This article has a talk page!This page details bugs of Duke Nukem 64.
Death by Doors#
The swinging doors will sometimes close on you and squish you.
Heat-seeking Missiles#
Heat-seeking missiles will change direction if the game is paused
- Explanation: The spinning movement of the heat-seeking missiles is controlled by a variable that is used to control animations. This variable is incremented even when the game is paused. As a result, opening and closing the menu will mess up the direction of the missiles.
Heat-seeking missiles won't aim correctly at the crosshair when looking up or down.
- Explanation: The calculation for the vertical velocity of heat-seeking missiles is off. While heat-seeking missile are slower than regular missiles (512 vs 644 units), the constant for vertical velocity stay the same.
It's very difficult to use the heat-seeking missiles if you are looking up or down while firing, and it will almost always hit the ceiling or floor instead of its target.
- Explanation: The game does some rudimentary calculation for the vertical aiming, and there's no variable for the pitch like there's for angle. The vertical movement is achieved by adding or subtracting 1024 of the z coordinate, until it matches the z coordinate of the target sprite. However, this approach only works if the heat-seeking were fired while aiming at the horizon.
If the target enemy is killed, the heat-seeking missiles may explode mid-air or aim at a random direction.
- Explanation: When an enemy is destroyed, the sprite is deleted, however the the sprite ID is still in the memory. In case a new sprite is spawned, the ID is recycled, and the missile will change its course. Depending, the new ID is given to the heat-seeking missile own smoke trail, resulting in it exploding mid-air because its assumed target is too close to it.