Ars Technica Review Slams Duke Nukem Forever

Kethinov writes "Ars Technica writes one of their most negative reviews of a game in a long time, referring to Duke Nukem Forever as 'barely playable' and 'one of the worst games from a major studio in quite some time. The jokes border on hateful. The graphics are a blurry mess. The shooting is unsatisfying.' Their verdict? Skip this one."

Comments

duh?

[jaymz666]

Really? Was there any doubt?

Re:duh?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's reminding me of Daikatana. I guess George Broussard just made us his bitch.

Re:duh?

[TheRaven64]

Yes. I was expecting something that was a pretty average game with a decent feeling of nostalgia. It sounds like this is an incredibly bad game that's superficially similar to Duke3D, but without any of the things that made the game fun at the time. This is quite sad, because Duke Nukem: Manhattan Project was a lot of fun. If you haven't played it, gog.com has it for $5.99: I got it for $2.99 in their christmas sale and played it all the way to the end - lots of fun and exactly the kind of humour and gratuitous violence that I remember from duke3d, without the need for achievement for picking up your own shit (read the review: that's really in DNF).

Re:duh?

[Blue Stone]

No, not in the minds of most people. It was always going to be pants; neither the anticipation or the expectation could possibly be matched.

If anyone connected with the [projectile vomits into nearby bucket] franchise, has any sense they'll do something genuinely innovative and interesting with it after they've earned a few dollars from the dup... er ... people who bought this episode in the DN story.

Nobody hold their breath.

Re:duh?

[Canazza]

It certainly does seem that what made Duke Nukem 3D Awesome is missing from DNF. They've taken Halo and added Tits and dick jokes.
While Duke is all for Tits and dick Jokes, it was also about fast-paced action, gratuitous violence and incredibly complicated maze-like levels. Which DNF lacks utterly. In other words, it has the facade of Duke but lacks the deeper gameplay that made DN3D fantastic.

Re:duh?

[DrXym]

No, not in the minds of most people. It was always going to be pants; neither the anticipation or the expectation could possibly be matched.

If anyone connected with the [projectile vomits into nearby bucket] franchise, has any sense they'll do something genuinely innovative and interesting with it after they've earned a few dollars from the dup... er ... people who bought this episode in the DN story.

Nobody hold their breath.

Hype / expectations or not, a technically competent game would probably been received pretty well. It seems like it wasn't that either.

Re:duh?

[Thud457]

even more recent titles such as Serious Sam

heh.

Re:duh?

[Kelbear]

Well, I'm almost done with it.

For one, the console versions take an eternity to load by all accounts. The PC version loads each level in about 8-10 seconds (my pc is nothing special, it's been 3-4 years since I've changed any parts).

I'd give it a 6.5 or 7. The bit in the review about killing the rape victims was spot on. It wasn't funny at all. It went from crass to disgustingly callous.

But setting that aside, the ancient gameplay is strangely refreshing in comparison to the bevy of modern military shooters that have flooded the market. It's a game from a different era in gaming, for better or for worse. It takes you through a pretty entertaining variety of levels that military shooters will never attempt to do.

The combat feels good. The weapons feel good. The humor aside from the situation mentioned above, is the kind of low-brow humor you expect. The graphics are subpar as you might expect, but older gamers, particularly those who have played Duke3D, should have no problem with less-than-bleeding edge graphics. Haven't run into any bugs on the PC version.

I am definitely getting a strange sense of nostalgic value here, even though the Duke Nukem experience is fairly limited. It's really the old gameplay design that is driving the nostalgia. As I play, I think to myself, "Yeah, 13 years ago, this was what they thought would be awesome to have in a game." I particularly enjoy these throwback areas. There are some modern design conventions brought to the table, for better or for worse. 2-weapon limit, regenerating health, good checkpoint placement, player path indicators in level design (such as putting a bright lamppost next to the path out of the area).

Older players from the Duke3D era should get some enjoyment here. Newer players will probably just get tripped up on all the cludgy game design they haven't seen before, but older gamers still remember and have developed a thicker skin against. To be frank, the game is not good, but there is still fun to be had here.

Now that Gearbox has finally put this beast to rest, I wonder what they could do with the license starting from scratch?

Re:duh?

[wisnoskij]

Actually the footage and screens I have seen (especially the old stuff), looks decent to quite good.

Re:duh?

[RogueyWon]

Yes, all of the stuff that made DN3D so great is missing here. They've taken the worst cliches of modern shooters and stuck them onto something that looks superficially like Duke Nukem, while leaving out all of the good stuff from modern or classic shooters.

I still can't believe they went for a 2 weapon limit, given the extent to which DN3D was about playing around with loads of cool and eccentric weapons. They even have the cheek to have a "joke" in there where Duke takes the mickey out of Halo power armour. Hate to break it to you, Duke, but you have only 2 weapons and a recharging shield bar. I'm no fan of the Master Chief, but the modern Duke looks like nothing more than a hanger on to his coat-tails.

Now if they'd wanted to do a decent Halo joke, they'd have confined the player to a pistol and shotgun up to that point, then put the third gun next to the Halo power armour. When Duke went to pick up the third gun, he could have got the "hold X to swap guns" message, but on pressing it, he'd just add a third gun and say something like "Two gun limits? Who the hell do you think I am?" That would have been a neat jab at Halo - and would have made for a better game to boot (especially when he later went on to pick up 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, etc weapons as well).

Re:duh?

[__aamnbm3774]

It sucks that Gearbox has to put their name on this piece of crap.
...because it's actually impressive they got dumped a giant mess of software and were able to polish it up and sell it. Something Broussard wasn't able to do after 13 years.

Re:duh?

[mcmonkey]

No, not in the minds of most people. It was always going to be pants; neither the anticipation or the expectation could possibly be matched.

What is the etymology of this usage of 'pants'? I've seen this usage a handful of times on /., and I can gather from context it is some variation of 'not good.' Outside of /., the only similar usage I've encountered was someone using pants as an interjection, similar to "merde!"

Is this a UK thing? Over in the US of A, pants are trousers.

Re:duh?

[Anonymous Coward]

It'd be more newsworthy if they gave it a good review. Game's been paddled by every critic and their mother. To be honest, I'm not really sure why. I wouldn't say that it's worth a decade and a half of development hell, but it's not bad, either. I could nitpick it, but I mostly just wish the gameplay was less Halo and more Serious Sam.

Re:duh?

[BBadhedgehog]

Yep, it's a UK thing, though it has some form http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=pants.

Re:duh?

[Khyber]

"Now that Gearbox has finally put this beast to rest, I wonder what they could do with the license starting from scratch?"

Not a goddamned thing. They ran this shit into the ground.

That's coming from a very hardcore DN3D fan. They screwed the pooch on this one.

Re:duh?

[Dragon_Hilord]

If this is the "original vision", I think it should be clear why it never got completed. Gearbox took a design the CREATORS didn't like and used it.

The funniest part is definitely all of us imaging it could have been anything else. Sorry. The only way to do Duke is to hire REAL comedians at this point, and get Ken Silverman back into the team! (no, I don't give a DAMN if it's a raycaster engine, as long as it's True Duke Style).

The demo made me want to vomit. It literally lagged. This was their "final product"?! Fail. Look in the mirror when you jump, that says it all.

Re:duh?

[Tarlus]

Well, the game is turning out to be an unTitly mess. Shame.

Re:duh?

[tehcyder]

Pants is definitely the UK term for underpants rather than trousers, but I don't know where it started being used to mean "rubbish" though

Re:duh?

[GameboyRMH]

Yeah I don't get all the hate on the graphics. It's not up to Crysis standards but it looks reasonably up-to-date.

Re:duh?

[Tarlus]

Really, I'd say those things you described are exactly what gave Duke3D at least some level of depth. Add to that the interactive environments (light switches, destroyable objects, being able to drink from fountains and use toilets to regain health, usable security cameras) as well as some pretty unique weapons and items (holoduke, jet pack), and plenty of unique one-liners, parodies and cultural references, and you will have more depth than any other contemporary FPS.

"I ain't afraid of no 'Quake.'"

Re:duh?

[Lunix Nutcase]

Gearbox didn't run it into the ground. Broussard and the 3DRealms people took 14 years to squeeze out a turd log that Gearbox got tasked with polishing.

Re:duh?

[GameboyRMH]

I should update this, I was reading RogueyWon's review and he explains why the graphics are so bad, they're things you wouldn't pick up from the screenshots:

http://slashdot.org/journal/266558/Review-Duke-Nukem-Forever

Re:duh?

[julesh]

It certainly does seem that what made Duke Nukem 3D Awesome is missing from DNF.

You know what really made Duke 3D awesome? The fact that it was a fully-3D shooter, released 6 months before Quake (which most people seem to regard as the first such shooter these days).

Re:duh?

[elrous0]

I've known this for years now. Duke was an iconic figure back in the days when Andrew Dice Clay was still alive. And if the developers had done their job when they were supposed to, instead of fucking around for years and years, they wouldn't have been faced with the challenge of bringing such an anachronistic character into 2011 (much less keeping the graphics updated). But the developers didn't do their job. They didn't release this in 1999, when they should have. And now it's just a weird mess, the leftovers of a game that might have fit in great in its era, but now is out-of-place--both graphically and socially.

Maybe it would work as a niche indie title like the Postal series. It's still a good laugh for those of us who actually like to be offended. But as a mainstream title, *of course* it's a fucking mess. The whole development process was a fucking mess. What did you expect to come out of that disaster, the next Halo?

Re:duh?

[wisnoskij]

Well I did not mean the current graphics, I have seen little of the actual finished game. But before this new team got on board the game had some great looking gameplay/cinematic footage.

Re:duh?

[nbehary]

Duke 3D was not fully 3D. It was basically the same "2.5D" of other early FPS's. It was a very advanced 2.5D Engine, but it wasn't fully 3D.

Re:duh?

[Moryath]

Oddly, Daikatana - once you got past the first few levels (let's face it, they fucked up royally releasing the first few levels as the demo, and reaction to the demo should have been their indication to take them back to formula before release) - was a reasonably fun game to play. I loved some of the later levels and weaponry.

The larger problem was, Daikatana was released Way The Fuck Too Late. If they'd gotten it out even 6 months earlier, it might have been regarded differently, but by the time it was out the door people were looking at the Quake 3 and Unreal Tournament graphics engines and calling it "dated" graphically.

Re:duh?

[dstyle5]

They didn't have to put their name on the box, they wanted to, they bought the Duke IP from 3D Realms after all.

http://www.gearboxsoftware.com/press/duke-nukem-franchise-transferred-to-gearbox-software/

Pitchford bought the giant mess in an attempt a cheap cash in on nostalgic fans. Gearbox deserves no pity in this case, they are the ones trying to sucker people into buying an apparently very poor product.

Re:duh?

[Moryath]

That and the fact that it had bright, vibrant scenery and level design with interestingly designed weapons, as opposed to Quake which could pretty much be distilled down to only 4 gun variations in levels that are nothing but muddy-brown sludge.

Re:duh?

[ifrag]

It's still a good laugh for those of us who actually like to be offended.

Wait, what? If you like it then how exactly are you offended?

Re:duh?

[JWSmythe]

Actually, Tits should be capitalized. God should not, unless it's the first word in a sentence.

Breasts (Tits, Boobs, Boobies, Funbags, etc) are real. We've all seen them. Well, some of you have only seen pictures, and the shape in women's shirts. Some of you have touched them. We all know them, in their variety of shapes, sizes, and colors. They are categorized for their size and type. There are entire industries dedicated to supporting, decorating, and even marketing them. For those who can't see them normally, there is an abundance of establishments (Tittie Bars) where you can rent the privilege of seeing them.

We even apply the term to other objects. Man Boobs, back Boobs, and the largest of them all, the Grand Tetons.

This god myth is something else. You can't see it, touch it, hear it, or in any way recognize that it exists other than a few irrational assumptions. There may be one or more, depending on which piece of classical fiction people believe in. Some believe it looks like a man, a woman, or even a plate of spaghetti.

Capitalize your favorite term for Breasts with pride. We all love Boobs!

Re:duh?

[Chris Burke]

So, your comment isn't really about grammar or proper punctuation. Your comment is just you yelling "hey look at me, I'm an angry atheist!". To which I reply, "good for you, but who cares?"

It struck me as a very bad attempt at a joke -- the joke being boobs are like God to men, I guess, or maybe the joke was just saying "tit" over and over -- that got derailed due to the need to wedge in the atheist thing. Also due to being irrelevant. And not making sense. But "humor" nonetheless!

Re:duh?

[Chris Burke]

As mentioned, Duke was not fully 3D, it was 2.5D. It's big enhancement over previous 2.5D games like Doom was allowing you to have multiple "layers".

