Played on the Evercade Duke Nukem Collection 2

I was interested in playing this more as a curiosity than anything. Even though I had both iterations of the gba at some point, it was always a handheld I never really bothered with too much, so it's always nice to get my hands on a game I was interested in playing from back then.

It's a fairly decent attempt at a first person shooter. It's somewhat removed from the other versions of Duke Nukem 3D, and that's fine. Smaller corridors and brighter environments. Otherwise all the sprites are there, plus a couple of new enemies and weapons are added to the mix.

I enjoyed it for the most part, even if the game looked like a mass of pixels at times. The levels were quite fun, some with different completion goals and so on. It was better playing this handheld than on the TV, although playing this on the VS did look a bit better after changing it to pixel perfect and turning on scan lines, although the EXP was the way to go, with it being played on a similar screen size it was actually made for.

I enjoyed it for the most part, despite it getting rather tough in the closing stages. Rough and ready, much like the other Duke games on this cart.

Réussir à faire un FPS sur une console portable comme la Game Boy Advance est une prouesse en soi et techniquement, le jeu est relativement solide. Il y a bien quelques baisses de framerate, une pixelisation un peu trop forte mais ça reste jouable de bout en bout. Ca reste jouable aussi parce que les mecs de Torus Games ont su adapter la jouabilité aux petits boutons de la console et même si cela demande un petit temps d'adaptation, on prend vite ses marques.
La performance est donc là mais quid du reste? Et bien, c'est là que le bât blesse. On retrouve une partie du bestiaire et de l'arsenal de la licence Duke Nukem, quelques ajouts/modifications rigolos mais sans grand intérêt, mais le jeu pâtit surtout d'un manque de rythme. La faute à la non présence de musique durant tout le jeu, de phases d'action pas très intéressantes à cause du faible nombre d'ennemis liés aux limitations de la console. Le jeu est aussi bien trop court (2h30 grand max), on en fait vite le tour et à part un mode multi local, il n'y a pas forcément de raisons de revenir sur le jeu une fois fini.

Le syndrome du jeu "C'est cool de l'avoir fait malgré les limitations techniques mais fallait-il vraiment le faire?".

It's an FPS on the GBA...

But it's also pretty fun?

I appreciate that what could have been a watered-down port of Duke 3D was instead given a chance to be it's own thing with it's own unique level themes and even a brand-new enemy type to kill.

The controls took some getting used to, but I found them overall serviceable and even got a feel for them in a strange way. Strafing around corners and quickly re-adjusting my aim became comfortable in it's own way.

The plot is nonexistent, as it should be. But Duke still manages to get a few heavily-crunched voice clips in. And the brief transmissions with the army general give a few good excuses for Duke to make a one--liner or reference that vaguely fits.

The game doesn't overstay it's welcome either, which I appreciate. And I was more than happy with the brief time I spent with it.

This is the best FPS on the GBA but that doesn't make it good.

From a technical standpoint this game is a marvel. It looks like a stripped down version of Duke Nukem 3d while playing more little a cross between that game and Doom. Unfortunately, the poor controls and basic gameplay make this a chore to play for any length of time. Trying to turn with the d pad is especially awful. Also, the difficult curve ramps up a ridiculous amount in the last few levels. You'll likely run out of ammo a lot, being forced to replay levels over and over, running past a lot of enemies and trying to conserve ammo just to progress. Or you'll end up dying over and over trying to change weapons or turn your character in battle. It is also possible to save your game with very low health and ammo, functionally being unable to progress. Be warned.

It does have a unique story from the other games and some unique enemies and bosses. It's also surprising they managed to make the shrink ray and freeze ray work on this. But none of these make the gameplay any more fun.