Duke Nukem II

Development

The voice in the intro, "I'm back!", is done by Joe Siegler, 3D Realms' webmaster.

Graphics

Duke Nukem II and its predecessor obviously used graphics taken from other games, for instance from Turrican and Savage, two classic platformers. See this link for some good examples. It is unknown, but doubtful, whether or not this was done with permission of the authors of these games.

Game Titles

An official statement from Apogee regarding the many game titles of Duke Nukem:

*There is frequently a great deal of confusion over the correct spelling of one of Apogee's most prized characters, Duke Nukem. The original spelling for the name was "Duke Nukem"; however, during the code fix stage between v1.0 and v2.0 of the original game, Apogee found a character overseas named "Duke Nukem" that was thought to be copyrighted. So, for v2.0 of the original Duke game, the name was changed to "Duke Nukum." Then, during the programming of the next Duke Nukem game (Duke Nukem II), it was discovered that the character they found overseas was not copyrighted after all -- and so the original name was reinstated. "Duke Nukem" is also the spelling used in all successive games that featured the character.

The spellings "Duke Nuke 'em," "Duke Nuke'um," "Duke Nuke'm," "Duke Nuk'em" or other variations are not, and were never, correct. The correct spelling of the game is "Duke Nukem".*

Music

In addition to using graphics from Turrican and Savage, the first level's music bears a striking resemblance to Megadeth's "Angry Again".

References

In this game Duke is kidnapped by Rigelatins, a reference to Star Trek's Rigelians.

Technology

Duke Nukem II requires a VGA compliant video card in order to run, which would be capable of displaying 256 different colors at a time. Nevertheless, the game's graphics feature only 16 distinct colors - this was already possible using the older EGA standard. It's essentially still an EGA game engine, only using the VGA specific features to provide a custom color palette.

Re-releases

• A complete version of Duke Nukem II is available on Classic Games Collection CD featured with the July 2000 issue of PC Gamer Magazine.
• You can find the full version of Duke Nukem II on the CD of Duke Nukem 3D (as well as the first Duke Nukem game).

Information also contributed by Bhatara Dewa Indra I, Cantillon, Goteki45, Karthik KANE, Kyle Levesque, NGC 5194 and CaptainCanuck.