The Alien Mothership

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 airlock hissed open and the stench hit first—ozone and something wet, something alive. Duke's boots rang on the deck plating, each step echoing down a corridor that curved like the inside of a throat. Bioluminescent veins pulsed along the ceiling in slow, arterial rhythms. Ahead, the corridor forked. To the left, a cluster of alien soldiers raised their weapons in unison, mandibles clicking. To the right, a shaft opened into the void of space, stars sharp and cold against the black. Duke racked his shotgun. He didn't need a fork. He needed a straight line between himself and whatever was waiting at the other end of this goddamn ship. He picked left. The shotgun went off, and the corridor got a lot louder.

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 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.
• Duke Nukem Collection 1, which includes remastered versions of Duke Nukem and Duke Nukem II alongside a port of Duke Nukem: Total Meltdown, was released for the Evercade retrogaming console in November 2023.