Jon St. John AKA Duke Nukem Text Editor Sounds

The other day I posted about something to do with a remake of Duke Nukem 3D as a mod using the Unreal Engine 3. I went back to that same thread over at the official Duke Nukem forums on GearBoxSoftware.com. Needless to say the topic was still going strong.

But it was on the last page that I saw something interesting. Somebody posted a link to this website and said that there were some recordings of somebody doing Duke Nukem’s voice.

So I went over to the site, only to see that the place was entirely void of content – except for an mp3 playing in the background. So I took Orbit, which is a program that is quite adept at capturing flash and media playing on a site, and downloaded the file. While I did this, I was listening to the phrases being said as the clip played. I’ve heard people try and do Duke Nukem’s voice before. Some have come close, and others have been pretty piss poor. This was Duke Nukem’s voice. This was the Jon St. John.

Having downloaded the file to my HD, I listened to the entire clip, which ran for about just over 3 and a half minutes. Jon was obviously reading the text that appears on the menu trees on a text editor. Open up any one, like Microsoft Word or something and you’ll see what I mean. It was actually pretty funny. Weird, but quite hilarious.

The guys over at the GBX forums were debating on this bit of off-topic wonder; some betting that it was Duke’s voice, whilst others were doubtful.

Like I said: I’ve played enough friggin’ Duke Nukem 3D and Manhattan Project to KNOW that is Jon. But I wanted to know how this site was found. So I did what anybody would do. I Googled it. The phrase was something like “Jon St. John Text Editor”. One of the first hits that cropped up was Jon’s wiki page. Upon going to it, lo and behold: under “external links”, there was a link pointing to that very same site, saying that it was Jon reading some menu trees for a program.

I was curious as to what the program was and who hired Jon. I gathered from the phrases in the audio recording that it was for a program called Text Edit.

I mean, in the end, Jon is a voice actor among other things (musician, former radio DJ), and has worked on other games - most notably Half-Life: Opposing Force. He is essentially for hire. At one stage I actually remember Jon offering to do voice work for something like $1 per word. He said he would even do Duke’s voice and people could dub it in to Left 4 Dead, replacing Zoey’s voice, or some weird sh1t.

If that was his going rate, then by my calculations, including conjunctions, it would have added up to about $159 just for this job. I should get in to the voice acting business…

However, I was reading, again over at GBX forums, and some poster said this:

“Get a personalized, custom recording of Duke for your voicemail, ringtone, answering machine, whatever! You write the script, and Duke will say anything you want. Your message(s) must be no more than 30 seconds total, and for private use only. Available file formats include: WAV, MP3, and AIFF. The price is just 50 bucks and payable via Pay Pal. So what are you waiting for...Christmas? Come Get Some!”

Some person over at the GBX forums also said that he “so wants Jon to do the voice for his GPS now.”

Sources:

GBX Forums
Jon St. John menu trees recording
Jon's Wikipedia page

Jon St. John AKA Duke Nukem Text Editor Sounds

If you had to Play One Game in Your life, What Would it be?

This was a question that was posed on the The Verge a while back before it went on this whole two month hiatus nonsense. If you had to play one game in your entire life, what would it be? That means ONE game, and that was the only game you ever got to play for some reason. Maybe you just weren’t that into gaming, or you died a premature death. Just use you imagination.

It’s a tough choice, but in my personal opinion, it would be Duke Nukem 3D. Why? Out of all the games I could choose, why DN3D?

Think about it: it was arguably one of the greatest shooters of the 90’s. It was technologically advanced for its time, and had interactivity that rivalled games to come for years – maybe even to this day.

Duke was also the first real character in a game, especially as far as FPSs go, that had any sort of personality as well. It wasn’t the first game to have vocals and that sort of thing, but Duke was the first I remember that actually talked and made comments and so on. And they were bad@ss ones too, even if they were copied from movies and other places.

                   Oh yeah – there were the strippers too. Weapon raised, indeed.

Yeah, some people hate the game or the character for those very reasons [like Bruce Campbell]: because it copied movies and games and so on. But I’ll admit that I probably hadn’t even seen most of those movies back then. I was young, and to me it was pretty original, ironically.

I’ve said before, and I’m not ashamed to say it either, that Duke was one of my childhood icons, alongside Stone Cold Steve Austin, and Arnold Schwarzenegger (favourite wrestler and actor respectively), as well as others. Everyone had a favourite actor, and I would say Duke is one of my favourite video game characters of all time.

