About

Duke Nukem is a first-person shooter video game series created by 3D Realms. The game centers around the protagonist Duke Nukem, a fictional character designed with various tropes associated with 1980s action film heroes.

History

On July 1st, 1991, the first Duke Nukem video game was released for the MS-DOS (shown below, left). The game follows Duke Nukem in the year 1997 as he tries to stop a mad scientist named Dr. Proton from taking over the world with his army of techbots. On December 3rd, 1993, Duke Nukem II was released for the MS-DOS (shown below, right). The game takes place one year after the events of the first game and once again follows Duke Nukem as he fights against an alien race known as the Rigelatins who are attempting to take over the earth. Unlike later titles in the series, The first 2 games were third-person platformers.

On January 29th, 1996, Duke Nukem 3D was released for the MS-DOS (shown below). The story takes place right after the events of Duke Nukem II as Duke must travel to various locations to stop an alien invasion on earth. Duke Nukem 3D is the first game in the series that replaces the third-person platforming gameplay from previous games in favor towards a first-person shooter.

On June 10th, 2011, Duke Nukem Forever was released for the PS3, Xbox 360. and PC. Originally developed by 3D Realms, the game went into development hell for 15 years before finally being picked up by 2K Games and developed by Gearbox Software and Piranha Games. The story takes place 12 years after the events of Duke Nukem 3D as Duke must once again face off against an invading alien force who have come for revenge against the hero.

Reception

Duke Nukem has been both praised and criticized by critics for its use of themes such as violence, sexuality, drugs, obscenities and others that were considered taboo at the time. Duke Nukem 3D is highly regarded to be the best in the series, selling over 3.5 million copies and scoring a 89 metascore on metacritic^[1].

Online Relevance

On September 10th, 2003, Urban Dictionary user Acid^Rogue submitted an entry regarding the character Duke^[5]. On August 14th, 2004, Urban Dictionary user "do I have to put something here?" submitted an entry regarding Duke Nukem Forever^[6]. A Facebook page dedicated to Duke Nukem was created which gathered over 379.000 likes as of August, 2015^[7]. Discussions regarding the series can be found on a number of websites such as 4chan^[8], Gamefaqs^[10], and Tumblr^[9].

Fanart

On the art sharing site DeviantArt, typing the keyword "Duke Nukem" would yield more than 6.200 results.^[11]

Related Memes

I'm Here To Kick Ass And Chew Bubblegum

I'm Here To Kick Ass and Chew Bubblegum or It's Time To Kick Ass and Chew Bubblegum, and I'm All Out of Gum is a memorable quote uttered by Duke in the 1996 video game Duke Nukem 3D. While the quote itself originated from the 1988 movie They Live, it later became popularize by Duke which has since become the one of the main catchphrases in the series.

Good Plan, Duke!

Good Plan, Duke! refers to a series of user-created drawings on a dry-erase board in Gearbox Software’s Duke Nukem Forever. As the name suggests, the drawing that the user creates game is complimented by another character in the game, regardless of what the drawing represents

Ventrilo Harassment

Ventrilo Harassment is a form of trolling on the Ventrilo system by means of audio clips from various characters. One of the most well known videos is a recording of Ventrilo Harassment using audio clips from Duke Nukem, which was first uploaded by Youtuber Videocompilertest; the video has since been removed from Youtube. The video was re-uploaded by Youtuber OxYgEnX on July 31st, 2007, and has amassed over 8 million views as of August 2015.^[12] Videocompilertest, under a new Youtube handle as SuperVideoCompiler, also re-uploaded the video (shown below) in June 2009.

Search Interest

External References