Duke Nukem II is the second entry of the Duke Nukem video game series, and the first to truly revel in the tropes of action games and movies. As such, it's filled with Lampshade Hanging and cynical humour, all hidden behind an honestly enjoyable platforming shooter.
The year is 1998,note and Duke's actions in the first game have made him Earth's top celebrity. Unfortunately, they also drew the attention of the Rigelatins, an alien race who wanted to enslave the Earth. The Rigelatins capture Duke during a TV interview for his new book, Why I'm So Great, planning to use his brain to mastermind their attack, but all does not go well. After breaking free from his cell, Duke takes the fight to the Rigelatins, with the sole plan of trouncing them handily and returning home.
This game shows examples of:
- Anti-Frustration Features:
- Upon hitting a checkpoint, the current level's progress is saved. If Duke dies afterwards, he will not only respawn at the checkpoint but also the level will not reset to how was when the checkpoint was hit. In other words, the current level's progress is no longer lost upon dying. Keep in mind that when Duke respawns, he will have the same health, ammo and weapon he had upon hitting the checkpoint, which can be sometimes used to the advantage (such as destroying all turrets in the level) if the checkpoint was hit while Duke had full health and another weapon with full ammo. The only small exception to this is hitting a checkpoint with the flashing health bar, so in that case if Duke dies afterwards, then he will have one health unit left when respawned at the checkpoint.
- The Cloaking Device respawns in its original position inside the box, after the powerup expires. The reason is that there are a few levels where Duke is required to go through a certain forcefield while cloaked to deactivate it, so if the powerup didn't respawn, then the player would have been softlocked if the forcefield wasn't deactivated during that time. This has the side effect of making the levels that contain the item much easier, since the player can just go back to where the item was and pick it up again. The item does not protect against instant kill hazards, such as the forcefields that require a key or card to deactivate.
- Attackable Pickup: The soda can, which can be shot to launch it upwards (at which point it becomes a score bonus) and the live turkey, which can be turned into roast turkey. The crystal orbs shatter if you shoot them though, robbing you of a nice collection of points. Shooting all of them is one of the secret bonuses, but the 100,000 points that go with that almost certainly won’t cover the losses. The six pack item can also be accidentally shot down, which can be fatal if Duke is low on health.
- Against My Religion: Apparently, the reason the Rigelatins won't be Mercy Killing Duke after reducing him to a perpetual state of pain without being able to move any limbs is that their religion prohibits the interruption of suffering.
- Checkpoint: Most levels contain a checkpoint. Dying after hitting a checkpoint will respawn Duke with the same health and weapon/ammo he had upon hitting the checkpoint. There is no limit on how many times Duke can die afterwards, the progress in this level is no longer lost.
- Collision Damage: Everywhere.
- Cool Starship: A small ship Duke can pilot appears in some levels.
- Crazy-Prepared: The Explodo-Molar, which is basically a small bomb implanted to his molar.
- Deadly Force Field: The vertical energy beams that require a keycard to deactivate are a One-Hit Kill if you touch them. This can be quite a nasty surprise if you're used to the harmless ones in the first game.
- Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: Dying causes Duke to explode and reform at the last checkpoint but with any kills and collected items maintained. However, if Duke hasn't hit any checkpoint in the current level (whether he hasn't reached it yet or the level doesn't have one), then the progress is lost and the level is restarted from the beginning. This makes some longer and harder levels more frustrating. note .
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: "Well, took care of that guy pretty easy. Man, not enough action in this hole."
- Early-Installment Weirdness: Not as strange as its predecessor, as Duke is now a bit more in line with his later depictions, albeit sans any profanity or sexual content. But the game is still a bit on the quirky side and deals with Duke blowing his way through the Rigelatins and their captive races, which is more zany and cartoony sci-fi designs and tropes combined with a lot of Stuff Blowing Up mixed with extensive Bloodless Carnage. And if you play the older DOS releases, or even the newer Evercade release, Duke's still lacking his signature sunglasses. His iconic voice also hadn’t been developed at this point, so it’s pretty jarring hearing his one line of dialogue spoken in an Arnie impersonation.
- Exploding Barrels: Boxes containing bombs, and barrels of radioactive waste.
- Homage: The opening cutscene of Duke shooting a smiley face in a shooting range is a direct reference to Riggs doing the exact same thing in Lethal Weapon.
- Hopping Machine: A one-eyed, one legged robot.
