Duke Nukem Forever (PC): A Fair and Balanced Review

Let’s just address the pink elephant in the room. No one can think of Duke Nukem Forever without bringing up the extremely long development cycle. Yes, the game has had more than its fair share of drama, and has been in development for over 12 years. Due to the extremely long development time, gamers (and reviewers) believe that this game should be the most polished thing ever, with streamlined gameplay and unrivaled level design that should win awards for years to come.

This is just unrealistic. We will be reviewing the PC version of Duke Nukem Forever, but we will not be judging it based on what we think we should see, but will base the review on the game’s own merits (or lack thereof).

A little background

The opening of Duke Nukem Forever is a little tongue-in-cheek about its own prolonged absence. Our hero is playing the Duke Nukem Forever game in his penthouse apartment in the Lady Killer Hotel and Casino (a Las Vegas attraction for and about Duke). During the game, one of his lady friends lifts up from the bottom of the screen, wipes her mouth, and comments about how great the game is.

“It better be after 12 years of development”, Duke replies.

After this, Las Vegas is attacked, and Duke is thrown into thwarting the alien invasion that apparently resumed over a decade ago.

Innuendo

There is a LOT of sexual innuendo and crude humor, which is something that many reviewers have harshly criticized. The one-liners and crass jokes is what makes us like the Duke character.

Perverts like myself truly appreciate that the Duke Tower has sixty-nine floors, and that the rocket launcher has a maximum payload of 69 rockets. People close to me know that I’m all about that.

Here’s an easy test to see if you will appreciate the humor in Duke Nukem Forever. If you like or have done any of the following then the jokes will not be lost on you:

• Bruce Campbell
• Like the Evil Dead movies
• Liked Postal 2
• You have the maturity of a 12-year-old boy
• You have ever drawn a penis (or put an “I” strategically on a box of PENS).
• You have entered 5,318,008 into a calculator to spell “boobies”

A lot of reviewers have leveraged this crude humor as a reason to criticize the entire game, but it all adds to the crass flavor that is Duke Nukem. Somehow the jokes don’t seem as funny as they did a decade ago. Maybe I’m just getting old.

Interacting with the world

Just like Duke Nukem 3d, there are lots of things Duke can do between all of the action. He can turn on showers, write on whiteboards, use the toilet, lift weights, sign autographs… and these usually feed his Ego (the “health” used in this game).

Isn’t it Ironic?…

There are a lot of dated references to game dynamics from last decade, most notably Doom. During one scene where Duke is apparently at a dead end, he is told he must retrieve a red keycard… a game dynamic that many first-person shooters (aka Doom clones) from 1993 implemented. Duke says “I don’t need no f*cking keycard”, and rips the door open. This might have gotten a chuckle before the 21st century, but the reference is most certainly lost today.

It is only a few minutes before Duke finds himself in a locked room unable to proceed until he retrieves three energy cells (e.g. keys). I’m not sure if the irony is intentional or accidental.

Regardless of the intention, object hunts in games today are like escort missions. They have no place in today’s video games. Unfortunately, this isn’t the last time Duke hunts for items in the game.

Gameplay dynamics

Instead of regular “health”, Duke has”Ego”, which can be permanently buffed by performing various macho things throughout the levels. Urinating in the toilet, loading up weights, playing with a punching bag, admiring his reflection, and various other things increase Duke’s overall health meter.

There are a few other classic gameplay elements present, but they are just named different things. In addition to Health being renamed “Ego”, temporary invincibility is achieved through drinking Beer.

Varied level gimmicks

You don’t get used to any one style of gameplay for very long. Duke Nukem Forever has lots and LOTS of minigames in between all of the action. Some may find this annoying, and some may find this a great change of pace.

Within a five minute span in the first level, Duke finds himself solving a simple platform puzzle, crawling through corridors, kicking his way through enemies, retrieving a key with an RC car, blowing up a mothership, and slowing down a runaway elevator with a hand brake.

It’s great that there is such a varied change of scenery, as many of the brief shoot-out sequences can feel a little labored, and just aren’t fun. The enemy AI just isn’t very good, and aliens don’t seem to care about (or be aware of) cover. This may be a throw-back to the games of yesteryear, or just a complete oversight, but the enemies pretty much just stand there until you shoot them.

A great break in the action is when Duke is shrunk down (complete with squeaky Duke-voice), and must climb into a Turbo-enabled RC car, which starts a stunt-driving sequence.

Weaponry

In Duke Nukem 3d, Duke could hold a multitude of weapons and switch between them. In this new iteration it seems that Duke is showing his age, as he can only carry two different weapons at the same time.

