Duke Nukem: Zero Hour

The Future is in His Hands.

Duke Nukem: Zero Hour is a 1998 first-person shooter game in the Duke Nukem series, developed by Eurocom and published by GT Interactive for the Nintendo 64. The game uses a relatively large 32 megabyte cartridge and can also use the Expansion Pak to improve graphics, though this slows down the frame rate. It features a 4-player split-screen multiplayer mode that uses a first-person view.

Quick Facts

First appears: Duke Nukem: Zero Hour (1998)

Lore & Background

The plot revolves around time traveling aliens attempting to alter the course of history by eliminating Duke's ancestors. Duke is called into action by the government as aliens have once again landed and are wreaking havoc. Duke battles the alien menace through the streets of New York with the help of some Marines and eventually gains access to the Statue of Liberty. There, Duke uncovers the aliens' true plan: to travel back in time and alter historical events.

However, during the fight, Duke is teleported to a parallel timeline/future where the aliens have won, and humans are on the brink of extinction. In this future, Duke battles new alien breeds and the zombified corpses of those who didn't survive the fallout. He eventually meets a small band of resistance fighters in the remnants of the U.S. Army headquarters in New York. The resistance informs Duke that the aliens are tampering with history, creating alternate futures.

To restore the original timeline, Duke must fight back. The humans have developed a time machine to send a soldier back to rewrite history and destroy the aliens. Duke is sent to the Old West, where the aliens have taken control of parts of the American frontier and plan to detonate a bomb in Earth's core. In the Old West, Duke faces technical difficulties that force him to rely mostly on period-appropriate weapons, although a few of his modern weapons are sent back by his allies.

The aliens have begun creating super-soldiers. After destroying a ship carrying the super-soldiers, Duke heads to Roswell, where he prevents the aliens from detonating the bomb. Duke is then informed that the aliens have also traveled to the Victorian Era in London. In Victorian London, Duke faces the alien-created biological weapons.

Zombies roam the streets, and Brains float in the air. Duke defeats a mini-boss, the infamous Jack the Ripper. Duke fights his way toward a castle that the aliens have seized, blowing up a Zeppelin along the way. Inside the castle, he confronts the most horrific of the aliens' creations and finally faces off against the alien general—a giant brain.

After destroying the castle and neutralizing the alien threat in this time period, Duke is ready for some rest and relaxation. Unfortunately, the aliens have caused a rift in the space-time continuum, and now more aliens from various points in history are flooding into New York.