Descent was the first fully-3D shooter (I'm aware of), though it had restrictions on the geometries allowed in the levels (everything had to be a rectangular prism).

Quake was the first fully-3D shooter to allow arbitrary polygonal geometry, which was a pretty huge step. So while these other games made noteworthy technology achievements, I think it's appropriate to think of Quake as the first of the true 3D shooter era.

Re:duh?

[Labcoat Samurai]

It certainly does seem that what made Duke Nukem 3D Awesome is missing from DNF. They've taken Halo and added Tits and dick jokes.

Not even that. Halo is a good game, even a great one, arguably.

Re:duh?

[mosb1000]

I don't know where you learned to write in English, but you couldn't possibly be more wrong about how to use capitalization. You've basically got it completely backwards by implying that the more there are of something the more it's ok to capitalize the word. You capitalize a word when it refers to a specific object (if it's a proper noun). So for people who believe there is only one god, it is written "God". If you believe that there are many gods, or no gods, or that the concept is in some way fundamentally flawed, you don't need to capitalize it. But you also shouldn't treat it as a proper noun, as such usage would be confusing.

Re:duh?

[TheRaven64]

And it ran at 800x600 on my moderately powerful PC! Quake didn't achieve that resolution until I got a VooDoo2. We laughed at the 2D monsters and some of the 2D objects (like the satellite dish that always pointed up and left, irrespective of where you were looking at it from), but unless you got close to them this didn't matter. Duke3D actually looked better than Quake (which managed 320x200 on the same system) at the time of release. It didn't matter that the Quake monsters were rendered from textured polygons, they ended up filling fewer pixels on my screen.

But the graphics were largely irrelevant to the gameplay. In multiplayer, for example, Quake was all about killing everyone. In Duke3D, it was fun to grab the freeze ray, shoot everyone with it, and then run around trying (and mostly failing) to stamp on them. It was fun when you accidentally shot yourself with the freeze ray by seeing something move and discovering that it was a mirror (yes, Duke3D had working mirrors, and these were impressive at the time).

Re:duh?

[RoboRay]

Now that Gearbox has finally put this beast to rest, I wonder what they could do with the license starting from scratch?

Expect "Duke Nukem: Redemption" in time for the 2031 holiday season.

Re:duh?

[mobby_6kl]

Yes they did, Gearbox just paid what was probably a decent amount of money for that game, polished it a bit as you say, and released it on the unsuspecting public. Now everyone knows that Duke sucks, and it's Gearbox's fault.

Not that Broussard is blameless, of course, he's an idiot and a terrible project manager, but Gearbox didn't have to buy/release the game in this state.

Re:duh?

[madhatter256]

Rumor has it that there was very little money left, if at all, to work on this and the only money there was available was for marketing and licensing and porting. So, I'm not surprised that Gearbox didn't put a lot of hours into it other than porting the game and menu building.

It looks like they used Doom 3 engine, so not surprised it was easily ported to the PS3 and Xbox 360 and thus you have crappy graphics on the PC.

Re:duh?

[TheRaven64]

I wasn't expecting something good, but I was expecting something that was good enough that nostalgia-goggles would make seem okay. A game that would feel slightly dated, but with some wit and humour that would carry it through. Instead, the graphics look nice but the game feels like Generic FPS #47. Serious Sam feels a lot more like Duke Nukem 3D than this game does.

Actually, I was feeling optimistic because I played Duke Nukem: Manhattan Project for the first time over Christmas (not sure what I was doing in 2002 when it was released, but I somehow only heard about it a year or so ago and picked it up cheaply in the GOG christmas sale). The gameplay felt like the original Duke Nukem epsiodes 1-3 (I didn't like Duke Nukem II all that much). The graphics were so much better that it's not fair to compare them (2D EGA vs 3D SVGA), but this wasn't used as an excuse to let the gameplay slip. It was great turn-your-brain-off fun: just difficult enough not feel tedious, but easy enough not to be frustrating.

Manhattan Project was was where the ego-as-health mechanic came from, but in MP you got back ego by doing impressive things. For example, you got more ego back from kicking enemies to death than for shooting them, which encouraged you to do action-hero type things because you'd lose ego by being shot, but then get it back again with the kill. In DNF ego just regenerates over time for no reason, which encourages you to hide behind walls waiting for it to recharge.

Re:duh?

[frosty_tsm]

+1. There are many stories in game development where a failed project got handed to another team to polish (which is then released late and is a pile of junk).

Re:duh?

[slapout]

I thought they just got 15 years of free marketing!

Re:duh?

[hairyfeet]

Yes if anyone should be pitied it is Gearbox, being handed a big shambling mess that was...what? 14 years old now? that had gone through something like FOUR, count 'em four, engines, and was written for the Quake II generation and have to get that out ASAP to keep from losing any more money on the turkey. If you read the interview with Gearbox connected in TFA you'll see they left the game pretty much as 3D Realms had intended, spending all their time on cleaning up the messy code and trying to bring the graphics up to 2011 standards which I'm guessing was no easy feat in and of itself.

Frankly Broussard should be ashamed of himself for blowing that much time and money, but then again if you saw the timeline of Prey (originally announced in 97 and going through 2 engines) you'd realize the guy just doesn't have a fricking clue on how to finish a project.

How did he manage to crank out all those games like Duke3D and Shadow Warrior? Did he just wake up one day and decide he was an artist who could afford to blow infinite cash to get his "vision" on the screen, or did he just quit giving a shit?

Re:duh?

[mobby_6kl]

Finished the game yesterday. Overall, I agree with you - the game wasn't at all terrible, and the arstechnica review is full of shit. That's not to say that it was worth waiting 14 years or anything, it's still not a good game and overall I'd rate it C-, ok but not good.

One thing I'm not sure about is "ancient gameplay" that you mention. To me, the actual gameplay is sadly as modern as gets - you've got regenerative health, 2 weapons, painfully linear levels, etc. It's really bizarre how some of the defining DN3D qualities are completely missing: the interactivity (mostly), tons of guns (at the same time!), the Mighty Boots (both at the same time), and even the jetpack, not to mention all the other inventory toys.

I think that if they kept these key element from the original games in, it would have also forced them to reconsider some the worst design elements, such as the tiny linear levels and regenerative health, since you wouldn't really need reg. health if you could at any moment heal from the portable medkit, or quickly get to another portion of the map with the jetpack.

What I now imagine as a good Duke game, would probably have Crysis-size levels (and graphics) with even more emphasis on exploration and of course combat and humor similar to the old game. It sounds doable to me, but unfortunately, I don't really trust Gearbox deliver anything like this. Opposing Force was 12 years ago, and it was using HL engine and assets.

Re:duh?

[elrous0]

If you set the wayback machine to a time before political-correctness became the norm in comedy, you'll find that there was a time when humor could be both offensive AND funny at the same time. See Sam Kinison.

Re:duh?

[RicardoGCE]

"God" is not a proper noun. Yahweh, Allah, Ganesha? Yep. Capitalizing "god" is like capitalizing "deity".

Re:duh?

[JWSmythe]

    The graphics weren't bad on my PC. It defaulted to all the graphics settings maxed out, since I have a decent gaming machine.

    I wasn't expecting the latest greatest technology out of it. I only bought it because ... well ... it finally came out. :)

    I suspect a lot of people here are commenting on the game that they haven't touched yet. People will talk out of their asses just because they want to. I'm sure no one has played through it on a PC, PS3, and Xbox 360 yet, just to see how they compare.

    Someone else mentioned long load times between levels. I didn't see that at all. I'm running a pretty quick machine (Phenom II x4 @ 3.8Ghz, 8GB DDR3 RAM, 1GB GDDR5 video card, and RAID 0 for installed games). I didn't go much over 3GB RAM used, even with a bunch of windows still open in the background.

Re:duh?

[guspasho]

"without the need for achievement for picking up your own shit (read the review: that's really in DNF)."

I thought this was a joke. After reading the review it sounds like the only funny one in the game.

Re:duh?

[Chris Burke]

As for the capitalization of "God", as far as the base Christian documents go, it isn't a proper noun. It's a position or title, not a name.

There are thousands of religions currently practiced world wide, capitalizing "god" for one is horribly disrespectful to the others, who have named gods. It's an attempt to take possession of all gods of all religions, and saying "Nope, those are all mine, his name is God". Childish? Yes. Truthful? Unfortunately yes.

Yes it's disrespectful. That's hardly an accident. It's making a strong Monotheistic claim. Those other gods, says the Abrahamic religions, don't exist (which is not a claim every religion makes about other religion's gods). Those other gods need names, because there are many. The God of Abraham is God. God isn't a position or title, that different entities can hold in different times or places. It's the identity of the one true God. It's why He says "I am God", not "I'm a god". It is, for all intents and purposes, a proper noun in this context.

Re:duh?

[Shrike82]

There still is - see Frankie Boyle as one example.

Re:duh?

[cHiphead]

Sounds like the reviews that came out about Duke3D when it first came out. 1.) the first page of the ars article makes me want to play the game. 2.) fuck ars. 3.) im already in a bad mood today so excuse the flippancy.

Re:duh?

[Squiddie]

It's kind of the same with DNF. If I had played this three years ago, it would have blown my mind. It's still a fun game, though. Some of these reviews are exaggerated.

Re:duh?

[Omestes]

It's a position or title, not a name. It's like capitalizing "he", "she", "corporal", or "sergeant". When used in conjunction with the proper name, then it would be capitalized. Zeus would be capitalized, because it's his name. God would not be, as his name is simply never revealed. (note: I only capitalized it there because it began the sentence).

Your pedantry astounds me. You are, in this sense, completely correct, but only technically so. "God" as used in the Bible is, indeed, a title, and this your reasoning is sound. Sadly, in day to day life, God has become a normal proper noun. When normal, modern, people say such things as "God is my Copilot", they don't mean "Tetragrammaton is helping me fly my plane", or "YHVH is trying to get some extra flight hours"; they mean "A dude name 'God' is protecting me". Its like how "Christ" turned into Jesus' last name, and not just a common job description of the time (yes, a wee bit flippant, I apologize).

So in technical usage; you win. In common, I win.

Relax, I was only poking a bit of fun at capitalization of the Mammary Gland.

Point taken, and I apologize for jumping off the handle. Its hard to tell humor from misplaced righteous indigence these days. Especially with modern, shrill, atheism, where people have to constantly proclaim their lack of faith (which is just as annoying as those who constantly proclaim their faith). Also I read a bit of PZ Meyers blog today, which always puts me a bit on edge (I agree with 90% of what he says, but I fear for reasons other than intended. And his tone... oh lord...).

There is a bit of irony in fighting humor with an indignant rant against indignant rants, I suppose.

Re:duh?

[Laz10]

They should recall it and ship it when it is done ...

Re:duh?

[dkf]

What I now imagine as a good Duke game, would probably have Crysis-size levels (and graphics) with even more emphasis on exploration and of course combat and humor similar to the old game. It sounds doable to me, but unfortunately, I don't really trust Gearbox deliver anything like this. Opposing Force was 12 years ago, and it was using HL engine and assets.

Gearbox know the value of large and reasonably non-linear levels for sure; they did Borderlands. I suspect that DNF is the way it is precisely because Gearbox didn't want to do too much to what they'd got from 3D Realms, which in turn reduced the cost/risk to them substantially. Fixing the problems with the level design... would have killed it all. And the interesting thing is just how interactive the levels tend to be; so many of the objects in the levels have things you can do with them for no reason at all, they're not just boxes to knock around or paintings on the wall. Can you name any other game where you can shove your finger in an electrical socket and get a shock "just because"? Usually if a game designer puts something in, he forces the player to use it in a look-what-I've-done-for-you moment backed up by some lunatic in-game reasoning.

Anyone just blasting through as fast as possible is missing the point.

Re:duh?

[geekoid]

Complex maze like levels are pretty much passe now.

As someone who spent 1000's of hours playing games for as long as there have been home electronic games, I say Good riddance.

Re:duh?

[Roachie]

This Tit myth is something else. You can't see them, touch them, hear them, or in any way recognize that they exists other than a few irrational assumptions. There may be one or more, depending on which piece of classical fiction people believe in. Some believe they a woman, or even a plate of spaghetti

Re:duh?

[goarilla]

The gameplay felt like the original Duke Nukem epsiodes 1-3 (I didn't like Duke Nukem II all that much)

hear hear, dn II was weird you only knew it was duke when you saw the starting cut scene
duke doesn't wear a space helmet and what's up with this stupid bird (phoenix) flying around.

Re:duh?

[sznupi]

Or just any of the Serious Sam games? What an old style shooter should be and more, minus the downsides or cheap attempts at "humour" to distract from flaws?

