Duke Nukem Forever is actually a great game (for oldschool fans)

Gotta respect the OP for having balls of steel to even post this thread on GAF, knowing full well of the skewering that he's about to get.

I found what I played of the game to be passable I guess, although alot of the material presented (i.e. the jokes, aesthetics and some of the levels) to be out of place considering the increasingly PC permeated era we currently live in.

This game would've been more acceptable in the 90s, when Duke 3D and its ilk came out, not so much right now, where everyone is tripping over themselves to heckle anything that does not conform to their strict PC-ness. Recall how widely the game was blasted and ripped apart by the gaming press (both rightfully and wrongfully) when it was released.

In short, it was a game conceived, produced and released for a bygone era.
 
It's not a treat for older fans. The levels are small and linear, there are too many cutscenes and non-interactive events, the fighting is lame and only has a few enemies at a time, it's not at all like the original game and doesn't do much to evoke any of the fun of the original game.
 
ambientmystic said:
Gotta respect the OP for having balls of steel
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I-See-What-You-Did-There-Fry1.jpg
 
Nobody else got the heart to tell you, but you're balls inflated due to the Steam sale. You didn't purchase that junk at full price.
 
I enjoyed too! Glad to see a thread about this.

I think the abysmal reviews it got were vastly exaggerated. And in a way, it was cool to make fun of DNF.

Yes, it was not the second coming of Christ, but it was a great Duke Nukem game.

I don't know what people were expecting. Did they really think all those years they were constantly working on the game? Builds and assets were lost and discarded. The game was frequently rebooted. Take a look for this for example...you don't see that in the final game.

So, basically, the game you finally got is not a game with 15 years of work, but rather the last year of work when Gearbox saved it and used whatever assets or work they could salvage.

Also, with such a messy development hell, I suppose incentives were down the ground, and tons of money lost.
 
DNF's alien infested women set piece is gross. All that frightened sobbing? Jesus.

Regardless of whether they share intent, there is a big difference between 640x480 SVGA sprites that scream out in MIDI and fully animated 3D models that constantly fill the room with choking, desperate sobs recorded in stereo. There were a lot of chiefs involved in the development of DNF. None of them walked into that room and thought, "Hmm, our very graphic depiction of violated, terrified women might not fit with the overall theme of this goofball game."
 
Draft said:
DNF's alien infested women set piece is gross. All that frightened sobbing? Jesus.

Regardless of whether they share intent, there is a big difference between 640x480 SVGA sprites that scream out in MIDI and fully animated 3D models that constantly fill the room with choking, desperate sobs recorded in stereo. There were a lot of chiefs involved in the development of DNF. None of them walked into that room and thought, "Hmm, our very graphic depiction of violated, terrified women might not fit with the overall theme of this goofball game."
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Or maybe "pushing the envelope" was always a tentpole for DN?

I really don't know, but seems to me that if you're trying to fanservice for a game long gone, you retread.....
 
Can't say I've played the whole game, but the western level in the demo was an absolutely dreadful Half-Life 2 wannabe as opposed to resembling old school design sensibilities.
 
It has barely got an old-school bone in it's body beyond irreverence (and even that's done in such a way that it makes Duke Nukem 3D look like the most progressive game ever made). Hell the linearity pretty much directly goes against what DN3D was as locations that were actually places was a major part of that game, and removing the option to explore pretty much directly undermines that.
 
InternHertz said:
I actually enjoyed it at release, I don't feel any shame in that.
I laughed, had a great time. I still need to play the DLC though.
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This. I laughed and loved it and sunk quite a few hours into the MP.

Personally I think it is a fantastic game and Gearbox did great wrapping it all up
 
Definitely a weird game. I enjoyed it (and the DLC) to some degree but there were so many things that were poorly thought out or just plain bad. It's almost like the game was rushed, which is super fucked up considering the situation.

I would very much like to see more Duke Nukem games, it's a series with a lot of potential. I wish that Flying Wild Hog had the IP, the way they handled Shadow Warrior was almost perfect in gameplay and tone.

Gearbox probably isn't the worst place for it, but they've really let their ineptitude show lately.
 
destx said:
Definitely a weird game. I enjoyed it (and the DLC) to some degree but there were so many things that were poorly thought out or just plain bad. It's almost like the game was rushed, which is super fucked up considering the situation.

I would very much like to see more Duke Nukem games, it's a series with a lot of potential. I wish that Flying Wild Hog had the IP, the way they handled Shadow Warrior was almost perfect in gameplay and tone.

