Duke Nukem: Zero Hour

Ahhhhh. After month after month of tedious braindead racing games and 17 million utterly indistinguishable American sports titles, it's as refreshing as a blast of pure oxygen at 3C to get a game into the office that someone might actually want to play. That's a revolutionary concept that some companies might care to take on board, eh? Next thing you know, they'll be announcing at least 50 new games each month and getting them out faster than a lap dancer with an overdraft. No, that's pure fantasy. Never happen.

Duke Nukem: Zero Hour is the stopper of videogaming rot in question. While it's not going to be exploding the pants of techno-geeks with its radical technology or being applauded by the Booker Prize people for its delicate, multilayered storyline, it should at least be ringing the tills down at Game (or Electronics Boutique, since they're now the same thing). You start playing, you kill things, you keep playing. It's this latter part that seems to have confounded a lot of games of late. You probably know who Duke Nukem is by now. For those who haven't had the pleasure, he's every Hollywood hero of the past decade dropped into a blender, reconstituted into the body of a WWF wrestler, injected with enough testosterone to turn the population of Newcastle-upon-Tyne bald and given a Johnny Bravo haircut. This means a bad attitude, more guns than a Montana militiaman's ranch and a lengthy list of vaguely relevant moments. Duke's stock-in-trade is the extermination of 'alien scum' (is there any other sort?) and the rescuing of scantily-clad 'babes', all of the latter being keen to thank the sandpaper-larynxed hero in ways Nintendo won't allow to be shown.

Come Get Some

Duke Nukem: Zero Hour is business as usual for the Nukemeister; aliens have invaded and must be destroyed. The twist this time round is that they're using time travel to attack Earth in the past so that they can eliminate the present. Naturally, Duke is so indescribably hard that he's not affected by time travel technobabble, and spends much of the game travelling from one time period to another in order to set matters right. By killing things.

Duke's latest adventure differs from his first N64 outing, the paragon of titling imagination that was Duke Nukem 64, in that Duke now appears on screen, much like Lara Croft in the Tomb Raider games. (In fact, Zero Hour was originally going to be called Duke Raider, though doubtless some lawyer didn't see the funny side.) Duke is moved by using the C buttons a la Turok, and his many weapons are aimed with the analogue stick. It sounds worryingly complicated, but turns out to be surprisingly effective. Strafing moves are now a doddle, and to ease you into the method, all of Duke's early weapons feature laser sights. There's even an auto-aim option that instantly pops the little red dot of death right onto the heart of the nearest bad guy.

The boy Nukem has also become nearly as agile as Ms Croft. He shoots! He runs! He jumps! He climbs! He swims! He scratches his arse if you leave him standing still for too long! Mainly he shoots, though.

Sucking chest wounds the size of woks

Unlike the first game, which looked somewhat dated by using flat sprites to represent enemies, Zero Hour finally gets with the program and makes use of polygons. Compared to Turok 2, the current benchmark for bad guy animation, Zero Hour's villains are a bit clunky and stiff, and the more sadistic will be disappointed at the low-impact death routines. Heads may spin through the air like basketballs and sucking chest wounds the size of woks may open ventilation holes right through torsos, but they don't prompt any cries of "hoo-yeah!" Seeing enemies slump to their knees, clutching at their shredded crotch areas, is still amusing, though.

Groovy

Zero Hour is Expansion Pak compatible, and it makes quite a difference. Although the lo-res, unexpanded game's visuals are serviceable enough, the Expansion Pak lets you pick out enemies against the background from a distance. This is really the game's biggest graphical flaw — the textures used for the scenery are usually repetitive and not very interesting. Rock faces look more like wallpaper from B&Q's new paranoid depressive range. Most levels are also quite dark; this might be in keeping with the feel of the game, but it makes everything blend together into a mush.

Take The Train

Before the game begins, Duke starts off in an underground complex. If you want, you can just run straight to the hangar and be whisked to New York in a gunship, but first-time players might as well get some practice in before doing some alien-killing in earnest. The training complex lets Duke hone up his skills at climbing, shooting, switch operating and, er, gasmask donning — all useful skills in the levels ahead!

