Duke Nukem 3D: Atomic Edition

THE BAD:
Not terribly long

SUMMARY:
The Atomic Edition is basically and expansion pack for Duke Nukem 3D. It features a whole new episode of 9 levels filled to the brim with enemies, old and new alike, as well as a very nasty end boss.

After stopping the last alien assault on Earth more have decided to try their luck and it’s up to Duke to stop them once again. All of the old weapons, like the RPG Launcher, Devastator and Freezethrower, have all returned as well as the old enemies. But there are also newer and tougher enemies to fight and the tougher ones get more frequent as you go on. The new levels are just as interesting, if not more so, than the ones in Duke Nukem 3D. There are some pretty elaborate settings and complex level designs in this game. The ability to store medipacks for later use is even more important in this game because in some places you are severely outmatched in terms of firepower. It’s not just a case of going in guns blazing with this game because it won’t work all the time.

The new gun is one you select alternately with the shrink gun so it’s perhaps fitting the new gun does the opposite job, While the shrink gun makes enemies small, the Expander makes enemies grow bigger and bigger until they burst. It does use quite a lot of ammunition and I don’t think I ever used this gun much unless I was conserving ammo for my other, more powerful guns. Also, since you have to pick up the new gun to use it, you won’t be able to use it into any of the original episodes. In fact, everything this expansion pack offers can only be used in the new episode, so while you need the original game to load this game it doesn’t actually do anything else.

But having said that this game was pretty good fun for a while, even though it wasn’t long outright. The end boss is a very tough one to beat because of the setting and other enemies. The whole final level is very long and complicated and contains some super radiation, which wears out your protective boots in no time flat.

All in all this was a fairly decent expansion pack, but it was nothing special. The levels were well designed and the new enemies were a decent fight but with only 9 levels it didn’t take long to complete.