Considering how censored the Duke Nukem 3D port on N64 was, it’s surprising that the N64 got its own Duke Nukem game, but Eurocom ended up making Zero Hour just for the N64. From the censorship side of things, it works much, much better as things are catered to what Nintendo allowed on the console, rather than covering up what was already there – the game even makes fun of Nintendo for their rules.

The story this time is that the aliens have travelled back in time to prepare Earth for invasion, causing a zombie outbreak and nuclear war. It’s up to Duke to travel back and fix things.

Zero Hour also brings a perspective shift into third person, with the game having plenty of control options, which makes the game feel more modern (except for the inability to turn off inverted aiming). Jumping is fairly stiff, but the gunplay feels pretty great.

When you’re in the thick of action, the game is great. Enemy body parts come off in a satisfying way, and there’s a good variety of weapons to dish out damage with.

What does let the game down is the level design. There isn’t a lot of time travelling – you see a post-apocalyptic future, go to a Western town, then Victorian era Britain (you do get to see an airship and a Scottish castle), and back to the present for the finale. I feel like some of these could have been shortened to make way for a few more timezones.

The levels themselves are also made to torment you. It’s much easier to find secret areas than it is to progress in some levels, due to annoying design, hidden keys, switches that blend into the background, and some doors/teleporters/drops that just send you backwards in the level. Sometimes you’ll need to kill all enemies before a door randomly opens, but there’s a significant delay, so you’ll often presume it’s one of the many doors in the game that are never used and move on.

This brings a lot of frustration, especially as the levels are very long and there are no checkpoints or saves during levels. If you want to visit the secret location (the Titanic), then you’ll also need to find a hidden piece of a time machine in each level.

Zero Hour is really good during combat, but in between combat is a lot of aimless walking around in circles.

Fun

Above all, Zero Hour has realised that shoot-’em-ups can’t simply be a procession of things to shoot in a series of identical futirustic dungeons. Post-GoldenEye, N64 owners demand realism, variation and fresh ideas, and Duke doesn’t disapoint. The finished game could have odne with a couple more time zones, a greater selection of enemies and a little less switch-flicking, but it’s refreshing to see a game with so much time and care put into it. As duke himself would no doubt say, “Go get some”.

Mark Green, N64 Magazine 28. Review Score: 90%

Remake or remaster?

A remaster collection of the Duke 3rd person shooters – Time to Kill, Zero Hour and Land of the Babes – would be great.

Official ways to get the game.

There is no official way to get Duke Nukem: Zero Hour.