Review Duke Nukem Collection 2 (Evercade) - A Trio Of Duke's Less Essential Adventures

Although Duke Nukem's history is filled with notable titles – the much-delayed Duke Nukem Forever being perhaps the most infamous of all – it's fair to say that his most beloved game is 1996's Duke Nukem 3D, an FPS classic which stuck its middle finger up at the likes of Doom and Quake and charted its own, family-unfriendly path to mainstream success.

There's more to Duke's story than just that one game, however, and Blaze has done an excellent job of highlighting this with its two Evercade-based Duke Nukem Collections. While the first entry features fantastic remasters of The King's two MS-DOS platforming adventures (and a console port of Duke Nukem 3D), this second pack takes aim at some of his later titles, namely the n-Space-developed PlayStation outings Time to Kill and Land of the Babes, and the GBA game Duke Nukem Advance – which, despite the initial impression of being a Duke Nukem 3D port is actually an all-new experience in terms of level design and story.

The big issue with this second collection is that none of the games included in it are what you'd call essential unless you're a hardcore Duke fan; Time to Kill and Land of the Babes are third-person adventures which play more like Tomb Raider than anything else (Time to Kill was even referred to as "Duke Raider" during development), and while both games are relatively entertaining (not to mention amusing), they're not in the same league as Lara Croft's escapades (Land of the Babes also features some of the most alarming boob physics we've ever witnessed during its dubious pre-rendered cutscenes).

Duke Nukem Advance, on the other hand, is a technical marvel when you consider it's running on the GBA. Effortlessly one of the best first-person shooters on Nintendo's handheld, it offers an all-new campaign to play through – but it never comes close to reaching the magnificent heights of Duke 3D, the game it's desperately trying to emulate.

The end result is that Duke Nukem Collection 2 feels somewhat superfluous, especially when compared to the first collection, which showcases some stellar remaster work by Blaze. Fans of the crude, shade-wearing anti-hero will no doubt find a lot to like here, though – while these aren't three of Duke's most essential outings, they're still worth a look if you can't get enough of the character.