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What´s the similarity between Marusha, Donald Trump and The Undertaker? Yeah right, they would burst with joy if they´d know about this game! Duke Nukem is shooting himself through the world of the Master System now.. and lets no single pink bunny alive!

Facts:
Developer/Publisher: Révo, Tibone & Calindro
Platform: Sega Master System
Release: 25.05.2017
Genre: Shoot´em Up
Players: 1
Rating: 16+

Development

On may 12th 2015, Révo from France revealed his newest project on SMS Power!: Duke Nukem for the Sega Master System. It is based on an editor called KiddEd that has been programmed by Calindro. With Calindro´s help, Révo successfully worked on the development of this hack. The levels were all designed by Révo. Watain added some extra artwork to this project and Maxim gets mentioned with PCMenc.
Tibone is the composer of the soundtrack and sound effects. On the pages 16 and 17 of the instruction manual, he explains everything about the soundtrack in detail. Some tracks are from other Duke Nukem games and he made these tracks suitable for the Master System in four channels. Some tracks are written by Lee Jackson, Bobby Prince and Ratatat. The OST is included as a special music cassette.
The SEGA logo is shown on the cover, but the game is not officially licensed by them. It was intended to look like an authentic Master System cover, that´s why the logo got included. During the release of the game, Révo announced in a newsletter that the first player who finishes the game will get a full refund. At the end of every level, the player finds a word. And at the end of the game, it´s a full sentence; that sentence had to be sent to Révo. A forum member of the website Master System France was the winner.
The case is brand new, cover and instruction manual in very good quality (whereby it has a different size in length so it doesn´t fit perfectly into the clamshells) and the game carts are used. There was some hope to get brand new cart shells, but this plan didn´t worked out. The cover of the music cassette looks pretty good as well and the title list is printed on the inner site. Release day was the 25th of february 2017.

Duke Nukem for the Sega Master System including soundtrack MC

Gameplay

Here´s the story, taken from the game´s instruction manual: 2024, some robots started to become pretty smart, especially the one made by the company Duracell, some pink bunny with very long battery life. Around a king, they formed a gigantic army of various machines and strange animals. For sex experimentation, they decided to kidnap all the hot girls (even the red head ones) of your country, the MNUSNA (which stands for: Mother Nation of the United States of America; the country previously known as USA before Trump changed it´s name in 2019). You, as Duke Nukem, have to find the Bunny King and kill him. But before you have to kill all of his army in different levels on earth and in space. So what are you waiting for? Let´s rock!
Mr. Trump would be glad to be mentioned in this awesome game for sure! The controls are simple: Button 1 for jumping and button 2 for shooting. The pause button brings you to a very interesting screen.. The player starts the game with 4 lives, but there are much more lives to find in red boxes. If all lives are lost, the player gets a Game Over scr... oh no, the ´YOU SUCK!´ screen and you can hear the famous funeral march. The Undertaker would be happy about this and would say ´Rest in Peace´ again. With 500 collected Bitcoins you get a continue automatically. Bitcoins can be collected in the form of soda, football balls, floppy disks and radios. With four special items, you can reach a special bonus stage at the end. There are 10 different sorts of monsters and two bosses to beat, although most of them are the legendary pink Duracell bunnies. They are in a pretty cranky mood and throw some red missiles on you – only Marusha would be amazed by seeing those pissed pink bunnies and would sing ´Somewhere over the Rainbow´ again.
On the title screen, the player gets a warm welcome by Duke himself, who is saying one of his most famous catchphrases – in an amazing sound quality. In level 1, you instantly look at the very nice nightsky that´s not so see in every Master System game in such a shape. The game contains some awesome graphics in general with many sweet details. The level designs are somewhat strange sometimes, but they are good in overall. There are many nice little details to find: Rifts in the walls, cameras (which are also to be used as platforms), small ventilation shafts and boxes with a clear wooden structure. The grounds and walls made of stone are also looking good. The frightened looking, flying flames are super awesome as well – to mention the enemies once again.
Duke loses a life when he touches a so called red zone; that´s some small red balls which are spread all over the game. It is also possible to fall into pits. The levels vary a lot when it comes to design and colour pallette, which brings a lot of variation into it. There´s a level where Duke is flying through space with a jetpack - accentuated by a very genious music track – and shoots down different enemies. Another level plays in a cave with some fresh green and grey tones. At one point, Duke uses an arcade machine to play a video game by himself which makes the game even better in variety. The soundtrack fits into all the levels perfectly. At the end of every level, Duke collects a sweet little Master System.
Controls and jumping physics are well balanced. There are no bugs as well, which is simply amazing. If Duke gets bored because of you getting an overdose of camomile tea that made you fall into sleep before TV, he grabs a roach and takes a joyful pull – very awesome!

Gordman´s Opinion

I largely like Duke Nukem a lot. Only the level designs are something odd now and then. In level 3 you get the opportunity to drive a motorcycle. At a specific point, it´s impossible to move on without that bike; in this case it´s a specific platform that can´t be reached by a normal jump. The result is a lost 1-Up and I think that this level, where you lose a lot of lives anyway when you play it for the first few times, is hard enough and it should be possible to be completed without this barrier. Admittedly, you collect many lives throughout the game and get some continues, but I think that point is just unneccessary. Many games have traps like these and I´m not a fan of it. It´s partially unfair in level 7 as well. There was one point where I had so many troubles to overcome that I was nearly giving the game up entirely. You are walking complety in shadow areas and have to try many different things. In the last level, I was falling into a pit and instictively killed the enemy in it, which made it impossible to move on in the game. I was trapped in there, since there was no exit, no timer or a self-destruction function. The result: Restart, with 10 lives in the bag. You really have to play the game continuously if you wanna see the ending. Despite the criticisms, I was unable to stop playing.
The humor of the game is a bit typical Duke Nukem, a bit typical Révo. Although many people don´t share his points of view, I began to like the game´s humor the more I played it. If you have a full game set for this console, Révo´s hommage to Duke Nukem is definitely something that shines out of it. And he doesn´t recommends the game for people under 16 years for nothing.
In the instruction manual, there´s a note that the flying robots could be able to follow Duke and, if they get not shot, create some bugs in the game. But I was unable to determine anything regarding this, so it has probably something to do with a secret. Game and box are in great shape, there are only a few mistakes in the german translation. I like the brand new clamshell case and it was a great feeling to hold it in my hands for the first time. Overall, Duke Nukem is a game that has to be on your radar if you like this console. Révo surely doesn´t sell it forever. Graphics, gameplay and music are amazing and especially Tibone has surpassed himself with the soundtrack. He should definitely move on with composing for the 8 bit legend. I am also amazed about the performance of the Alex Kidd in Miracle World engine. It´s a pity that a sequel of this game was never released, based on that engine. But the first game keeps it´s special magic that way. Duke Nukem has a lot of replay value as well, ´cause under some circumstances you can reach a bonus stage at the end. A great game with a great story about the legendary Duracell plush bunnies!

All screenshots and photos used in this article belong to their respective owners and are just for information. Thanks to SMS Power! for the screenshots. Gordman´s Game Treasure has the permission of Revó to release his e-mail adress for promotional reasons.