Duke Nukem Forever Review

[Calcium]

The way this game was marketed I'd be embaressed to buy it over the counter in a shop.

Reading a few other comments, it sounds like this game took a large budget and spent it on a game aimed at a much smaller demographic. I'd be surprised if it manages to generate more income than production costs.

 

[Woodsey]

The review does beg the question what would require a 1-star review, short of a disk that managed to damage the system that tried to play it to inoperability.

That is exactly what our one-star score means: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/7149-What-Our-Review-Scores-Mean

Ah, that's fair enough then. I always just assume its the usual "terrible", "bad", "average", etc. if I haven't seen anything to say otherwise.

 

[futaar]

Honestly i beat this game already 4hrs of pop culture references and nothing remotely near to Duke Nukem except the few phrases that they are just milking off old Duke Nukem games i can hardly call this Duke Nukem at all you can only hold 2 guns cant rescue any babes the one liners are sort of witty nothing memorable and the you fight the the "bosses" in exactly the same way difficulty isnt anything i suppose there was some sort of interesting puzzles by interesting i mean levels where you are shrunken and have to climb over shit the game itself was easy there were 5-6 different enemies and all of them died in like 3 shots with the shotgun and if they were close range one shot i honestly can say that this was the worst remake ive ever seen after 20 years of production and making this game and this is all i get fuck gearbox fuck everyone who made this 4hr bullshit of a disgrace to Duke Nukem it would have been a better game just idling in production.

 

[Treblaine]

Hmm, thinking about the strip club "level" how they could have done it better.

Clearly the developers should have asked "Is this a Duke Nukem level or a Leisure Suit Larry level?".

Just an idea off the top of my head, if Duke walks into a strip club it would be way more interesting if that became the fulcrum point for an Alamo style last stand. Hand out shotguns to the topless strippers and fight WITH THEM (while still in stripper attire) would be pretty interesting.

Hell, as Duke approaches the strip joint we could get a prelude by noting the name of the establishment in neon sign "The Alamooooh" subtitle: "you'll always remember..."

Think of the number of CoD type games that have involved this where you are fighting alongside stereotypical soldiers in boring locations like a burger joint or a concrete bunker. But in a strip joint with strippers as your allies? That's just the kind of insane combination that a Duke Nukem game is supposed to be. A shoot out with aliens in a strip-club.

...

Also I'm really disappointed in the missed opportunity of using portals. 3D realms was involved in portal tech back in the early days where a static form would appear in the much overlooked classic; Prey. the Duke franchise always hinted at portals. I'm not saying give him a portal gun, but give the alien mutants the ability to open up portals effectively anywhere, and allow Duke to go through them.

So in the "Alamooh" the usual play-book of siege modes is mixed up with portals opening up inside the defences and also Duke can (if quick enough) jump through the portal to the centre of the alien's operations.

 

[Stavros Dimou]

The game sucks.

If it wasn't for the outdated graphics,unreasonable frame drops,game crashes and bugs and glitches,it is for the gameplay.

The gameplay of this game is designed bad and shows how badly someone can add features in a game without taking consideration of how they will work out.

1) Duke Nukem Forever's levels where designed many years ago,and after lots of time they decided to add health regeneration to the game,and this feature forces a "cover and shoot" tactic.
But developers didn't bothered to edit the levels by adding cover spots,forcing you to play a game that requires cover tactic in levels that doesn't have enough places to cover because they where designed at a time the game didn't had health regeneration.
So there are many times that you have to fight multiple powerful enemies without cover,and you can't just ignore them and move on,and you feel overwhelmed.
You loose many lives because of this matter and you feel like the game is cheating on you and punishes you without justice.

2) The weapon limit feature was also added later and without much consideration.
There are times you will complete a level having the 2 weapons most ideal for the level you where playing,and when the next level load you will discover that your weapons aren't that effective against the enemies you meet on the new level,and there will not be ideal weapons lying on the floor on that new level,and you will have to restart the level you already completed so you go to the level exit having the guns ideal for the next level with you.
It sucks when this happens.

 

[EchetusXe]

If a game allows you to pick you a turd and throw it then it probably isn't going to be a masterpiece.

 

[Shamanic Rhythm]

DNF I finished in a few days. Despite its flaws I enjoyed it, and laughed a lot while playing it. Crysis 2 is still on my hard-drive...unfinished...left to rot because of an awful story and simple dullness even if it looks better than real life.

There is probably a lesson to be learned here...for all that are involved. And I for one, hope its not the last we've seen of the Duke.

There is certainly a lesson here to be learned for all involved. Reviews are subjective personal opinions, and what some people might find boring is what others could consider a masterpiece.

 

[MercurySteam]

I'm sorry that you had to keep playing it long after you wanted to stop, Russ. I had to return it before I even got inside the Duke Dome because of how much I despised it.

