Interview with Jon St. John

One of the more important names in Duke Nukem lore is that of Jon St. John. Jon has been the voice of Duke Nukem since Duke Nukem 3D first appeared on the scene January 29, 1996. Since then, every Duke Nukem game that has come out (and there's been a lot across all platforms) have made use of the voice talents of Jon. We frequently get asked what he looks like (despite having had his picture on our site since June 1997. But less frequently appearing are interviews with Jon. Well, no more.

The gaming news site ZERG Watch published an interview with Jon back in April, and we wanted to make sure you saw it. In it, they talk to Jon about a great number of things. Jon has a very versatile voice, and has been in a number of other popular games besides the Duke Nukem series, as well as other things outside videogames. It's a cool interview with someone who you don't often hear from in this format. Here's a few snippets from the interview.

Zergwatch: Have you ever answered a telephone using the Duke Nukem voice or have you ever misused or abused the Duke Nukem voice (or any of your other voices) for a laugh that you could share with us? Jon "Duke" St. John: Oh yeah...many times. I often have friends ask me to place a call to some unsuspecting victim and get medieval on their asses in the Duke voice. I once called a radio morning show on the east coast and harassed the DJ's in Duke's voice...they had recorded the call and ended up using parts of the call over and over again on station promos!

Zergwatch: One of the cool things we found on your website was that you offer a service to make custom Duke recordings. How does that service work and how much does it cost?

Jon "Duke" St. John: It's very simple really...I can record a message of up to 30 seconds in length which is available in any audio format for use as a ring tone, answering machine, etc. for fifty bucks. You email the script to me, Duke says whatever you like, and after you make payment on Pay Pal, or after your check clears the bank, I email the audio back to you. Please keep in mind that I will not say "this is Duke Nukem". I will refer to myself as "Duke" and I will say anything you want me to say...I have no issues with profanity...in fact, I enjoy it!

You'll definitely want to check out the entire article; Jon talks about how he feels being involved with Duke Nukem all these years.

As a side note in Duke Nukem lore, Jon St. John was not the original voice of Duke Nukem. Back in Duke Nukem II, the character spoke two words in the "cinematic opening", those being "I'm Back". That was voiced by 3D Realms staffer Joe Siegler, and the screaming Duke did in that game when he died was by Todd Replogle. But it's been all Jon since then.

If you want to check out some of Jon's versatility, check out these outtakes from the Playstation 1 game, "Duke Nukem: Total Meltdown". Some of them are still darn hysterial, 11+ years later.

Posted by Joe Siegler at 11:26 AM | Discuss this story on our forums

Prey Overture Cover Version

Today we were made aware of a rather cool fan created item for Prey. It's a cover of the Prey Theme, also known as the "Prey Overture". It's not a straight cover, it's a "metal" version of the theme, something which lends a different feel to the song. Here's a few words from the creators of the song, which they posted on our forums yesterday:

Greetings, players and creators of the Prey game! I'm here to tell you that our work over the metal version of Jeremy Soule's Prey Overture is finished and we are interested in your opinions. It was hard but pleasant work - to find the thoughts of this awesome and talented composer, turn them into metal and return them back. We tried and hope that we were successful. You're welcomed to listen the tune in high quality at our website and share your thoughts with us here or on our site. Good luck!

P.S. I want to say that this track is made without any plans of profit-making and only for Internet free distribution. Mr. Soule knows about it and we have his personal permission for this work. This is the pure fan project, that was made only to express our admiration of this beautiful music and remind you that great hours spent inside the world of Prey.

We rather enjoyed it, and thought you would like to check it out as well.

Don't forget, the original Prey soundtrack is still available for purchase over at DirectSong. Once you get to the Prey page, you can check out an audio sample of the Prey Overture to compare the work done by Epinikion on the cover version.

Finally, if you register (for free) at their site, you can download an mp3 of this track. If you do not register, you can just listen to the streaming version.

Posted by Joe Siegler at 11:59 AM | Discuss this story on our forums

Wolfenstein 3D's Sweet Sixteen!

We don't know if you realized it, but Monday was the sixteenth anniversary of Wolfenstein 3D. Released by Apogee back on May 5, 1992, this game by all accounts was one of the all time most influential titles, well.. EVER! Originally created by id Software, and released by us (under our then name Apogee Software), this title laid the groundwork for a lot of things that have come since.

Since it is Wolf's birthday, we wanted to bring you a few small tidbits to mark the anniversary. First up is a recreation of the Episode 3 Boss battle with Adolf Hitler from the game. The unique thing here is that it was done in Lego! There is a current craze in doing things (especially games) in Lego, so why not recreate a classic game? This was done by Wolf fan Ciamoslaw Ciamek. Here is a screen capture below - make sure and check out all of his Wolf3D Lego pictures.

Second up is an old piece of video. It's a TV interview from 1992 by Byron Harris for NBR with Scott Miller & George Broussard of Apogee as well as John Romero (then of id ). It talks about the two companies, and shows some of the background development of Wolf3D. We originally posted this video back in the summer of 1998, you can read that old news story for some background on the video.

Wolfenstein 3D is still an item we sell 16 years later. The game has been ported from its PC original to a ton of platforms, including the 3DO, Super Nintendo, the Game Boy Advance, the Macintosh, the Atari Jaguar, and the good old Apple IIgs.

Here's a few links for Wolfenstein 3D for you to check out:

• Our Wolfenstein 3D Page
• Our Wolf3D Pages in our Online Store ( CD | DL )
• Wikipedia Page for Wolfenstein 3D
• id Software's Wolfenstein 3D Page

If you're one of the two people left who have never played Wolfenstein 3D, hit our Wolf3D page to grab yourself a copy of the shareware game. Thanks to John Romero for the Lego story. John, it's time for YOU to go down the *)*$%)$ stairs! ;)

Posted by Joe Siegler at 9:39 AM | Discuss this story on our forums