There’s never been another game quite like Duke Nukem Forever. That’s not because it’s inventive, technologically dazzling or particularly memorable, but because there literally hasn’t been another major production that’s taken 14 years to complete.
And that 14 years, remember, is the same period of time that has seen the firstperson shooter emerge from relative infancy to become videogames’ central preoccupation. Here, by way of hasty fudge, outright theft and obvious retrofit, you get to see an entire genre growing up. It’s not pretty, but it’s still fascinating to witness, and it makes Duke Nukem Forever an awkward botch of a game worth playing exactly once. Approach it as an archaeologist and there’s fun to be had sifting through compacted layers of design strata and increasingly elderly internet memes, in search of that single moment when everything started to go wrong.
And what strata they are. QTEs, rechargeable health, limited weapon slots and destructible cover: all are elements from other games that clearly caught 3D Realms’ roving eyes as the team slogged onwards, moving from confidence towards desperation and, with the advent of each new hardware generation, running a little faster just to keep up. Some of these borrowed mechanics are perfectly adequate – carrying only two guns at any time provides the flavourless arsenal with a little strategic spice – while others, such as shreddable cover, are so limited and inconsistent in their application that they represent little more than an occasional annoyance. Each addition clearly comes at a price, however – one that’s paid in terms of basic implementation and focus.
And it’s focus, as much as the dated shooting and endless corridors, that really lets Forever down. Forget the cribs from Halo: 3D Realms’ most debilitating influence is undoubtedly Half-Life – and in particular its sense of immersion in a world that’s waiting to respond in reasonably convincing ways. That famous tram ride has mutated, in the hands of Duke’s designers, into a muddle of working toilets, water coolers and telephones. Interactive in-game furniture is a fixation from which the game never quite recovers, and it’s here that you begin to see why such a stoically unremarkable game took over a decade to build.
The seeds of disaster are scattered across environments that come littered with expensive distractions: whiteboards to draw on, basketballs to dunk and mirrors that reflect not just Nukem, but his engagingly moronic jumping animation. Granted, these extra-curricular elements feed into the game’s Ego system (a health bar expanded by futzing with pinball machines and winning at slots), but was it really worth sacrificing so many other things in order to include them? It’s not rare, in this strange, lopsided world, to spend ten strategy-free minutes pumping a largely immobile boss full of rockets only to find out that, just around the corner, you can switch on a showerhead and use a photocopier to scan your backside. While some of these trinkets were foreshadowed in previous games, the sheer abundance of them here suggests that you’re playing the primer for a wayward subgenre that mercifully never actually turned up. Nukem’s caretakers have crafted a shooter with a functional en-suite where its set-pieces should be.
These interactive asides are the primary symptom of a product built with bizarre priorities; a game that lets you throw a paper plane from the top of the Hoover Dam but then struggles to apply depth-of-field effects competently enough – on 360, at least – to allow you to see who you’re actually shooting at half the time. Somewhere along the journey, 3D Realms’ greedy feature creep mutated into a fundamental lack of confidence: despite all the swearing and fellatio, the Duke Nukem we’ve ended up with isn’t the class rebel so much as the kid at school who was always looking out of the window, and given detention again and again.
Comments
35Edge is so biased against
Edge is so biased against Duke.
So yeah, 14 years for that? It couldn't even have the decency to be alright like Chinese Democracy? Gearbox has removed the longest running joke in game history, for not much gain really. So what are we left with now? Episode 3? Eight Days? Shenmue Online?It's just not the same.
Chinese Democracy wasn't
Chinese Democracy wasn't alright.
It wasn't terrible. It
It wasn't terrible. It certainly wasn't great. It was average, meh. Alright.
Nice review. Personally I
Nice review. Personally I enjoyed this game (though I clearly see that it is not a very good game at all). Also looking forward to see what PC people can do with the mod tools.
I'm not going to defend DNF
I'm not going to defend DNF against Edge, but seriously: review this game on PC, not consoles. What the hell!
DNF does feel like a missed opportunity. It makes too many compromises with contemporary shooters (regenerating health, two weapon limit) considering that the game is suppose to be lampooning them. We could've had a call back to good ol days of pre-COD games that weren't simply shooting galleries, and actualyl involved mobility of some sort and unique tactics like rocket jumping. But alas! It was not to be so. A for effort, Duke, D- for execution.
"I'm not going to defend DNF
"I'm not going to defend DNF against Edge, but seriously: review this game on PC, not consoles. What the hell!"
What the hell indeed. I'm looking forward to your explanation as to why it 'should' be reviewed on PC rather than consoles.
Omega Vader: I'm not going to
Omega Vader: I'm not going to defend DNF against Edge, but seriously: review this game on PC, not consoles. What the hell!