Gearbox probably isn't the worst place for it, but they've really let their ineptitude show lately.
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I'm not sure it does have a lot of potential really. Duke Nukem's character was intended to be a parody of 90s action heroes and films. But those films don't really have the same culturally relevancy as they once had.
 
Sneds said:
I'm not sure it does have a lot of potential really. Duke Nukem's character was intended to be a parody of 90s action heroes and films. But those films don't really have the same culturally relevancy as they once had.
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Everybody should still totally watch Army of Darkness, though.
 
The perfect Dark said:
Yeah, what's wrong with it, seriously?
I'm playing this game right now for the first time (PS3 version) and I love it.
I grew up with Doom, Half Life, Unreal Tournament, etc.
....and this game makes me feel nostalgic (in a good way).
Shooting (and overall gameplay) feels great, I love the humour and easter eggs. Load times aren't as bad as I thought. You respawn max. 20 seconds after you've died, even Skyrim has longer loading times, so wtf?
Visuals are dated but...yeah I don't mind. Doom 3 BFG Edition looks dated, too but I have more fun playing these games than playing the new COD, Battlefield, Gears of War or Halo.
I love old school shooters.
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I didn't know Randy Pitchford had a neogaf account. COOL!
 
I didn't hate it, but it was definitely both a mediocre and flawed game. The opening scene was pretty good and felt like it was what Gearbox scrapped together to say "If we did the game it would be more like this!" then quickly got into "wait, is this finished?" territory of what they scraped off the ground. Ultimately my feelings were "meh" as it really was what I was expecting given the history of the project but I don't think it deserved the level of hate it got.
 
To me, as I've said multiple times here, it was a straight 7 game. Not great, not horrible -- a lot better than reviewers wanted everyone to believe, and not as good as the original.

That people had an issue with the whole alien bit... it makes me wonder if people actually remembered the original. Did people want a sequel like it, or did they just like the idea of one? Not sure -- but it's in line with DN, like it or not.
 
I enjoyed it too.

I think that by far its biggest problem was that it was as ugly as hell and ran like shit. If it somehow looked like Halo 4 I reckon its Metacritic score would be at least 75%.

And the humour was great. A Duke game isn't supposed to be politically correct. If any of those jokes were in Family Guy nobody would bat an eyelid.
 
I enjoy older fps games as well, but DNF is a soulless husk devoid of any real entertainment value because it is the most mediocre, homogenized piece of content I have ever had the misfortune of forcing myself to complete. I truly sympathize for everyone involved on trying to salvage such a lost-cause of a game.

The pacing is atrocious, the gameplay itself is so tepid, bland, and uninspired that it's a wonder I didn't fall asleep, the writing is so awful that it passes the "so bad it's good" area to circle back around into being just bad (not to mention all of the numerous things it references and antagonizes are far superior to anything offered from this title), and the entire thing feels like it is being held together with scotch tape.

The game spends 90% of its time trying to convince the player/audience that "DUKE NUKEM IS SUPER COOL STILL!" but they couldn't be more wrong.
 
Game is awful. Really? After the intro, your first mission is a miniturized carting section? Turned it off halfway through it.
 
I couldn't disagree more as an "old gamer".
Two weapon limit, self restoring health that's two big No-Nos right here.
Also no Duke boot, no real exploration, fuc*ing turret sequences, no cool easter eggs or secrets to discover and I'm not even mentioning the "humor".

It might be an "oldschool" shooter compared to Call of Duty or BF4 but compared to Doom, Quake or even Serious Sam or Painkiller it's just a sad, sad, sad joke
It's not AS horrid as reviews made it out to be but it's not a good game. Nope.
 
I thought the game was a good time on PC. I think most people and reviewers played the game on consoles. That version had very long load times and worse shooting. The PC GAMER review is most in line with how I feel about the game.
 
makes a change from all the cod clones

also pc got patched to hold more weapons
 
you know there's a HUGE difference in gameplay/level layout/generally almost everything between Forever and the original 3D right?
 
I've played worse games.

The problem was two-fold, 1) it was a game that tried to "keep up with the Joneses" and 2) as the dev post pointed out, it was a game that was compromised for technology.

The two weapon limit, the regenerating health, those are clearly blatant attempts to cater to "modern" shooter tastes, when they really had no place in a Duke Nukem game. Duke should be running out guns blazing, instead he's popping out and ducking behind cover to regen health. It just doesn't fit with how the game should have been played.

And like that dev post said, levels got cut, stripped down, compromises were made. The loading time issue was nonexistent on PC (as a matter of fact, the PC version has pretty fast level loads). The graphics were not great, but not offensively bad either.