("killing the rape victims"? Who and why could think that was a good idea?)

Re:duh?

[Glonoinha]

Two weapon limit is pretty much the only thing keeping me from dropping the cash to get this one. And I played D3D to death back when 486's walked the Earth.

Re:duh?

[mattack2]

when Andrew Dice Clay was still alive

I don't get it. Are you referring to his career? He is alive.

Re:duh?

[epyT-R]

sigh.. quake was a two pass engine that provided realistic lighting and shadows.. build engine games were limited to using sectors to create 'shadows' like doom/doom2. Saying they're the same because they're 3D is incredibly disingenuous.

Re:duh?

[JWSmythe]

So in technical usage; you win. In common, I win.

    I'll concede to that. And you are correct, it's only in common usage, because the modern Christian bible says so.

"A dude name 'God' is protecting me". Its like how "Christ" turned into Jesus' last name, and not just a common job description of the time (yes, a wee bit flippant, I apologize).

  That actually reminds me of a story. And yes, I'll be kind enough to drift off on a tangent. I used to live next door to a police officer. He said that they had responded to an incident where a man was pushed in front of a bus. They interviewed everyone that had possibly seen anything. The majority of them were homeless people. Most of them said "Jesus did it" (the anglo pronunciation, not the hispanic pronunciation). They were absolutely positive it was Jesus. No question about it. It was Jesus.

    They finally interviewed a moderately sane person, who explained what the hell everyone else was talking about. The victim was a business person who walked several blocks to work every morning. Every day, he'd give a few of the homeless people some money. This particular morning he didn't have any cash (his wallet was found in his pocket, with no cash). One mentally unstable homeless man took great offense to this. He got very angry, and the victim tried to apologize, but the unstable homeless man wasn't interested in hearing excuses. In the middle of their altercation, he shoved the victim into the road, in front of the bus.

    The unstable homeless man went by the name "Jesus".

    Now back to our regularly scheduled tangent. :)

Re:duh?

[Moryath]

"realistic lighting and shadows" on shit-colored, muddy brown/green walls and scenery is still shit-colored, muddy brown/green walls and scenery.

Re:duh?

[gmhowell]

Duke was an iconic figure back in the days when Andrew Dice Clay was still alive.

I guess he got better?

"Hickory, dickory, dock..."

Re:duh?

[gmhowell]

If you set the wayback machine to a time before political-correctness became the norm in comedy, you'll find that there was a time when humor could be both offensive AND funny at the same time. See Sam Kinison.

You misspelled Lenny Bruce.

Re:duh?

[JWSmythe]

    I pulled together a short and not all inclusive list for only the Christians. "Lord", "I Am", "The Father Almighty", "The One", "Dominus", "Wonderful", "Yahweh", "Iehouah", "Lehoua", "Jehovia", "Jehovia-jireh", "YHWH", "I Am Who I Am" or "I Will Be What I Will Be", and "Bob".

    He doesn't use that last one a lot, and it doesn't find it's way into many modern bibles. :)

Re:duh?

[hawk]

>Really? Was there any doubt?

"Was? ". Sure.

However, by the time it *really* ships, this review will be long forgotten.

Re:duh?

[mgiuca]

I have to agree. I'm about halfway through. The rape victims part was simply offensive and shouldn't have been in the game. Everything else is quite a lot better than expected. Obviously something about this game has rubbed reviewers the wrong way -- perhaps it isn't a good career move to be recommending a game that lets you carry around poop. But I read the Ars article, and I can say that this game in no way deserves to be called "barely playable", or an "unplayable, glitchy, ugly, offensive mess". It's a reasonably fun game that is an entirely fitting sequel to Duke 3D, and has far more diverse environments and gameplay than the barely distinguishable sludge that's come out in the past few years.

And I really hate when reviewers think they're clever when the only thing they write under "the good" is "the game doesn't last very long." At least do your readers a favour and list the handful of good points about the game under your "the good" heading. I would direct readers who actually want a considered opinion to read the PC Gamer review, which gave the game 80%, and I felt was quite reasonable.

Re:duh?

[AmiMoJo]

It's grammatically wrong anyway. Fictional characters still get capitals at the start of their names, e.g. Harry Potter.

Atheists don't need such childish arguments, there are plenty of good ones for us to use.

Re:duh?

[Xest]

I tend to agree with you although I've not experienced the long console load times some reviews mention. I'm playing it on the 360 and haven't installed it to hard disk. It takes as long to load as most FPS games, and less than games like Portal 2 and Halo Reach for example.

I haven't run into any bugs mentioned in reviews either- certainly talk of tearing, dissapearing objects, graphics artifacts have failed to surface on my play through of the game.

To me I'd give it around 70%, it's not ground breaking, but it's an average shooter that can stand toe to toe with 90% of other shooters that come out. It aint Halo, or KillZone, or Resistance, or Call of Duty, but it's an amusing flashback as a DN3D player with much of the same humour, much of the same game features.

I think really the slating it's getting is from folks who never played the original DN3D when it came out, it's scary to think that a sizable number of games reviewers are now too young to have likely even caught DN3D when it came out so I suspect this is why many are attacking it- they don't really get the whole Duke Nukem thing. Certainly I can't see the game getting the same slating if it was released as something other than Duke Nukem with the characters name and look changed but everything else kept identical- it seems to be getting dropped by at least 20 - 40% in the reviews purely because it's DNF and has been a long running industry joke rather than because it's an inherently terrible game.

I think the "faults" mentioned in reviews are being exagerated with it for the same reason too- again, as I say, I've been playing it on the 360 and haven't encountered any of the issues some reviews claim.

Re:duh?

[TheRaven64]

gog.com has it for $5.99

Since I posted that, they've dropped the price to $2.39. I can guarantee that's a lot more fun per dollar than DNF for $40...

Re:duh?

[Omestes]

Think of it as a nickname or alias, then. God's true name is YHVH "God" Elohim. Like Ricky "The Hammer" Johnson, "hammer" is a normal word, but is capitalized in this case, even if it isn't Mr. Johnson's real name.

The problem is that we're not supposed to know, or say, God's real name. So whatever name, in the interim, we attack to him would also be a proper noun, even if it is a generic term. In proper English you also capitalize terms like "father" and "mother" when your using them instead of proper names, so doing so for "god" also makes sense.

Less convincing theological argument: According to later bits of the Bible, especially in the New Testament, there are no other gods out there. The term "god" then (when referring to the Judeo-Christian one) could only map to one specific entity. Saying "god" would be meaningless then, since there is only one referent to that term, thus it would be proper by default. As a note, I'm not wholly convinced of this bit, but it makes for a fun (albeit offtopic) discussion.

If we were all writing German this wouldn't be an issue.

Re:duh?

[spire3661]

Speaking of Prey, you see the E3 interview footage for Prey 2? Has absolutely NOTHING to do with the first game in any way shape of form, yet they call it Prey 2....

http://www.giantbomb.com/e3-2011-prey-2-interview/17-4347/

Re:duh?

[bstender]

The name is not the thing named, but respect is still worthwhile.

Re:duh?

[thedarknite]

My understanding of it relates to playing pool, but it could be applied to a number of activities. At university if you lost at pool (8 ball) without sinking one of your balls you had to do a lap of the table with your pants down.

Re:duh?

[sesshomaru]

You know, I really get that bus story you've written up as being a fairly accurate review of Duke Nukem Forever, but I don't know if everyone will. It's very Zen.

Re:duh?

[timftbf]

Now that Gearbox has finally put this beast to rest, I wonder what they could do with the license starting from scratch?

A nice 2D platformer rather than *another* FPS (*yawn*)?

A game with nuggets of self-mocking humour rather than a wave of misogynist (and frankly somewhat creepy) nonsense?

Does no-one actually remember Duke Nukem's origins? Am I the only one who still laughs at "Why I'm So Great"?

One of many

[mrxak]

I read this one this morning, but there are a lot of equally bad reviews out there, and a pitiful few mediocre ones.

Re:One of many

[RogueyWon]

Yes, IGN with a 5.5 seems to be one of the more generous scores - and IGN tend to "mark high" anyway. That's not a criticism of IGN - their scale is internally consistent and I know that a 5.5 from them is actually really quite bad.

I've posted my own review of DNF in my journal and basically agree with the overall consensus - that this is a really bad game.

I see comments below a lot of the reviews on the major sites defending the game, claiming that the reviewers are holding it up to unfair standards due to its development time. This isn't true. It's just a bad game which is not fun. If you compare it to any current major fps, it is horribly lacking. If you compare it against the better fpses from 5 years ago, it is horribly lacking. In many ways, it is horribly lacking compared to its own predecessor; Duke Nukem 3d.

Interesting to note that the console versions are being slammed even more than the PC versions. The Eurogamer "face-off" comparison made it clear that there is a clear hierarchy to the versions. The PC version is the best, though still desperately ugly. The PS3 version lacks some of what passes for graphical polish in the PC version. The 360 version is horribly, horribly broken. That's extremely unusual for an Unreal engine game, where the 360 would normally be expected to outperform the PS3.

Re:One of many

[hansamurai]

Well, note that it's Unreal Engine 2.5, and not 3 which has been out for something like 5 years now.

Re:One of many

[dunezone]

I see comments below a lot of the reviews on the major sites defending the game, claiming that the reviewers are holding it up to unfair standards due to its development time.

PCGAMER gave it an 80%, giving it leniency for the years of development. If a car was 14 years in a development and came out at full price and didnt have an engine then I cant give it leniency when it cant compete with anything else on the market.

Re:One of many

[RogueyWon]

I hadn't spotted the PCGAMER review. That was a good, decent thing they did there, giving DNF 80%. They've sent out a nice clear signal that I should absolutely never let any of their reviews factor into a purchasing decision. Good of them to give me a warning like that, wasn't it? Refreshingly honest, in a curious way.

This is not an 80% game. Five years ago, it might just about have been a 50% game. In fact, even that's generous. Resistance: Fall of Man is a vaguely similar fps which launched with the PS3 around 5 years ago and it is infinitely superior to DNF in every conceivable way.

Re:One of many

[Dunbal]

Yeah, I think I'll stick to EVE Online and when I feel like shooting stuff, I'll get Dust 514.

Re:One of many

[mrxak]

You misunderstood me.

Re:One of many

[mrxak]

The Ars review in particular, though, made it clear that it failed to live up to the standard of its predecessor, acknowledging that DN3D's juvenile humor was at least funny and added to a game that was actually fun. DNF, it seems, at least according to Ars, is simply unfunny toilet humor with crappy gameplay tacked on. Basically, they got it backwards, and did a poor job with both.

I haven't played DNF, but it sounds like a fair criticism, if you're going to criticize a game from a raunchy franchise. It's one if Duke's being Duke in a game that's fun, but that doesn't seem to have happened here.

Re:One of many

[Lunix Nutcase]

They were mainly bitching because the jokes weren't funny and it's true. Just because a joke is offensive does not automatically make it funny nor when someone finds that offensive joke to be unfunny it means they are hypersensitive. It can truly be possible for offensive jokes to just purely be unfunny and that's unfortunately how the jokes are in DNF.

Re:One of many

[hedwards]

I haven't yet finished the game, but 80% sounds about right if you ignore the years of development. And really the reviewers should be ignoring that. It's got some issues to it, but the ones I've seen are pretty insignificant and ought to be relatively easily fixed via patches.

I've noticed a lot of the reviews out there being approximately 1/10 rview by column and 9/10 editorial, which made me suspicious of the accuracy in general if the reviewer can't be arsed to separate opinion from fact and disclose biases.

When I started playing through it was more or less everything I could have hoped for, and I would be surprised if it doesn't end up influencing developers in the future to incorporate more interactivity. That puzzle near the beginning with the toy truck was just inspired.

Re:One of many

[Lunix Nutcase]

I haven't yet finished the game, but 80% sounds about right if you ignore the years of development.

But 80% sounds quite wrong when you compare it to almost any other good FPS game from the last 10 years.

Re:One of many

[Lunix Nutcase]

I didn't buy the game. I played it for free and even at that price it was a ripoff.

Re:One of many

[tsa]

That review is anything but bad. I think it's a very good review of a shockingly bad game. But to each his/her own.

Re:One of many

[Lunix Nutcase]

Contrary to your implication I don't believe "good game = praised by critics" since, as you point out, plenty of schlockware gets 9/10, 10/10 etc ratings. DNF on the other hand got the reviews it deserved since it was a steaming pile. Good thing this garbage will either be forgotten rather quickly and fade into obscurity or will stick around as the butt of jokes it deserves to be.

Re:One of many

[Drooling Iguana]

I began disregarding PC Gamer's reviews when they gave FX Fighter an Editor's Choice award.

