The laddish 90s were a perfect time for Duke Nukem’s particular brand of satirical male chauvinist action hero.

In recent years, his antics have felt an awful lot more ill-judged and tasteless – particularly as technology has improved the sense of realism in FPS games – but thankfully, in this collection of his first three games, it comes across as mostly harmless.

In fact, you’d be hard pushed to find much of that Duke brand misogyny, which later games leaned into to much more uncomfortable effect, in the first two Duke Nukem games.

The first and second Duke Nukem games are essentially platform run and gun titles, albeit with very basic, very light Metroidvania elements.

There’s something especially interesting about their inclusion as a pair here in this Evercade collection – both have been ported as native Evercade games, meaning that they’re not running in emulated form at all.

Though you can still use save states, the menus and copious options are all presented in a custom Duke Nukem format. It’s a great way to experience both games, especially as things like scrolling have been smoothed in comparison to their original, early 90s PC versions, along with improvements to sound and other elements of the experience too.

So, first up is the original Duke Nukem game. Despite being released in 1991, it looks incredibly dated next to console platform titles that released at the same time or even earlier – for example, Sonic The Hedgehog released in ’91.

Though the comparison may be more than a little unfair, given that Duke Nukem was a low budget PC title, it still won’t be winning any awards for its looks, despite some slight improvements in the remastered Evercade edition.

To go into a bit more detail on that, the colour scheme is garish, the design of pretty much all visual elements – from enemies to collectables and even the levels themselves – is often bizarrely inconsistent and even the level design is bafflingly bad at times, with lots of leaps of faith and even sections where it seems that taking damage is unavoidable.

Yet despite all of these issues, Duke Nukem is an absolute blast to play. It’s almost baffling just how much fun it is, despite the fact that it looks and sounds like a game that no one would ever remember if it hadn’t been a Duke Nukem title.

Control is responsive and the levels, despite some frustrating design, don’t often overstay their welcome. A choice of three difficulty levels means that you can tailor the challenge to suit your enjoyment of the game and there’s an impressive variety of optional level goals to carry out en route to the exit of each stage.

I was really surprised at how much I enjoyed the first ever Duke Nukem game and it’s emerged as perhaps the most unlikely hero of all three games on this first collection.

The second game, Duke Nukem 2, is similarly remastered, so it plays much better than it ever did originally.

Despite only being released two years later, frankly the difference in the aesthetics compared to the first Duke game is pretty jaw-dropping.

It looks and feels much more like a classic 90s platform run and gun game, with chunky sprites and a much more consistent overall aesthetic.

Duke himself is much more versatile too, with the ability to crouch and even fire upwards, which is a real relief after the lack of abilities of this nature in the first game.

The presentation – with the intro cut scenes – are also much more professional looking here too, in comparison to those found in the first game.

Yet for whatever reason, I didn’t find it to be anywhere near as enjoyable as the first Duke Nukem.

There’s similar issues with annoying level design and it can be too dark and cluttered to see interactive elements, sometimes even enemies, amongst the more detailed pixel art.

Though the first game was shockingly garish and basic with its colour scheme and sprites, there was never a problem with working out what you could shoot, use or pick up.

So despite its technological advances, unfortunately Duke Nukem 2 is the weakest of the three games included on this cartridge, in my humble opinion.

Lastly, we have what most people would consider the piece de resistance; Duke Nukem 3D was the game that made Duke Nukem a household name, providing said household was populated by one or more gamers in the 90s of course.

When Doom arrived in 1993, it spawned legions of imitators; the classification of First Person Shooter (commonly abbreviated to FPS) wasn’t in use – and instead, the media often referred to games in the genre as ‘Doom Clones’.

Duke Nukem 3D featured numerous technical innovations over the rapidly aging Doom games when it arrived in 1996 – back then, three years was pretty much a lifetime when it came to technological improvements in gaming and it really showed.

The fact that Duke Nukem 3D featured familiar ‘real world’ locations also lent it an intoxicating air of ‘realism’, a far cry from the convoluted sci-fi locations in Doom, Duke’s levels featured plenty of interactive elements and were much more relatable and recognisable.

Where Doom took itself pretty seriously, Duke Nukem 3D instead had its tongue firmly wedged in its cheek, with action movie quotes and the ability to trigger amusing situations with lots of interactive objects; urinals flushing and Duke announcing what a relief it was to use them, as just one early example.

Level design was surprisingly detailed and innovative right from the beginning too; an early example being the cinema that you happen upon in the first level – being able to destroy and then enter the air ducts to make your way around the building felt incredibly immersive in its day; in truth, the number of interactive elements, possible short cuts and jokes (visual and verbal) to uncover is still impressive.

It’s not a game I’d recommend playing via the Evercade VS, however; given its low resolution, it’s much more suited to the smaller screen of the Evercade handhelds, rather than an HD TV – which makes the visuals a bit of a muddy mess.

It’s still a great game and its casual sexism, though more uncomfortable today than it was back when we were younger and didn’t know any better, does still feel a bit more like its lampooning Hollywood, male gaze-style misogyny, than it does in using it straightforwardly for titillation. Mostly because, in this game at least, it’s still pixelated enough that it’s not going to be titillating anyone. Though that doesn’t excuse it, it really doesn’t feel all that distasteful here – though it does prompt eye-rolling, it is leagues away from the awfully OTT and overtly bad taste sexism that followed in subsequent games.

The version of Duke Nukem 3D included here is Total Meltdown – the 32-bit PlayStation conversion, which was released in December 1997.

This version contains all three episodes found in the PC original, plus an exclusive fourth episode named Plug ‘n’ Pray.

The new episode has seven levels (six standard and one secret level), as well as new enemies, a new final boss and even remixed music.

It’s a decent enough version of the game; if you haven’t played Duke Nukem 3D for a while, this version is certainly not a bad way to experience it. Its controls and frame rate were criticised at the time of release, but it feels fine in practice on the Evercade.

To summarise, though I have no nostalgia for the first and second games, I still enjoyed them (though the second isn’t a patch on the first, it’s still fine to play in small doses). Then there’s Duke Nukem 3D; of course, having played it on multiple systems in the 90s and beyond, it’s refreshing to see that many elements of it still hold up.

I’d recommend this as a solid purchase to anyone who wants one of the finest early FPS titles for their Evercade – with a decent enough pair of platform run and gun games as a bonus (and, in fact, in the case of Duke Nukem 1, perhaps the most enjoyable game on the cartridge overall).

Does the second Duke Nukem Collection warrant a purchase? We’ll soon find out!

You can purchase the Duke Nukem Collection 1 cartridge from Amazon here.

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