The levels themselves, despite the general blandness of the backdrops, are full of smart touches (the chortlesome double-entendres filling the first few levels are merely the most obvious) and it's rare that you get frustrated by an apparent lack of progress. If you do get stuck, there's a handy pocket TV in your inventory that tells you Duke's current mission objectives. This being the kind of game where the biggest problem is how to get brain matter off the sole of your boot, the puzzles you encounter are more or less limited to 'find-key-open-door' brain-nonteasers. There are plenty of surprises along the way to saving the world, with a number of missions featuring unexpected time limits that kick the old adrenaline glands into action. An early timed challenge gives you a worryingly short amount of time to break through enemy lines and find your way into a military base before it's overrun, and later, when you're aboard the Titanic... well, you know what happened to that particular boat.

Does It Hurt?

Zero Hour's other big feature is its highly amusing deathmatch game. Initially you only get to choose between a selection of Dukes, but as you open up more levels, other combatants appear (see boxout). In this mode, the game is played from a first-person viewpoint, like Goldeneye.

I'm The King Of The World

One level sees Duke aboard the Titanic with the mission of stopping it reaching its destination, for reasons to complicated to explain. But what's this in the cargo hold?

The levels look fairly bland, sharing the same unimaginative textures of the one-player game, but unlike some four-player shooters the levels are geared to different kinds of gameplay. Rocky Knoll is a sniper's paradise, with lots of high vantage points to send other players' heads back and to the left, while Atomic is tiny and ideally suited to mad running around firing off shotgun blasts at anything that moves, and Catacombs is a dark level where the first person to grab night vision goggles is at a distinct advantage.

In play, the deathmatch games are generally speedy, slowdown only really becoming noticeable when explosions fill the screen. It's also a lot of fun — when you get killed you can drop instantly back into play (unlike Goldeneye, where there are several infuriating seconds before reincarnation) and you always begin with a weapon, ending those 'oh no, I'm a slapper' blues. As to whether it's a better multiplayer game than Goldeneye... eeeeeeh, no. Not quite. Rare's game is still the perfect skill thrill kill, but Zero Hour isn't far behind. It certainly held everyone's interest for longer than Turok 2's deathmatch game.

Your Face, Your Ass

And now, the inevitable complaining part of the review. As well as the aforementioned muddy visuals, it's a pity there weren't more different enemies to shoot. Sure, the Pigs change their costumes to suit the era, but they still behave in exactly the same way — as thick as the Pig Cops and Enforcers who make up the bulk of his opposition.

WIN! TEN COPIES OF DUKE NUKEM: ZERO HOUR!

When you need to save the world, you don't waste time with lame-os like Arnie or Sly or (god forbid) Jean-Claude. You go straight to the top of the beefcake chain and ask for the man himself, Dukeston J Nukem, Esq! Ten bicep-flexingly fortunate readers of 64 Magazine will be able to guide Mr Nukem through his world-saving exploits absolutely gratis, courtesy of those fine fellows at GT Interactive.

In the tradition of 64 Magazine competitions, we've decided to make things as easy as blowing the head off a zombie. Just send in the answers to the following Duke-related questions on a postcard, and the flat-topped hardman could be insulting you in the comfort of your own home!

Faces Of Death

New characters for the deathmatch games are accessed by completing levels of the one-player game (just make sure you remember to save). There are 29 different characters in all, ranging from the classic Duke Nukem, through his various different outfits for each time zone, all the way to the Pig Cops and Enforcers who make up the bulk of his opposition. Choose one of these badasses, and blow the others away!

Speaking of the bosses, wouldn't it be great if a game came up with a boss that actually required a bit of imagination and ingenuity to defeat? Zero Hour isn't that game, because taking down a boss follows the traditional routine of unleashing thousands of rounds into them until they fall over. Sooner or later, a designer is going to be hit by a brainstorm and realise that this does get rather tedious. Apart from these moans, and the fact that Duke's jumping ability is a bit clumsy for a game that has a few sections that require precise leaps, Duke Nukem: Zero Hour is a refreshingly playable game, which stands out like a basketball player in a nursery from the tide of plain averageness that seems to have washed over the N64 since Zelda. No bull, just a big man with a big gun and an awful lot of targets. It's what videogames are all about.

Who makes Bruce Willis look like Bruce Forsyth? Who makes Arnie look like Annie? Who makes Sylvester Stallone look like Sylvester the cat? Who makes Wesley Snipes look like Wesley Crusher? Who makes [enough – Ed]. Duke Nukem, that’s who!