Re:One of many

[Squiddie]

But is it fun? That's the question you should ask yourself. I played it to the end, and you know what? I had fun. I enjoyed that game. Sure, it isn't mid-blowing, or even what I expected it would be, but it wasn't bad. It was an average game, or even mediocre, if you want to be harsh. It was not, as many reviews say, unplayable or complete shit. It's a game, and it had Duke. I'll buy it when it's in the discount bin.

Re:One of many

[kalirion]

I'm going to reserve judgment until I see the review in the print version (yup, I still subscribe.) The online reviews are written by different people.

Re:One of many

[deweyhewson]

PC Gamer, much as I like them, has a massive inferiority complex in which they feel driven to give every console game also released on PC a high score. It's almost as if they are so desperate for developers not to forget the PC platform that they give out high scores just for showing up.

Dragon Age 2 scored higher than The Witcher 2, and they called it the RPG of the decade. Duke Nukem Forever received an 80/100, when almost every other reviewer and gamer is ripping it apart. They gave Crysis 2 an 89 for heaven's sake, in all its consolified glory.

The rule of thumb is that PC Gamer has fairly reliable reviews so long as the game wasn't also released on console. If it was, just expect the review to gloss over all the game's flaws while trumpeting even its most minor of positives.

hmmmm......

[robthebloke]

That game map in the review is indeed damning...

Re:hmmmm......

[staticdragon]

AFAIK that map is a critique of the modern 'rails' shooter rather than DNF in particular.

Re:hmmmm......

[smitty777]

That is correct. FTA: "The joke in the image below may have been about Doom and shooters in 2010, but it still fits when talking about Duke Nukem Forever."

Re:hmmmm......

[Megane]

It's not just shooters. FFXIII did that too.

Re:hmmmm......

[Megane]

Oops, I seem to have messed up the link to the map. Here's a link to the FFXIII map.

Re:hmmmm......

[tehcyder]

That game map in the review is indeed damning...

*whoosh*
The "2010 game map" is a fucking joke, as would be fucking obvious if you had actually fucking read any of the fucking text preceding it. Yeah, yeah, I know..

Re:hmmmm......

[hairyfeet]

Yes but they have a point, in that half the fun of D3D was the exploration and finding all the hidden stuff and things you could activate. remember the walls you could blow with pipe bombs? Or finding various switches for things like the projector? It wasn't all "follow this line, blast shit" it was figuring out where the "good stuff" was hidden and that was FUN.

And only two weapons? WTF? This ain't Halo! Part of the fun of Duke was carrying an assload of weapons and figuring out what was best for an area and not blowing all the ammo. Personally I'd love to meet the idiot that came up with the two gun rule and kick him in the nuts. It is a fricking game and the hero always looks like a gorilla, you telling me his ass can only carry two guns?

Just playing the demo was enough for me, I'll be waiting on Serious Sam 3. Now they damned well better keep the headless suicide bombers or I'm gonna be pissed!

Lost interest when I saw the feces trailer

[XxtraLarGe]

I could tell they were appealing to the lowest common denominator when they released a trailer showing Duke throwing his own feces. One of the dumbest things I ever heard of in a game, automatically made me lose all interest. I figured if they wasted time implementing something like that, the rest of the game would probably be just as dumb.

Re:Lost interest when I saw the feces trailer

[guruevi]

Actually, stupid stuff like that is what you would want a Duke Nukem game to be. However most of the stuff is simply over the top while throughout the rest of the game it doesn't even involve any funniness nor keeping the old gameplay or even broad levels around. It has become a very linear, boring shooter.

TotalBiscuit said it best when he said: they kept all the bad stuff from old DOS games and all the bad stuff from new shooters and added it together. They made Duke an old man that can't jump, can't hold more than 2 guns and needs assistance in every fight.

Re:Lost interest when I saw the feces trailer

[maxwell demon]

They made Duke an old man

Well, he certainly aged while waiting for the release. What did you expect? :-)

Re:Lost interest when I saw the feces trailer

[loonycyborg]

Probably this game was meant as an insult to old duke fans implying that they have no place in the New Era of Casual Gaming.

Re:Lost interest when I saw the feces trailer

[ifrag]

can't hold more than 2 guns and needs assistance in every fight

I'm starting to miss some of the old shooters due to this. Ammo hoarding and hidden super-weapon hunting were quite fun back in the day. Would be nice to see some games stop following the "realistic" formula and bring back the "arsenal on back" model. It's always satisfying to run into a new room, take a look over the enemies, and grin as you pull the perfect gun for the job out. To quote Unreal 2, "Show me the crowd pleaser."

Re:Lost interest when I saw the feces trailer

[closetpsycho]

Resistance 1 had the arsenal on back model and the third one will as well. They decided to play follow the leader with the second one and made it the "realistic" type. The fans did not agree. So you've got at least one game to look forward to with that particular old-school model.

Re:Lost interest when I saw the feces trailer

[heptapod]

You mean Gearbox/2K's viral marketers behind seven proxies.

Re:Lost interest when I saw the feces trailer

[tehcyder]

You Americans do seem to have a definite anti-toilet-humour bias, although I'm sure the teenage gamers will love it.

Re:Lost interest when I saw the feces trailer

[tsa]

Actually, stupid stuff like that is what you would want a Duke Nukem game to be.

Only if you are between 4 and 9 years old. And even back then I would have found that video disgusting.

Re:Lost interest when I saw the feces trailer

[nyctopterus]

I'm not American, and I like toilet humour as much as anyone, but that shit-flinging trailer was painfully unfunny. And that what the put in a trailer. I hate to think how bad the rest of it is.

Re:Lost interest when I saw the feces trailer

[xhrit]

Duke Nukem 1 & 2 were some of my favorite games in the early 90s. The only shooter I liked better was Bio Menace, another Apogee game. They were impressive sci-fi sidescroller shooters. They had tons of powerups that you had to explore huge maps to find, and puzzles that required you to use the items you have in innovative ways.

Duke Nukem 3d however was very crude. There was nothing sophisticated about it. The story, the jokes, the gameplay, the level design. Sure, people will say that the weapons were fun and they enjoyed exploring the labyrinthine levels but I did not. The weapons were nothing special. The only thing that impressed me was the shrink ray but once the novelty wore off the weapon had no actual tactical role. The levels basically involved clearing the area of monsters and then wondering around lost until you happened to blunder onto whatever object functioned as the key that allowed you to progress. And they made the hero a sexist dick. There were games from around the time of Duke Nukem 1 that had tits in them. But Duke was not one of those game until the 3rd game in the series.

Duke Nukem 3d represented to me the end of an era in gaming. Sold out for a cheap laugh. T&A instead of gameplay. Soon all of my favorite games would reinvent themselves as hollow shells of their former selves. In fact once the new xcom game comes out I don't think there will be any 90s game series that I like anymore.

Re:Lost interest when I saw the feces trailer

[xhrit]

omg i should have made my comment in reply to you. go read what i posted a few lines up. ^^

Re:Lost interest when I saw the feces trailer

[Sir_Lewk]

If you don't like duke nukes games, then don't play duke nukes games.

And stop complaining about people not compromising their work for your pussy sensibilities. Its not cute.

Re:Lost interest when I saw the feces trailer

[Drooling Iguana]

Ironically, the two gun limit was pioneered by Rise of the Triad, which was made by the same developers as DN3D and can be considered its spiritual predecessor, but they decided to ditch that "feature" for DN3D anyway.

Makes you wonder what they've forgotten in the years since then.

Re:Lost interest when I saw the feces trailer

[Chris Burke]

Man, I love Duke3D. That Duke is awesome. That Duke is cool. That Duke came to kick ass and chew bubble gum, and he was all out of bubble gum*.

Picking up shit from a toilet is not cool. It's something Roger Wilco, Space Janitor, would refuse to do. It's not funny, it's not cool, it's idiotic. Using a urinal, yeah, it makes a joke of game characters not having to use the bathroom, and in the 90s was actually an innovative amount of environmental interaction.

But toilet-diving? Don't act like this is something any true fan of the game would think was hilarious and not stupid. I shudder to think of the mind who both thinks "I picked up the poo!" itself is funny and appreciates strippers.

* And he made pop-culture reference that were awesome or funny, outside of just being a pop-culture reference

Re:Lost interest when I saw the feces trailer

[Sir_Lewk]

People have been getting offended at games for half a century. You're not special, get over yourself.

Re:Lost interest when I saw the feces trailer

[CelticWhisper]

Almost. It was slightly different in ROTT - you had 3 "bullet" weapons (pistol, dual pistols, MP40) and one swappable "missile" weapon (bazooka, heat-seek...ing...you know what, there's a LOT. Look 'em up.) The neat bit was that the bullet weapons all had unlimited ammo and the MP40, at least, could hold its own in a firefight. Not exactly the same as the Halo system but not that much different either.

Re:Lost interest when I saw the feces trailer

[XxtraLarGe]

It's not offensive, just stupid.

Re:Lost interest when I saw the feces trailer

[Chris Burke]

You obviously think you're special for not being offended, and thinking that's the difference between liking this (literal) piece of shit and not. But that's got nothing to do with it. The game sucks, it's not special, and neither are you for failing to see it.

Re:Lost interest when I saw the feces trailer

[Sir_Lewk]

As someone who doesn't game, I simply don't give a shit. I thought that DN3D was shit when it came out for purely technical reasons, and haven't given a fuck about games since the 90s anyway. This game probably does continue in the footsteps of the prior in being shit. I don't know, I don't care.

What I do know however is that anyone who feels the need to publically state their judgement call on a piece of comedy is a fuckwad. So you don't like turds. So fucking what?

Re:Lost interest when I saw the feces trailer

[Chris Burke]

What I do know however is that anyone who feels the need to publically state their judgement call on a piece of comedy is a fuckwad.

Which you've done, making you a fuckwad by your own standards, a dipshit by mine, and a hypocrite by anyone's. Nice, a hat trick!

Now if publicly expressing judgments on subjective shit that doesn't matter is so bad, why are you still talking, and more importantly why did you start?

Re:Lost interest when I saw the feces trailer

[Sir_Lewk]

I made it a point to specify comedy you illiterate fuckstick.

Re:Lost interest when I saw the feces trailer

[Chris Burke]

Yeah even accepting that bullshit exception, you opined that the comedy in question was offensive to pussies. So now you're a fuckwad, dipshit, hypocrite, and a mental defective who doesn't even know what you're saying. Why are you so angry at others over your own fuckups?

That's a rhetorical question, by the way, just like the ones in the last post. The real message was: Take your own advice and shut the fuck up.

Re:Lost interest when I saw the feces trailer

[XxtraLarGe]

Nobody cares about your opinion. Get over yourself.

You cared enough to reply.

Re:Lost interest when I saw the feces trailer

[PFactor]

It's due to the ongoing pussification of our society. Everything must be hyper politically correct for anyone to be allowed to say they enjoy it. We DO enjoy high- and low-brow humor. We're just not allowed to admit it in public, else someone will sue or publicly shame you. For example, if you say, "DNF was mildly enjoyable", a common response from the politically correct crowd might be, "Well, that means you like murdering rape victims. You're a monster and you don't deserve any cake*". Most people decide to keep their mouth shut, and the vocal minority who run all things politically correct win. This is a slight tangent but I think this concept actually makes us less "free" than people in countries where sticks are not surgically implanted in their asses at birth.

On topic, I've played through about half the game. It's a barely average shooter with a few chuckle-worthy moments - all due to "childish" humor. I am enjoying the game as much as I enjoyed playing the last Call of Duty game though, because DNF has more personality and is completely not serious in how it presents itself. I can actually *gasp* mindlessly relax in this game. Call of Duty, et al, are SRS BZNS and it takes more mental energy to play them through.

That said, the game is not worth $60, even the PC version I'm playing. I bought it on Steam for $44US and I think that's overpriced, too.

*Please note that the cake is actually a lie.

Re:Lost interest when I saw the feces trailer

[KermodeBear]

Serious Sam.

Playing Serious Sam reminded me a lot of Duke3D in many ways: Lots of weapons, lots of hidden stuff to find, witty one-liners from an over the top tough guy, some very cool map areas, huge and epic (and sometimes ridiculous) fights, and it's fun. The best all-out shooter I have ever played.

It doesn't have the puerile humor that Duke3D has, but titty jokes aren't what makes a game worth playing.

Apparently nobody told the new IP owner...

[TWX]

...that the whole point was that it actually was planned to be a joke, hence, "Forever", and that they weren't supposed to be working on it for real. Their only task was to load the 3d rendering program and to build another fake "screenshot" with some new changes to the old "screenshot" so that it looked like they were doing something.

They could have milked this another 20 years if they'd been smart, but NO, they had to go and actually try to build the thing...

