

When playing the game, you can press Tab to get a map mode, which is normal for most 3D games nowadays. This map mode is entirely different than the map mode now used in Duke 3D. It resembles the map mode out of Doom and Doom II.

When swimming underwater, Duke produces bubbles that are visible underwater. This is a feature that has since been removed. They must have thought it was a little too cutesy for Duke.

When the programmers were designing Duke 3D, they were going for the same effects from Duke Nukem I and II. To get health in this beta version, you drank Coke, just like what you used to do in Duke Nukem I and II.

No doubt about it, the enemies in this beta version blow chunks. Their graphics are grainy, they make dumb sounds, and most of all, the artificial intelligence to these enemies is very low. I can usually stand right next to them before they know I'm there.

I'm not sure if this was done on purpose, but this version of Duke 3D has Rise of the Triad background music. As programmers normally do, they use old, existing parts of other programs to test the functionality of the new program. This may have been what was happening here. There is also three other music files including another version of the same Rise of the Triad music, the song Brown Eyes, and some unknown music named MISTACHE.MID.

Surprisingly, one of things I found in the game that has not changed is the camera view.

While I was going around shooting the glass that the early level designers put everywhere, I noticed the sound is exactly the same to the glass breaking sound used in Duke Nukem II.

As it was early in development, you could walk right through enemies.

Also, there is no need for a cheat for God mode, because you're already invincible in this game.

I found it amusing that I could walk right out into exposed space and walk around.

As I was meandering through the levels, I walked into what looked like a bathroom. There were toilets, but I couldn't use them.

One neat thing I found which I wasn't expecting to happen was when you break glass which has space on the other side of it, a wall comes down to protect the room from the vacuum of space.

When you're entering the next level on certain episodes, there is a scene. One is of a space station, while another is a city and so on. When you complete each level and move on to the next, a red X appears over the sections you have already completed, just like Doom I.

I saw some shooting flames coming out of the floors of some levels that are exactly the same sprites from Rise of the Triad.

One enemy that surprised me as I was walking through the levels were bats hanging from the ceiling. When you get close to them, they fly down and attack you.

Not all glass can be broken. Some is actually a clear and static image that has already been previously broken.

To complete some mission objectives in some levels, you need to destroy a reactor, just like from Duke Nukem I and II.

Either this was a bug, or it was overlooked, but the tazer stick (which has since been replaced by Duke's foot) couldn't break glass. It left me stuck in a lot of places because you had to break glass to continue on in some levels.

Another bug in the game is that the sound just stops after a while.

Some final thoughts... I can see where the programmers were going with this. They were building the 3D game to almost exactly replicate Duke Nukem I and II, however halfway through they must have decided that they wanted to go a different direction than just following the original two Duke's. In the beta version, one of the original intents of the game was to keep score. This is now rarely seen in most 3D games.

The game is not packaged with all the data in one file. This is usually always done at first because it's much easier to add and remove files individually than packing and unpacking the .GRP file. Obviously, no music included in this version is in the real game, since at this point in beta testing, no music was being composed for the game yet. I only noticed a few sound effects that survived into the real game. Most were real crummy and not suitable for a high quality game.