If you’ve been living down a mine for the past ten years, which is pretty unlikely as they’ve all been closed down, you might not have heard of Duke Nukem. He’s a combination of just about every over-the-top action hero you can think of, a gun-toting hunk with a perfect flat-top haircut, who shrugs off injuries like being pierced through the chest by a girder as just a flesh wound and has a cheesy wisecrack ready on his sneering lips for every time he kills a bad guy. That’s a lot of wisecracks.

In case you were wondering, Duke’s creators were taking the mick. That hasn’t stopped Hollywood, that fabulous land of No Irony, from signing up the movie rights to Duke Nukem...

Aw, Does It Hurt?

Duke Nukem: Zero Hour is Duke’s second visit to the N64. Originally called Duke Nukem: Time To Kill and planned to be similar to the PlayStation game of the same name, Duke’s developers thought they could do better than the grey box’s Tomb Raider in spades. So they have!

Fnarr! Fnarr!

The developers of Duke Nukem: Zero Hour, being British, haven’t missed a single opportunity for puerile double entendres. Good for them! Shop names, adverts, posters... Duke can hardly take a step without the flaring-nostrilled spirit of Kenneth Williams haunting him. But will Nintendo be quite so amused? The only thing that the N64 and PlayStation games have in common is a time travel theme. The usual evil aliens have attacked Earth and kidnapped its babes, as they do, and to make sure that Duke Nukem can’t foil them this time they’ve sent their forces back in time to conquer the planet before he was even born. Well, Duke isn’t going to stand for this, so he follows them back into the past to introduce them to some friends of his – Mr Smith and Mr Wesson.

Duke Nukem: Time To Kill on the PlayStation turned Duke into Lara Croft, but with a slightly smaller chest – loads of leaping from platforms, solving puzzles and climbing things. N64 Duke naturally sneered at this and chose instead to kill lots of bad guys with heavy ordnance. There is some climbing about and the occasional key to locate, but most of Duke’s time is spent running around with the comforting feel of a gun bucking in his hands. That’s the way he likes it, baby! Duke uses the Turok control system – C buttons to move, analogue stick to aim – but unlike Acclaim’s feather-headed hero, Duke is visible on the screen at all times. The boy Nukem can run in one direction while shooting in another, twisting at the waist as he clumps along in his mighty DMs. With a gun in each hand, he’s a veritable god of destruction!

Did I Break Your Concentration?

Duke’s temporal travels begin in the present, where New York has fallen under alien attack, and quickly take him forward to a post-apocalyptic future where not even a nuclear winter can make our hero wear anything more warming than a t-shirt. A jaunt back to the Wild West pits Duke against the familiar Pig Cops, now dressed as cowboys and indians, then it’s just a short hop to the fog of Victorian London. For some reason, the cobbled streets are rife with zombies, but they explode into bloody chunks when hit by high explosive ammo just like anyone else!

The last set of levels sees Duke head for the alien base to treat them to his special brand of peace talks – not so much “surrender or die!” as “surrender and die!” When the ultimate boss is destroyed, the world will be safe for Duke to grind out his gravel-voiced quips to appreciative babes once again.

You'd be forgiven W for thinking that Zero Hour looks just a bit like the recently released PlayStation title, Time to Kill. Both games star Duke, both are full-on 3D fests and both could be pinned with the tag "Duke Raider." Upon closer inspection, the similarities are even more pronounced...both games are third-person action/adventure hybrids (although Zero Hour can be played in first-person mode too), both games have a lot of speech, and both deal with time travel as a major plot point. But they aren't the same game.

The story deals with aliens screwing around with the fabric of time in order to take over the world, and yet again (Time to Kill-style), one of their major goals is to kill off all of Duke's ancestors. As you'd expect from a multigame franchise star like Duke, his ancestors have all been terribly important figures in conveniently action-oriented periods of time. Cowboys, posh-people and Victorian dapper folk all make an appearance throughout the game as Duke is faced with variations on Pig-Cops decked out like native American warriors, outlaws and alley-dwelling muggers with switchblades. Play through the Victorian London level and you'll eventually end up on a certain overexposed ship just before it has its tiff with an iceberg.

The action doesn't just take place in the distant past though, Duke also has to travel to the streets of L.A. as seen in Duke Nukem 3D (the whole first level is in there) as well as present day and futuristic, post-apocalyptic streets of New York.

