Duke Nukem (video game)

Duke Nukem
Part of the Duke Nukem series
Genre(s)	Platform game
Year of Release	1991
Platform(s)	DOS
Developer(s)	Apogee Software
Publisher(s)	Apogee Software
Official Website	www.3drealms.com/duke1/index.html

Duke Nukem a platform game developed and published by Apogee Software. It is the first in the series of Duke Nukem games, and was released on 1st July 1991.

Plot

In the year 1997 a radiation accident had altered the Doctor Proton's brain. Fleeing to the underworld he created an army of robots, known as Techbots. Doctor Proton and his army of Techbots have now taken control of the largest city on Earth, Shrapnel City!

Duke Nukem has been hired by the CIA and is Earth's final chance to stop the crazed doctor. Armed only with his CIA prototype nuclear pistol, he is the one person why even stands a chance at success.

Episode one takes place in Shrapnel City. Nukem is to be flown in by aeroplane and dropped on top of a huge skyscraper. Nukem must find his way down and proceed to Dr. Proton's hideout, which is believed to be hidden deep underground. Episode two sends Nukem to the moon to battle Dr. Proton as he plans his second assault on Earth. Finally episode three sends Nukem into the future to stop Dr Proton from completing his maniacal plan to rule the world.

Name confusion

Whilst the correct original title for the game is Duke Nukem, it can often be seen credited as Duke Nukum. Some time after the original release Apogee became aware that in the TV series Captain Planet and the Planeteers one recurring villain was called Duke Nukem. Believing the name copyrighted they quickly changed the spelling of the title to Duke Nukum. Later they discovered that the original name was not copyrighted at all, so they copyrighted it for themselves and reverted to using the original name.

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.

Cheats

A number of cheats were included with the game. At any time, pressing the backspace and page down keys simultaneously would give the player a fully-powered weapon, full health and all of the keys. Also, the game could be started in cheat mode by passing the asp parameter when starting the game. If this was done then the player could at any point type 'GOD' in order to gain all the items, or 'GOW' in order to skip to the next level.