                             DN3D on EDuke32, with the HRP and Polymer

But you look at the game today, and you see it has one of the most dedicated fan communities out there. You see how they’ve made it look so much better with all the source port wizardry, and the High resolution textures, as well as numerous mods and maps that have been made for it. You just can’t help but be amazed.

I still play the game to this day – it’s just one of those games that I feel has had incredible longevity, even if it’s been given a makeover and a facelift. Playing with all those add-ons makes up for the sorry lack of a sequel [apart from Manhattan Project] – and we all know the story about what happened to Duke Nukem Forever.

There are numerous others that would have made the top ten list, but the one and only game that I could have played would probably have to be Duke Nukem 3D. Hail to the King, baby.

So, now’s your chance. If there was one game that you could have played in your entire life, what would it have been?

If you had to Play One Game in Your life, What Would it be?

George Broussard’s Interesting Duke-Inspired Tweets

Just an interesting thing I came across. for the past day or so, George Broussard of 3D Realms has been getting creative on Twitter with some Duke talk in his tweets.

“Duke Nukem 3D code for XBOX 360. CPT4Y-J823X-J68HH-RCWXW-PT7BY Hail to the King, baby...”

“Duke Nukem 3D code for XBOX 360. W34VY-CWKQ9-FJF9C-9HTXR-3K6FG What are you? Some bottom-feeding scum sucking algae eater?”

“Duke Nukem 3D code for XBOX 360. TFXFY-DQXJ6-TRWC8-Q3TQ6-DHRH3 Your code, your ass, what's the difference?”

“Duke Nukem 3D code for XBOX 360. K8CQY-YX74M-J3YGH-MW73T-2H3MM Ho-Ho-Ho. Freakin' Come Get Some...”

“Duke Nukem 3D code for XBOX 360. P2MMV-KQ8W9-KYWV8-9G7QJ-X6V7W Nobody steals my codes....and lives...”

These tweets are related to Duke Nukem 3D codes for Xbox 360 as you can tell, and even though I’m not completely sure what it all means, the tweets were kind of funny.

Here are the dukeisms or Duke talk quotes they’re based on, with wavs too:

“Hail to the king, baby!”

“What are you? Some bottom-feeding scum sucking algae eater?”

“Your face, your ass, what's the difference?”

“Come get some!”

“Nobody steals our chicks....and lives!”

----

georgeb3dr

George Broussard’s Interesting Duke-Inspired Tweets

Duke Nukem 3D: McClane or McClain? That is the Question

If you’ve read this blog before, you’ll know that I’m all for classic gaming, and right now I’m playing Duke Nukem 3D, complete with the EDuke32 source port, the HRP, and Duke Plus, an probably some other stuff too.

Anyhow, I was watching Die Hard the other night, and I made it my AAA’s choice on Sunday. What does this have to do with Duke Nukem 3D? Well, Die Hard and John McClane were some pretty heavy influences for the game, particularly in the fourth episode called “The Birth”, which came with Duke Nukem 3D Atomic Edition, where there’s a level called “Pig Sty”. In this level, you’ll come across a plaque with the name “J.McClain” printed on it:

This is a sprite or texture taken from the HRP folder of my Duke 3D setup. J. McClain obviously refers to John McClane from Die Hard, right? But why is the spelling wrong? According to official sources, and wikipedia, it’s spelt “McClane”. I’m not sure whether this was an error by the team at 3DR who made the level and game years ago, or if it’s just a mistake by the HRP guys.

Ah, but I looked it up on 3D Realms’ website, on the walkthrough for this very level, “E4L5”, and it’s written right there:

“This time it's a "J. McClain", which prompts a famous Dukeism borrowed from the original "Die Hard" movie”

And the walkthrough uses the original, unmodified game (possibly a console, non-PC version though), with no high-res textures like the ones that come with the HRP. So the HRP guys - Parkar and Nightfright, last time I checked – were merely copying what had all ready been done except making it look all nice and high-resolutiony (not a real word).

That dukeism referred to is this, by the way. A famous line from Die Hard.

I mean, it crossed my mind that it could have been spelt this way intentionally to avoid a lawsuit or something, but there’s another plaque in the same level that reads “H. Callahan”:

This obviously refers to Harry Callahan from Dirty Harry, but unlike the J. McClain one, this one is spelt properly.

