Say what you will about him, Duke just never seemed to die. I don’t want wax all philosophic about the development of the game either. Something does have to be said about lowering ones expectations to new depths only to find them in serious arrears. I booted up Duke Nukem Forever and started playing, not hoping for the holy grail of the digital age, but something competent. Knowing full well that the Miyamoto adage of “A delayed game is eventually good, a bad game is bad forever” sometimes just doesn’t hold water in the western game development sphere. When a game like Duke Nukem Forever finally comes to the plate, after essentially being relegated to that bargain bin in the sky, you know that you’re walking in to a hot mess.
I think even if this game came out 5 or 6 years ago, it would still be laughed out of the room. Even to turn off modern convention and just play the game as if it’s “old school” flavor is a disservice to old school and nostalgia. This game is a complete recouping of 2K Games’ money/time and the joke is on us the consumer just wanting to hang with our old friend Duke.
The game itself feels like many different pieces tied together to form something resembling a campaign. Had Duke just stuck to the solo adventuring of his earlier efforts, I think the game wouldn’t come off so horribly. The fact that you interact with other characters near the beginning of the game, instantly tips you off that the smell you keep whiffing is the dog turd this game is. The character models are stiff and animate poorly. I had to wait for a NPC to move out of my way just to get down a hallway. There’s no clear direction on where to go half the time, I guess level design that guides the player is too much of a modern contrivance, and real men don’t need maps or arrows pointing you around to counteract the shitty design. The graphics seem to vary from level to level, with some giving off that ultra polished vibe, especially with some of the bigger enemies, and some levels just being the muddy, turd like Unreal engine fueled bogs that they are.
The lengthy development also betrays a lot of the “inspiration” (read: theft) of contemporary shooters during the time of Duke’s design. Physics puzzles from Half Life 2 and the mid 00’s, recharging health bar from Halo, first person platforming and jump pads from the late 90’s, vehicle portions from this last little bit of shooters, all show up and are executed so poorly. You’re probably better off just playing the inspiration and resigning yourself from the frustration.
I’d be curious to see what 13-15 year old boys have to say about this game. Outside of “it’s old” or “it sucks”. Even I can tap into a little bit of what Duke Nukem Forever is trying to stab at with the one-liners and general aesthetic. In fact, I played the first Duke when I was 14 on the Nintendo 64. Granted, it’s a PG-13 version of the game, but coming from my puritanical child rearing wherein I was not allowed to watch The Simpsons because Bart said damn one time, or Beavis and Butt-head for similar reasons, Duke 3D was a Star Gate to a world and game design that I’d never seen before and gave a firm handshake to my developing psyche as a pubescent young man.
Duke 3D wasn’t without it’s frustrations, not to say that it drug on well past the gloss and sheen of the earlier parts of the game. Dare I say, parts were down right boring and unfun slog fests mirroring the key card fetch quests of it‘s Mars based brethren. Where I could see that a George Broussard with his close-minded egotistical fortitude could parlay that in to a “it ain’t broke so don’t fix it” mentality that permeates Duke Nukem Forever.
As a study in that “it ain’t broke” mentality, Duke Nukem Forever shows how far the industry has come in just 5 years, let alone the 12-15 years it took for Duke to come out of the oven still undercooked and bland. There are parts of Duke Nukem Forever that show someone came along much later and added a modern coat of paint to the proceedings, but that does little to mask the stench of an old, rotting, turgid game design.
Duke Nukem Forever isn’t a lesson in game development. More likely, it’s a horror story much like a Frankenstein’s monster. There was a good idea in there at one point, something to aspire to. Over time, that idea became warped and bloated, then became a hot mess unloaded on to a shrugging masses.
I don’t know if Duke Nukem is loved ironically or not. Duke Nukem Forever could’ve gone a long way to answer that question. It could’ve taken up a lot of the campaign just mocking how out of touch Duke had become, or just go whole hog with the cartoonish world that’s laid out before him. Nevertheless, this halfassery does nothing but complicate the Duke Nukem quandary. Are you laughing with him or at him?
As a player, are you picking up Duke Nukem Forever as a carnival sideshow, to be laughed and mocked? Do you come to the game as a archaeologist, looking around to see what took so goddamned long? This questions aren’t answered by the game, so I came to the conclusion that it was just a cynical money grab. Here’s hoping that Gearbox Software can take Duke forward in the future, as it is most assuredly going to be the case.
This isn’t to say that I was trying deprive myself of what Duke Nukem Forever has to offer. I felt that after I started playing the game, it just broke down. There’s nothing to see here, and no one's really surprised. This is a shame.
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