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The name Duke Nukem is a well known one within video game circles. 'The Duke' - as he is affectionately known - has starred in numerous games across various formats and is probably best known for his dry wit and rather unique way with women.

All the previous Duke Nukem games have been in 3D though which is why this latest outing for the Duke is a little different - he's lost a dimension. The story for the Game Boy Color version of Duke Nukem is one which will be familiar to anyone who's been into videogames for a while. Aliens have decided to invade the Earth (as usual) and this time they made the rather foolish mistake of messing with Duke Nukem while they were at it.

The game starts with what could almost be described as a Game Boy Color FMV intro in which we see the Duke doing his second most favourite thing (the first being blasting bad guys while rescuing beautiful women) as he gets to talk about himself on National TV. Unfortunately, beore he can do more than say 'hello' our hero is beamed up by the afore-mentioned aliens and taken to their mothership, which is where you come in. It's up to Duke Nukem to save the world and he's gonna need your help!

The gameplay is fairly simple. Duke starts off with a gun and not much else and he needs to explore the various levels, finding keys and passcards and offing aliens as he struggles to make it back to Earth. Along the way, more powerful weapons can be collected but they all have limited ammo so they need to be used sparingly.

And basically that's about it. With each new level conquered come different enemies and the odd new gimmick - such as the huge belt-red machine gun which is fixed to a platform on the roof of the alien ship and which Duke can take control of for some serious alien-bashing. Aside from that it's pretty much business as usual as Duke jumps and blasts his way through the alien hordes.

Graphically, Duke Nukem has translated well to the Game Boy Color, managing to retain a lot of the atmosphere of the previous 3D games even though it's in 2D. This game isn't exactly going to mentally tax you - the exploration element remaining fairly limited throughout - but that's not the point of it. A lot of the humour of the previous Duke games has been kept and although sadly the sound samples haven't made it onto the Game Boy Color the Duke's wise-cracks and catchphrases still crop up in the on-screen text to let you know how he's feeling.

There are a lot of platform games available on Nintendo's handheld and a fair few have already arrived in colour, so Duke Nukem has its work cut out if it wants to get ahead in the market. However, the crisp graphics, responsive controls and addictive gameplay make this a game that every platform fan with a Game Boy must own. Try it, or we'll send the Duke round!