Duke Nukem Forever Review
There are two reasons I’m reviewing Duke Nukem Forever – a game released in 2011 – on a website about films from the 80s. The first is that Duke is the ultimate homage to 80s action and is a computerized send off of Stallone and Arnie back in the day. Big guns, big cigars and mental triceps. This is helped by the slew of quotes from films from these great men – ‘Killing you is as easy as breathing’, ‘If it bleeds, I can kill it’, ‘Did I promise to kill you last? I lied!’. Brilliant. And in fact this game pretty much almost was made in the 80s, or at least in the mid 90s – it’s been 14 years in production.
Then there’s the fact that everyone else who’s reviewed this game seems to be a complete PRICK. It’s had the worst reviews ever from what I can tell – hardly seems to matter as it went straight to the number 1 spot – but it’s really starting to piss me off! So I came out of my 80s action hiatus just to set the record straight. This way at least 5 people who read this site will know that Duke in actual fact ROCKS just as hard as he did the first time around.
The Pros
The reviews I’ve read seem to just be vindictive or written by girly men. I’m not just being biased here, but I genuinely don’t know what they’re whining about (QUIT WHINING!). They say that the shooting mechanics are clunky for instance and yet I’d argue this is the most fun you can have with your hands. Full stop (there was already a full stop there but now I’ve written it again to reiterate). You can strafe to avoid bullets just like you could in the hey-day of shooters which makes it feel cool and skilful. Everything explodes which makes you feel awesome and unstoppable (shooting explosive crates never gets old) and the boss battles (against HUGE bosses) feel tense and exciting. I’ve not been so into a gun fight in a computer game for a long time. And it’s HARD, but that’s a good thing. It takes actual skill and balls and that’s why it’s so tense. It’s like Ninja Gaiden – old school reactions killing.
So the shooting is awesome which is just as well as it’s the bulk of the game. If it was just for that I’d be as happy as a pig in shit, but what makes the game really awesome is how varied it is and how much effort has gone into it. Even Halo got boring from time to time after you’d emptied every room of bad guys, but Duke isn’t like that – every two minutes something completely different is happening. You’re being shrunk down and jumping across a roulette table, you’re climbing scaffolding, you’re controlling a wrecking ball, you’re looking for petrol in a desert, you’re climbing tentacles of some huge unseen monster, or you’re looking for a vibrator (genuinely). There’s so much variation that nothing ever gets dull and you’re constantly impressed and wanting to see what comes next.
And everything is interactive too – by the way. You can bench press, pick up and throw shit (which causes Duke to start begging you to stop), you can sign autographs (and by sign autographs, of course I mean draw cocks), play basket ball, play snooker… the list goes on. Or you can do your own stuff and start throwing dumbbells through the basket ball hoop. And you actually get rewarded for these mini games too increasing your ‘ego’ (which is your health bar). It’s awesome that gunfire just hurts Duke’s ego. It’s like they uploaded Chuck Norris into the game.
Downsides
Of course I’m not blinded by love enough to not realise the couple of downsides and there are one or two. For instance Duke has to hide to let his ego recharge which is a bit frustrating – this is them trying to learn from modern shooters and taking away from some of the old school charm. But at the same time it annoys me that reviewers whine about this and then whine that the shooting isn’t modern enough – what do you want?
And the loading times are pretty shit I’ll give you that. But to be honest, just don’t be so shit at games and die so often and it won’t be a problem. This isn’t as bad as the recent Sonic the Hedgehog game or anything.
And apparently the graphics aren’t that good either. Apparently. I mean sure it’s not Crysis 2, but seeing as this game was dropped around 2009 it holds up pretty well. I’ve heard reports of bugs too but I’d actually say in this case that Crysis 2 is more buggy. It honestly just seems like critics are wankers and have it in for this game for some reason. Honestly try it before you take their criticisms too seriously – it’s brilliant fun.
There are a couple of reasons the reviews might be bad. One could be that they don’t love the 80s in which case – go home. Another could be that they’re let down after 14 years of development but honestly I couldn’t have expected that much more from the game. A game where you can interact with literally everything even 10 hours into the game (most shooters these days last a fraction of the time of Duke too) is justified in taking a little long – and the other problems were caused by 3D Realms going bust.
Then there’s the fact that Duke is pretty offensive. And it is pretty offensive. You have to shoot these women who are naked and being impregnated by aliens and crying, and you can slap boobies to which Duke says ‘Got Milk?’, and in the multi player there’s a game mode called ‘capture the babe’ where you have to capture a babe and then slap her to stop her kicking off about it. But the fact that it’s pissing people off and getting people talking is actually kind of brilliant. Surely that was kind of the point of Duke 3D (not so much the AWESOME Duke 1 and 2 which I think only I remember). And it’s pushing boundaries which is always a good thing. Come on guys, just lighten up…
Conclusion
So despite not being technically the most high-end game, this is still the most fun game out there until Ninja Gaiden 3. I genuinely can’t understand what all the wanker critics are moaning about (and since when did game critics start taking themselves so seriously anyway??). If the game wasn’t fun, then I could understand them reviewing it badly, but it is really fun. More fun than Halo and I really enjoyed that. And it’s not offensive – it’s hilarious and all the more so because people are finding it hilarious. To them I say: shut up! To you I say give it a go and I think you’ll genuinely have a blast. And if it sells out massively then that acts as a middle finger to the press and to the angry liberal groups and parents (tip: it says 18 on it).
A+
Clever title-pun credit must go to my buddy Simon. I can’t take credit and it would feel dirty to do so…
