Greetings,
I will give you fair warning that this is going to be a little bit of a rant in places and lots of "thought-writing" also. I today read a review of the recently released game "Duke Nukem Forever" in a gaming magazine and there are some things which I feel just need to be said. Hold on for a bit of a rough ride, but I do promise that I will try to get to the point.
"Duke Nukem Forever" has been one of the most anticipated games of the past decade and a half. When it was first proposed some 14 years ago it was greeted with excitement and jubilation. In the in-between years there have been various break-ups, breakdowns and extensions on the project to the point that at some point in time it was even suggested that it would end up as "vapourware", never to be actually seen only talked about in hushed circles. Well, after 14 years the game finally hit the shelves all over the world to interesting receptions from all over the place.
There was a great deal expected from this game, to be expected after such a long development period and doses of hype especially over the past six months or so. The hype built the game into some legendary thing that would re-ignite the passions of Duke fans of old, propelling him into the new age of new consoles and excitements abound. Well, for some reviewers it seems that the game has missed the mark. I personally think that these reviewers have missed the point of Duke Nukem and his way altogether.
I will not be saying anything about graphics or the actual sound of the game as I have nothing to do with the production of either and thus my opinion is therefore not as valid. I will be talking about storyline, gameplay, attitude, feeling and other elements that I feel that I do have a right to talk about as I am a gamer who actuall bought the game and has actually played it. So prefaced with these details I will get to examining the game.
The first thing that should be noted is that "Duke Nukem Forever" deserves every single bit of its MA15+ game classification. This is not one for the kids parents, or at least not until they are at least 15. It has violence, it has swearing (some of which would make a trucker blush), it has nudity, toilet humour, elements of horror, and lots of gore. With no surprise whatsoever it is most of these things that has attracted the gamers to this game in the first place.
The comedy of the game is something that you would have expected from a bad 80's action movie and thus suits the game very well. Yes, go get in your way-back machine and expect some really bad and dirty humour along with great piles of one-liners that you would only expect in an action movie. This does, however, all suit the nature of the game and the character being played down to the ground, and if you expected anything different from this game, then you are playing the wrong one. It is a great homage to the Duke of old.
Next we move on to storyline to which I must quote a review... "Duke's plight against the aliens has all the depth of an 80's action movie reel run over by a steamroller." Excuse me, but I expected nothing more actually. I was not expecting plot-turns, twists or anything of the kind. I was expecting the aliens to arrive and for Duke to go out, once again, and save Earth from the aliens in his usual style... essentially beating, kicking and blasting his way all the way from the first to the last and putting in his bad humour all the way through. Sorry folks but if you want an indepth storyline then Duke is not for you. However, it is exactly what I expected and exactly what I wanted so I could not be happier.
Now we move on to sound, I am not going to go into quality or form of the sound, just some general feelings. The ever-present sound of Duke's voice popping off one-liners and slagging off at other games was exactly what I expected and I often have to pause the game until I can stop laughing. What does this mean, well the fact that the game is an ego ride for Duke means that the other characters are two-dimensional and their voices are annoying, some much the better for enjoying Duke himself. The other characters in the game are simply filler and do their job admirably. Once again if you want more than one character to get attached to, then you are playing the wrong game, this is Duke's story so he is the absolute focus.
Well, one thing that no one can complain about is the length of the single-player campaign, going by all the reviews it is about 12 hours, which for a first-person shooter with no role-playing element is quite frankly, an epic. So does this mean that you will get bored through this process, I will pretty much guarantee frustrated when you get foiled, but not bored. There are those parts which are what we expect, kill lots of aliens, but there are also puzzles, but not the old ones. These are more the "how the hell do I get there" type puzzles which I enjoy. In some ways achieving these goals is as satisfying as dealing with an onslaught of enemies.
So, after all the ranting and raving that I have done what can I say but I am a gamer who got exactly what he wanted from "Duke Nukem Forever". I wanted fun, I got it. I wanted lots of slaying, I got it. I wanted the old Duke revived with no polish whatsoever, I got it. It was all the enjoyment of an action flick with a first-person involvement portion that only a game can provide. So, friends count me as extremely happy, and expect me to be playing a lot of this game for some time to come.
Cheers,
Henry.
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