Re:Apparently nobody told the new IP owner...

[Sonny Yatsen]

They should've waited another 40 years to release this, so we can have a time capsule in 2030 of popular culture in the late 80s to mid 90s.

Re:Apparently nobody told the new IP owner...

[TWX]

Do we know their sales though? I last played Duke Nukem 3D probably in 1999 or so, and if my peer group was the target audience for the game, most of us are probably to the point of not really caring like they should have wanted us to.

If they'd have hyped it and released a crappy game around 5 years after DN3D (so '01 or so) then they probably could have gotten a lot more sales than this version did.

Re:Apparently nobody told the new IP owner...

[jcwayne]

There's a movie in there somewhere. I know, we'll call it The Game Producers.

Re:Apparently nobody told the new IP owner...

[Sonny Yatsen]

Er, 2051.

Re:Apparently nobody told the new IP owner...

[RulerOf]

They finally cashed in on the hype and jokes.With enough hype, you can sell a shitload of copies before people realise it's shit. Hell, you can probably make more money that way than if you'd develop a good game.

While that's a fantastic point, they probably could have made even more money by outsourcing development to Valve on an undetermined timeframe with 50% profit sharing or something.

Nothing like the best game dev houses having an infinite amount of time to create a classic to actually make it not suck :P

Re:Apparently nobody told the new IP owner...

[Anubis IV]

You forgot the step where they dump the graphics engine for a new one every few years. The Unreal 3.0 engine seems to be hot right now, so they should have announced about two months back that they were restarting development with it instead of the engine that they're using.

Re:Apparently nobody told the new IP owner...

[mrxak]

Wow. What time capsule did you just step out of?

Re:Apparently nobody told the new IP owner...

[just fiddling around]

Ahem, a time capsule of the last 5 years of the century would be more like it.

First half of the nineties = Wolfenstein, Doom (barely), 386-486 class machines, no 3D accelerators, Adlib or Soundblaster, mouse optional.

Re:Apparently nobody told the new IP owner...

[kat_skan]

I like it. We'll get Uwe Boll to direct and he'll blow it by making the most popular video game movie the world has ever seen.

14 years of hype

[mandark1967]

are pretty hard to overcome...

Forget your pre-conceived notions of what Duke Nukem "should" be and just play it.

That's my plan, anyway.

If I find I don't like it, then I'll move on to another game.

Afterall, it isn't like it's the first game that didn't live up to the hype...

Re:14 years of hype

[TheRaven64]

Read the review. He didn't say it didn't live up to the hype, he said it was a terrible game. The humour is not risque, it's just offensive. The gameplay was tedious, a cover-based shooter, but without any support for cover except walking around a corner. The levels were linear and unimaginative. The one good point he identified in the game was that it was short.

Re:14 years of hype

[revscat]

Hype? More like "running joke". DNF wasn't hyped so much as it was ridiculed and made the butt of jokes.

And not in a good way, either.

Re:14 years of hype

[Anonymous Coward]

humor being offensive is something personal. i don't think they will be able to include much humor that i would find offensive.
on the other hand, my grand mother might get a heart attack due to it.

Re:14 years of hype

[Tridus]

Sometimes something is just a bad game, and you shouldn't reward companies for putting out bad games by spending money on them.

This is one of those times.

Forget about Duke Nukem entirely. This fails as any kind of shooter.

Re:14 years of hype

[jawtheshark]

One persons "offensive" is another persons "risqué". I read the whole thing and the write seems to object to the denigration of women. Has this person even payed the old Duke 3D? Strippers and women impregnated by aliens were a main theme. I wouldn't expect anything else from a new "Duke".

Re:14 years of hype

[cpu6502]

It sounds like an excellent game.

If it had been released in 1999.

Re:14 years of hype

[jaymz666]

So, basically, the hype is the age group this game is designed for? Maybe the game could play with itself. Oh, it is...

Re:14 years of hype

[muckracer]

> humor being offensive is something personal. i don't think they will
> be able to include much humor that i would find offensive.
> on the other hand, my grand mother might get a heart attack due to
> it.

Mine already did. Damn you, Duke! :-/

Re:14 years of hype

[gtch]

Offensive versus risqué is irrelevant. Duke Nukem Forever is denigrating to women, which is a completely different thing.

You can be as offensive and as risqué as you like in your own home. But if you treated women in your home like they are treated in Duke Nukem Forever, it would be a matter for the police.

Re:14 years of hype

[jawtheshark]

Sure, but think back of Duke 3D? That wasn't denigrating women? So back then it wasn't a big deal, but now it is?

Re:14 years of hype

[Xtravar]

While I agree with the general sentiment, I played for about an hour last night and it is really, really ridiculous and over the top. Saying it's denigrating to women is taking it completely out of context. The context is *completely* ridiculous and over the top. It's like South Park - some people like Cartman because they believe what he says, but most people realize he's a parody character.

I mean, you start in a hotel/casino owned by Duke. There are ridiculous posters everywhere featuring Duke - showing that he's the best at this, the best at that. Everything has the nuke symbol on it. A kid asks you for an autograph. Then you go down to the "Duke cave" whose entrance is a golden throne surrounded by nude female statues. It's just so very completely ridiculous that it's not shock humor, like most people are painting it as.

Re:14 years of hype

[tehcyder]

In the original D3D you got to shoot some strippers at one point, the perceived misogynistic crudeness is hardly new.

Re:14 years of hype

[Unkyjar]

If you treated people like you treat people in just about every game ever produced it would be a matter for the police.

Re:14 years of hype

[brantondaveperson]

Shooting rape victims played as a joke is offensive for anyone. And if you don't find it offensive then I suggest that there is something wrong with you.

Re:14 years of hype

[grumbel]

It might be offensive, but its something that was already in Duke Nukem 3D, so its nothing new.

Re:14 years of hype

[PFactor]

It's probably a good thing the video game isn't a true-to-life documentary portraying someone real denigrating real women in real homes, then.

So, it's "done".

[kvezach]

And all I have to say is:

This is how the Duke ends,
this is how the Duke ends,
not with a bang, but with a whimper.

RIP!

Re:So, it's "done".

[drinkypoo]

this is how the Duke ends,
not with a bang, but with a whimper.

Can I get a courtesy flush over here?
What did you eat?

Re:So, it's "done".

[tnk1]

And all I have to say is:

This is how the Duke ends,
this is how the Duke ends,
not with a bang, but with a whimper.

RIP!

If T.S. Eliot was actually reviewing this game, I think he'd be more concise and simply end it with:

"Shitty shitty shitty"

Software Release dates slip ...

[Cassini2]

People do not set out to write vaporware. Release dates slip when the software is not fit for release.

Sometimes, bad software design decisions cannot be fixed.

So...

[softWare3ngineer]

...we should wait for the sequel then ?

Re:So...

[gtch]

What comes after forever?

Re:So...

[Anonymous Coward]

Divorce?

Re:So...

[muckracer]

> ...we should wait for the sequel then ?

Actually until it's really good and all you wanted it to be you just need to wait until Service Pack (203)1!

Re:So...

[shutdown -p now]

No, you should go buy DN3D from Good Old Games and have some real fun.

Grab Manhattan Project as well, while you're at it. A different genre, but it's still a Duke game done right.

Re:So...

[devjoe]

Duke Nukem & Robin?

Re:So...

[VGPowerlord]

Then they could do a reboot: Duke Nukem Begins, followed by The Duke Knight.

Re:So...

[elrous0]

What comes after forever?

My girlfriend.

Re:So...

[Chemisor]

You know, I could write a kick-ass Duke game. Oh, wait, that would be illegal.

Re:So...

[maxwell demon]

You know, I could write a kick-ass Duke game. Oh, wait, that would be illegal.

A kick-ass Duke game? So instead of shooting, he now kicks asses? :-)

the WTF videos

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6MjzgTZriw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5Yngipvz6M
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q86vWgaLuwE

watch in that order, and you will see about a first couple of hours of gameplay along with the reviewer's impressions. Saved me some time otherwise possibly spent downloading and trying the game myself (let alone buying it).

Re:the WTF videos

[qubezz]

Here's another walkthru of the release version, done two days ago.

Re:the WTF videos

[uofitorn]

Holy hell, that seriously saved you time? Who in their right mind would watch 110 minutes (yes the videos really combine to total that long) of a reviewer's impressions? It would take me a couple minutes to start the download and still leave plenty of time to get a feel for the gameplay before the nearly two hours of youtube videos finish playing. There might even be a few (very few from what it sounds like) moments of enjoyment to be had playing the game instead of listening to that wanker's babbling.

Ouch...

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

While things like "humor" and achieving the correct position between "hilariously vulgar" and "just plain WTF??" are tricky, it is particularly damning that they managed to make a game that both looks thoroughly mediocre and runs poorly on a console that has been out long enough to be fairly well understood.

With licensable engines from people who know what they are doing(the Unreal engine, whatever ID is calling theirs these days, maybe lithtech, if they are still around), I could understand if they just licensed one of those, shovelled some half-assed art assets and crude humor into it and called it a day; but at least that would have run properly. Somehow, in 13 years of development, they managed to make a game that is neither aesthetically nor technically competent. That puts them in the hallowed ranks of games like Xtreme Paintbrawl, which is a problem since the MSRP is $60 not $5.

Re:Ouch...

[VGPowerlord]

With licensable engines from people who know what they are doing(the Unreal engine, whatever ID is calling theirs these days, maybe lithtech, if they are still around), I could understand if they just licensed one of those, shovelled some half-assed art assets and crude humor into it and called it a day; but at least that would have run properly.

They did use an engine from people who knew what they were doing; specifically the Unreal 2.5 engine (the same one games like Killing Floor use).

Re:Ouch...

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Ach, that makes it even worse. Started at 3rd and stole 2nd...

Re:Ouch...

[ImpShial]

whatever ID is calling theirs these days, maybe lithtech, if they are still around

id has come out with the Tech 5 engine. See the game Rage for details

Agreed

[pak9rabid]

It's pretty terrible.

And yet it has been topping a few of the charts

[anomnomnomymous]

I played the demo the other day, and if people buy this and then complaint it's their own mistake. The demo already clearly showed in which areas it was lacking (bad animations, bad scripting,really lame humor/voice acting). Even though I've been a big fan of Duke3D, I just couldn't see this being worth my money. But all props to them that they actually released a demo; Most of the times the crappy games won't have a demo, because of aforementioned reasons.

Re:And yet it has been topping a few of the charts

[aneroid]

Actually, the demo is about 5 minutes of Duke's attitude and then just action. Basically, the demo experience was pretty damn good. The real game was nothing like the demo.

Re:And yet it has been topping a few of the charts

[Narishma]

What charts has it been topping?

Re:And yet it has been topping a few of the charts

[anomnomnomymous]

The UK, for one.

Re:And yet it has been topping a few of the charts

[Nagrom]

Access to the demo was really very limited - you either had to own Borderlands or to have pre-ordered DNF. This is hardly encouraging people to try before they buy.

I'd say the review embargo in Europe wasn't exactly much in the spirit of openness either...

What's wrong with calling it Faggs?

[kvvbassboy]

I am no gamer and I have no idea what Nuke Dukem is, and but I was amused that the author of the review was offended by this.

Duke Nukem Forever is the kind of game where you find a pack of cigarettes whose cover shows a mustached man wearing leather—and they're called "Faggs."

Re:What's wrong with calling it Faggs?

[errandum]

Exactly.

I'm not defending the game, but the reviewer is a prima-dona.

Re:What's wrong with calling it Faggs?

[PhxBlue]

Agreed. Apparently the reviewer has no familiarity with British slang whatsoever.

Re:What's wrong with calling it Faggs?

[TheRaven64]

Because it's just not that funny. It's the kind of pun that you'd think was hilarious when you were 12, and then you'd either grow up, or you'd go on to make Duke Nukem Forever. Compare the humour in DNF with Duke3D or DN:MP, which had lines like 'guns don't kill mutants, I kill mutants.' Manhattan Project managed the same sort of cliche'd over-the-top macho action figure satire, but was actually fun and made you laugh (and I'm not saying that from the perspective of nostalgia: I played it for the first time over Christmas). It sounds like DNF doesn't, it just makes Duke Nukem sound like a dick.

Re:What's wrong with calling it Faggs?

[TheRaven64]

Other talented writers at Ars? You mean Jon Stokes and... Jon Stokes? Mind you, the rates that they pay, it's not surprising. I was interested when Ars put out the call for freelancers a while back, but they pay about about a quarter of what I can get elsewhere. That said, the review seems to be saying pretty much the same thing as all of the other reviews: the game sucks. From the control-alt-delete review:

The Duke comes of as borish, sexist, immature and unlikeable. He was an outrageous parody back in the '90s, a tongue in cheek take on action heroes, even borrowing some of their one-liners. Duke was violent and crass, and I think we loved him back then because that was all new territory for a video game.

