Gearbox Claims Reviewers Were Unfair Toward Duke Nukem Forever
- Thread starter Mike Kayatta
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I've lost a lot of respect for Gearbox over this year, I honestly think I may never buy a product of theirs again.
Erm, having seen what kind of a poorly written, badly designed mess this turned out to be, I would've been much happier if the game had actually become vapourware, leaving us to imagine what it could have been rather than being faced with this disappointing, if not insulting reality.
GearBox need to grow up and just admit they released a shit game. I can't even fathom why they'd compare it to half-life. Half-Life was and still is a good game. DNF, released as it is now is shit, and it would have been shit 15 years ago.
Frankly, this is a problem with most reviewers and critics these days. Because 'lukewarm' and 'mediocre' doesn't bring as much readership numbers than 'awesome' or 'shit' does.dogstile said:
As for DNF itself, I can't say since I haven't played it. But I do know that if reviewers base the majority of their poor scores on its misplaced humor, then yes - they were being unfair. A lot of morons love to rant over the most subjective parts of what they criticize, simply because they know how hard it would be to contradict their anti-misogynistic position, which is oh-so-supported in this politically correct age.
However if they add poor gameplay and name the reasons why they weren't engaged on top of that, then they were more than fair. Still, I'm more than certain that a lot of reviewers saw DNF as an awesome opportunity to get on top of their soapbox and rail for the cause of political corectness in videogames. *sigh*
DNF is unfairly reviewed, but not in the way that Brian Martel's crying about. Yes, the game sucks, but not really that much worse than the other bad games out there. It's just that it is the only major release that reviewers have found the courage to rip on. DNF is just a minor redemption for reviewers trying to make up for all the other crap out there that are still given passing grade and average review scores because anything less might mean the loss of valuable advertising dollars from pissed off distributers. Frankly, I'd love to see more games out there get the DNF treatment, but I doubt this sad attempt to demonstrate their integrity is enough for reviewers to actually grow a spine.
*sigh*Mike Kayatta said:
I may be torn to pieces about this, but he sort of has a point; he's just making it really badly, with an incredibly poor choice of comparison.
I played DNF, finally, when I could get it dirt cheap. And no, it is not a particularly good game.
I have played worse, though, acknowledging that that's damning with faint praise.
I was able to get from beginning to end. I rarely struggled over-long at getting past any section, puzzle or combat, though some areas were challenging; I never had to use a FAQ to advance.
The game displays dozens and dozens of bad design choices through its play-time. Many of those choices make the game far less enjoyable than it could have been, and I think that's where the criticism becomes most accurate.
I think the foolish Half-Life comparison is basically trying to say:
a) if this game hadn't had this infamous, drawn-out, near-vaporware reputation, and if it hadn't been the predecessor of a game that was still fondly remembered by many, it probably wouldn't have been reviewed as harshly. And yes, that's probably true.
b) Bearing in mind the patchwork of tech that was used to put the thing together, it looks pretty good; if it was measured against other entries from the era its tech came from, it would come across a lot better. This is also probably true, if somewhat irrelevant, and a bit on the whiny side. It certainly doesn't fair well against many of the other FPSs that came out when it actually came out.
But the thing is, and it's where the Half-Life comparison deserves eye-rolling, is that the reason Half-Life wouldn't be as well reviewed today- aside from the age of its engine- is that it would be seen as derivative.
Because of the standards, design choices, and ideas that Half-Life put into play in the FPS arena.
Half-Life changed a lot of people's minds about what was possible from a FPS. Duke doesn't. And, perhaps more regrettably, it's hard to imagine there was a time, looking at the final product, that it could have. It's a game that's played catch-up its whole life, and it shows- from all the work that was scrapped in changing engines, to the half-baked physics puzzles, to the short-sighted "two weapons" rule that took choice out of player hands, to the "and... you just got knocked out for the eighth time" level transitions. About the only thing that makes Duke stand out is the crass sense of humor and "mature" content, most of which (to my jaded eye, at least) fails to either amuse or titillate.
To further the tragedy, Duke Nukem 3D was a genuinely innovative game, a game from which DNF cribs all the wrong things and cuts all the wrong things. The multitude of "interactive" objects the player could play with in DN3D gave the pseudo-3D stages a greater sense of reality, of place; in DNF, all the pool tables and pinball machines barely distract from the fact that the player is going to have to look for the next glowing doorway to continue on his force-marched linear way. Meanwhile, the "we're just waiting for the player to arrive so we can charge in" enemy dynamics rarely give the player a reason or a good opportunity to use the pipe bombs he's collected, never mind the trip-mines. (Tip, guys: trip mines are the sort of thing a player uses when he's planning a strategic retreat through familiar territory; DNF never gives the player a good reason to retreat through familiar territory with enemies in pursuit.)