PC considerations

There are a few differences in with the PC version of the game that must be noted. One of the obvious features is that users can vary the resolution, graphics, and sound to suit their hardware. If your system isn’t as beefy, you can turn off graphics features, or simply reduce the resolution.

When we turned on monitor Vsync, we noticed some weird graphical stuttering. Our test system is no slouch (Intel i7-950, nVidia Geforce 480, 12GB DDR3 RAM, 2x SSDs in RAID 0), and can easily run more demanding games without any problems.

The game also supports Logitech’s LCD readout on their popular gaming keyboards like the G510. The readout shows which level you’re on, the difficulty, and a few other tidbits. A neat “Duke Nukem” logo appears on the readout between level loads, which by the way only take about 5 seconds as compared to the 30 or more seconds that Xbox 360 gamers experience.

Graphics

The level design feels a little forced, and just doesn’t feel as organic or natural as it could. Although the levels aren’t huge, it can be easy to get lost in corridors. There are times where you feel stuck, but it only takes a minute to figure out if you’ve encountered a puzzle, or just need to retrace your steps.

Although the game uses the Unreal engine, the graphics look a bit overdone and dated, and has the remarkable feel of Doom 3. While Doom 3 was a graphical milestone at the time, it just has a dated look when compared to games of today. The game engine makes a lot of use of reflections, but they look rather pixelated.

The animation isn’t up to the quality level that today’s games deliver, either. The lip-syncing isn’t very good, and the character animations look scripted rather than the natural motion-captured movements that many games today employ. Characters will suddenly go from a leisurely slow-walk to full-blown run-for-your-life-with-arms-flailing-about mode and appear to follow an invisible rail, which is another behavior that reminds me of Postal 2.

The graphics are pretty good, but has the same appearance of games from when the Xbox 360 was first launched.

The soundtrack is pretty good considering, but probably won’t be stuck in your head like the opening Duke 3d theme song.

On and on…

The gameplay can tend to go on and on at times. There are a few quick diversions, but there are times when you just want to get whatever you’re doing to be over with.

The Boss Battles are very straightforward, and unnecessarily tedious. During a gun battle with a mother ship, you just blast away. Since it was taking so long, I looked to see if there was some clever mechanism I was overlooking. I checked for a weak spot or for something to be revealed during a timed sequence, but the Boss fight was actually that straightforward and simple… you keep shooting away until its health meter falls. The only thing that had to be managed was the gun’s heat.

Multiplayer

There are a few modes to the multiplayer area of Duke Nukem Forever. These modes consist of deathmatch, team deathmatch, king of the hill, and capture the flag. All of these modes only support up to 8 players, which again might have been groundbreaking in 1995 but does not impress anyone today.

Good old-fashioned deathmatch is great, and the levels are ok, but nothing worth writing home about. You basically run around to find the cool weapons in out-of-the-way places, and use them on your foes.

One cool thing about the multiplayer part of the game is Duke’s Digs, which is a store where you can buy furnishings and other stuff for your virtual apartment. The more you play, the more stuff you can accumulate.

Conclusion

I really wanted to like Duke Nukem Forever, as did the entire gaming community. You can’t force yourself to like something, no matter how hard you try… just ask all of my previous girlfriends.

There’s just something about DNF that I can’t put my finger on… but it’s just not a lot of fun… at least not when compared with the quality of video games today. Some people will really like it for the humor, but I don’t believe I can find a handful of people that genuinely think the gameplay is fun.

I find myself toiling through mediocre levels and tedious fights just to get to the next part of the story and hear Duke’s one-liners. I prefer to think of DNF as an interactive comedy, and just like any stand-up act there’s not really a reason to sit through it again.

I did not expect Duke Nukem Forever to be a complete masterpiece, even after such a long development cycle. I did expect it to be fun, and it just did not deliver in the gameplay department. Playing with Duke and hearing his one-liners certainly is fun, but it’s just not a repeatable experience.

If you ever liked Duke, then you owe it to yourself to check the game out, but due to its short game time and non-existant replay value, it’s definitely a rental. A few people will really like it, some people will really hate it, but most people will think it’s just “meh”, and that’s a shame.

Here’s hoping for the next Duke Nukem game. And this time don’t take 12 years to get here.

	REPORT CARD : Duke Nukem Forever (PC) category rating comments Originality 4 A lot of mini-games vary the pace, and there really isn’t a character quite like Duke Nukem Longevity 2 Only 9 or 10 hours of play in single player mode. Multiplayer is a little fun and might add 5 or more on. Graphics 3 The graphics are a little dated by today’s standards. Animations and lip-sync look very scripted Sound 3 The soundtrack is ok, but you won’t be humming it like DN3D. Fun Factor 3 Overall, the gameplay is somewhat fun, but won’t have you coming back. FINAL VERDICT: 3 out of 5 stars