So I played it hardcore on release day, came back to it a day later and completed it. I let it sit for a little bit, thought about it a lot instead of jumping the gun on my immediate impression. So many times this has lead to me regretting my initial review, as is the case of Halo 3, which I thoroughly enjoyed.
Since all I see is Duke bashing, I might as well throw my opinion into the mix, for what it's worth.
It was good.
It was difficult, it was short but it was good. It wasn't GREAT but it wasn't bad. Not bad at all.
First off, let me start by saying, if you aren't "American" you will hate this game. In fact, I think that's why some of the first reviews were angry and said the game sucked because they were pissed it was all USA.
I explained it to a friend like this "The game is like 'Duke Nukem-USA!'"
It's extremely patriotic, and quite frankly, I liked that a lot. No other game does that at all and it was cool for me because I'm like that.
A lot of things were cut from the game, a lot stayed. Some might be able to notice some of what is new and what is old in the game. I would say a lot of the levels, or rather, the level art, is old. But it's not
bad. Art doesn't get worse over time, it just is. Duke Nukem isn't going to floor you by its graphics, yet at the same time, it totally does.
The game isn't what I expected from a Duke Nukem game. I mean I have been playing the series, literally, my whole life as far as I can remember. The thing about Duke Nukem Forever is, it isn't as endearing as previous Duke games. Perhaps this is too early to tell. None of the levels stick with you like they do in Duke Nukem 3D, though I would have to say this is because it was made ultra realistically and not cartoonish, or rather an approximate representation of reality as in Duke Nukem 3D. I would have to say that the starkest point that sort of made the game
not what I expected from a Duke Nukem title was that there was no music.
No level music. That's what made Duke Nukem 3D so great. Lee Jackson did a good job on it, I mean just look at Grabbag. It's the theme for Duke Nukem! Duke Nukem 2 even had great music as did most of the Duke Nukem games...
DNF had music, but it wasn't "level" music. There was at points but it wasn't a constant, which brings me onto my next point.
Duke Nukem Forever is a very
modern game. It was not what I, or anybody else expected at all. I was very disappointed of how the "ego" system worked in this game.
"Ego," for those who don't know, replaced health in Duke Nukem games starting in "Duke Nukem, Manhattan Project" which is excellent and worth checking out. In Manhattan Project, ego was a number much like health was in DN3D. It went 1 - 100+. If health was higher than normal, Duke's ego would drop, if lower would raise a little bit at a time. When you killed enemies, depending on how you killed them, you would get an ego boost.
That was really cool.
In DNF "ego" is a lousy term for "shields." I didn't like it, but it wasn't bad at the same time. I would much rather of had a 1-100 number or slider bar which would increase when I kill guys and didn't recharge completely all at once.
Duke Nukem has a lot of ego from the get-go. He's Duke Nukem. He saved the world twice from an alien invasion and lived to tell about it. He gets anything he wants. I think the ego for Duke in DNF is too low, too small. Duke has a lot of ego and should have a lot of health. He owns his own
casino and the name of his book is simply "Why I'm so great."
They removed the mighty foot and replaced it with a "melee." NO! It's Duke Nukem! He can run down the street, kicking with both feet at the same time!
No but really, melee isn't all that bad and the Mighty Foot is used mainly outside of combat in DNF.
Duke Nukem can't run anywhere anymore forever like he did in every game previous. The run in Duke Nukem Forever is akin to that of the sprint in Call of Duty. You can run for a little and then you run out of breath. They made Duke Nukem out like he's an old man and that made me sort of mad because Duke Nukem doesn't get old. He's
immortal. He never runs out of breath. He time warped so much that he doesn't age. Ever. Because he's Duke Nukem. Unless the game developers make him grow old.
Lastly was the weapons. I don't know what is with the game, but it isn't as action-packed run and gun as previous titles. In DN3D, it took three direct hits with the shotgun to take down an octobrain. In DNF, it takes one.
One
well aimed shotgun blast to kill an octobrain. It just didn't seem right.
Too little ammo for the shrink ray, it seemed as if it was a human copied version from the alien weapon which Duke found in DN3D. The devastator is really good, but needed to shoot faster, and there needed to be a lot more of them in the game since you can't carry more than two weapons around.
All bosses are finished with a special move Duke does to them, in which the player has to approach a boss when they are down instead of blasting the alien to hell, then receiving a nice cutscene and or massive explosion of sparks and crap or just a huge explosion.
That's Duke Nukem. This even trips me up once during the whole game as shown on one of my You Tube videos which I will not link to because of NSFW status.
None of this means that Duke Nukem Forever is a bad game, it just means it's been modernized.
At first when playing Duke Nukem, I was like "WTF is this crap?" as with the toy car at the beginning, but I quickly fell in love with it. DNF swings from sheer testosterone nuclear-pill induced killing frenzies to the greatest gags ever... I can't even describe it but it's so... It's Duke Nukem. It just is. You just have to play it.
Like what they did with Dukeburger. That was great. That was classic.
Duke Nukem Forever might not be game of the year, (Which
is Skyrim.- Correction, it COULD be Rage, we shall see.) but it
IS Duke Nukem Forever. It is fun, it is not easy and it is a true sequel.
Definitely a must play for any fan of the more recent titles.
Overall a good game, period.
Just like Alone in the Dark [5], I don't know why this game is receiving so much hate.
VikingBoyBilly wrote:_mr_m_ wrote:I borrowed it from a friend for XBOX360 and I was really let down by it. It just doesnt come close to recapturing the spirit of Duke3D.
xbox 36what?! duke forever supposed to be a PC game! D=
Well what about Duke Nukem : Time to Kill which was Playstation and Duke Nukem : Land of the Babes (TTK's sequel) on the N64 IIRC? Those were console exclusive.
Most games these days are both PC and '360. This is because of Direct X. '360 is Microsoft; so is Windows, THE gaming platform of choice. Microsoft more or less made it very easy to port ANY PC game to the '360 with as little as a month or so of programming, and that is just for menu options and controls.
It's very rare for a computer game to NOT be released on the '360 these days. In fact, it's more common to see '360 exclusive games than PC exclusive games. This does not count "indie" titles or titles which lack a publisher.
RoboBlue wrote:I'm actually kind of mad that Duke Nukem Forever ruined gaming's biggest inside joke.
We all made jokes about how bad it was going to suck, but now that those jokes came true they're no longer funny. >:
Like this one?
wiivn wrote:My theory is that the game was delayed that many times because 3d realms knew their game suck
Yeah that's kind of what it was.
This was made mostly made by 3D Realms, I guess, but 2K probably removed the "retarded" from it.
Nospike wrote:Wanted to try the game but I believe it sucks, what do you think? Is it worth my time?
Are you an incredibly experienced computer and videogame player?
This is not for casuals but if you are, you will be dying a lot. That's all.
/walloftext
You crack me up little buddy!