As far as the gameplay goes, this is looking to be pretty much what you'd expect from the Duke-churning-out-machine. He runs, he jumps, he shoots stuff, he blows stuff up, he wisecracks...he runs through a one-player adventure, or he lets you death(Duke)match with up to four players. It's nothing unexpected...but that's nothing bad. The Duke ain't broke, so there's no need to fix him. Yet.

It has to be noted that the graphics engine employed by developers Eurocom is actually pretty impressive. All of the locations in the game give a good impression of scale, with the streets of New York being worthy of particular note. Running along the streets and looking up at the sky really shows off the engine as the skyscrapers reach upward in a very convincing manner. Everything appears to be running in a resolution higher than your standard N64 blur-o-vision, and the team at GT assures us the game will support the 4-Meg pack to give the graphics an even sharper and smoother edge.

Cruelty To Pigs

You are Duke Nukem, gun-toting, pig-shooting superstar. Your 21-level mission is to travel through time, blowing away alien scum leaving nothing behind but a dirty great trail of corpses and blood stains. And you're going to really enjoy doing it.

Duke's new third-person view hasn't affected the way the game plays - in fact, it works exactly like a traditional Doom-style blaster. Duke's Lara Croft pretensions are limited to a simple fixed-height jump, and there are no fiddly moves to get in the way of the all-out shooting action. The Dukester's manly figure is only visible on screen for cosmetic purposes, to help distinguish Zero Hour from the official sequel to Duke Nukem on the PC, which is a first-person game.

It works well though, thanks to the excellent camera system. When Duke stands close to a wall the camera zooms in behind his transparent head just like in Mission: Impossible. The view switches to first-person when using the sniper rifle (which makes a disgusting mess on the walls), and there may well be a cheat to let you play the entire game using that view.

Duke's famous sense of humour is present throughout Zero Hour. The post apocalyptic city levels are filled with posters poking fun at various N64 games, some of which may be chopped a little by Nintendo's censors, and Duke can be heard muttering words of wisdom whenever he picks up an item ("Fresh hardware"), shoots a Pig Cop ("Who wants some"), gets hit ("Just a flesh wound"), or whenever he just feels like chatting. We particularly liked the way he muttered "Touch me again and I'll kill you," shortly after blowing a zombie's legs off with a shotgun. A man of action.

Zero Hour's graphics are very impressive, especially when using the memory expansion pak to enable the hi-res mode. The London levels have a realistic smog effect which conceals Pig Cops in top hats and in the rest of the game there's no fogging at all. no pop-up. and a view stretching off into the distance. The monsters are 3D models instead of the original Duke Nukem's cardboard sprites, and it's possible to shoot a wide variety of bits off them using the game's 30-odd weapons. More as we get it.

Dukematch

The four-player deathmatch mode was the best thing about the first Duke Nukem game, and the same thing is true about Zero Hour. The nine levels - including a unique frictionless ice arena - have been specially tweaked to make it easier to find your opponents, so there is a lot less aimless wandering around and a lot more killing. You can play as any of the human-shaped enemies from the game, including all of Duke's snappy outfits and some special secret 'skins'.

This day has been a long time in coming. I have been sitting by waiting for the arrival of my all-time hero and his latest N64 exclusive adventure. It seems like it has been an eternity, but my wait is finally over. I now have the chance to control the world's biggest badass to save humanity in the past, present and future. What a great day this is.

Duke Nukem Zero Hour sends our hero on a mission back in time, through the present day and into the future in an attempt to save humanity and, more importantly, babes. There is plenty of pig blasting, lizard splattering and smart-ass commentary to put this game up there with the best of the pastDuke efforts. Unfortunately, there are some issues that will keep this game from reaching the heights that it should have reached. Most of the pieces were in place, but the missing pieces may keep anyone but die-hard Duke lovers from ever making it through this game.

Gameplay

Up until Duke's last adventure on the PSX, Duke Nukem Time To Kill, Duke has lived in the world of first person shooters. With Time To Kill, Duke lovers were introduced to getting the full Duke form in front of them while playing from the third-person perspective. This third-person perspective must have been popular with the masses because it is back making its first appearance on the N64. While Zero Hour and Time to Kill are different games that follow different story lines, they are pretty similar.