This sums it up perfectly. Old Duke was an over-the-top cliche action hero. New Duke is a dick.

Re:What's wrong with calling it Faggs?

[Lunix Nutcase]

Ben Kutchera may be an awful journalist, a terrible writer and everything else you say. Doesn't change the fact that the game is a steaming turd.

Re:What's wrong with calling it Faggs?

[DarkOx]

The original Duke Nukem 3d certainly was sophomoric in terms of humor as was Manhattan Project but both were witty rather than crude. I am not saying its impossible but you have to be a comic genius to make flinging poo witty; to my knowledge it has not been done. I have no doubt this game is a failure on all fronts. 3D Realms never could get it done because they got into the whole perfect is the enemy of good trap.

They simply were not going to release something that might hurt the franchise to get it out the door. After they sold the property and it was announced the new studio was going to new studio was going to release it in 1 year, it was evident this was going to be paycheck game of low quality to cash in on the franchise value, and their will never be another Duke.

Re:What's wrong with calling it Faggs?

[anyGould]

This sums it up perfectly. Old Duke was an over-the-top cliche action hero. New Duke is a dick.

Well, let's not delude ourselves - Old Duke was a dick too. But he was a Denis Leary "No Cure For Cancer" dick. The kind of fellow who's a badass, knows he's a badass, acts like a badass, and you put up with it because... well, he's just that badass. A beer-swilling Bond.

Sounds like New Duke has all the dickery, but not enough badassery to justify it.

I wasn't expecting a *fantastic* game, but I was hoping for a solid game with the right attitude. Pity they seem to have missed on both.

Re:What's wrong with calling it Faggs?

[TheRaven64]

Well, let's not delude ourselves - Old Duke was a dick too.

Go back to the platform games and he wasn't, he was just a cliche action hero. In Duke 3D and Duke Nukem: Manhattan Project, he was a bit, but the cliche action hero stuff was taken so far over the top that you couldn't take him seriously. Compare the behaviour:

In DN:MP, the game uses 'babes' (with unfeasibly large breasts) as checkpoint markers. You have to rescue them and defuse the bombs that they've been strapped to. They usually make some simpering 80's action flick damsel in distress comment. Duke replies with something like 'so many babes, so little time,' or 'Hey, careful with those things' in reference to be large breasts.

In DNF, Duke receives a blowjob from two women, then kills them when they've been impregnated by aliens because now they're too fat. He crosses the line from misogynistic action hero to vicious bastard.

Re:What's wrong with calling it Faggs?

[oldmac31310]

I expect he meant 'boorish'. Maybe the control-alt-delete reviewer should write for Ars since he is clearly sucha literary talent.

Re:What's wrong with calling it Faggs?

[Chris Burke]

No, that's why it's a pun, because it's playing off two similar words. The British slang for cigarettes, and the offensive derogatory slang for homosexual.

If it wasn't for the British slang, it would just be homophobia. Instead of a stupid homophobic pun.

Re:What's wrong with calling it Faggs?

[styrotech]

In NZ when I was a kid back in the 70s there was was a brand of ground coffee called Faggs that my folks would buy.

Hmmm... I wonder.... wait a sec, they're still around...

http://www.faggs.co.nz/

Re:in other news

[Tridus]

"an fps is not a cultural work like Meet the Spartans."

Fixed that for you.

Here's the good news...

[Jawnn]

I heard that Ewe Boll will be directing the feature film... [ducks]

Re:Here's the good news...

[Gotung]

In some sort of bizzaro world fashion the movie would probably turn out awesome.

Re:Here's the good news...

[Machtyn]

Where's my insightful mod!

Re:Here's the good news...

[anyGould]

In some sort of bizzaro world fashion the movie would probably turn out awesome.

It could, if it was done right. Get Bruce Campbell, infuse Duke with some Army of Darkness style awesome, remember that this is supposed to be funny/campy, and run with it.

Re:Offensive?

[MadChicken]

1) Climb off high horse
2) Read review

Re:in other news

[maxwell demon]

But the whole point of a game is being fun to play. Which according to the review DNF isn't.

"Faggs" are an "officially protected victim class"

[Anonymous Coward]

One is only allowed to insult white males of Western European heritage - because they are an evil blight upon Gaia.

And if they're Christians, you're even allowed to burn them alive.

As long as you pay for your carbon credits.

Duke Nukem Forever

[Arrepiadd]

So it will indeed be forever...

It had no chance to meet expectations

[damn_registrars]

The expectations for this game were way too high, as a result of how long it was in development. Even if it was the greatest game ever it would have still been a disappointment to someone. On top of that since most reviewers are used to serious FPS games they have no idea what Duke Nukem is supposed to actually be about; it isn't supposed to compete with the latest Call of Duty.

Re:It had no chance to meet expectations

[SanityInAnarchy]

According to this review, it's not just that it doesn't compete with Call of Duty -- it doesn't even compete favorably with Duke Nukem 3D.

Re:It had no chance to meet expectations

[ledow]

You can make excuses all you like - the game is sub-par compared to even budget titles released YEARS (and in some cases even a decade) ago. You don't need to have the latest-and-greatest graphics - and I play more indie games with 2D graphics than I play anything else any more - but if you expect someone to lay out full-price, you need to have something to sell.

You can't sell nostalgia, only ruin it. Selling humour is subjective and requires a humour professional (i.e. comedian), especially if that humour is incredibly niche and potentially offensive if you get it wrong. The "humour" in the game consists of swearing and making jokes that an 11-year-old would consider distasteful (and that's saying something!), and reads like a checklist of offensive terms was referenced in order to make each "joke". I'm no prude when it comes to jokes and it would take an awful lot to "offend" me, especially if I chose to "be offended" voluntarily - but this game just *isn't* funny, and tries to make up by being seen as offensive or off-the-wall, and that's its biggest problem.

I agree that *someone* would always be disappointed but as someone who played Duke when it was first out, this game is actually a step backwards from the original. A step back from a nearly-15-year-old game! I'm not into "serious" FPS at all - my games are entertainment to wile away the hours, and that *usually* means not having to think, plan, strategise, etc. - but this is one of the most linear, boring and predictable (in terms of what comes around the next corner) games I've ever seen.

The engine is vastly capable of handling more but... just doesn't. Modern computers are more than capable of handling more but can struggle on this (!).

They had all the time in the world. They had a legendary release date and could easily have spent a decade on it. They had so many great developers and decades of assets and ideas. They had all the capability in the world. And what you end up with is a boring, tedious, linear, ill-thought-out, budget-style FPS with offensive humour and some references to its predecessor thrown in to make it "special".

And what makes it worse - some of the pre-release clips from YEARS ago actually put this game entirely to shame, and those bits never made it in.

Have a look at Counterstrike: Condition Zero. It comes with the various iterations of that game that were abandoned pre-release, including an FPS/adventure-style mode built in the CS vein. It wasn't great, but it could have stood alone, and is still fun to play through even today. It was abandoned for something infinitely better (even though it became just-another CS mod) on a shorter timescale than intended and sold by the bucketload, without the bad rap that this got.

DNF is a massive disappointment. Having the meme of Duke Nukem Forever's release date around would actually be BETTER than the game itself. It's another Daikatana, although spectacularly, it's somehow worse.

Re:It had no chance to meet expectations

[Megane]

Hyped expectations don't matter. The game apparently doesn't even meet the standards for a random stand-alone game that doen't have the word "Duke" in its name. It's so bad that it's going to have a hard time competing with Daikatana.

Re:It had no chance to meet expectations

[damn_registrars]

the standards for a random stand-alone game

Therein lies the problem, and my point.

DNF, when viewed as "a random stand-alone game" will inevitably be compared to the closest game to it, which makes no sense because there is no similar game to it on the market.

It would be like if GTA3 were released today, for the first time (without the previous GTA titles to set the tone in 2D). People would try to compare it to Halo, which makes no sense.

In other words, there are no stand-alone games currently. There are no games on the market that have nothing to compare to; or at least that is what every reviewer assumes. Hence you get a game like DNF, which is really more farcical in nature, and people try to find something to compare it to because that is what reviewers do.

The problem is, the game isn't trying to be like something already on the market.

Re:It had no chance to meet expectations

[Lunix Nutcase]

The expectations for this game were way too high,

In what bizarre world are you pulling this from? Pretty much everyone's expectations were about as low as can be and yet it still managed to fall below that. DNF is a terrible game so stop with these lame excuses. The game could have been released just like this 10 years ago and it would still have sucked. You fanbois need to fucking get over yourselves.

Re:It had no chance to meet expectations

[damn_registrars]

You're reading too much into my comment. I am not calling this a good game. Hell I will probably never play it since I don't have any hardware that can run it. I'm just saying it was over-hyped and over-anticipated, and on top of that all the FPS games in the world surpassed it by several orders of technical magnitude while it was in development.

DNF fanboi I am decidedly not. I'm just pointing out the obvious, that it was guaranteed to get terrible reviews regardless of what was released.

Re:It had no chance to meet expectations

[Lunix Nutcase]

No, if the game had actually not sucked it would have gotten positive reviews. The reason it is getting slammed is purely because the game sucked.

Re:It had no chance to meet expectations

[ultranova]

According to this review, it's not just that it doesn't compete with Call of Duty -- it doesn't even compete favorably with Duke Nukem 3D.

It doesn't. It starts well, with a fight against a giant alien, and then becomes a really long interactive cutscene of Duke living in a casino. And then, just when it seems like the action is about to start again, you get shrunk into a damn weaponless action figure driving around on a toy car.

Death of a meme...

[itsdapead]

A few moment's silence, pray, for the demise of an Internet meme?

How do we now describe the expected delivery date of vaporware without resorting to mundane terms like "hell freezing over" or "Real Soon Now..."?

This is nearly as bad as finding out what step 3 is in the underpant gnomes' business plan.

Re:Death of a meme...

[idontgno]

A few moment's silence, pray, for the demise of an Internet meme?

Alas, no. Regardless of what it's called, this is not the Duke Nukem Forever the prophecies spoke of. It's not the vaporware Messiah; it's just very naughty crap.

The meme is safe. This is not the DNF we're looking for.

Re:Death of a meme...

[Megane]

It's simple. All you have to do is deny that this game ever existed, just as people deny that there was ever more than one Matrix movie, that there was ever a Star Wars Episode 1-3, and that there was ever a Highlander II.

Once you have done that, the 14-year clock can continue to run.

Re:Death of a meme...

[ThirdPrize]

In Soviet Russia ... Duke Nukem slams Ars Technica!

Re:Death of a meme...

[dwillden]

You are so very right.

It's one of the false or Anti-Dukes that were spoken of in prophecy. The true Duke has not returned. Someday Duke Nukem Forever will be released and the gaming Rapture and Nirvana will occur.

Re:Death of a meme...

[Drgnkght]

...and that there was ever a Highlander II.

To be fair, every Highlander movie after it ignored the existance of Highlander II.

Re:Death of a meme...

[LeftE]

In fact, this meme is so old, there are probably a large number of readers who won't even recognize the guy in this 2003 Duke Nukem Forever parody: http://img109.imageshack.us/img109/1062/dnfnfominister.jpg

Skip this one

[koolfy]

Their verdict? Skip this one.

Yeah, just wait for the next.
-- if you dare.

Re:Skip this one

[Madman]

Their verdict? Skip this one.

Yeah, just wait for the next.

-- if you dare.

Given how long it took to come out with this one I'll be 70 by the time the next one comes out. I'll play Gears of War 3 instead.

Re:Offensive?

[RogueyWon]

You know what? Under other circumstances I'd agree with you.

However, having actually played through the "alien hive" level mentioned in the review, I can't actually think of a better description of it. As the Ars Technica review states, that level made me feel almost physically dirty. Not in a good way, like after making an uncomfortable neutral or "dark side" choice in one of the better RPGs, but rather in a "I really wish I had never had to play that and never want to play it again" way.

Re:Offensive?

[TheRaven64]

Nah, he's just going to buy the game, realise it sucks, and then complain that no one warned him.

They're right

[jevring]

I didn't read the article, but I did play the game, and it absolutely sucks!

maybe the sequel

[dutchwhizzman]

will be better?

Skip?

[MMC Monster]

If we skip this one, how long do we have to wait before the next in the franchise?

At least Deus Ex 3 will be open and have more to d

[Joe_Dragon]

At least Deus Ex 3 will be open and have more to do then just be forced to be a on a rail like Duke forever is.

This is actually the state of most modern games

[Nyder]

This is state of most modern games.

Overglossy graphics, crappy game play, rollercoaster ride.

