Gearbox Claims Reviewers Were Unfair Toward Duke Nukem Forever

[shogunblade]

Duke Nukem Forever isn't for critics. You know, like Jersey Girl.

The only difference is that Jersey Girl is actually good. I could have given a damn about DNF, and I really wanted to care for it.

Up until the scissor-lift puzzle, I might have forgiven the game as average (it is average), but when I spend an hour on a puzzle and get nowhere (a puzzle I'm told isn't even very well made), I get a little pissed about it.

I will go back and replay this game again one day, but it won't change the fact the game is average to me.

I do think some critics were perhaps a bit too harsh, but it doesn't change the fact that comparing the game to Half-Life not only doesn't make any sense, but it's a pretty crappy argument.

 

[sir.rutthed]

Ok guy, here's your problem. You're acting like a decade and a half of developments and improvments just don't matter. And then you're comparing your terrible game to one of the most loved games in history. You made a shitty game. Accept it, learn something, and make a less shitty game next time.

 

[Lamnidae]

Loooooooooooaaaaaaaaaaad-Tiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiime? If they had at least prevented the annoying loading times... Then it would have been an enjoyable game... For a Duke-game that is... Hope they make a worthy game if this franchise continues...

 

[Sabrestar]

"Everybody should really be thankful that it existed to some degree at all."

Wow, I can see why you have Randy Pitchford as your PR man. That's almost Kotickian.

At least they didn't hire Derek Smart. That's what that sort of attitude eventually leads to.

 

[Littaly]

Here's a piece of advice: If a journalist asks you if you think the reviews were fair or not, don't comment. And for the love of god, don't say "no", and if you do, don't elaborate!

 

[Signa]

Maybe it's just me, but I never felt like the game I was playing was anything more than 3DRealms' disaster that Gearbox had to clean up. There's a reason why the game never got released. 3DRealms knew that they couldn't design a game that was better than shit, and so they never released it. Gearbox probably wanted it to see the light of day like the rest of us, and so they bought it and brought it up to working condition.

Seriously, if that's the case, you'd think they could just place the blame on 3DRealms, but I don't think so. Look at this interview: it sounds whiny to most of the posters here, and yet, it's just a fraction of the whinyness that would come out if they started pointing fingers at 3DRealms. Basically, the game was toxic from the get-go, and they are just doing their best to show that Gearbox isn't a crappy developer.

 

[Grey_Focks]

I'm probably talking out of my ass, but I thought most of the complaints came from the shit story, and the one dimensional characters. It had little to do with the game mechanics.

Basically, I'm saying they're talking out of their ass.

Nope, it was the gameplay. The horribly botched gameplay. There are good FPS, and bad FPS. This was a pile of feces that would sometimes let you shoot guns. Believe it or not nobody went into a Duke game expecting Shakespeare, seeing as how the plots of the older games can be pretty much summed up as "Aliens are taking our women, shoot they ass!"

 

[Mumba]

This thread really shows why it wasn't well recieved; becuase everyone compares it to the original, a 15 year old game, and that's just stupid.
Yeah, 2 weapon limit sucks and regen health sucks, but that goes for every FPS these days. Many hates DNF for those things, but they don't seem to mind it in all the "modern" and "realistic" AAA shooters.
The worst thing is that a lot of DNF haters haven't even played the game, fucking idiots.

I had much more fun with DNF and 2 weapons than I ever had in CoD, BF etc. Probably because I'm not so bloody narrow-minded like most gamers seem to be.

It might not be a 8/10 game, but at least it had some humour in it. Avoiding electrified water as a ten inch duke through a kitchen obstacle course? Just that part is more original than much of what has been released in recent years.

But yeah, haters gonna hate.
I had much more fun with DNF and 2 weapons than I ever had in CoD, BF etc. Probably because I'm not so bloody narrow-minded like most gamers seem to be.