It’s unlikely it was done intentionally seeing as if 3DR wanted to avoid a lawsuit, they wouldn’t have “borrowed” so many lines and ideas from films like the Evil Dead series. It’s quite amazing how much stuff was copied from this series. Bruce Campbell hates Duke Nukem for this very reason.

Just an interesting thing though. Has anyone else ever noticed this?

Duke Nukem 3D: McClane or McClain? That is the Question

Apocalypse Then: Duke Nukem II

On this day in gaming, December 3, 1993, Duke Nukem II was released for MS-DOS. It was a 2D platform game developed and published by Apogee Software, a major company back in the eighties and nineties and still alive today, albeit known as 3D Realms. The name Apogee Software is also still going, but under a separate company known as Apogee Software LLC.

Duke Nukem II is the second game in the series, preceded by Duke Nukem, and succeeded by Duke Nukem 3D, and the fourth game in the series, Duke Nukem Forever, which is  in limbo at the moment after a dozen years in development.

Duke Nukem II was not as popular as it’s sequel, Duke Nukem 3D, and wasn’t ported to any other consoles.

The game consisted of four episodes, the first one being available as shareware, with each episode containing 8 levels, making 32 in total. The story kicks off with Duke Nukem on talk show (supposedly Oprah, seeing as it was revealed in the first game that Duke like watching her show), promoting his autobiography Why I’m So Great in an interview. During this period, the Rigelatins, an alien force, kidnap Duke and aim to use his brain for nefarious purposes. Duke Nukem breaks free from his cell where he was being kept prisoner using an explosive molar hidden in his mouth.

It’s been said that Duke possessed more personality in this game than the first one, and instead of his purple shirt in the first game, he now wears the red wifebeater that people now associate him with, as well as blue jeans and boots. A couple of things about his appearance that changed in the sequel and thereafter was that in this game he wore silver bicep rings and didn’t have on his trademark sunglasses. Duke didn’t talk much either in this game, with the “I’m back!” line in the opening movie being one the only ones uttered in the game. Duke Talk and more adult themes became a mainstay in DN3D and every Duke Nukem game after that.

In the game’s levels you collect weapons, health, powerups, and Duke Nukem merchandise, often found in crates, while proceeding towards the exit. At the end of the level your score is added up. Health includes soda cans, which can also be shot in order to earn points, a six pack of soda, turkeys, and atomic health. This last health item reappeared in Duke Nukem 3D.

Collectable items include glass orbs, Letters spelling NUKEM, and the crystal ball.

I seem to recall other items as well, like sunglasses…

Monsters ranging from robotic spiders, to mutants, and Rigelatin guards as well as others populate the levels and Duke can dispatch them with weapons he finds along the way, like the Laser, Flamethrower, and the Rocker Launcher. You can’t switch between these weapons, and have to use each one up at least a little before collecting another one. If these weapons are used up entirely after several shots, then you will revert back to you normal weapon. The last level, level 8, squares you off against the boss enemy.

The player can jump, climb ladders, use elevators and climb on pipes and girders. If the player stopped while climbing on these, he could hang there with one arm while firing his gun with the other. Duke can also use a sky car of some sort in some levels, which was recreated in Duke Plus, a mod for Duke Nukem 3D.

The music accompanying the game’s levels was composed by Bobby Prince and he once again was influenced by metal music like in Doom, using tracks like “Angry Again” and “Skin O' My Teeth” as the basis for the MIDI soundtrack.

The opening movie in the game has him in a shooting range firing a smiley face in to the target, a scene taken from Lethal Weapon. After that he says “I’m back!”, a line taken from The Terminator. Arnold Schwarzenegger was an obvious influence on Duke’s character, and The Terminator movies as well as other Arnie films served as inspiration for the series as well. “Angry Again” appeared on the soundtrack to the film Last Action Hero, also a film starring Arnold.

The cover art of Duke Nukem II was also visible in the first level of Duke Nukem 3D, “Hollywood Holocaust”, as an arcade machine . If you try to use the machine, Duke says, "Hmmm, don't have time to play with myself."

Duke Nukem Manhattan Project, although more of a spin-off of the main series, paid tribute to the original two games by also incorporating more of a platform element in the game.

You can pick up Duke Nukem II here if you want to play a classic.

Apocalypse Then: Duke Nukem II