NEW PC GAMES GIVE USERS CHOICE ON MAYHEM.

Byline: Dwight Silverman Houston Chronicle

Fans of computer games - who have never been shy about expressing their opinions - have a new, compelling topic to fight over.

Which bloody, nerve-wracking, breakthrough, three-dimensional action game is better - 3D Realms' Duke Nukem 3D or id Software's Quake? OK, this is not the kind of issue to shake the foundations of our democracy, but it is important enough to fill dozens of on-line discussion groups and chat areas. A lot of otherwise productive time is being wasted debating the merits of each game.

And that includes mine.

Both games are of the kill-or-be-killed genre spawned by id's Wolfenstein 3D and perfected with that company's hugely popular ``Doom'' series of games. The premise: Players wander through a series of mazelike environments, killing horrific monsters and trying to move on to the next level.

Players see the games through the point of view of a central character, giving them a three-dimensional look. Movements and graphics are frighteningly realistic. In fact, some players report motion sickness.

Quake and Duke are also multiplayer games. Rather than face monsters, you can connect via a network or modem to track down and kill something far more fearsome - your best friend or some stranger who may live halfway around the planet.

Both Duke and Quake are technical leaps beyond the previous standard-bearer, ``Doom.'' In both games, players can look up and down as well as 360 degrees around. But they vary in terms of game play, interaction with the gaming environment, graphics, storyline and system requirements. Here's a look at how Duke and Quake compare in those categories:

Game play - Advantage, Quake. In a 3-D action game, simplicity is the key. The more keys you have to press when some fiend is bearing down on you, the greater the chance that you won't survive the encounter. Quake's got it all over Duke in this regard. The gang at id has done a great job giving the player maximum capability with a minimum of fuss.

For example, players who use three-button mice with the game can use one of the buttons to look up or down.

Just click and hold - moving forward lets you look up, backward lets you look down.

(By the way, if you don't have a three-button mouse on your PC, get one! They are far more productive than two-button mice, particularly for those who play games and/or use Windows 95.)

Interaction - Advantage, Duke Nukem 3D. With Duke, the surroundings are as much of a character as the enemies encountered by players.

Walk up to a mirror, and you'll see Duke's reflection. Press the space bar, and he says, ``Damn, I'm looking good.'' Approach a restroom urinal and . . . well, you get the idea.

Using a pipe bomb or shooting at a fire extinguisher can cause an explosion that blows a hole in a wall. Movie scenes play out on theater screens. Garbage containers can be kicked over to reveal weapons.

Graphics - A tossup. This is really a matter of taste. The graphics in Duke are cleaner, but they have a cartoon-like feel to them.

In Quake, the images are grainy but seem more realistic.

Personally, I prefer Quake's look, which is rendered using the math co-processor found in Intel's Pentium and 80486DX chips.

The result is movement that's more fluid.

But the images pixilate easily, which means you can see the tiny dots of color that constitute walls and characters when you move too close to them. The programmers at id have compensated for this by making the landscape spooky and dark.

Storyline - Advantage, Duke. While neither of these games will win awards for plotting or scripting, Duke has more going on.

Creatures from another world have come to Earth to steal women and make them slaves. It's Duke Nukem's job to stop this villainy.

The programmers use this as an excuse to put scantily clad women on the aforementioned movie screens or, in one scene, have them dancing suggestively in bikinis. (If you're offended, just shoot them and blow them to bits.) Fortunately, there's a parental lock feature in Duke that shuts off some of the more gratuitous imagery.

System requirements - Advantage, Duke. Id says Quake requires a Pentium, though it will run slowly on a 66 or 100 megahertz 80486. Duke runs decently on an 80486, making it the game of choice for those with older systems.