Duke Nukem Forever Review

[Slycne]

Portal 2 Review [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/reviews/8806-Portal-2-Review]

Recommendation: Newcomers to "portal science" will find Portal 2 easy to pick up and perhaps more rewarding than long-time fans. Both, however, will find plenty to love and more than enough to justify the price of purchase.

4/5

Yes, clearly a whole lot of hating going on there.

The entire review is more elaborate than some two sentence blurb. Fine work on that. Consider a career in journalism.

Heh. It is however a summary though. You know that thing that's a short synopsis of a whole piece or a concise encapsulation of the thoughts and ideas presented. In your words, you did fine work on that, and you should consider a career involving reading comprehension. Seriously though and joking aside, when the major concern is that it might not be as brilliant as its predecessor you consider that hating?

 

[Demodeus]

whats so bad about this game anyway? I played through it and my single complaint was that its too short..

 

[Iron Lightning]

I still think they missed a trick with the ego health system.

He could have had to do something cool to get his ego back. Like shooting a dude in the dick or something.

The more zaney stuff you do, the bigger your ego bar gets. And when it's low. You have to do something like benchpress an enemy carcase to boost it back up.

The rest of it looks pretty much how I imagined though.

snip

This was exactly what I was thinking! It could have encouraged you to fight on more awesome as you got wounded instead of hide. Shame they didn't do something like that because it sounds like it would be fun and in character.

snip

Theres an idea. You could still have had "healthpacks" as well, like autograph books or dvds of Duke around to collect. Salvagable system. Grunting and flying backwards when hit by a shrunken enemy like its a freightrain is just broken.

You know guys, there's a Duke game out there that does just that. It's called Duke Nukem Manhattan Project. You lose ego for humiliating things like getting shot and you gain ego for awesome things like killing opponents (the stronger the enemy the more ego you get for killing him.) and rescuing babes. The whole games a throwback to the really old Duke Nukem 2-D side-scrollers but works beautifully. It's pretty much the only good Duke Nukem spin-off game ever made.

Regarding Duke Nukem Forever what I'm most disappointed by is the lack of the non-linear level design of Duke Nukem 3D. I thought that at least they would bring that.

As Captcha says: "how odatse"

edit: Oh yeah and the ego in Duke Nukem Manhattan Project doesn't regenerate over time.

 

[I want to leave because extra credits is gone]

Could you give an example of a one star game?

 

[BabyRaptor]

Yeah...I'll pass. I prefer games that don't treat me and the rest of my sex like property to use, abuse and stroke their egos over.

 

[Doom972]

I don't get people complaining about he lack of maturity in this game. If you want a gritty brown shooter you have enough to choose from.

Ignoring for a moment that mature doesn't automatically equal "gritty brown," Duke's over-the-top nature alone shouldn't excuse it from being a mediocre game if that is indeed what it is, don't you think?

Besides, it's not like DNF is one of a kind in its tone. Shooters these days may be pushing for "realism," but there are still a few ridiculous, dumb fun ones out there too. Bulletstorm, anyone?

It doesn't feel mediocre to me. I like playing a challenging fast paced shooter instead of a game that tries to be a military simulator for a change.

 

[TMM]

All I have to say about the game is that I'm having a LOT of fun with it. The snobbishness of the video game reviewers is absolutely staggering. You can't tell me that the reviewers really didn't have fun with this game.

My theory: reviewers are afraid that their wives are going to read their reviews, it's like being caught going to a strip joint.

Is the game immature and flawed? yes absolutely. Is is functional, unique and fun? absolutely too! It has a unique look, it's a tad dated but not horrible. Less brown boring crap. Huge variety in the gameplay what other game has you play air hockey, pinball, rc cars, whack a mole? Has freezerays, shrink rays, huge boss battles? And of course: Duke Nukem

If you don't like these things, then yeah, you might not like it. But saying this game is worse than mediocre is just being vindictive.

 

[TheAngryMonkey]

I think I will have to play this one, before I can believe this review. I mean you guys said Dragon Age:2 was amazing, that was universally considered one of the worst RPG games ever.

 

[Lordpils]

I called it, I'm not happy I called it (I'm never happy when a game is bad) but I called it nonetheless.

 

[Jaime_Wolf]

An outdated game concept that was arguably poorly executed in the first place didn't translate into a modern masterpiece? Imagine my surprise.

People keep forgetting the amount of nostalgia involved in memories of the old games and they also keep forgetting the core audience of the old games: think about the kind of people who played games like Duke Nukem when they first came out. It's easy to forget how much wider the gaming community has gotten. This was a series of games aimed at arguably the most immature group of gamers (no offence meant to any particular people) there has ever been, composed mostly of straight white male social pariahs.

The old game was clearly a satire on 80s action heroes, but I always got the sense that there was a sort of wink and a nod making sure everyone knew that the satirical element was at least partially a cover-up for glorifying the very things it claimed to be satirising. Ironically, a lot of the parody of the babe-slapping, beer-swilling male douchebag fantasy seemed a bit less than sincere to me. A parody of porn involving naked people having sex is still porn.

Also, re the 2 stars thing that seems to be in every other post: most reviewers scale their ratings to other games, not to some objective scale of quality. Bearing that in mind, even a particularly terrible AAA game has nothing on truly terrible games. Truly terrible games are unplayable. In short, if you do not understand why this got 2 stars, go play ET.

 

[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?