Duke Nukem Forever – Review – PC

It’s been a long time coming, but Duke is finally back and looking better than ever in Duke Nukem Forever (DNF). With improved 3D graphics, gameplay, environments and the return of familiar enemies, weapons and cheesy one-liners, DNF has everything fans have been waiting for. However, with the game taking more than 10 years to release, I’m conflicted between two thoughts: one being that this could be considered an outstanding game, while the other being that it is just plain generic as it is [having been] released today.  With that said, is this the game fans have been waiting for? Was it worth the wait?

Story: Set about 12 years after Duke Nukem 3D, Duke is back and ready to save the world from an alien invasion. His first request by the president is to “talk” to the aliens, but the aliens quickly attack Duke leaving him no choice but to kill them. They take his “babes”, which is now his top priority, so then he has to destroy the Hoover Dam so that the aliens can’t draw power from it to create a portal to bring more aliens. Yes, Duke is capable of all this. Why? Because he’s the king and no one messes with the king.

Gameplay: DNF, like Duke Nukem 3D is a semi sci-fi, action packed first person shooter. The controls, at times, can feel stiff compared to the mostly fluid controls of today’s top shooters. DNF contains quite a variety of things to change up the gameplay from chapter to chapter such as the typical run and gun, driving, escape scenes, puzzle elements, platforming elements, and even swimming. In some ways, it’s quite hard to review DNF. If it was released many years earlier with these elements, DNF would have been one of the most interesting and potentially jaw dropping games of its time, but since it took so long to release, most, if not all of the elements have already been done and are no longer exciting. In other words, you can look at the game two ways and either enjoy it or not – either play the game as if it was released many years ago and really enjoy it, or play it just as it was released today and play a generic game. I played with a mindset in between the two and in some ways, enjoyed it, but only because I was playing it as if it were released earlier before some of the elements were introduced in other games. Again, if I just played it as another game that was announced and released with a year or two of knowing about it, it just would have been just another generic game.

For the most part, with the exception of driving and swimming which make the world seem a bit bigger and more open, DNF is very linear. The path is always laid out for you. However, there are times when an objective or item needed to continue is hidden, which can become very frustrating, but apart from that, it seems linearity is quite common in the majority of shooters I guess and they didn’t want to expand too much on that.

Duke is known for over the top weapons and humour, and DNF has no shortage of that. Most of the weapons you come across pack a serious punch. Even Duke’s punch alone is quite powerful especially when combined with steroids and beer allowing you to literally blow enemies to pieces. As for the humour, Duke is well known for his outrageous one-liners and again, there are plenty to be heard. Also, as you might expect with Duke, he has a huge ego, so instead of having a separate health, Duke’s ego acts as the health so any damage to Duke hurts his ego both mentally and physically. Doing things like boasting in the mirror, peeing, lifting weights, defeating bosses and so on will increase Duke’s ego bar slightly over time, but there aren’t too many challenging areas in the game so having a big ego isn’t really beneficial – not that it gets very big anyhow.

Throughout the game, I noticed many influences and references from AAA games and movies released within the production of Duke Nukem Forever. Games like Half life and Halo come to mind quite often with dialog, images, and background scenes having many similarities. But then I got thinking, maybe, just maybe Duke is actually in that universe saving the world Duke style. Hmmm…

Multiplayer: There isn’t a whole lot to say about multiplayer. Unfortunately, I found it mostly unplayable. It was very fast paced, plenty of weapons and even the jetpack, but it just seemed very hard to play compared to even some of the subpar shooters out there. I was reminded of the classic Duke Nukem, doom and even unreal tournament when playing, but it was nothing compared to those games.

Graphics/Audio: Again, if DNF was released years ago, the graphics would be quite good, and actually, at times, the character models and textures can look good, but for the most part, it is quite dated. It almost feels like a polished Xbox or early Xbox 360 game, which is what DNF should have been if completed on time. The water, however, at least while swimming both above and under, is probably the best looking thing in the game. Even the water sound is very well done. Overall, I find the graphics to be very similar to Quake 4 and especially Doom 3.

Audio is split as well. There is some great 80′s rock, with the occasional fantasy-like tune separating action and suspense. Lip syncing is not very good but luckily you aren’t forced to stare at an NPC and are able to walk around freely during dialog portions of the game. The dialog itself, as mentioned before, especially Duke’s one liners, contains a lot of references to movies and games as well which is quite interesting.

Overall: In the end, Duke Nukem Forever is the game that should have been released many years ago, but as it is now, it’s kind of late and dated. But as I’ve been saying, at least it is released in a half decent manner. Just play the game as if it was released years ago, and chances are you will enjoy it. Besides, the reason why most people bought the game is because they are fans of Duke Nukem. DNF is classic over the top fun. Not completely over the top, but you get the idea because it’s not really serious. Graphics? Do you think people cared that Duke was blocky and fake 3D back in the day? Sure, back then, it was ahead of its time, but people still play it, and you know why, because to them, blowing up aliens and pigs is fun not to mention Dukes stupid one liners. That’s all fans wanted; a sequel to Duke Nukem 3D, more of Duke’s one liners, obscenity, and of course the blowing up of pigs. That is exactly what you get in Duke if you actually look at it.

Overall score: 5/10

Pros:
-A playable game for fans finally released
-More of Duke
-Great quality water
-Many references to other games and movies

Cons:
-Terrible multiplayer
-Generic and too linear gameplay
-Terrible lip syncing
-Subpar graphics

A Steam code for this game was provided from the publisher for review purposes.

Popularity: unranked [?]