It seems weird playing a game that back in the 1990’s was deemed ‘inappropriate’ for children and was demonized in the press for it’s violence and nudity as compared to your Manhunts and GTAS of today it is pretty tame. Duke Nukem 3D was originally released on the PC back in 1996, this was one of the first wave of FPS games after Doom and Castle Wolfenstein.

Duke back then was a character straight from an 80’ action movie, with all the corny catchphrases. One of the main reasons that the game was criticized was the sexism, it seems ridiculous now and out of place but I still can’t help laughing at it. The game play is still great though, ok the AI is limited with enemies zig zagging towards you but for a Live Arcade games its fantastic.  As with many other retro games you play on a smaller screen with a Duke Nukem wallpaper in the background, this helps keep the graphics pixel sharp like the original, I’d love to be able to have it in full screen but I don’t think the programmers had 32 inch Samsung HDTVs in mind back in 1996  The controls have been fixed to work on the Xbox 360 controller keeping the gameplay tight and responsive. Since moving from PC to 360 two years ago I have found the 360 controller to be perfect for FPS games and would find it hard going back to mouse and keyboard.

There is also an online co-op mode, for some reason there is no split screen so no couch co-op I am afraid though you can play the entire campaign with up to 8 players which is quite unique seeing as many of today’s games seem to not take full advantage of co-op. There is also a whopping collection of 39 (yes 39!) multiplayer maps to frag your pals on.

Duke Nukem 3D is one of the best Arcade titles to come out in a while and with the co-op and multiplayer it has great replay ability making good value of your MS points.