Duke Nukem game order?

[ObsessiveSketch]

Growing up sheltered from all things Nukem, I'd like to grab an emulator and play through the original before DNF officially hits stores (and don't blame me for not playing it when I had the chance. The first Nukem game came out the same year I was born).

What I'm wondering is what are the official/worthwhile games in the franchise? I thought there'd be only 2 or 3, but it looks like there's at least 9 spinoff sequels! Which ones are considered the best, or part of the main continuum?

 

[Snork Maiden]

Get Duke Nukem 3D or earlier.

Actually, the important thing is to get Duke Nukem 3D because it's far and away the best one, and probably the most useful as a frame of reference if you wanna play DNF. The ones before that (*pr* sure there are only two, could be wrong) are platformers, but pretty good ones. I remember them being hard, but that was like 15 years ago so who knows.