It might not be a 8/10 game, but at least it had some humour in it. Avoiding electrified water as a ten inch duke through a kitchen obstacle course? Just that part is more original than much of what has been released in recent years.

But yeah, haters gonna hate.

 

[geekcj]

Maybe if Mikey was busy working rather than making films with the birch sisters (yes I called Anthony a girl) dnf would have been all right. Hopefully gearbox learned from their mistakes and bury the code, meanwhile I'll be waiting for Borderlands 2 hoping that it doesn't get the same neglected treatment of dnf

 

[AstylahAthrys]

Here's a better strategy for talking about the game: Say you were in a crunch, had to salvage what 3D Realms gave to you and had almost no time get to where you wanted the game to go due to time constraints. Apologize for rushing it and promise the next Duke Nukem game will have more care when being developed. This current approach gives Gearbox a douche-y feeling.

 

[Grotch Willis]

Jebus Christmas, they keep shooting themselves in the feet with this one. They made a shitty game, and instead of letting people forget about it and try to sweep it under the rug like most developers do, they keep bringing it up. All they can do now is hope that Borderlands 2 is enough of a saving grace to redeem them in the eyes of their fans. It is things like this that make me glad that im a serious sam guy and not a duke fan.

 

[MiracleOfSound]

Yikes. They really, really do not seem to want to accept that the game was just shit. One must acknowledge their mistakes in order to learn from them.

 

[Seventh Actuality]

Now this is pathetic. They had a massive established fanbase, instant nostalgia appeal, a ready-made wave of backlash against modern shooters to ride and a free pass for all the shitty pandering "humour" and disgusting misogyny this franchise apparently can't do without. Critics and fans were largely biased in DNF's favour, and it still got slated.

They didn't even have to make a good game, all they had to do was not make a bad one. At the very least they could try to have a little grace about it.

 

[ACman]

Really? You're going to compare Half life, a tour de force demonstration of atmosphere, pacing and narrative within gameplay, with Duke Nukem Forever, a stilted mash of ill-conceived gameplay design decisions and sexist toilet humor?

Don't get me wrong I'm impressed the Gearbox even produced a product out of the mess that they inherited so quickly. But face it. The game was shit.

I do think though with a bit of tongue in cheek rebooting duke can be rehabilitated into a fine parody of his former self.

I say that Duke needs to take the fight to the enemy. In space and to their home planet if necessary. Fight battles in Cosmic Space diners al la Roger Wilco or Spaceballs. Fistfight and jetpack his way across Space Afganistan, Save the President and the President's daughter from space ninjas, capture Alien babes in alien strip clubs, beat up a parody of Marcus Fenix from Gears of War, And then kill a parody of the Giant Spider he was supposed to defeat.

A you a bad enough dude to save the President?

 

[Muco5681]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJPkBc-BN4w pretty much sums up my feeling about this

 

[Mr.Pandah]

I'm probably one of the most ardent duke nukem fan boys and this game disgusted me. I didn't laugh at all and it was just a bad game. It wasn't duke. That's for damn sure.

 

[Vankraken]

Game looked like shit, had meh gameplay mechanics, and didn't really do anything new. Also some of the jokes were just bad.

I understand that the devs had to pick up what was made and quickly turn it into a finished product to recoup some of the loses invested into its horrendously long development time. For that they did a decent job but the game can't be rated highly when compared to some of the more interesting and/or highly polished AAA titles out there.

On the A to F scale it was a C at best and given the hype of it being DNF it let a lot of people down.

 

[Tucker154]

Half-Life 2 = DNF in quality? Did they even play there own game? Besides, in my mind, there 2 different kinds of shooters, and shouldn't even be compared in the first place. But, goes without saying, DNF was still a horrible game.

 

[ultimateownage]

No, the game was just shite.

Yeah, it WAS like Half Life 2. As in you wouldn't stop doing those fucking physics puzzles, as if it was still two thousand and fucking four.