Jordan Freeman Group and ZOOM Platform Announce 3D Realms Partnership for Shadow Stalkers Episodic Computer and Video Game Series

However it appears that in addition to trying to get a game out, they also secured rights to resell the catalogue in some perpetual fashion. Neat

So for all the zoomer’s who’ve somehow never played the greatest boomer shooter of all time, you can score Duke Nukem 3D on the aptly named zoom-platform.com

It’s currently $4.99 USD, and it comes with all the DLC/Episodes!

Now let’s look at the infamous Megaton Edition on Steam (Yes I bought it years ago, no I didn’t hoard keys, because it didn’t feel like the game would up and disappear). So as you can see it has the addons Duke It Out in D.C., Nuclear Winter, and Caribbean: Life’s A Beach.

And launching from Steam, you can see it’s the ATOMIC edition. So there you go, not only can you sill buy it on Zoom Platform, it has MORE content, and yes it’s not $100+++ on the open market of keys, instead it’s for normal retail sale.

Let’s look at the GRP files:

From Steam:

D:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Duke Nukem 3D\gameroot\duke3d.grp
D:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Duke Nukem 3D\gameroot\addons\dc\dukedc.grp
D:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Duke Nukem 3D\gameroot\addons\nw\nwinter.grp
D:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Duke Nukem 3D\gameroot\addons\vacation\vacation.grp
D:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Duke Nukem 3D\gameroot\classic\DUKE3D.GRP

And MD5’s:

22b6938fe767e5cc57d1fe13080cd522 duke3d.grp
8ab2e7328db4153e4158c850de82d7c0 addons\dc\dukedc.grp
1250f83dcc3588293f0ce5c6fc701b43 addons\nw\nwinter.grp
1c105ced73b776c172593764e9d0d93e addons\vacation\vacation.grp
22b6938fe767e5cc57d1fe13080cd522 classic\DUKE3D.GRP

And Zoom Platform

C:\ZOOM PLATFORM\3D Realms\Duke Nukem 3D - Atomic Edition\DUKE3D.GRP
C:\ZOOM PLATFORM\3D Realms\Duke Nukem 3D - Atomic Edition\AddOns\DUKE!ZON.GRP
C:\ZOOM PLATFORM\3D Realms\Duke Nukem 3D - Atomic Edition\AddOns\DUKEDC.GRP
C:\ZOOM PLATFORM\3D Realms\Duke Nukem 3D - Atomic Edition\AddOns\NWINTER.GRP
C:\ZOOM PLATFORM\3D Realms\Duke Nukem 3D - Atomic Edition\AddOns\PENTHOUS.GRP
C:\ZOOM PLATFORM\3D Realms\Duke Nukem 3D - Atomic Edition\AddOns\VACATION.GRP

And MD5’s

22b6938fe767e5cc57d1fe13080cd522 DUKE3D.GRP
4cd0e3d3f170107b97aeafe4ade09ecf AddOns\DUKE!ZON.GRP
ddb7149855b0a0d0f073c3f5bedf7161 AddOns\DUKEDC.GRP
1250f83dcc3588293f0ce5c6fc701b43 AddOns\NWINTER.GRP
6a5a1505e38070ac0ab75eb60835988d AddOns\PENTHOUS.GRP
860367326139361078d0fc8cb623b548 AddOns\VACATION.GRP

Interestingly the main game is the same, but the additional levels are different. I’ll have to dig more to see what is going on. At least Nuclear Winter is the same.

Granted I’ve owned them all in some fashion over the years so I can’t even keep track of how many times I’ve bought Duke Nukem 3D, but here we go.

Apparently Randy can’t do anything about it, as he’s pulled the Duke from everything else.

So I’ve been busy with the day job stuff, and although I had ordered this I haven’t had time to play Ion Fury until today.

And yes, I’m sure you’ve seen video of it all over, and it’s so out of place, as it squarely belongs in 1997. And it’s great. The musical oddity is using samples much like a MOD, instead of the full synth or CD sounds. But it’s all the more era appropriate that I’m sure with a 90MB data file it would have been on CD-ROM, although I guess in the day it’d have audio tracks that would be quickly lost in the mists of time like the Quake 1/2 soundtrack.

