Duke Nukem: Manhattan Project

PC review by Anthony Karge - Thursday 13th January 2005

Does anyone actually believe that Duke Nukem Forever is still coming out? Anyone at all? It’s been in development for around 8 years! Since that notorious game is probably never coming out (boy, I’m going to feel like a jackass when it does), fans of Duke have gotten various other incarnations of the wise-crackin, womanizing hero. It’s too bad these games were shoddy third-person romps only available on consoles, and none of these compared to the source material. With Duke Nukem: Manhattan Project the series makes the jump from 2D to 3D back to 2D once again, but how does Duke stack when he plays in the same playground as Mario and Sonic? Now that’s a scary scene that I can’t get out of my head.



Once again, Earth is in trouble. Someone has kidnapped a bunch of hot babes, not to mention some strange mutating liquid called gloop has made its way to the Big Apple. All of the resident pests (rats, cockroaches and…pigs?) have been turned into deadly predators. Duke is called upon to put a stop to whatever is behind this mayhem. Of course, stopping the madness involved saving some seriously disproportional chicks and blasting the hell out of bad guys all while delivering clever one-liners. Needless to say, things are far from thought-provoking.

Don’t expect the heavy action of Contra (or its insane difficulty level). Instead, Duke Nukem: Manhattan Project takes a slower-paced approach with plenty of breaks in the action. There’s a fair amount of simplistic platform hopping interspersed with the action. Also each of the 24 stages has a small amount of keycard hunting. Our hero Duke vents his frustration about having to find such inane objects much like I was doing. “These keycards suck” and “Someone’s gonna make me pay for finding all of these” are just a couple of the clever zingers Duke exclaims. It almost makes up for the boring keycard hunting, but not quite.

The actual ass kicking is done surprisingly well considering the 2D limitations. There’s an assortment of weapons ranging from a gloop cannon that morphs the mutants to their original form, a grenade launcher and Duke’s steel-toed boot, among other fun toys. Easily the most fun weapon to use is the pipe bombs, which are tossed and then detonating whenever you please. Fast reflexes are needed in order to get the first shot, and ducking and jumping is the key to avoiding damage. The great thing about the combat is that it’s actually encouraged. Instead of a health bar, it’s called “ego” and with you execute some vermin your ego goes up.



Sadly, the ego is about the only somewhat original idea present in Duke Nukem: Manhattan Project. The stages reek of incredibly generic design. Is there an icy stage? Check! A level in a sewer? Plenty of them! A level in space, an abandoned factory and some underground lairs? Check, check and check. Every thing seems to be taken from a Platform Game Design 101 course taught at a community college (no offense to those enrolled in such fine institutions). Regardless, such level design became outdated on the 16-bit consoles. To add to insult the injury, half of the boss battles are against regular enemies. Such laziness is hard to tolerate at times.

Things are slightly redeemed by some of the wicked one-liners our hero spouts out. While he’s weaving in and out of traffic he says something along the lines of “Who am I, Frogger?” He also makes some unexpected (and hilarious) stabs at the XFL and even Enron. Who knew that Duke Nukem was political? Sadly, you’ll be hearing the generic rock and industrial more than you’ll hear Duke’s clever jokes.

For such a run-of-the-mill platformer, it’s surprising that there is any replay value at all, but the offerings here are scanty at best. The whole thing takes maybe six hours to beat, but each level is full of hidden goodies that reward the person who finds them all. This takes a lot of time and effort, and all but the most dedicated (or pathetic) fans will find the somewhat meager rewards worthwhile, but I suppose something is better than nothing.



When I beat Duke Nukem: Manhattan Project I didn’t really feel anything. I know I wasn’t enthralled, but I also wasn’t bored. Then the credits said “Duke Nukem Forever- Coming Soon!” and I laughed. At that point I realized that this was as average as platformers come, but the sense of humor managed to make it a guilty pleasure.

Thunderbolt score: six out of ten

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