"14 years after it was originally announced, ‘Duke Nukem Forever’ finally makes its long awaited appearance in the All Formats Chart, debuting at No1 and knocking fellow Take 2 top seller ‘L.A. Noire’ (-54%) down to No2 in the process. Xbox 360 is the main Duke Nukem Forever format with a 56% share, ahead of PS3 with 30% and PC 14%"
http://www.chart-track.co.uk/?i=1107&s=1111
Yeah, review it on PC...
That doesn't answer the
That doesn't answer the question.
"Naff texturing" like
"Naff texturing" like Pandemic?
Oh come on, wasn't The Saboteur pleasing to the eye ?
The Midnight Show DLC
Chicken chicken chicken.
Chicken chicken chicken.
Even before clicking, I knew
Even before clicking, I knew the score would be a 2 or a 3. And that the Xbox 360 version was reviewed. I disagree with both. It's a decent game and the PC version is the one to review. Or at least the PS3, since the X360 version has by far the most problems.
Disappointed.
Whatever it's been reviewed
Why is the PC version the one
Why is the PC version the one to review? Most people were buying it on 360. Which means if they read a review of the PC version, it wouldn't sound like it was a technical mess. So when they got it home and popped it into the 360, and the shocking load times and texture pop in became immediately apprant, they'd wonder why the hell Edge never mentioned this.
As much as PC players might like to think Duke is for them, the fact is that a shoddy port was always going to outsell the shoddy original.
I agree. It should be
I agree. It should be reviewed on a PC to be based on the full merits of the game. If some graphical feature is missing on the console, that's only because it's a hardware limitation, not because it didn't exist in the game. If people are unhappy with how it looks on the console, it's also the same story for other games as it means the hardware lacks those features. As for an occasional bad texture or pop etc, I can go to any game under the sun and pick at it to death, and bring up where it lacks. Overall the game looked good, and on PC rivaled many 2011 titles out there. There is myth out there that since it was started in 1997 that means that somehow those graphics must be that old. That's complete beee s. The engine is popular and used in tons of titles between 2009 and 2011 that got HIGHER marks when basing on graphics than this game. I agree this game has some bad points and shouldn't get top marks, but it certainly got lower marks than was deserved. As for the original, being "shoddy", that's just some words that you threw out there because you don't know what you're talking about. The original came out during the transition from 2D to 3D at the time was way up there in graphics quality. Very few titles that year could do more than 2D. This wasn't full 3D, but it even out sold some more technically advanced, fully 3d shooters that year due to being FUN.
"After the mandatory jaunt
"After the mandatory jaunt through a strip club turns out to be significantly less convincing than a wander around Disneyland’s Hall of Presidents "
Haha, I remember being dragged into that one when I was about 5, never been so bored in my life.
"[Y]ou’re dropped into a
"[Y]ou’re dropped into a muddle of flickering Vegas skylines and desert vistas covered in the kind of naff texturing you’d otherwise never get to see any more, at least not now that EA’s finally closed Pandemic."
MEEEEOOOW! Saucer of milk for table five!
Was the dig at Pandemic
Is it just me or is Edge's
Is it just me or is Edge's reporting a lot more catty recently? Such as the Pandemic comment out of nowhere, or their recent reporting on E3. Some rather bizarre, almost non sequitur negative statements seem to litter their reporting.... part of the image refresh perhaps? Leave the name calling to the teen game publications please.
I've noticed a disturbing
I've noticed a disturbing trend towards smug bitchiness since the new site arrived too, especially with the Microsoft and Sony E3 reports.
Well it seems fair that they
Well it seems fair that they test it on Xbox because the majority of the market plays on Xbox, but yea better on PC. What can I say, the review justified the score. Just a shame really.
That would be PS3, surely. My
That would be PS3, surely. My guess is they review it on 360 because that's what they got their review copy for.
Actually mate, the PC version
Actually mate, the PC version is better than both PS3 and Xbox versions, as with any other game made on all 3 - PC games will always be better than console games.
I never said it wasn't.
I never said it wasn't.
Is it a reasonable working
Is it a reasonable working assumption, now, that most of those commenting who are not edge forumites are borked in the brain? It's certainly working out that way. At what point does the thesis become proven?
PC VERSION NREEEUGHBalancing
PC VERSION NREEEUGH
Balancing things out a bit, between the foruminitys n not
This game is awesome. I
This game is awesome. I don't know how this has received such a low score, obviously the person writing this was half asleep - IDIOT!
Hail to the king baby!
Double post win.If this game
Double post win.
If this game featured Ash, it would be instantly better.
Shoot, I didn't think they
Shoot, I didn't think they actually took the original game. I just thought they stuck the old name on a new game entirely. Stupid.
Gonzo brandishes his keen
Gonzo brandishes his keen academic eye at the real issue here and nails it to the cyan wall like so much pork (that was awkward). Thesis proven, court adjourned. Back to the old digs.