Look at the map comparison between Duke 3D and Forever. The sad part? It's like that between all games from the 90's compared to now.

Games that you used to have an openish enviroment, are all now rollercoastered.

Games you used to play for 20+ hours, are all 4-6 hours now.

This is what happens when you get big corporations running the show. and of course, Hollywoodizing crap. Let's make it shiny and expensive, but not give any value. (it's like going from the great black & white movies, to the trashy color movies that came out).

ya, Duke Nukem Forever is a crappy game, should of never been made. But it's actually a shining example of the current gaming industry and what they think about their customers.

Re:This is actually the state of most modern games

[Missing.Matter]

it's like going from the great black & white movies, to the trashy color movies that came out

There were crappy black and white movies. Lots of them. Just as there were crappy games on Nintendo or Atari. Sure if a game is all style it won't be any good, but it doesn't necessarily make it awful.

Re:This is actually the state of most modern games

[RivenAleem]

The ironic thing is that these are the same people who made Borderlands, the one game that is the complete opposite of what you complain about.

Re:This is actually the state of most modern games

[mestar]

The map on the left is actually a Doom level, from the shareware episode.

Re:This is actually the state of most modern games

[Lunix Nutcase]

This is what happens when you get big corporations running the show. and of course, Hollywoodizing crap. Let's make it shiny and expensive, but not give any value. (it's like going from the great black & white movies, to the trashy color movies that came out).

You do realize that those "great" black & white movies were made by Hollywood, right? And there were many terrible black and white films. This sounds like the same nonsense when people were whining about how "talkies" were ruining the film industry.

Re:This is actually the state of most modern games

[angrytuna]

Oh, I don't know. The reboot of the Fallout series (I'm only speaking to Fallout 3, here) is rife with side quests, and is very much an 'explore only as you like' sort of environment; not roller coaster at all. I spent many days (cumulatively) exploring possibilities in this game. Not that I'm saying there aren't plenty of examples of what you're describing, but there are *some* good new ones out there.

Re:This is actually the state of most modern games

[Anonymous Coward]

And the map on the right is a joke. But it's ok, I'm surprised the GP even read *part* of the article.

Re:This is actually the state of most modern games

[GameboyRMH]

Games you used to play for 20+ hours, are all 4-6 hours now.

This is the only problem that I'd say a majority (in this case, an overwhelming majority) of modern games share. Are you really going to say on-rails gameplay is the norm after the Year of the Sandbox Game? And were those old games really so open? Look at early Doom games. Every level had a simple formula: Get 3 keys to unlock the path to the end of the level. The levels generally allowed you to get those 3 keys in any order you want. Compare to a modern on-rails shooter like the Dead Space series, the only difference is that you have to get the keys in sequence. And, while DN3D had big open areas that gave you lots of ways to take down the bad guys, the maps followed a modern on-rails formula. Crysis is actually similar, it has big levels that give you a lot of options in combat, but it's still on rails.

Re:This is actually the state of most modern games

[equex]

Should _have_, not should _of_. ftfy

Re:This is actually the state of most modern games

[westlake]

This is state of most modern games.

No it isn't.

The modern game is Batman: Arkham City.

Bioshock: Infinite. There are solid entries emerging from E3 in every genre.

Overglossy graphics, crappy game play, rollercoaster ride.

The one thing you can't accuse DNF of being is "glossy."

I don't object to a rollercaster run - if by that you mean linear game play - when it delivers one hell of a ride, like the original Half-Life.

Re:This is actually the state of most modern games

[guspasho]

"(it's like going from the great black & white movies, to the trashy color movies that came out)."

How about "It's like going from 2001: A Space Odyssey to Mission To Mars"?

Re:This is actually the state of most modern games

[LordVader717]

I actually like the fast-paced choreographed stuff better. Reminds me of arcade-style fun from the 2D era. Like the Metal Slug games I love. Better than killing stupid AI enemies in bland repetitive levels. 20 hours on an FPS? Who the fuck wants that?

Re:This is actually the state of most modern games

[jwhitener]

I've been complaining about that for a long time. There is no exploration in games anymore.

Even 'big' mmorpgs, like Age of Conan, are basically linear maps with uncomplicated quests that are handed to you in order. Makes me miss everquest.... you start a character, get dropped into a town, and....nothing. No clues, no hints, no obvious quests: start exploring.

Re:This is actually the state of most modern games

[gmhowell]

At least those paintings of women are women, unlike the Mona Lisa.

Re:This is actually the state of most modern games

[osu-neko]

The ironic thing is that these are the same people who made Borderlands, the one game that is the complete opposite of what you complain about.

Not really the same people at all, no. The people who made Duke worked for a now defunct company. The people who made Borderlands inherited Duke and didn't do much beyond try to polish it as best they could and ship it. They really didn't alter it beyond making it shippable...

Re:This is actually the state of most modern games

[RivenAleem]

Yes, this is what's so disappointing, they could have done so much more, randomly generated guns, 4 quickslot and backpack of more etc. One wonders if they will decide to make a sequel and do it right from the start?

obviously

[aahpandasrun]

Obviously. I think they should have sold it as a novelty item instead of trying to pretend it's a big budget high quality game. But, maybe that's how they figured they would make their money. No wonder they were pushing pre-orders.

No surprise...

[MaWeiTao]

Most reviews I've seen are generally bad. Given how hard the publisher was pushing the lewd aspect of the game is it really any surprise it turned out to be crap. They were hoping to lure in a few suckers with the "mature" content before they figured out how bad the game actually was.

I also tend to think the intervening years colored memories of Duke Nukem 3D. I personally don't think it was nearly as good as some people remember. I recall it being entertaining, finding some of the subject matter amusing, but generally as an FPS it didn't stand out. For the time it was fine, but then the bar was a lot lower then. It's no wonder DNF would disappoint even if the level of quality is comparable to the original. Of course the mess that was it's development certainly didn't help matters.

This is a good object lesson. When a company plays a sleight of hand trick, trying to sell you on some aspect other than gameplay, it's a near certainty the game won't be any good. And they sure played that angle pretty hard with Duke Nukem Forever.

Re:No surprise...

[tehcyder]

I also tend to think the intervening years colored memories of Duke Nukem 3D. I personally don't think it was nearly as good as some people remember.

Yes, it fucking was, your statement shows that you either have no soul or no memory.

Well...

[Windwraith]

I don't think the graphics are that bad...but this looks more like a Halo mod with Duke characters than a Duke game proper...

Spoiler alert!

[the real darkskye]

Step 3 is Profit!.

This is getting fucking ridiculous

[AbRASiON]

I'm the last person who should be defending this game as I've been taking the piss out of it for 5 years. I've never been a fanboy of the sequel, never did I have confidence it would ever deliver anything at all. I liked the original as a teenager but that's about it.

Regardless though, I've nearly finished the game (Australia, we got it 4 days early) and I can say if you liked the original game, this is a fantastic melding of the original and modern day gameplay. This game is getting slammed far far too excessively.
I guess it was to be expected - but I personally went in expecting garbage and got a half decent game. It's certainly better than diluted trash like Crysis 2.

The game is a little obnoxious for the PC types but you know that going in to it, you wouldn't go to see Fast and the Furious 5 to expect high quality cinema. This game is trashy, dumb - yet quite fun, it's a guilty pleasure for my childish side and honestly the core gameplay itself? It's really fairly decent.

The graphics while not top of the line (quite bad in spots) are also quite GOOD in other places, several scenes I've been outright surprised at how good they are.
If you played the original game and you're in the 27 -> 45 age group with any sense of nostalgia, try it out with an open mind. Don't expect some thick storyline, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised. I know I was.
P.S no it's not perfect, some scenes are frustrating in difficulty or not funny - but all games have low spots, overall, it's not even 1/3 as bad as some of these people are saying.

Re:This is getting fucking ridiculous

[Zarjazz]

I remember playing the original and you pretty much nailed how I feel about it. What did these people expect? The second coming of Jesus in game form?

I was personally offended more by Crysis 2 that promised so much and then delivered nothing, screwing the user in the process. While DNF promised nothing but a juvenile story, script & gameplay and guess what, that's exactly what you get. This was never meant to be a AAA class game and I honestly laughed and had fun playing it. Frankly I feel like telling everyone to grow up and learn to just switch off their forebrains and enjoy some sick childish humor.

Re:This is getting fucking ridiculous

[AbRASiON]

Yep, I paid ACTUAL MONEY for Crysis 2, god do I feel ripped off.
What a diluted piece of shit compared to the original, so sad.

When I buy Crysis 2, I want more Crysis - Ididn't get that.
When I paid for Duke Forever, I wanted more Duke, I got exactly what I paid for.

Genuinely surprised, glad it's just what it should be.

Re:This is getting fucking ridiculous

[Jaysyn]

I'll admit it. I liked the demo & will probably get the game.

Re:This is getting fucking ridiculous

[MaxBooger]

Randy Pitchford, is that you?

Re:This is getting fucking ridiculous

[FredFredrickson]

Thanks for offering this counterpoint, I'm on board with this too. Did anybody play any of the originals? I'd say this fits the franchise just fine.

Re:This is getting fucking ridiculous

[El_Muerte_TDS]

I share your opinion. I, and a few friends, had a lot of fun playing the game over the weekend. It's not a great game, but quite enjoyable. It really isn't for everybody.

And about the shortness complaint... utter bullshit, it took me almost twice as long as the average FPS game coming out these days. Yes, it took me about 10 hours to get through the 34 map files.

Re:This is getting fucking ridiculous

[SocialEngineer]

I'm sure my feelings will be completely synonymous with yours. I pre-ordered the game knowing that, after such a long time in development, it was NOT going to be a stroke of brilliance. In the tech and game world, something going that long under development would have to practically be re-written to be worthwhile in the major players scene.

I played the demo, and you know what? I enjoyed it. Sure, I'm frustrated by the level design and 2 weapon limit, but such is life. Either they target the nostalgic, older crowd, or the try and bring in the younger generation of gamers who grew up with Halo and CoD as their first gaming experiences. Honestly, most of us who knew the Duke when he came to life have (mostly) grown up and have little gamers of our own to raise.

Whatever works for them. I'm anxiously awaiting my order to arrive, and I'm sure I'll relish every little duke quip.

Re:This is getting fucking ridiculous

[Archwyrm]

Sounds like it will be a good game when I buy it for $10.

Ctrl-Alt-Del's review

[Vireo]

Ctrl-Alt-Del's review is a graphical representation of Ars Technica's review.

Re:Full of grace and sensibility

[Megane]

Wow. Even the spambots make more sense than this game.

Released too soon!

[ReverendLoki]

It sounds like it could have used some more time in development...

Re:Released too soon!

[Provocateur]

More time??

Don't you realize how long it took to make this game? And it's called Duke Nukem Forever, not Duke Nukem Forever and a Day!

But it's too late now, isn't it?

Public Statement

[muckracer]

Dear Ars Reviewer, Dear Slashdot'ers,

we are greatly honored and moved by the reactions, the release of our fully playable "Duke Nukem Forever" demo has received. While we are working diligently on the final version (to be out real soon now, wink wink), we will take your numerous suggestions into account, perhaps even into Duke's dialogs, to make DNF the greatest game ever released.
Things are looking good despite being very busy and without promising too much, we are on track for the final release target date, which, according to our lawyer, may or may not be within this awesome decade. But the code is mostly in place and once the technical issues like a lack of holographic displays, quantum consoles and their telepathic controllers are resolved, we'll be gold(en). Looking forward to Forever....ain't 'ya excited? ^__^

Am I getting old?

[Max Romantschuk]

Is it just me, or were crazy comedies in the 70s, 80s and early 90s on average a little less abysmal? If I, for example, compare the works of Mel Brooks to movies like Scary Movie X or American Pie Y I can't help think that somewhere along the line we lost the intelligent humor and settled for what is truly the lowest common denominator?

I can't help feel a certain pattern emerging here...

Am I just getting old?

Re:Am I getting old?

[stubob]

Sturgeon's law: 90% of anything is crap.

Re:Am I getting old?

[Lunix Nutcase]

Is it just me, or were crazy comedies in the 70s, 80s and early 90s on average a little less abysmal?

It's just you. There were plenty of terrible comedies in the 70s, 80s and 90s. The problem is that your nostalgia has only made you remember the good ones and all the shitty ones you never saw in the first place or forgot about since they were terrible.

Re:Am I getting old?

[solkimera]

After 40 years, only the best of the 70's has survived, or the "so bad it's funny" So that's what people remember, or in my case, heard of, since I wasn't alive on the 70's. I don't hear, hence never look into the random crap that was there. But there certainly is a lot of crap from the 80's and 90's at least, I just don't go out of my way to watch it, I look into the good stuff.

