Duke Nukem 3D v0.99 Beta: E1L2 Mean Streets

Channel:

DN Stuff

Subscribers:

21

Published on February 11, 2025 2:51:55 AM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYWjHivB5Z0

Game:

Duke Nukem 3D (1996)

Duration: 0:00

34 views

0

About this video:
This footage comes from the leaked prototype dated January 4, 1996, which is free to download. The leak was only a shareware version, so only the first episode and 6 of the weapons are included.
This video shows gameplay on "Headache" difficulty. There are 5 difficulty settings: Easy, Medium, Normal, Hard, and Headache. Enemies respawn on the last two difficulties, and cheats are allowed on all difficulties.
Cheats were used. This footage is just meant to showcase the prototype.
Key bindings can be changed, but the modern WASD control scheme doesn't seem to work correctly. (Sorry for the janky movement and random jumping!)

Notes on Mean Streets:
The flying Recon Patrol Vehicles in this version blare a police siren when awakened.
Duke says a unique one-liner when the "Duke Nukem Must Die" sign is revealed. It is not clear why this one-liner was removed from the final game.
An alien voice can be heard when interacting with the pay phones. This same voice is heard again at the end of the level.
Interacting with the magazine on the floor of the adult-themed store shows what is supposed to be an up-close image of the magazine.
As explained in the 20th anniversary developer commentary, many details from this version were removed and others were put behind walls in order to improve the game's frame rate. This includes palm trees, shelves in the adult-themed store, the bed on the second floor of the store, the left edge of the demolished building, the detonation button for the demolished building, and a more intricate texture on the ledge below the "Duke Nukem Must Die" sign.
The sewer in this version can be accessed from the street, but the sewer itself is backwards, missing a ledge for the Jetpack, and has an odd jail cell door preventing the player from accessing the bathroom. This jail cell door is removed once the Yellow Access Card is used in the street above.
Two secrets were missed in this footage, though both were shown: The compartment behind the magazine shelves, and the path to the sewer from behind the toilet (only counted if you step onto a specific tile).
Bizarrely, the ventilation shaft that leads to the stage area is not counted as a secret in this version. This is strange because it is counted as a secret in the final version, even though it is unavoidable. This suggests the level designer may have planned to add a different route.
Running out of ammo while using cheats allows you to use the Shrinker, though the first-person weapon sprite is not shown.
There are 3 out-of-bounds areas on this map that are left over from earlier builds (sorry, none are shown in this footage):
1. The largest is a parking garage where the level initially started. Instead of bringing you directly into the street, the elevator at the start of the map would bring you into the parking garage. You would then need to open the garage doors and ascend a ramp out of the garage. Many people have been confused as to why there are Doomguy corpses in this garage; these are actually multiplayer spawn points that the developers temporarily disabled by changing their "picnum" values.
2. The second out-of-bounds area is a room that existed on the second floor of the building directly across from where the player starts. This room is revealed when aliens blast through the wall, enabling the player to reach the room by climbing onto the ledge below. In fact, there is still a touchplate on this map that triggers the wall to explode when the player steps foot onto the second floor of the adult-themed store, but because the room is out-of-bounds, the explosion is never seen.
3. The last out-of-bounds area is an older version of the "adult magazine" that is seen when interacting with the magazine on the floor of the shop. Instead of showing the magazine with a woman, it shows two pages of a notebook with the sentence, "A lack of Alicia makes Allen a dull boy", written over and over. This is likely a reference to teenage heart throb Alicia Silverstone; level designer Allen Blum kept a Taco Bell bag with her photo on it at his desk. Although the full back story is not known, multiple developer interviews have attested to the fact that they were constantly teasing each other about liking female celebrities.

Other Statistics