"and it makes Duke Nukem
"and it makes Duke Nukem Forever an awkward botch of a game worth playing exactly once."If it's worth playing once, it deserves higher than 3 stars. The purpose of a review is to help others make an informed decision as to whether or not it's possible that they too may have fun playing a game. I have a few theories as to why this game is getting lower marks than it should. First off, if they could do it over, Duke Nukem Forever could have NEVER gotten a good review no matter what was changed. The real reason it got such poor scores is based more on emotional sentiment closely tied to the notion that it's been vaperware for 14 years, in combination with fantasy expectations caused by the wait. And a new, younger group of reviewers view it as sort of an unwanted intrusion to the list of other current titles. I could be wrong, but I highly suspect that this edge journalist is in his or her 20's and feels some bias towards what's perceived as an "aging" meme as they put it. That's a pretty immature way to view a new game title since that's a subjective opinion and doesn't give out the truth about what might be fun in the game. I know that sounds silly or far fetched, but after reading many reviews, I realize most reviewers don't write really good, unbiased reviews, but simply exaggerate the negs of DNF, while minimizing negs if they are reviewing their favorite. DNF isn't perfect and has some issues so it shouldn't get a 10, but some of these reviewers treat a game that might be an 7.5 to 8 like a 1 or 2. Or call it a polished t_urd. And they've seemed so driven to give it a bad review, as they salivate like a dog waiting for a steak in order to show they are "real" critics.But even if the sequel were perfect in all regards I feel strongly convinced it would have been slammed no matter what. Had it been a brand new title, I think it would have gotten higher marks because people would quit talking about it being from an older title. The same would likely happen with COD had they waited 14 years to bring out the sequel. Even if that COD was the same exact, award winning title. The kiddies would be slamming it, saying, "Oh, who wants to play some old world war ii game from eons ago, yuck. Iron sites? Who are they kidding? COD2 is junk that's meant for old people! And look! they're trying to copy that new duke nukem game! They'll never live up to the hype!". I'd bet it would go down like that. OH well..
"He’s a flat-top cheeseburger
"He’s a flat-top cheeseburger of a hero, left to shoot at pigs in a game so slow to pick up on a joke that it doesn’t realize you can’t actually caricature a town that’s already as radiantly implausible as Las Vegas." ----===== Wow, layers and layers of loose associations and poorly fitting analogies in this review. The more I re-read it, the worse it gets. You can't caricature a town as radiantly implausible as Las Vegas? LOL. Does anyone else find the overly flowery rhetoric a bit of a cover up for not having much to say? I mean, it seems like you've concatenated a bunch of fun words together to make it sound like you are saying something that has a BIG impact, when it mostly imaginary or meaningless in context of it being a video game. Also even after it was explained that the "misogyny" was a misinterpretation of the games premise, you put it down for lacking that. - Your review just reeks of, "this titles just sounds so old, old, old! Very old, just old people, get it? old?" sort of sentiments..=== At another point you mention the framerate dipping towards the low teens, implying 13-14. Beyond what sounds like you cherry picked the lowest, and perhaps exaggerated, I get 122+ fps on a $650 PC. Unless you only mean 360? But even so, that's not all the time, and from what I've read, it's generally much, much higher. And if for pc, my card can now be had for about $179. So it's not like I have something ultra expensive. Remember, your review is supposed to give others out there a realistic feel for what they can expect, but it doesn't. Then you say "so that the game doesn’t crash entirely when they get their boots on the ground," - Oh wow, just wow! Now you are pretending you can tell if the game would crash or not depending on whether the pacing were adjusted by developers... Mine has never crashed once time. And never mind that it's more likely paced to be PLAYABLE. SO, you're review is REACHING into some delusional, fantasy world here. I could go on and on listing more inconsistencies and haven't even listed everything wrong with this "review". I'm sorry, but with that kind of reaching, you're review is even more suspect than I originally thought. Which means you're disenfranchising and misleading the general public. I don't think DNF is without it's problems, but it deserves better treatment than this, and so do readers I'd have to say the problem with your review is that you were trying SO hard to dissuade others into not liking it, that your real agenda became glaringly obvious, and to the point of being embarrassing, not only for you, but the gaming community.
Or it could actually be that
Or it could actually be that the game has been generally disliked by a fairly wide selection of gamers and reviewers owing to it not being very good at all.
It wass never a very good
It wass never a very good game apart from at the time it had cutting edge graphics. The story line was always week and the game play was repetative. What was always good was the humor. But you have to remember that back in 1997 the size of the game was much smaller, even your field or view was smaller and maybe they just don't have enough jokes to fill a modern day size game. But I will play it and remember way back when I bought a new hughe 120meg hard drive, 2 more meg of memory and a new graphics card (might have been a voodoo) I think I spent about £300.00 just so I could get my PC to run 'The Duke'. So don't take him too seriously have fun and " Suck it down!".
I first played Duke Numen 3D