-You know I gotta be honest, I have never played Duke Nukem. No idea where to begin on the franchise so I never understood what makes the new one so bad.
I know there exists a Duke Nukem where you rip a boss’s head off and crap down his throat
So is this franchise Postal on steroids? (sorry for the ignorance)
-Half-Life 3 is already out, we just can’t interact with it since it lies in an dimension we can’t perceive at all:)
-As for the topic at hand, I’d rather have a balanced late release then an unbalanced clusterfuck that’s been rushed cause people are impatient
If you don’t want to hear from my metaphorical mouth, Kim Justice did a good video regarding Duke Nukem Forever: https://youtu.be/dfV4rI_gR1g
Still here? Good. (I guess…)
Even though the Duke is well-know for Duke Nukem 3D, it is just the third in a series. The character’s origin date way back with Duke Nukem (called Duke Nukum at the time) and Duke Nukem 2, which were different in tone and gameplay. For starters, they were platformers and not FPS, and while they didn’t took themselves seriously, it was more “cartoonish and silly” compared to the more “edgy and violent” Duke we know today.
I played the shareware version of the first game as a kid, only recently as a adult I’ve managed to beat these 2 games. And to be quite honest, they didn’t age well. They’re not what I would call bad, but they have a lot of problems in level design and gameplay that can make you feel frustrated at times, especially in the second game. Playing them again made me realize why they later became obscure, but the first game still has a place in my heart due to nostalgia. (even if had one of the most annoying sounds ever, curse those blue rotating pillars!)
Duke Nukem 3D on the other hand blew everyone away. “Postal on steroids” is not far from the truth since this was one of the many controversial violent games in the 90’s. Nevertheless, the game was a success. It’s a good old-school FPS and had a unique (at the time) sense of humor, aimed to be a parody of pop-culture and action heroes. My opinion on this game is reverse compared to the platformers: Gameplay still holds up, but the humor… Well… I’ll come back at it later…
Duke Nukem Forever true development phase started in the Quake II engine, but was rebooted and changed engine several times. George Broussard, the head of the project, wanted Duke Nukem Forever to be the most advanced game around and everytime a more advanced engine was released, he became unsatisfied with the current development. And to make matters worse, everytime he saw a something that he liked in another game (such as the physics in Half-Life 2), he wanted that to be in DNF as well. Do I need to elaborate why this was a recipe for disaster?
Because of that 3D Realms almost went bankrupt, and Duke Nukem Forever became a running joke among the gaming community. The only reason why we have it today is because Gearbox took over and finished it, but 14 years was too much time to wait for a new Duke Nukem game for two reasons: First, for all the hype and promises it generated, the game was underwhelming; Secondly, and the most important motive for it’s failure, the humor is cringeworthy.
Remember that I would come back at DN3D sense of humor? Now it’s a good time to talk about that. Duke Nukem 3D idea of parody was simply be obscene and quote as many pop-culture lines as possible, and DNF is the same thing. From what I know, DNF is supposed to be a stab at modern FPS, but since it’s the same deliver as DN3D the writing is not clever. It worked in the 90’s because there was practically nothing like Duke before, and because we were dumb teenagers. (not to mention, the references in DNF are extremely outdated due to it being stuck in development hell)
Just a disclaimer, I CAN LIKE a game that have toilet humor and references, hence Borderlands 2 being one of my favorites, but it depends on how it’s delivered. Duke Nukem is a one-trick-pony and only relied on that to be funny.
I’m talking mainly about the original Shadow Warrior by 3D Realms.
The reboot is good too. In some aspects I think it’s better than the original because they gave an unique identity when they designed the melee combat in that game. 3D Realms SW, despite having a strong melee weapon, was just a Duke Nukem 3D clone, both in gameplay and humor.
Didn’t played Shadow Warrior 2, so I don’t have a opinion on that.
Yeah, I’ve heard about the deal of Gearbox shoe-horning him on other games as a cameo, most recent one being Bulletstorm: Full Clip Edition. Quite sad actually.
Also, I will admit that I kind of miss the platformer era Duke character-wise. I mean, dialogue was silly at best, but it had a weird charm on it. Besides, 3D-Duke wouldn’t say a gem like this:
Fun trivia: The first game was called Duke Nukum because the devs initially wanted to call it Duke Nukem, but they found out this was also the name of one of the Captain Planet’s villains, and them changed to avoid a possible lawsuit. Later they found out that Duke Nukem wasn’t even a trademarked name, so they trademarked it and changed it back.
ITs a good smooth game. but the resistances on opponents require you to use and modify weapons accordingly. Not really an issue, until you hit higher difficulties. There the resistances turn opponents in annoying bullet sponges which really breaks the pace of the game.
The card system is nice to level and develop your Wang with the playstyle you want him to have.
overall its a decent game, but don’t expect the same stuff of old fps game reboots like Wolfenstein and Doom for example.
