

14 Years of Waiting Have Come to an End: Duke Nukem Forever - rdamico
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/18/arts/video-games/duke-nukem-forever-is-released-after-14-years.html

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rkalla
FWIW, I put up a fairly extensive review of Duke Nukem Forever[1]

I, much like burgerbrain and others though the general shenanigans and
debauchery (bewbs!) would keep me entertained and while they were certainly
highlights, the core shooting mechanics and level design in the game (what
makes up the other 90% of your time in there) is SO mediocre and uninspired
that the game just feels like a drag at parts.

There are absolutely highlights (relative to the rest of the content), a few
fun levels, some solid texture work, 1 or 2 cool bosses... those are all fun,
but when you average all together, the whole experience is like a 7-10hr
experience that drags on.

Had the core mechanics (something I address in the review) been modified a bit
and felt better, the game would have been much more solid.

It is sort of like having a cool movie with a great premise, but the two lead
characters are TERRIBLE actors and you can't stand them... no matter how cool
the topic is or how awesome the CG is, overall you won't enjoy the movie
because you can't stand those actors.

Even if something else had sucked in the game, for example the graphics were
worse, but the core mechanics were better, the game would have reviewed
better. The problem is just that the glue that holds the whole thing together
is weak and unenjoyable.

Rent it, you can grab it from RedBox for $2/day now that they are renting
games.

[1] <http://www.thebuzzmedia.com/duke-nukem-forever-pc-review/>

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burgerbrain
There must be something wrong with me. I haven't been a "gamer" for a little
over a decade, but the more of these "negative" reviews I read, the more I
want to play this game. Not ironicly.

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joelackner
it's better than people are making it out to be. if you enjoyed the first,
you'll enjoy the nostalgia. it's a little uneven in terms of fun and pacing
(as such a frakenstein'ish project with multiple hands and such a long
development cycle will lead to), but i think it's worth playing.

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DannoHung
Seriously? I've been watching some playthrough videos and it just looks
BORING. Long, long stretches with no enemies, the enemies themselves are
canonfodder and in sparse supply. It looks like a sketch of a game that's
highly derivative of Half-Life.

I'm gonna save my money for Serious Sam 3.

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booleanCA
Yeah I have to agree - I really thought I was up for a return to the past, a
good classic action FPS, a great piece of history that will go back to the
classic FPS formula...but it looks and plays like a mod of Hexen or Quake or
SIN. A very boring, half assed Hexen mod. It manages to take everything people
HATED about FPS games back then (ie. long boring puzzles, long areas with no
enemies, confusing jumping puzzles, the "run around the room mashing the use
key to figure out what to do" gameplay) and put it in one package. So while
it's certainly a return to the past, it's also a return to a style of gameplay
that got killed off because it was boring as buggery.

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Maci
Having finished the game and gone thru all the extras you see that very little
has changed at all since the original conception in '97 apart from the engine
changes over time.

Ironically the final boss battle is the most Duke3D like gameplay moment of
the entire game.

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vl
>In the pantheon of artistic endeavors ruined by a combination of hubris, too
much money and too little discipline, Duke Nukem Forever now joins the likes
of “Ishtar,” “Waterworld,” and “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark.”

It's actually funny that the author chose to compare computer game to two
movies and a play. There are better (okay, more relevant for gamers) examples
that pop into mind, like Daikatana or Doom 3.

P.S. And Waterworld is actually a quite entertaining movie.

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hnsmurf
At least Axl Rose can feel a tad less bad about Chinese Democracy now.

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xbryanx
Rape and abuse of women as a plot point? Lost me there. Take your money and
buy Dragon Age 2, which brings a refreshing new take to gender dynamics in
video games. [http://jezebel.com/5785846/video-game-lets-players-slap-
wome...](http://jezebel.com/5785846/video-game-lets-players-slap-women)

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fiblye
>Rape and abuse of women as a plot point? Lost me there.

You were never the target market of the series. Duke Nukem 3D's job was to
parody 80s and early 90s action movies and it's not meant to be taken
seriously in any way; Forever is, obviously, just like it.

Also, Dragon Age and Duke Nukem aren't even remotely similar games and weren't
even made to appeal to the same audiences. I don't intend to sound angry or
anything, but few people play games for how progressive they are with
depicting gender and sexuality. Games exist for one purpose: fun. If someone
likes crude humor, then Duke Nukem is probably fun, but I don't think anybody
is going to take any life lessons out of it because _they're not supposed to_.

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danbmil99
The "Chinese Democracy" of video games [edit: argh someone beat me to it]

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aw3c2
related: <http://www.xentax.com/?p=303> \- "Duke Nukem Forever exposes crap
reviewers - 100 reviews compared"

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janzer
Has the author of that post looked at the distribution of reviews in other
cases at all? From everything I've seen a bimodal distribution in reviews is
not at all uncommon in the real world, especially for a product that is trying
to be edgy.