But the game wasn't all negatives. Most of the guns at least felt right, there was still satisfaction in killing things. The game still does environment interaction as good as any game since the original Duke 3D. As far as the jokes and humor goes, if you put yourself back into the same 10-year-old mentality that you had when you played the original then there's no reason to complain. Its crass, its dirty, its low brow, its offensive, but its clearly not meant to be taken seriously.

I hope Duke is not dead. Duke Nukem 3D really was a landmark in FPS design. Duke Nukem Forever clearly didn't live up to the level of its predecessor, but at least it made an attempt to keep some of the unique things that DN3D did alive. There's still room for Duke Nukem in video games.
 
I'm gonna get some raised eyebrows for this, but although I expected very little of it, DNF reminded me very much of Half Life 2, if Gordon could speak.
The annoying vehicle sessions certainly played part in that.
 
Duke is about terrible jokes, tits, stupid enemies and awesome guns. I had a fucking blast playing through it, because I knew even though it was an objectively terrible game, there was still enjoyment to be had if you just lighten up. All this typical whining about gun limits and narrow corridors have a point, but just miss the point at the same time. I also enjoyed that Matt Hazard game on 360, for the same reasons. My friend and I had a blast just flying through it, we always bring it up when he hang out (which is very rare due to living 700 miles away now) because of how ridiculous it was.
 
The BS Police said:
No it really isn't. It didn't know what it wanted to be, if it was for old school fans it shouldn't have a two weapon limit.
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Yup

The two weapon limit really hurt the game

Its like it was balanced for you to carry all weapons and at the last minute they decided to put in a two weapon limit because they were supposed to

It really was an awful experience and i just rented it from redbox
 
I agree. Never understood the hate. The level design is much more varied than the Call of Duty clones and the weapons and humor are still very entertaining for me.
 
Picked it up for $2, and couldn't stomach it for more than 10 minutes. My coworker offered to buy it off me for $2, and regretted it soon after.
Terrible game in every way.
 
The graphics, jokes and general production are so dated it shows. This is to say nothing of the incredibly low-brow Hive sections.

But, truth be told, I had an alright time with it. Gunplay was decent and save for some really awkward sections that are there to break up the pace, some levels are incredibly creative. Duke Burger was a really fun segment to play and I loved how incredibly varied it was up until the endgame. The set pieces were also nice and I like how it rewards you for messing about with certain environmental gimmicks to increase health. I kind of enjoyed the multiplayer too, just classic deathmatching.

Honestly, the game is really quite bad in terms of production, but I admit it was a guilty pleasure somewhat. Then again, I haven't really played it since I first finished it so I might be remembering things wrong.
 
i hate the fact that i bought it for 60 bucks, but i had it preordered for a while. it was a good way to waste time i guess. Overall i enjoyed most of the game, but hated the fact that it retained pretty much every modern shooter trope when i was expecting it to be a fps out of the 90's.

Also, i think i may be the only person who actually thought the youre fucked quote was pretty funny given the scenario(alien impregnation)
 
Duke Nukem 3D is one of the first games I played as a child, and I replay it and other Build Engine games (like Blood) quite often.

I wanted to find something to like in Duke Nukem Forever. I really did. I completed the whole story, and yet... nothing. It just had so many issues that detach it from what made Duke 3D great while trying so hard to match expectations for modern shooters and tripping over itself constantly in the process. Also, Duke himself was too much of a doofus. 3D got it right with the sparse one-liners and a couple of other phrases when interacting with the environment (or blowing something up).

Actually, I will say that Duke Burger was a pretty all-right section.


I think the game's worst crime is that it didn't have a mighty-boot (outside of executions).
 
Old school? the only old school it has going for it is the graphics. 2 weapon limit? regenerating health? linear levels? yeeeeeeeah very old school alright! The gunplay is terrible, they're too self aware and that makes the humor seem forced and not at all "cool" like in the old days, it's shit from top to bottom.

It's probably the worst game I played to completion last gen and I would've stopped much earlier, but I made a promise to myself that I would finish it if it ever came out.

I know everyone has their opinion, and they're all valid, but when someone praises this game, I really don't know what to think of them.
 
For anyone who's ever played a Duke Nukem game. Whether it be the 3d ones or even the Tomb Raider clone games on psx and n64...
Duke Nukem 4ever is not the open, level by level game we are used to.

Some of the 3rd person ones werent all that great...but they were at least in the same open level design.


This is an insult.
 
As an old school Duke fan I thought the game was...................ok, it's not a terrible game by any means, it's just......not a good game either

Its just average, Duke deserved better dammit
 
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