Zero Hour plays a lot like the Tomb Raider games. You control Duke as he walks around looking for keys, switches or hidden items to progress through the levels. You will run, jump, shoot, punch and muscle your way through levels trying to reach the end. The big difference between this game and the Tomb Raider games is the attitude. You just can't match that Duke Nukem attitude.

I guess that since I brought up the attitude, I should explain what I mean to those sorry people who have never experienced Duke. The best way to describe the Duke attitude is to combine Bruce Willis, Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger with Andrew Dice Clay. He takes no crap from anyone and his mission in life is to save chicks, make smart-ass comments and blow stuff up. What better idol could a person have? Zero Hour keeps this attitude in tack and actually thriving stronger than ever.

As far as the actual gameplay goes, this is a pretty solid game. It is not really revolutionary in any area, but the action and adventure is non-stop. The game does get to be a bit on the repetitive side after a while, but not really to a point where it becomes annoying. They did a great job of throwing in new weapons to rejuvenate things when they need it most. The enemies get a little on the repetitive side as well. There are different classes of enemies, but all the enemies in a class look the same. It would have been nice to have more variety.

One of the best parts of this game was not the actual gameplay, but the surroundings. All I can say is that I suggest you read all the banners, signs, posters and walls that you come across during your adventures. They are an absolute riot and I even wonder how some of the posters made it past Nintendo and their strict censorship policy. I give GT Interactive credit for trying and Nintendo credit for letting them get away with it. I seriously would go out of my way to read all of them. Here is a quick example of what you will find. On the side of a semi-truck, there is a huge graphic that reads "Beaver Trucking: We lick the competition" (or something of this nature). All I can say is that I bet the developers of this game had a great time coming up with witty little sayings, slogans and quotes like this.

Unfortunately all is not well in Duke land. As I mentioned above, only die-hard Duke fans will stick it out on this game. Why, you ask? Because you can't save your freakin' game until the end of a level. This would not be so bad if the levels were short or if there were checkpoints or even if it was difficult to die. But no, the levels are huge, there are no checkpoints and your mission can end on one missed jump. Talk about frustrating! I can't tell you how many times I played through levels over and over again because I'd fight my way halfway through, die, and have to start the entire level over. Battle further than before, die, start the level over. I can't think of any other game that has such harsh consequences for dying after playing for 45 minutes. I have never had such a sinking feeling as when I die in this game. The real tragedy is that this shortcoming really takes away the exploration and adventuring of this game. I would not try things that I otherwise might have tried, for fear that I would die.

The game is full of secrets, but I was afraid to leave the beaten path to explore. I can also guarantee you that this will be frustrating enough to some people that they will just give up.

Lastly, this game has four solid multiplayer games. First, you can play Dukematch, which is a standard Deathmatch. Next, you have Last Man Standing, which gives each player only one life and the object is to be the last person alive. The third mode is King of the Hill, which is pretty cool. One person is designated as the king and if you kill the king, you get five points instead of the standard one point and then you become the king. The person with the most points at the end of the level is the winner. The final mode is the Team Dukematch, which is similar to a deathmatch only you can be on teams. All of these offer up a good time, so if you are a big fan of multiplay in games, you should have a blast with this game.

Graphics

This is a tough thing to hit on. The graphics on one hand look nice but when the expansion pak is used, the frame rate goes down the drain. You are better off playing without the expansion pak or in medium resolution because high resolution stutters and slows so bad that it actually interferes. Fortunately the low-to-medium resolution graphics are still pretty decent looking. During a lot of the game, the graphics are really dark. I actually had to crank the brightness up on my TV if I wanted to play this game during the daylight hours, otherwise I would not have been able to see anything.

Bottom Line

I am the biggest fan of Duke that there is, but even I had trouble getting motivated to play through a level over and over again. I can't begin to explain how ticked off you will get when your 45 minutes of playing is completely lost because you miss a ledge when you jump or if you open a door and get ambushed. The game itself is fun and pretty enjoyable, yet unoriginal in most areas. They did a great job with all the voice samples and little touches scattered across the worlds, but the third or fourth time through a level, you just want to get done and move on so they lose a little of their luster. So if you are a patient person and don't mind playing the same level a few times, then you should be OK with this. If you get frustrated doing the same thing over and over again, you will not be happy with this game.