I’m absolute crap, but it was fun enough to play. Although I did get ‘lost’ in the fan service, I didn’t realize I could make those jumps between the giant fans in the ventilation area.

So yes, this being a 3-D Realms experience means it’s not on rails. And the maps feel absolutely massive, and just look so great.

And it’s pretty cheap too! Although I think that is the local pricing for Hong Kong. For just under $110 it’s a steal.

From the sales blurb:

· While Shelly “Bombshell” Harrison earned her codename defusing bombs for the Global Defense Force, when evil transhumanist mastermind Dr. Jadus Heskel unleashes the members of his cybernetic cult onto the streets of Neo DC, she knows itâ€s time to start causing explosions instead of preventing them.
· Her quest to slay Heskel leaves a trail of carnage throughout huge, multi-path levels filled with gigantic explosions, more secret areas than we can count, and inhuman foes behind every corner. Thereâ€s no regenerating health here; stop taking cover and start running and gunning.
· Shellyâ€s crusade to take down Heskelâ€s army will see her leave destruction in her wake with a wide arsenal of weapons, complete with alternate fire modes and different ammo types. Her signature revolver, the tri-barreled Loverboy, brings enemies pain and players pleasure with both single shots and Old West-style hammer fanning action. Who needs a regular shotgun when you can load buckshot into your grenade launcher? Violent, over-the-top Bowling Bombs rip enemies apart with ease.
· Ion Fury laughs at the idea of mandatory checkpoints and straight paths through shooting galleries. But, just because this is a true old-school first-person shooter doesnâ€t mean we’ve ignored all the good new stuff the last two decades have brought. Headshots? Hell yeah. More physics and interactivity? You betcha. Widescreen, controller support, and Auto Saves? 3D Realms and Voidpoint have taken the best of both worlds and cooked it all into a bloody stew.
· The true successor to classic shooters such as Duke Nukem 3D, Shadow Warrior, and Blood. Experience the original BUILD engine on steroids, pumped up and ready to rock again after 20 years! Duck, jump, climb, swim, and blast your way through 7 exciting zones packed with multiple levels of mayhem!
A beautiful game world assembled from thousands of hand-crafted textures and sprites An awe-inspiring arsenal of devastating weapons, including multiple ammo types and alternate fire modes. Tri-barreled revolvers, grenade launchers, and heat-seeking smart bombs are your best friends!
The classic ’90s FPS action you love, meshed with modern inventions like locational damage and seamless level transitions ZERO PROCEDURAL GENERATION. All levels are hand made and full of multiple paths, cool effects, and complex set pieces!
Thumping soundtrack comprised of true tracked module music, in authentic FastTracker 2 format Easy access on to level editor and other development tools on day one, plus Steam Workshop support

For any Duke/Blood/Nam/TechWar fans really how could you pass Ion Fury by?

When the best friend becomes an enemy, and the main villain becomes you yourself and blood flows like a river, someone will definitely have to answer the main question – Who is behind the awakening of ancient evil and is there still a chance for humanity?

PUBLISHER:Dagestan Technology
DEVELOPER:HeadHuntersGames

I saw this ‘gem’ pop up on steam for $3.50 HKD (so $0.50 USD?) and thought what the hell let’s try it out. SharpShooter3D is well, a DooM mod of sorts, but it also feels a lot like Duke3D with the inclusion of vehicles and ‘moving room/vehicles’ like train cars. At it’s heart is GZDoom 3.3.2 which states in the license:

Parts of the voxel code in the software renderer use code from the
BUILD engine by Ken Silverman and are used under the terms of the
GPL v3 with permission.

Well isn’t that cool! The best of Duke3D and Doom! All in one.

It captures the imagined feel of the eastern block, old factories, nuclear power plants, lots of guys in trainers & Adidas all over the place, along with copious alcohol and milk (yes milk is the health thing here!).

Not to mention the punk sound track is pretty good for such a seemingly ‘low end offer’. Had this come out 20 years ago, it really would have set the world on fire, and probably set off quite the few controversy, but today it’s a discount mod that no doubt the devs did put a bit of work into.

I have no idea if the game is 90% off for the rest of the world, but I’d say it’s worth a look at the price.