 

[Pyro Paul]

2 stars? as woodsey said

"Recommendation: If you are stuck on a deserted island with only this game to play, go fishing instead. Worth playing so that you may be able to say that you did, but otherwise imminently forgettable and not worth your time."

I'm not one to beef about scores too much, but what would a game have to do get a 1-star rating, I mean Jesus Christ xD

no kidding. i cant imagine a worse review of a game. this is why the scoring system sucks. it introduces confusion into the system due to discrepancies between the rating and the review.

as for the duke, its a shame the game is so bad since i quite appreciate the humor and the self referential-ness of it.

5 Stars: Fornicate with the disk... it is That good.
4 stars: Hey, it is good. You should buy it.
3 stars: its okay... if your into that kinda stuff.
2 stars: Don't Play this game.
1 star: KILL IT WITH FIRE.

 

[ChupathingyX]

The king is dead! Long live the king!

That doesn't happen to be a Get Smart reference, does it?

 

[Stavros Dimou]

You who bought this game for consoles are lucky guys because you can return the game to the place you bought it,or sell it used to somebody else.

I am an unlucky PC gamer and Gearbox forced me to activate the game through Steam,which means shops won't get it back because they know that a Steam game can run without the game disc,and that both shops and me can't sell it to somebody else because he will not be able to play it, because this copy of the game is forever locked with my Steam account.

I'm in the worst situation of you all.

 

[Zyntoxic]

Honestly, how expected anything artistic out of this anw? the previous game was immature, why would you think they'd make a mature sequel? besides, people would never be happy with this game no matter how they made it, there is no way a game can be good enough to make up for a 12 year hype.

No, I'm satisfied that I got pretty much exactly what I expected out of it, immature, silly and outright dumb fun.

It is the stupid variety I want every now and then, when I have played through deep and beautiful games like Mass effect or Braid I want to be allowed a little stupid on my menu.

like if you watch black swan, the green mile or any thing similar, you still might enjoy jackass or anything similarily immature and stupid.

or if you read any deeper or complex book, you still do like the occasional retarded comic.

I don't know why people go under the pretense that just because u supposedly grow up you need to stop liking the stuff a "kid" would like. it's like I'd have to give up chocolate just because I liked it as a kid.

I proudly announce I have not and will not allow myself to kill that kid within me who just wants things simple every once in a while.

sure the game has it's flaws as almost every game does, but I'm still having fun.

 

[mattaui]

After reading this review and several others, this is going to be the first time I've sent a preorder back to Amazon without even opening the box it was shipped in. I'd rather eat the shipping cost if I have to, though as a Prime member I'm hoping I can convince them to waive that for a game being released in a defective state (though they've no doubt heard that one before!).

 

[NKnight]

Oh, boy! Jack Thompson is going to be haaaaaappy! -_-

But really, maybe we are looking at this in a wrong perspective. If we were immature teenagers we'd probably love this! It's like Twilight, it's really, really bad, but it's good for teenage girls... and that's their target audience. So, technically, Twilight and Duke Nuke Forever are really excell... I'm sorry, I just can't finish that sentence! But, do you get my point?

 

[tehweave]

"Duke Nukem Forever is a terrible game colored with flashes of mediocrity sparsely interlaced with rare filaments of greatness."

Well, what did you expect? I knew this several months ago when I started hearing people hype up the game. I bought the game not because I expected it to be amazing, but because I wanted to own a piece of gaming history. Possibly the single-longest development time for one game, and a game that's been over-hyped for a decade. The development team went completely bankrupt and to paraphrase Yahtzee:

"A competent studio farted this out in a year."

Gearbox did. So there ya go. The game sucks. And? Did anyone seriously buy the game thinking it was going to be good?

Edit: If so, why would you think that?

 

[baconfist]

The game isn't really that bad. Sure it has a cheezy story and lots of low brow humour but it looks good and has good gameplay. It's no half life but it's definitely not gonna be the worst fps to come out this year.

 

[Caveworm]

Most people I know who have purchased the game did not expect anything but a bit an old school shooter with daft, daft humour. I plan to get it next week just for the fact I was about 13/14 back in 1997 when it was announced.

I played Daikatana and listened to Chinese Democracy and will, hopefully, next week play Duke...I suppose out of morbid curiosity. All so long in development, I'm not sure how one can deny yourself the 'pleasure' (subjective, I know) of playing/listening to them.

 

[LostTimeLady]

Oh if only they'd got Yahzee to consult on the game... Actually, probably if they had done it would have turned out much better...

Oh well... let's all go back to waiting for the next big release hay...

(P.S. even if this game had been good it's not actually my sort of thing but it would have been nice for something so eagerly expected to be worth the wait for people.)

 

[Herbsk]

My guess is that some inventive fan will create a mod that adds back in storage for all game guns on the PC (if we're luck that person will get rid of the regenerating health as well!)

Therefore, my strategy is to wait until someone invents said mod, buy the game when it is cheaper for the PC, and have much more fun then originally intended!

This game is practically screaming for such a change to be made.