First, the bad I news: Duke Nukem: Zero Hour has been delayed again. Now, the good news: Not only will the game use the Expansion Pak for hi-res ass-kicking graphics, but there's also a chance the wait will lead to appreciable changes. The version we played was still early in development, but it's best described as a behind-the-Duke Turok clone. Some of the weapons' effects already looked spectacular, though there were some slowdown problems that need to be fixed.

That bad boy of barrel-blastin' fame is back, and he's brought his foul-mouthed style of alien-zapping with him in this latest shooter from GT Interactive. Duke Nukem: Zero Hour places Duke in four time periods: present day New York City, the Old West, Victorian England, and post-apocalyptic N.Y.C. You romp through the levels, rescuing scantily clad buxom beauties and shooting everything in sight It's a hedonistic, annihilistic fantasy gun game, but it works on every primal instinct you possess.

The game plays like Turok in third-person mode as the dynamic Duke strafes, fires, rolls, and climbs. There's also a barrage of weapons, such as sniper guns, grenade launchers, radium cyanide canisters, and more. Even though Zero Hour has a simplistic gutter mentality, you can't help but hope that some improvements will be made to the game. Plus, there's some serious frame dropout when the screen gets crowded (Eurocom promises that flaw will be addressed and corrected), and, despite the many different control sets that are being offered, you can't customize the controls independently. The countdown to Zero begins in August.

Duke Nukem: Zero Hour is part trashy Turok. part gory Golden-Eye--and all Duke! This game wallows in its Mature rating, so pre-seventeens. the gun shy. the squeamish, and the politically correct should just stay... make that run away.

PORK FRIED ACTION

Zero Hour continues the Duke Nukem saga that began on the PC. The evil space hogs have returned to make Earth a gigantic pig sty--and this time they're using time travel to wipe out mankind! Its the perfect setup for Duke's hard-hitting 3D action/adventure run-n-gun gameplay as you hunt extraterrestrials from post-apocalyptic New York City to the Old West and Victorian England.

You play from a behind-Duke view as you engage in close combat encounters with 26 types of E.T. meanies that overrun 22 levels. You can also battle your friends in rockin' multiplayer action across 14 unique levels.

The gameplay's tuned to near perfection so there's never a dull moment. There's also a fair amount of exploration that's nicely mixed with the action, which is good because the levels are humongous and the alien scum are deadly. Moreover, you can't save a game until you beat a level. You definitely get plenty of bang for your gameplay buck here.

"FRESH HARDWARE!"

Zero Hour's solid controls make you the Master of Mayhem. They're nicely tuned to the always-on-target game cam, keeping the action hot and heavy. Its a breeze to cycle through weapons (up to 20 types), even in a fire fight, and with eight preset control configurations, Dukes easier to play than ever.

Fans will find the visuals and the sounds familiar and fun. New Duke enlistees, however, should be prepared to shred pigs into pulp and splatter zombies. Of course, Duke's one-liners carry the audio show with classic Duke-isms like "Grooovy!" and "Let's rock!" joined by a few more...uhhh, rougher lines. Zero Hour also makes great use of environmental effects, so grunts and engine sounds provide key gameplay clues.

"HAIL TO THE KING. BABY!"

As Duke Nukem might say, this is "another piece of butt-kick pie!" Its all about hard-chargin', alien-zapping action with attitude. If its time for you to become an M-rated gamer, it must be Zero Hour.

Graphics

The animation's sometimes stilted and hokey, like during Duke's runs and jumps. But the facile game cam is tightly tuned to the 3D gameplay. Also, there are cool combat effects, and the creature graphics are solid. Expect to see some gore.

Sound

Zero Hour compels you to keep the sound turned up. Its all about "Duke-isms," baby! There are plenty of 'em with lots of attitude. Hard-rocking "Duke" intro music mainlines adrenaline at the get-go. Environmental sounds actually assist your gameplay.

Control

A good job of game tuning here. The controls manage a wide variety of weapons and gear with ease. You can even magnify the cool sniper view and reload on the run. Eight control configurations and your choice of gunsights are a plus.

Fun Factor

The run-n-gun fighting rocks, and there's just enough puzzle-solving and exploration to keep the game interesting. Moreover, the single-player mode is an epic-length adventure. Mated with the multiplayer games, Duke gives you more than your moneys worth.