Thoughts – Duke Nukem Forever
It’s here! After travelling through development hell, The Duke returns and unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ll know the age it’s taken to get here.
There’s been plenty of articles on what’s happened in the time it’s taken Duke Nukem Forever (DNF) to make it to release. The jokes have worn thin. The question on everyone’s lips is whether DNF lives up to expectation. The curious thing, and this is echoed by many on Twitter, is that it really does depend on what you’re expecting.
DNF is wildly inconsistent. Half of it is stuck in the late 90s, the other half is so meta that it seems dangerous to discuss it. Some of the design, especially the levels, are astonishingly thought out. Ground is retread, digs at other franchises are made and overall it falls short of what it could have achieved.
Just how short is what’s important
If you come at DNF with a similar standard of expectation as Battlefield 3, Call of Duty, hell, any shooter from the last five years you’ll be sorely disappointed. This is a linear, quite often dull, trudge through segmented levels in the aim of telling the story of the uber-bad-ass that is Nukem.
His character is as you’d expect; crass, rude, vile, 80s action hero. He eats moral standards for breakfast and gives the finger to anyone who suggests otherwise. And for that we love him. He’s likeable, and in the world of nanny-state control, a big swear at the establishment and control that big publishers exact over games.
We’re living in a sterile environment where the entertainment medium that so many of us love so dear is dangerously close to death before its even begun. This year’s E3 shows that innovation and ‘fun’ in the industry is misplaced and being squandered. Slap a #3 on the game, stick in some helicopters and make sure it’s hyper-ultra-realistic with best-of-breed, innovative technology with big budget graphics and you’ll be onto an Activision Billion.
If you come at DNF with a light-hearted opinion, you’ll be more than surprised. Two reasons exist:
- How the hell did it take a game like this take so long?
- It’s stupid, silly, macho and overall, not as bad as everyone makes it out to be.
In an industry where a 7 means the average, Duke is a 5. It’s a mid-game. It’s not amazing. It’s not bad. 5 sounds poor to score-o-holics, but it’s just that; smack bang in the middle. Question it for its lack of blockbuster AAA visuals and regimented hand holding and you’ll be missing the point.
Give it a month and it’ll be down in price and an easier purchase on the wallet. Long loading times, old-school check pointing and tongue-in-cheek narrative. It’s a mismatch of gaming fundamentals from the last decade.
It is a history lesson of gaming. A bite-sized encyclopaedia of First Person Shooting. It’s also a future warning.
Hail to the King Baby. See you soon.
Edit: 13.06.2011 – Turns out bad reviews do nothing, it hit #1 in the UK charts in its opening weeks.
Tagged: Analysis, Article, Computer Game, Duke Nukem Forever, game, marco fiori, Review, Thoughts
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2 Responses to “Thoughts – Duke Nukem Forever”
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I absolutely agree with you on most of your points, Marco. This a game in which people’s experience is very relative to the person playing it.
The only thing I don’t agree with is that it’s average. But that’s more to do with the perspective I had when going into the game. I was scared stiff that it would have been moulded into some sort of modern day, modern-warfare-esque FPS. And as you say, DNF is stuck in the nineties — and that is what has made it an amazing experience for me.
I’ve gone into a first-person shooter, which as of late have become rather tedious at times, and come out the other side having had a whole lot of fun. The complaints of many are the very things that I have made this game feel the way I did when I played DN3D while in high school.
Thanks Bobby, thanks for sharing your opinion. Yes, I reckon that if it’d moved towards a seriously format it’d be even worse. I wouldn’t say it’s an amazing game, but an experience could be a more accurate term.
It’s marred on occasion by frustration, but overall it’s decent. You can see it wants to shine from a gameplay perspective, it just can’t.