- "Shark" redirects here. For other uses, see Shark (disambiguation).
The Shark is an enemy in Duke Nukem 3D. It is first encountered on Raw Meat.
Description[]
The Shark is a fearsome predator that strikes terror into the hearts of men. It attacks without warning, inflicts massive damage on its prey and disappears just as swiftly.
At least, that's how they should be. Unfortunately, these creatures are overshadowed by the alien invasion, which relegates the Shark to the position of "weakest enemy".
Much like the cocooned babes the Sharks have red eyes, and strangely, they will never attack the aliens besides they're supposed to be just wild and hostile animals. This make possible that the Sharks have been infected by the protozoid and are being somewhat controlled by the aliens to cover underwater areas.
If the former is false and the Sharks really are on their free will, this is the only enemy in the original game that is not in league with the alien invasion, and will attack Duke Nukem just because its nature.
Appearance[]
While it hasn't been officially stated, the Shark bears a similarity to the grey reef shark. It is grey, menacing and shark-shaped.
Combat analysis[]
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The Shark poses very little threat to the player. They have very low health, and can attack only by means of a weak bite. It is also slow-moving, and will usually not chase the player at all. It is just as easy to swim past even a shiver of Sharks as to shoot them.
The Laser Tripbomb is described as a bad weapon to use because pools of water containing Sharks are often too big to effectively deploy the weapon.
Data[]
|
|
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Development history[]
The Shark was implemented as far back as December 1994 in LameDuke. Its appearance and behavior do not appear to have changed at all over the course of development, making it the oldest enemy to be finalized in the game.
Coding for the Shark is not present in versions 0.99, 1.0, 1.1, or 1.1+ of Duke Nukem 3D. Although this might be explained by the fact that available copies of those versions are only shareware editions limited to L.A. Meltdown, those builds actually do contain code for other enemies outside L.A. Meltdown. In the 20th anniversary developer commentary, the developers explain that Shrapnel City was a rushed project that was only added at the very end of development. Therefore, it is possible the Shark was initially slated to be scrapped like all the other enemies in LameDuke, but the developers may have decided that the Shark could be quickly added to Shrapnel City in order to expand the number of enemies in the game, without requiring new graphics or programming.
Trivia[]
- In Duke Nukem 3D: 20th Anniversary World Tour, using the Freezethrower against the Shark will freeze it, but the Shark will become invincible, even after it is unfrozen.
| |||||||||||