Duke Nukem existed before he could perceive three dimensions

destructoid.com:

I simultaneously subscribe to two opposing beliefs about Duke Nukem. The first is that, anecdotally, many people don’t recall or even realize that there were two games starring the character before Duke Nukem 3D. The second is that everyone who owned a capable PC in the early 90s played Duke’s first adventures. In either case, Duke Nukem 3D greatly overshadowed the games that came before it.

Apogee’s shareware distribution model meant that the first episode of many of their games were completely free. This put games like Duke Nukem on a lot of hard drives, even before the internet was really widespread. People selling Intel-based PC-compatibles could load the systems up with these games, then advertise them as additional features. Buying a computer for work? Well, the kids might dig these games. You should definitely spring for the 486 model.

It’s this practice that made me a fan of Duke Nukem even before he was spitting wisecracks. My Aunt owned an IBM PC, and she had the shareware version of Duke Nukem. When my family finally got a computer, it had the first episode on it. By the time the character started doing his best Ash Williams impression, I was already indoctrinated.

Duke Nukem first hit computers in 1991. The Sega Genesis had already been on the scene for two years, and the SNES came out that same year, but this is what games on DOS looked like. It’s easy to see PCs as a bastion for cutting-edge tech nowadays, but at the time, compatibility was king, which typically meant supporting the 8088 processor. Commander Keen: Invasion of the Vorticons came out in 1990 and was fancy enough that you needed a 286 at the minimum, but I’m getting carried away here.

What I’m saying is that, yes, Duke Nukem is kind of ugly