EDuke32 ported to the PSVita – An open-source port of a no longer available commercial game. Why should you use this port?

The PSVita got its own fair share of ports but this one is perhaps the most peculiar one. This is because, unlike other ports, Duke Nukem 3D is officially available for the PSVita but that was pulled off PSN 2 years ago!

What is EDuke32?

EDuke32 is an open-source port of the engine of the all-time classic Duke Nukem 3D.

Game mods, like HRP, coupled with eDuke32 give the game a whole new dimension!

This port, which is my go-to Duke3D engine, has various great features over the original engine such as:

• Support for hardware accelerated rendering through OpenGL which makes the game look great if you enable the Polymost or Polymer renderer.
  • There’s also widescreen support for those of us using screens that aren’t 4:3
• Support for great mods such as HRP (High Resolution Pack) and DukePlus which greatly enhance the game experience
• Fixes for various bugs found in the original code
• Many other features such as the ability to run at high resolutions, multi-platform support and extensions to the game scripting system which allow for great mods

What about the PSVita port? Why use it over the official Megaton Edition?

The PSVita port was done by Rinnegatamante and is based upon MasterFeizz’s eDuke32 port for the Nintendo 3DS. Right now, the port is at the following stage:

• Good framerate using the software renderer when I played through the first level of the first episode
  • Unfortunately, only the software renderer is supported at this time but Polymost renderer support is slated for the near future.
• Sound and music work properly

  eDuke32 on the PSVita in action!

• A nicely mapped PSTV-friendly control scheme that makes no use of the touchscreen
  • That being said, it’d be nice if the menus allowed for touchscreen input!

Right now, the port works pretty well but the question on everybody’s mind is “Why does this exist when there already is an official version?”. Rinnegatamante foresaw this question and so decided to answer it himself by giving these reasons:

• Duke Nukem 3D: Megaton Edition is no longer available on PSN.
  • As this official title was only available digitally, there is currently no legal way to obtain it. This makes it a prime example of why games shouldn’t be released in digital form only!

    Hopefully, this port will get some more features which make it better than the Megaton Edition. (Image from Marc The Geek on YouTube)

  • Furthermore, you couldn’t use files from your previously bought copy of Duke 3D with the Megaton edition so you had to pay for the full game again. However, this is a bit of a trivial reason since DN3D: Megaton Edition is no longer available for purchase.
• eDuke32 has some settings that Megaton Edition doesn’t have although I can’t really single these out as I don’t own the Megaton Edition.

While the port works, I think it still needs some additions to be considered a step up over the now-unavailable official version. The things I’d like to see the most are:

• Implementation of eDuke32’s awesome mod support
• Support for the Polymer and/or Polymost renderer
• This one is a bit far fetched but there have been forks of eDuke32 which added support for the other two big-name Build engine games which are Shadow Warrior and Blood, none of which are available on the Vita.

Conclusion

As usual, Rinnegatamante did a good job porting this one but some more work on it would make it much more appreciated by the community.  To get the port with the shareware files, you can grab it directly via VHBB as it’s available on VitaDB.

You may put your full Duke3D.grp file into ux0:/data/eduke32 to play the full game! Any issues should be reported to the links below.

eDuke32 Vita Wololo /talk thread (more info): http://wololo.net/talk/viewtopic.php?f=116&t=49442

GitHub Source Code: https://github.com/Rinnegatamante/EDuke32-Vita

Rinnegatamante’s Twitter (further updates): https://twitter.com/Rinnegatamante

Rinnegatamante’s Patreon (for donating a few bucks): https://www.patreon.com/Rinnegatamante

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