Hail to the king, baby!

There isn’t any excuse not to own one of the greatest games of all time!  But get it while you can!!!!!!  I’m not sure how long this special will last, but what can I say, it’s Duke when Duke was well.. the Duke of Duke Nukem!

The best part about gog, is that their games are DRM free, meaning you don’t really have to run it under DOSBox, you could say run it on Qemu, or even a real PC for the daring!

I mashed in all you need to build it for MS-DOS under MS-DOS here.

It should be really simple, just run the Watcom C’s setvars, then go into the duke3d\source directory and run ‘wmake’ … All being well it’ll output some exe’s.  I’ve also included the shareware data files so you can test your executables.

Watcom C/C++ 10.0 on DOSBox

Not bad for being under 10Mb, compressed.

And of course, the server is OVERLOADED, and the first time I tried.. Denied.

Over and over. I know it’s silly but how can I go to sleep now?  The greatest expectation in video gaming history is upon us!

Ok ok, yeah I do remember daikatana and what a catastrophic letdown that was, but come on! this is the DUKE!

So a few clicks more….

And it looks like we are in business.

Now the only debate is…

Sleep, or not.

ARGH!

mini vmac II duke nukem

I had no idea this even existed… I guess it’s to be expected, all the popular games of the time (doom) were ported to pretty much everything and anything.

So after stubmling across this site, Emacualtion, I had to fire this thing up!

The first thing I needed to do was get the latest source to Mini vMac. What is different about this is that you get the source from within the emulator. Basically you pass a program what config you want and it’ll spit out source code. So for me to build on windows, a mac II with 256 colors, I gave it..

-t wx86 -m II -depth 3

Easy right?

There is some help on the mini vmac site, but it’s kind of in places.

With the emulator built, the next fun filled thing was to dump the ROM from my SE/30, which was.. an exciting adventure in floppy disks, but with it in hand I was ready!

The next part of the puzzle was System 7.5.3, which apple still thankfully provides, along with HFVExplorer, and Stuffit, and I was all set to go!

I created a target diskette of 100MB, then used hfvexplorer to copy 7.5.3 and it’s 19 segments into the disk. Then I booted the emulator with a minimal System 7 floppy. I then installed 7.5.3 into the 100mb disk, then shut down the emulator. Then using hfv explorer, copy over Duke and stuffit.

Boot back into MacOS, install stuffit, and expand Duke and away we GO!

Naturally with the speed limits dropped it’s quite FAST! vMac doesn’t have sound yet, so it’s a silent experience but it works quite well.

mini vmac II duke

The sad thing is that Doom requires 32bit mode, which it seems that Mini vMac can’t do just yet.

Now what is really cool, is that that the guy behind the build engine, Ken Silverman released the source to the ‘build’ engine, but also some of the builds of build as it progressed.

Ken is a big fan of QuickBasic, so to compile his earliest version, you’ll need QuickBasic 4.5, or the QBasic that came with MS-DOS 5.0 and above.

Download picrot4.bas, and run it through basic, and you’ll get this:

Qbasic ‘Build’

Under some emulators (Virtual PC) you’ll get a corrupted screen at first, hit any of the arrow keys, and it’ll redraw the screen into what it should look like. Considering the 8kb of basic code includes the engine, and the map it’s pretty snazzy!

You can find the timeline, and other versions of the build engine as it progressed on Ken’s web page.

As the engine improved, and was ported into C, it only got better! Then it was sold and licensed out, which gave rise to great games like 3D Realms Duke Nukem!

Notice the similarities?

After the build engine went open, 3D realms followed up, in releasing their extensive modifications to build which can be found here.

In the off chance you don’t have the game, you can still get the shareware version of it from 3D Realms here, and of course the full version on Good Old Games for $5.99 USD.

With the release of Build & Duke 3D, it’s only natural that they shed their humble MS-DOS beginnings and found their way onto Windows as full Win32 applications taking advantage of the hardware. Thanks to the work of Ken & Jonathon. You can find the results on Jonathon Fowler’s page here.

I suppose later I’ll have to see if it’ll build with the win64 tools… It’s be neat for a 64bit version of Duke!