- Idiosyncratic Difficulty Levels: Averted in the original PC version, although the difficulty select screen did note that easy mode had more items and fewer enemies, while hard mode had fewer items and more enemies. The Evercade port has these:
- Child’s Play - Easy: For players with no backbone or skill (shows a picture of Duke with a baby bonnet and pacifier)
- Groovy! - Medium: For experienced ass kickers (shows a picture of Duke smirking)
- Hail to the King! - Hard: For players who enjoy winning at life (shows a picture of Duke with sunglasses and a cigar)
- In a Single Bound: Duke can jump about 1.5x his height.
- Inexplicable Treasure Chests: The Rigelatins' base is filled with treasure yielding (or trapped) boxes.
- Despite trying to kill him, the Rigelatins seem to have quite a fondness for Duke Nukem memorabilia.
- Improbable Weapon User: To affect his escape from the Rigelatin brig, Duke uses his handy-dandy Explod-o-Molar to blow a hole in the wall of his cell. The PC original doesn't show how he used the tooth; the Game Boy Color Duke Nukem game, which borrows the story of this one, shows Duke removing the tooth in question and throwing it at the wall to blow it up.
- Instant Roast: Like in the first game, though this time the chicken starts out alive and probably running right at Duke, so he has to roast it fast. One shot is still all it takes.
- Invincibility Power-Up: The Cloaking Device, which also has the effect of turning Duke partially invisible. Additionally, one particular force field, the so-called Super Force Field, can only be defeated using one of these.
- Lampshade Hanging / Deadpan Snarker: Pretty much every line. It's easier to just let a few of Duke's quotes explain:
- Well, I guess I've had it. Unless those dopes didn't remove my secret Explodo-Molar. Oh, man— what a bunch of morons! And look...there's a gun locker right outside my cell!
- Ooh, man, there's no way outta here. I guess this is the end. Ol' Duke's finally done it. I guess I'll lean against this oozing, bulbous wall and wait for death.
- Hey, a secret passage! What luck! I hope there's something to destroy in here, I'm getting bored.
- Maybe if I jump into this live volcano, things'll liven up.
- Last Chance Hit Point: When Duke loses his final unit of health, instead of immediately dying, the empty units on the health bar will start to glow. One more hit in this state will be fatal, but any health pickups will turn the bar green again and start to restore empty units as normal. In addition, activating a checkpoint in this state will cause Duke to respawn with one health unit if he dies, allowing for two hits before death on the next attempt.
- One-Hit Polykill: The laser weapon.
- Poison Mushroom: Only appearing in the penultimate level of Episode 3 onwards, the weapon power-up marked with an N switches you back to your regular blaster, removing whatever more powerful weapon you had prior.
- Press X to Die: Episode 4 takes place inside of a spaceship in deep space and two levels (E4L5 and E4L6) have airlock doors that you can shoot open, causing Duke to get sucked out into space and die. Though this can easily happen by accident, making them a huge annoyance, especially as they also have turrets in front of them.
- Real Men Watch Oprah: Duke does, and he's annoyed that the Rigelatins are keeping him away from the TV.
- Retcon: A minor graphical example. When the game was re-released for modern computers, Duke's sprite was given his now-trademark sunglasses.
- Rocket Jump: To an extent, Flame Thrower. Requires skill and a healthy disregard for your own wellbeing.
- Score Screen: The games had tons of secrets and achievements that rewarded bonus points.
- Screen Shake: Used in some levels to simulate an unstable environment."E A R T H Q U A K E ! ! ! (Beat.) Wait, this is not Earth."
- Shareware: A shareware version has the first episode. The remaining three can be obtained by registering the game.
- Shooting Gallery: The pre-game cutscene shows Duke firing his pistol at a distant target. When he stops shooting, the paper target slowly retracts up the range for collection. The camera switches to Duke, then back to reveal his accuracy. He's ignored the scoring circles and instead made a smiley face out of bulletholes. Cue an obligatory "I'm Back."
- Shout-Out: Duke is dressed similar to Arnold Schwarzenegger in Last Action Hero and the first level's music has a very similar melody to "Angry Again" by Megadeth, all released the same year (1993).
- Steel Ear Drums: Lampshaded in the intro with Duke at a firing range. He fires his pistol freely, while safety glasses and earmuffs conspicuously hang on a safety regulation sign behind him.
- Spelling Bonus: Like in the first game, you can collect the letters N-U-K-E-M for bonus points, and are awarded more for getting them in the correct order.
- Utility Weapon: The flamethrower, which doubles as a jetpack when aimed downwards.
- Unwinnable: Right after getting the second blue key in E3L5, the player can jump over the pillar behind it and fall into a pit that's impossible to jump out of.
- Worst News Judgment Ever: "Ladies and gentlemen, one of our nation's heroes has disappeared! ...In other news, there's a four mile-wide UFO floating over Los Angeles. We'll be back after this commercial break with a cute little story about a three-legged dog who saved a baby."