Shihan2 said:
Let me first state that I didn't own a copy of Duke Nukem when I was a kid. I haven't seen much of the series, since I only saw about two minutes of it as a friends place before getting bored and doing something else. I grew up with games much farther on the fringe, so I don't really understand the appeal it has with so many people.
Let's assume that the people who REALLY enjoy this series were ten when the first game was released and 14-15 when 3D was released. By now, those individuals are now about to enter their 30's. Don't you have more pressing issues to worry about than resurrecting an old series from your childhood? I have a friend who's thirty and enjoyed the series back when Forever was still an uncertainty, and he's much more interested in his daughter learning to speak.
But what really confuses me is why everyone continues to rant on and on about the demo and how disappointing it is. After all this time, and let's not forget the original developers no longer being apart of the process, did anyone really think this would be anything other than an attempt to wring money out of nostalgic gamers?
Since I've never had much interest in the series, due to the fact in my eyes the "humor" is bland at best, I'm asking some of the other Escapists what their take on the matter is. I'm open to the argument that realism can and should be axed if it gets in the way of a game that isn't trying to be serious, and I understand humor is subject to perception. One thing I ask is to please give the Yahtzee arguments a break and argue about the merits of the Nukem series instead of blaming a game released five years after the end of Nukem.
First of all, I don't really know how you're able to add ten and fifteen and get "about to enter their 30's." Lots of people who are twenty-five are still in university, don't have families, etc.--which means they have a similar amount of free time to a senior-level high school student. Also--why are people who are thirty not allowed to get excited about a game? Often people on this site talk as if your life ends at thirty--trust me, it's
not that different.
I'm twenty-two and I first played
Duke Nukem 3D when I was maybe ten years old (I beat the
DOOM shareware at age five). I finished the entire thing a few years ago--maybe in '06--on the N64. Of course, when
DN3D was first released it was easily the best FPS on the market, barring perhaps
DOOM, and had by far the most recognizable protagonist--the level of interaction with environments at the time was particularly impressive--so it ought to be understandable why people have been continually excited for a sequel.
The original
Duke was developed by 3D Realms. The new
Duke is developed by 3D Realms, albeit assisted by Gearbox--hardly upstarts in their own right. No problem there. Additionally, the footage that's been already released--rife with Duke's one-liners and images of him picking up poo or scrawling images of penises with marker--suggest the new game is at least superficially concerned with continuing the legacy of its predecessor, even if the two-gun limit and regenerating health features some find jarring (the world has changed since 1996--I don't). In all likelihood,
DNF will be good--maybe not
Half-Life 2, but good--a probability that many overcritical of an eight-month old PAX East demo or the inclusion of a few features that are staples of the FPS genre in 2011 seem to have overlooked.
So yes, I think there's lots of reasons to be excited--whether you were an early or late adopter of
DN3D.
