Duke Nukem II

Lore & Background

In 1998, an evil alien race, the Rigelatins, plan to enslave Earth, and they kidnap Duke Nukem during his appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show in the city Neo LA, to extract his brain and use it to power an artificial intelligence that will ensure victory for their forces. Duke escapes from his cell and fights across the planet's surface and underground, successfully destroying the Rigelatins' energy reactor and then their mothership before stealing a fighter jet to return to Earth.

In Their Own Story

The Rigelatians seize control of major cities by broadcasting a psychic signal that turns humans into mindless drones. Duke Nukem, immune to the signal thanks to his 'sheer force of will' (and a healthy dose of ego), guns his way through alien-infested streets, underground labs, and orbiting space stations. He uncovers the Rigelatians' plan: a massive psychic amplifier designed to enslave every human on Earth. Duke blasts his way to their homeworld, infiltrates their fortress, and faces the Rigelatian Overlord in a showdown that leaves the alien leader smoking and the planet rigged to explode. Duke escapes in the nick of time, returning to Earth as the hero who saved humanity—again. Cue the cheesy one-liner.

Reader's Guide

The player's goal is to proceed through the levels collecting items, destroying enemies to the level exit and at the final level, defeat the super alien boss. In one level of each episode Duke needs to destroy radar dishes to progress. Duke Nukem can pick up weapons along the way. There are four types of weapons: His regular default gun, the flamethrower (which can shoot through walls and launch him in the air), the laser (which can shoot through anything) and the rocket launcher. Duke can also get a rapid fire powerup. Health items can be collected to heal damage Duke receives or to boost score points at full health. Keycards need to be collected to access past the force fields and keys must be obtained to get past locked doors. A cloaking device makes Duke temporarily invincible and disables the super force fields. Movement through the levels mainly consists of jumping onto platforms, climbing ladders, operating elevators, using teleporters, hovering over blowing fans and climbing hand-over-hand across pipes or girders. At the end of every level (with the exception of the last level in each episode), the player can receive up to seven 100,000 point bonuses, earned by making certain achievements in the level, such as destroying all cameras.

Did You Know?

• The game consists of four episodes of eight levels each, the first available as shareware.
• The game took almost two years to create.
• It uses VGA and EGA graphics and draws two backgrounds that scroll in parallax.
• PC Zone gave Duke Nukem II 4 out of 5 stars.
• Allgame gave it 3 out of 5 stars for the original and 4 out of 5 for the Game Boy Color version.