Play Duke Nukem Advance Online

Summary

Duke Nukem Advance drops the series’ trademark one‑liner hero onto the tiny screen of the Game Boy Advance, letting you blast alien scientists across a globe‑spanning map. The game packs four difficulty levels, five save slots and a surprisingly robust multiplayer mode that can link up to four GBA units, each needing its own cartridge. Because the handheld only has a handful of buttons, the developers offered four distinct control schemes, letting you assign shooting, jumping, strafing and weapon swaps in a way that feels almost custom‑made for each play style.

While the graphics and sound are clearly lifted from the PC classic, the levels and storyline are original, and the pause screen even doubles as a zoomable map where hidden secrets are often hinted at. Reviewers praised the title as the most fun FPS on the GBA, with IGN calling it the platform’s “most fun first‑person shooter” and GameSpot noting it as the best GBA shooter since Doom. It was also a runner‑up for GameSpot’s Best Sound on GBA award.

After a year‑long delay that let the team polish the experience, the game finally launched in 2002 and, more than two decades later, resurfaced on the Evercade/VS as part of Duke Nukem Collection 2 in November 2023.

Storyline

In Duke Nukem Advance, the titular hero is recruited by General Graves to investigate a hostile alien incursion at Area 51. After blasting through the base’s extraterrestrial forces, Duke learns the invaders depend on “environmental regulators” and tracks them to Egypt’s Temple of Amun.

Inside the Egyptian temple he discovers rows of alien‑human hybrid hybrids in stasis, a power source feeding their regulators, and a controller alien overseeing the operation. By activating an override pump Duke drains the hibernation tanks, kills the hybrid army, destroys the controller and narrowly escapes the self‑destructing structure using an alien transporter.

Back in contact with Graves, Duke finds himself in Sydney, Australia, where he rescues an undercover agent from a nightclub and learns the aliens are building a doomsday device capable of stripping Earth’s atmosphere. He destroys the weapon and hijacks an orbiting alien ship to continue the fight.

On the ship Duke hacks the system, discovers four cloned versions of the agent Jenny, and teleports each one back to Earth. After shutting down the ship’s engine coolant, he beams out “Jenny 5,” battles his way out, and escapes just before the vessel detonates. He returns to Earth and refuses a debrief, claiming he’s already “debriefed” in a very Duke‑style way.