Duke Nukem is back. Captured by an alien foe in the middle of promoting his best-selling book, “Why I’m So Great”, Duke must once more defeat the forces of evil to save himself from the knowledge-stealing Rigelatins, and ultimately prove his book’s namesake. In this sequel to the 1991 high-octane, bot-busting video game, Duke Nukem, the King of Action must blast, cannon, missile and flame his way to victory - a victory that would stop the secrets of both ass-kicking and bubblegum from falling into the wrong hands.
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Another really enjoyable DOS platformer, given a really nice lick of paint on the Evercade. Although clearly has a lot more going on than the original game, I think I preferred the more simplistic approach of the first Duke Nukem but both games are good and the 60FPS/Widescreen remastered versions give them the kind of polish that makes them play like your rose-tinted memories of them.
To finish up my recent string of nostalgic DOS games, here’s Duke Nukem II. It holds up pretty well although enemies and other threats popping into view and immediately attacking and hurting Duke got old quick. The camera is zoomed in closely in Duke Nukem II giving the game-view a very narrow scope that is made worse with how close to the edge of the camera Duke can get when he’s moving forward.
Despite that hefty flaw, the action and gamefeel in general felt pretty good. This game still utilizes very segmented (tile-based) movement like a lot of other DOS platformers but that never was a detriment while playing. It’s strengths are in its snappy, arcadey action and level design.
Now the first episode (which I played a lot as a kid on its shareware release, so nostalgia might be clouding my judgment) has very tight and exciting level designs. Episode 2 going forward; many levels are not as imaginative. A lot of the first episode levels have more complexity whereas the later parts of the game: the levels are more monotonous. Not necessarily bad, but not great either.
The last three episodes introduce new things. Some are cool, like the little ship that Duke gets in episode 2. Some are bad, like the instant death traps (especially the breakable air locks in episode 4). There isn’t a lot of new music past episode 1 and the stuff that’s introduced isn’t great but luckily the soundtrack from episode 1 gets sprinkled around and I gotta say this might be Prince’s best AdLib music. The sounds are all great, too. Duke’s scream when he dies startled me as a kid and even now I find it pretty unnerving.
I think the camera problems and less-than-stellar level designs of its later parts prevents Duke Nukem II from being a PC platformer classic, but it’s fairly solid.
Despite that hefty flaw, the action and gamefeel in general felt pretty good. This game still utilizes very segmented (tile-based) movement like a lot of other DOS platformers but that never was a detriment while playing. It’s strengths are in its snappy, arcadey action and level design.
Now the first episode (which I played a lot as a kid on its shareware release, so nostalgia might be clouding my judgment) has very tight and exciting level designs. Episode 2 going forward; many levels are not as imaginative. A lot of the first episode levels have more complexity whereas the later parts of the game: the levels are more monotonous. Not necessarily bad, but not great either.
The last three episodes introduce new things. Some are cool, like the little ship that Duke gets in episode 2. Some are bad, like the instant death traps (especially the breakable air locks in episode 4). There isn’t a lot of new music past episode 1 and the stuff that’s introduced isn’t great but luckily the soundtrack from episode 1 gets sprinkled around and I gotta say this might be Prince’s best AdLib music. The sounds are all great, too. Duke’s scream when he dies startled me as a kid and even now I find it pretty unnerving.
I think the camera problems and less-than-stellar level designs of its later parts prevents Duke Nukem II from being a PC platformer classic, but it’s fairly solid.
The explosive action-platformer that revolutionized platform gaming on DOS along with Commander Keen. The controls in this game is very fluid and the action is top notch. The level design is beyond good and encourages exploration to get the biggest score. The music is great composed by gaming great Bobby Prince. This game was a step beyond what the first Duke Nukem offered and set the stage for who the character would become in Duke Nukem 3D.
This is the best Duke Nukem game. Nothing he's done since this is as cool as flying around by pointing the flamethrower downwards at the beginning of Episode 4. PUT DUKE BACK IN 2D.
I feel like Duke Nukem II has aged a little worse than the first game. I played this using the RigelEngine sourceport which worked perfectly, it even had options for widescreen and smoother scrolling than the 16 frames-per-second original. But without these settings, I believe that the 16 fps cap really hurts this game with how chaotic it can get and the narrow field of view makes it even harder than it already is to avoid damage. I also miss the exploration aspect from the first game, I no longer feel encouraged to explore the levels as all upgrades are temporary and I don't care about getting points. It's worth noting that this game actually has a soundtrack which is better than Duke Nukem 1 which had no music, it's funny though that they made a blatant copy of the entire chorus from Skin O' My Teeth by Megadeth (no complaints there). The game also seems notably longer, I didn't time my playthroughs of either of the first 2 Duke Nukem games, but this one felt a little too long for me and I was playing the game more to finish it than out of personal enjoyment towards the end. But it's still a fun game overall, I'm just a little disappointed after liking the first game so much.
holds up surprisingly well for a platformer on dos