Duke Nukem II [ BETA VERSION 1.4 ] - Episode 1 - Level 2 (1993) | 4K/60

This is my first playthough of the first episode of "DUKE NUKEM 2 : DISPOSABLE HERO - APOGEE - BETA VERSION 1.4". The oldest possible known build date in the files is September 1993. Really late build of the game almost to final version. This prototype got recovered from a Warez BBS (ibm-wgam-wbiz-collection - the BBS IBM #145 wares tape) and publushed on the 7th of July 2024. A fantastic find!
Download link: dosgamert.com/duke2beta
Here's a list of differences that I noticed between the final of the game:
- Animated cutscene at the beginning is made with an EGA palette and got replaced with VGA artwork in the final.
- Main menu is made out of blue shiney metal plates. The hole main menu got a slight overhaul.
- Dynamite Explosives have an extra explosion in the middle, have a wider range and doesn't damage enemies or open up other crates.
- Spinning turrets can only be destroyed with rockets, not with the laser nor flamethrower.
- Some pickups are different, now you have joysticks and RAM-modules to collect too.
- Teleport sound effects are different.
- Sound effect for collecing the last NUKEM letter is less noticable.
- Flying TV's have different texts on them.
- Color of the scoreboard numbers at the end of a level is blue, instead of green.
- Flamethrower power-up is present in the second level. It's removed from the fourth level.
- Small level design changes like the rock below the ladder in the top middle of level 2.
- Some enemies take less damage to be killed, like the spiders.
- Shooting enemies that are on the same tile will damage them both instead of only just one. This way you can kill two spiders with one bullet.
- The birds on level 2 behave a bit different and will fly down towards you one tile left from you, and won't hit you by their attack. Giving you a more fair chance not to get hit by them.
- On level 3 and level 5 there's a mid-level checkpoint. They're completely different, they burst into electric red flames, touching them will kill you, preventing you to go back.
- If you try to land on the air-fans in level 5 you'll fall through, causing you to die (falling through the bottom of the level).
- The large Rigelatin-enemy protecting the base you need to enter cloaked on level 6 is absent.
- Cloaking power-up is also present in level 7.
- On the level 8 boss-stage, you can jump over the gap to the other side and get more pickups.
- Not entirely sure, but I think the boss takes more hits to kill.
---------------------------------------------
MS-DOS Gaming gameplay videos for all of you retrogamers in Full HD/60 FPS 🎮🕹️!
🌐 // Website // ------- dosgamert.com
📢 // Discord // ------- discord.dosgamert.com
☕ // Donate // ------- ko-fi.com/dosgamert
🧪 // Streamlabs // - streamlabs.com/dosgamert
📷 // Threads // ------- threads.com/Dosgamert
👕 // RedBubble // --- rdbl.co/3gTZxe9
💸 // Membership //- bit.ly/dosgamert
#retrogaming #dosgames #dukenukem

[@Sitharos]

Thank you so much for this! I LOVE this game! 😄

[@lethal_guitar]

The radar count computer terminal looks different - looks a bit like placeholder art. Also noticed that the loading screen always has 4 vertical vents on the gun, whereas the release version has a number matching the current episode

[@Jenkinsmum]

Apparently the bombs you uncover from the red boxes don't destroy over boxes so there's less chance of your sodas getting wasted. If only they kept it that way in the Easy difficulty of the official game.