Technologically it looked very well for its time, but mostly it stand out as a game with "character" (art design, levels, weapons, sound effects, voice acting,

Technologically it looked very well for its time, but mostly it stand out as a game with "character" (art design, levels, weapons, sound effects, voice acting, writing). It was so cheesy and over the top that it became masterpiece (like Tarantino / Rodriguez movies, or recent Old Spice commercials). id soft may have had technologically superior games (Quake is about the same age and had full 3d models instead of just sprites) but they were incomparably bland compared to Duke Nukem. Also, gameplay was really fun. There were some very inspired gameplay elements: shrink and freeze guns, laser traps, remote triggered pipe-bombs, jetpacks. I still fondly remember multiplayer Duke sessions late in the night at lab in my university.