Sorry for the wall-of-text. I guess the bottom line is: I hope Gearbox doesn't take the reviewers' "unfair" treatment of Duke Nukem Forever as an excuse to ignore many of the very valid criticisms people have made about the game, especially if they're seriously considering continuing with the character. I'm not interested in looking at any more levels in ugly green-white nightvision through the eyes of a eleven-year-old's idea of action machismo, even on the cheap.
Riiight, well then let me take a moment to review my own penis: "It is the best thing in existence since the dawn of mankind... and I am completely unbiased on this".
Seriously Gearbox put a lid on your public outings while you still have some dignity.
Seriously Gearbox put a lid on your public outings while you still have some dignity.
Cynical answer: "This is what you get for not paying out the reviewers."
Realistic answer: "Maybe they didn't like it and you're simply biased towards your own product...?"
Realistic answer: "Maybe they didn't like it and you're simply biased towards your own product...?"
Seriously?Mike Kayatta said:
On that merit, let's expand this logic.
I mean, seriously, people. Doom is utter garbage. You can't look up, and the plot is utter crap. Plus there's a very noteworthy lack of achievements or multiplayer, something that is unexcused in this day and age. Plus, the graphics are awful, with entire enemies just being a blocky outline of a creature. I mean, with all the graphics technology of the age, how can anyone expect to get away with this? And yet, Doom is highly regarded and DNF is not? How is this fair? They both involve linear, repetitive shootouts in fairly non-interactive settings with only a passing peck on the cheek of coherence.
Critics are such asses. Really.
(On a serious note, how is this like Half-Life 2 in any way? HL2 had a pretty decent plot, believable characters, combat mechanics with feeling and weight, an awesome physics system, and pacing. DNF... did not)
As someone who didn't even like the Half-Life series, I can say with certainty that it was much better then the mess that was DNF. Got to love when a company (or, more accurately, a public face of a company or someone similar) won't admit they've made a crap product. What he's saying doesn't even seem to make sense. It looks more like inane babbling to me.
Of course, I could tell what a giant 'we're awesome and you guys should love us for making this' attitude this guy has by the first quote. "Everybody should be thankful it existed to some degree at all." No, we shouldn't be. I'd rather have a game that's basically become the universal joke of gaming not be released if, when it is released, it's just some strung together PoS. Don't get me wrong, I can understand some of the logic. But it would have been better to build a new game from the ground up instead of making it the bastard child of many different developers as they did. Of course it likely would have sold the same either way. At least that way you likely would have a pretty good game that keeps a set tone throughout.
Of course, I could tell what a giant 'we're awesome and you guys should love us for making this' attitude this guy has by the first quote. "Everybody should be thankful it existed to some degree at all." No, we shouldn't be. I'd rather have a game that's basically become the universal joke of gaming not be released if, when it is released, it's just some strung together PoS. Don't get me wrong, I can understand some of the logic. But it would have been better to build a new game from the ground up instead of making it the bastard child of many different developers as they did. Of course it likely would have sold the same either way. At least that way you likely would have a pretty good game that keeps a set tone throughout.
Once again I come in to post something, and someone else has already said it better.ShakenBake said:
DNF wasn't nearly as bad as the reviews made it out to be. It's certainly playable, and as a reclamation project, I was fairly impressed that it wasn't as thoroughly broken as it probably should have been.
I never asked for this.EHKOS said:
Really, I think most people would have been happy had the game been good. From what I've seen of it, it blatantly isn't. It's a terrible hodge podge of game design paradigms from the last 15 years. That's not good.
Add to that a bad story and Pitchfords constant whinging and you have the explanation why I'll not play DNF unless Gearbox pays me for it.
Edit: it's worth noting as well that Half-Life does not have so many boring turret sections, a 2 weapon carry limit or regen health.
Add to that the fact that Half-Life is a damn well made game that understands its medium. HL is a lienear scripted game. The difference between HL and games like DNF, Call of Duty, Homefront, Crysis 2 and Gears of War is that Valve know how to make a compelling game and how to direct the player so it doesn't feel forced. None of the other games are able to do that.
I don't know why its so hated, i actually enjoyed the game. The reviewers did seem to be a bit hard on it. It was not nearly as bad as superman returns on the 360 but received comparable or worse reviews. Same with most movie why do they get to be held to a different standard where in held in comparison Duke Nukem was an exceptional game.
- Apr 1, 2009
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Id say he has a point, I don't think that it deserved as many really low scores as it got, it wasn't a great game but it wasn't really a bad one, it was just meh, at least that is the impression I got from the reviews and the demo, I still don't have it myself, waiting for a good steam sale.
