Duke Nukem Original Versions

Duke Nukem is a run and gun and FPS shooter franchise developed by Apogee and 3D Realms for IBM PC MS-DOS.

Duke Nukem IBM PC 1991

Apogee Software's original Duke Nukem was coded by Todd Replogle for IBM PC MS-DOS in 1991. Duke Nukem is a side-on run and gun game that scrolls both hoziontally and vertically in 8x8 blocks (as opposed to smooth per-pixel scrolling). Suffice it to say that Duke Nukem's scrolling was awful, even for 1991: the Amiga was hosting shooters with 50 FPS per-pixel scrolling in 1987; the C64 in 1985.

That said, Duke Nukem was excellently presented and pretty playable in 1991. Movement modes include firing, jumping and swinging from platforms. There are also teleporters, a grappling hook and conveyor belts.

Duke Nukem's 1 meg of graphics displays in 16-color EGA 320x200. Duke Nukem also features a dual-scrolling playfield and 360° sprite rotation.

Duke Nukem was originally spelled Duke Nukum.

Duke Nukem 2 IBM PC 1993

Duke Nukem 2 was released by Apogee Software for IBM PC MS-DOS in 1993. Duke Nukem 2 was programmed by Todd Replogle.

Duke Nukem 2 displays in 256-color VGA 320x200. However, the scrolling and sprite-shifting is still not smooth even though super-smooth 2D VGA games existed in 1991.

Still, Duke Nukem 2 is a well-presented arcade-action game like its predecessor, but more playable as well due to Duke's increased manoeuvrability.

Duke Nukem 3D IBM PC 1996

3D Realms Entertainment released Duke Nukem 3D for IBM PC MS-DOS in January of 1996. Duke Nukem 3D was programmed by Ken Silverman, Mark Dochtermann and Todd Replogle.

Duke Nukem 3D is a first-person shooter that features texture-mapped 3D and sprite-scaling.

Duke 3D displays in 256-color VGA 320x200 as standard, but also supports VESA 320x200 and square-pixel SVGA VESA 2.0 640x480 and 800x600.

Duke 3D requires 486DX2-66 MHz with 8 megs of RAM, but a Pentium processor, 16 megs of RAM and PCI Local Bus Video is recommended.

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