Duke Nukem Forever Review

For a game that has been in and out of development for around 14 years, there's a certain degree of expectation for Duke Nukem Forever. Once a long running joke within the industry and winner of multiple vapour-ware awards there is no denying that we're pleased that Duke is once again in our lives but we're leaving our expectations and preconceptions at the door, entering the abode of Mr. Nukem with an open mind to see what is in store.

Duke Nukem Forever takes place 12 years after the events of Duke Nukem 3D with a recreation of the epic fight with the Cycloid held within the football stadium. Once you've completed this short introduction the view pans out from a TV screen to reveal Duke playing a game of his past adventures, bringing a Duke pad into view while audibly hearing some questionable oral spam cannon action.

The world of Duke today is a completely commercialised one, everything is Duke branded from steroids to microwave ovens, it's clear that since saving the world 12 years ago, Duke has cashed in big time. Everyone loves Duke like he's some demi-god. Some love him in more explicit ways than others, Gearbox weren't afraid to push the sexual innuendo's in this game along with delivering a multitude of one-liners and toilet humour.Now with a new alien threat invading Earth and stealing all the babes, it's down to Duke to save the world, again.

Having waited over a decade for a game, you would think this would be something mind blowing. Unfortunately it simply cannot compete with the current swathe of shooters on the market. If you're looking for cutting edge graphics with an immersive storyline and slick controls then look elsewhere as you will not find this with Duke. If you're looking for something that will give you a laugh, does not take itself seriously and will entertain you for a number of hours then this is your game.

The resurrection of the franchise had the sole purpose of bringing one of the most recognisable characters of the industry back to the screens of all those that loved him, many gamers will be playing this wearing rose tinted spectacles as they relive their childhood of Duke 3D.

There are obvious problems with the game but that just adds to the charm of the title. Punching a 40ft alien right in the bollocks could only appear in a Duke game.However the sensitivity on aiming seemed way to high even on it's lowest levels, graphically the game is dated, utilising a modified Unreal 2.5 engine which makes things shiny but still not great.

You'll come across models with no shadowing, voice acting delivered with little to no mouth movement on the characters, items that stick out like a sore thumb, blocky textures and poor lighting, which all add up to an average looking game.

The single player campaign has numerous moments where literally nothing happens, you're just running down corridors with bog all going on. Then you get a short interlude of killing aliens then it’s back the monotony of doing sod all. The automatic checkpoint system is quite sporadic in it's placement as you'll find the game saving in quite random moments which aren't really logical.

Also we've lost the ability to carry several weapons at the same time, so no longer can we switch from shotgun to the shrink ray then to the rocket launcher when the situation required. Now we're limited to carrying two weapons at a time, who thought that was a good idea?

However, even with all my negativity, I still can't but help like the game. Yes, the graphics aren't special and there's sensitivity and pacing issues, but it's Duke and, to me, I'm glad to see him. The eight player multi-player component of the game just rekindles my “fanboy-ism” with some good old fashioned Deathmatch action, running around with the shrink ray and stomping on my foes while delivering a magical Duke one-liner. The Ego meter, replacing your health bar is a novel idea too, discovering little quirks like using the microwave in the staff lounge gains you another slice of ego to increase the amount of damage Duke can take before he drops. You also have TDM and a CTF variant, Capture the Babes, which did not really tick our boxes, we definitely preferred the DM and TDM options.

It's like a crappy action movie, if you think about what's happening and try to analyse the flaws then you'll just spiral into a seething ball of rage and end up just hating the game. Enter it leaving your mind at the door so you can sit back and relax, then just absorb the action then you'll find that Duke will entertain you.

But I must return to some bad points, Duke did promise dedicated servers for PC users, which is great, however to run a dedicated server you need a full retail copy of the game to act as the server host. This is quite a handicap, especially if you wanted to run a Linux based server, so hosting companies will probably not bother at all offering Duke servers due to them requiring Windows and full retail copy of the game per server, it makes no financial sense.

Alongside this dedicated server issue, we came across large amounts of latency while playing multiplayer, two out of ten games we played were of a reasonable ping. Hopefully more variety in server locations will be present very soon. Load times on the console versions are horrifically long, thankfully this is not the case with the PC version of the game. Personally I would have been happy to wait an extra six months to ensure a reasonable level of polish instead of leaving me in a constant flux of disappointment and rapture. This is Duke but not as we remember him.