Re:Am I getting old?

[elrous0]

That's because the Zucker Brothers and Farelly Brothers died. Now a wannabe named Judd Apatow (who peaked on the Ben Stiller Show) is the closest thing we have to "funny" today. And that's just a sad state,

Re:Am I getting old?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not you.

A show as truly edgy as, for example, "All in the Family" could not air today. You simply could not portray an old-fashioned bigot as an "affable everyman", a la Archie Bunker. Archie was offensive, sure, but he was also approachable, and through that, the show made audiences look inside themselves and examine their own views on race, and modern society. It poked fun at our differences, and made us feel stupid about them, as we come to the conclusion that Archie is a wrongheaded buffoon.

This is not allowed now, this is risky and means boycotts, and whatnot.

"Offensive humor" today means fart and poop jokes, not because they are offensive, but because they are *SAFE*. Everything else is a potential lawsuit, or at the very least, an email from Standards and Practices. No special interest group is going to make your life miserable over "poopfart i poop my pants".

Actually, this was the gag behing Mr Hankey.. Jesus is offensive, Santa is offensive.. Fuck it, lets celebrate a hunk of poop, since everything else is off limits.

Re:Am I getting old?

[m50d]

Am I just getting old?

Yes.

Letter to Gearbox...

[Khyber]

Stay the FUCK Away from Shadow Warrior.

You get anywhere CLOSE to it and I'll personally firebomb your offices.

Re:Letter to Gearbox...

[RivenAleem]

I'm quite surprised that this came from the same people who gave us borderlands. I suspect that so much of the work had been done in previous years that they felt they could make quick money putting polish on other people's work and releasing a bad game.

I'm hoping that they learn from this and (perhaps) decide to correct their mistake by making a sequel that's actually play-worthy.

Looking at what tools we know they have
1) Random gun generator
2) space for 4 guns + a bagload of spares
3) character customisation
4) hoards of baddies to kill
5) [some] big open levels that are not linear [except some indoors maps that have a couple of forks]
6) humor that does not rely on pop culture, but may contain toilets [which is okay in small doses]
7) many, many, many hours of playtime, replaytime & DLC worth buying.
8) excellent co-op mode

Yes, if they had the opportunity to use Borderlands as a template and completely build this game from day 1, I think they could have done a MUCH better job.

-- Patiently waiting for Rage

Re:Letter to Gearbox...

[oldmac31310]

Yay! Shadow Warrior!!!

Re:Letter to Gearbox...

[Nagrom]

It's fairly obvious that despite recent interviews and other press, and despite the length of time it's been in their possession, Gearbox had very little to do with this game. If you watch the unreleased 2009 trailer for the game, which is part of the extras for the game but is available on YouTube, you can see that it's barely changed at all since then.

Arguably they could and should have improved upon all these various awful aspects, if they were taking over development and putting their name on it, but it seems they did nothing much except help get it in a box in some vaguely functional form. Somehow I doubt Take Two were too welcoming to the idea of an extra 6 months or a year spent on polishing it up.

Re:Letter to Gearbox...

[boarder8925]

Please do let us know how your chat with the FBI goes.

Re:Letter to Gearbox...

[Khyber]

Which ones? The weekly ones I get as a result of my involvement in critical industries?

Re:Letter to Gearbox...

[boarder8925]

I was referring, in jest, to your threat to firebomb Gearbox's offices. ;)

Re:Letter to Gearbox...

[Khyber]

I know. I was joking back at you. Or was I?

Re:Letter to Gearbox...

[sesshomaru]

Also, Blood.

Re:Letter to Gearbox...

[Khyber]

Yes, stay the hell away from Blood too, Gearbox!

What they're really saying...

[Fujisawa Sensei]

What they're really saying is: It wasn't ready. :-)

Re:Offensive?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Your argument(and SMBC's) on offensiveness is correct in a narrowly specific way; but much less so in a contextually useful one:

Obviously, what different people take offense at varies; but, at a population level, you can categorize and quantify to a reasonably useful extent. At that point, you can, in fact, come up with an "offensiveness" metric relative to a given assumed audience for something. If your assumed audience is sufficiently broad, you can omit specific mention of the assumed audience and let context carry the load for you. There is certainly room for rhetorical chicanery, as with many ambiguous areas of natural language; but that doesn't equate to meaninglessness.

Saying "thing X is offensive" is somewhat analogous to saying "humans are bipedal". In strict point of fact, there are counterexamples. People exist with zero, one, very occasionally more than two, legs and there are a few specimens who walk on all fours. Implicitly, we are treating those as anomalies outside the universe of discourse when we say that. Similarly, there are almost certainly who find gunning down alien-rape victims as they plead inoffensive. However, the reviewer(correctly or not) is implicitly arguing that they are an anomaly among the audience of the review. Now, as noted, "offensiveness" leaves room for chicanery, and you can also make "thing X is offensive" statements that implicitly argue for a highly unrealistic audience sample; but that just makes you wrong or dishonest, rather than "offensiveness" as a metric meaningless.

Can't really blame them...

[saltire sable]

...after rushing it out so quickly.

Re:"Faggs" are an "officially protected victim cla

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Is it OK to outsource my burning of Christians to members of rival abrahamic monotheist sects and subsects?

I don't want to risk the wrath of St. Darwin; but it seems like such a pain in the ass to burn them myself when they will burn one another for free...

Coulda just use UT3 as a starting point but no...

[tecker]

I always thought that DNF would be easily done as a Unreal Tournament 3 mod. Massive weapon set (10 or more depending on numeric reuse), maze like levels, good look and feel engine (ur3), jiblets and bits code ready. Thought it would have been easy. Guess they wen their own way and screwed it up.

I played the demo. The instant I had to juggle weapons I gave up on it. Duke deserves better. Try again Gearbox.

Re:Offensive?

[Fujisawa Sensei]

You do realize that "Rampantly Offensive" is actually good press for them.

Re:"Faggs" are an "officially protected victim cla

[shutdown -p now]

As long as you pay for your carbon credits.

Not really, people are carbon neutral. So feel free to burn as many as you want.

"skip this one"?

[notnAP]

and what... wait for the next one to come out?

Re:Offensive?

[Lunix Nutcase]

Agreed. What do they think this is, some crappy Halo game?
It is Duke Nukem. IT IS OFFENSIVE. Deal with it.

No, they think it's just a flat out crappy game. Just because it's Duke Nukem doesn't excuse the fact that the game sucked.

It was fun.

[__aasehi2499]

Was it the answer we expected after 12 years of waiting, yes, if it had come out two years ago. But the industry is hampered by the consoles in how great they can make a game look, and the consoles can't compute anything beyond what PCs could two years ago, hence the graphically outdated, but very classically fun, first person shooter that they gave us.

It doesn't matter.

[Deathlizard]

I pre-ordered it on steam and I'm going to play it. I figured its better than me seeing all of the videos of DNF post 3D realms shutdown and wishing I was playing it good bad or otherwise.

I'm positive it's a cash grab to try to recuperate the loss from the 12 year DEV cycle especially since it's wasn't finished by 3D Realms, but even if this game was groundbreaking and absolutely gorgeous, reviewers would be slamming it because that's all they got after it took 12 years to make.

Re:"Faggs" are an "officially protected victim cla

[elrous0]

Is it OK to outsource my burning of Christians to members of rival abrahamic monotheist sects and subsects?

No, because Islam is the religion of peace and Jews can only be victims--never perpetrators. Only Christians and their subsects can do wrong.

Re:Offensive?

[anss123]

I accidentally shot one of the girls on that level, and Duke's dismissive comment kind of got to me, but IMO it wasn't truly any worse than the aliens from the alien movie. The big difference is perhaps that they were pretty when their bellies burst open, and that's where the line goes for some.

I would have preferred if they had framed it in a moral dilemma. I.e. rescuing a girl as hard, killing a girl as the easy way out. A bit like how you can kill little girls in Bioshock for an easier time.

Re:"Faggs" are an "officially protected victim cla

[Mindcontrolled]

How's the persecution complex, mate? Even more minorities out to get you this week?

I enjoyed it

[gravis777]

I find it quite fun, with plenty of humor in it. I had fun, and that is what counts.

Re:I enjoyed it

[Orffen]

Exactly! Games CAN be art, but they don't HAVE to be. They just need to be fun.

C-C-C-C-COMBO BREAKER

[cadeon]

Minecraft.

a bit arbitrary

[OrangeTide]

It seems like an arbitrary distinction. I could argue that Quake isn't true 3D because it lacked six degrees of freedom (you can't roll your camera), where as Descent does allow this.

Re:a bit arbitrary

[Chris Burke]

First, I am calling Descent fully 3D, because it was.

Second, allowing arbitrary geometry is not an arbitrary distinction. It's a fundamental difference in the technology of the game engine that it doesn't make simplifying assumptions about the geometry. It makes a huge difference in the kinds of levels, and the features within them, that can be designed.

The everything-is-a-deformed-cube thing worked for Descent's levels which took place entirely inside of mine shaft. And because it worked, it was a fine trade-off to make in order to be able to accomplish what they did, when they did. And make no mistake, I'm calling it an accomplishment (first fully 3D game).

But it's not an arbitrary line between it and Quake. It's a fundamental one that reaches into the very heart of both games.

To show how this differs from something that is arbitrary, let's look at this 6-degrees-of-freedom thing. The Quake engine absolutely could roll the camera, but they didn't give you the ability to do so because it would serve no purpose in the game. It was trivial to mod the game to let you do this.

  In fact some mods did just that because they were turning quake into more of a space-shooter like Descent. In fact it is theoretically possible to re-create the entire game Descent in the Quake engine. It is not possible to re-create Quake in the Descent engine. This is not an arbitrary distinction.

Re:a bit arbitrary

[Ferzerp]

No. The engine of D3D would support multiple levels with the same X,Y coordinates (I'm using Z for height here), but it could not render them at the same time and if you ever tried to display two floors occupying the same X,Y on screen at once, you would get the old hall of mirrors effect.

There were objects that worked as bridges, but these were just objects that you did not clip through. Any time you could see two floors stacked, one was always one of these little bridges.

That's why people call it 2.5D. It supported it internally, but it couldn't draw it at all, so while multi-floor buildings did work, proper stairs were right out unless they were encased such that you could never see both floors at the same time.

Re:a bit arbitrary

[Chris Burke]

No, it wasn't. If you ever built levels for it you would know that.

What wasn't what? I've made levels for both.

Re:a bit arbitrary

[OrangeTide]

what you suggest cannot be done with Quake1. no quaternions. no way to avoid gimbal lock. Descent mods for Q1 have been a pipe dream for a decade, and I haven't seen one yet that worked (I saw a nice racing mod/TC though).

But let us pretend that someone has added such support to quake1, either as a quakec mod or with changes to the source. Do you think that support was something that added before 1998 when Quake2 and Unreal came out? (let us ignore the fact that those engines don't support 6dof either). Doom3 is full 6dof capable. And Unreal Engine 2 (2001) had support for quaternions, so I assume it also capable of 6dof even if I haven't seen any working examples.

that's not to say quaternions are the only way to deal with 6dof. but it's a good indication that an engine is capable of full 6dof when it does implement them.

Back to the original point. What you define as "

Re:a bit arbitrary

[Chris Burke]

what you suggest cannot be done with Quake1. no quaternions. no way to avoid gimbal lock.

Fair enough, I had indeed forgotten about the gimbal lock issue. You mentioned pretending someone got around this through quakec, but I don't think that's possible. Your only access to the view transform from quakec was through an x/y/z rotation vector.

Back to the original point. What you define as "

You got cut off. I'm assuming what you were going to put in the quotes was "first of the true 3D shooter era", because I already said "fully 3D" applies to both, and "arbitrary polygonal geometry" obviously only applies to Quake.

It's not a definition. It's a subjective evaluation that Quake's technological achievements were the stepping stone to the 3D shooters that followed, more than Descent's; that games afterward were following in Quake's footsteps, not Descent's, and I think that holds. 6doF is only important for a subset of games, while the ability to construct arbitrary polygons is a feature that every game after Quake has used. You can bolt 6dof support onto a game, you have to re-write it from scratch to go from simplified geometry to arbitrary polygons.

Basically for the last 15 years, 3d gaming has been defined by triangles, triangles, triangles. With dips into other things, but still dominated by putting textures on triangles. Your graphics card is optimized for a Quake-style graphics engine, not a Descent-style engine. Nobody uses those any more.

Again, Descent was awesome and ahead of its time. I just think that Quake is a better marker for the beginning of an era that we aren't even out of yet.

Re:a bit arbitrary

[spire3661]

Off topic, but i really hate that Descent is still in the hands of Interplay. They are holding on to it until they go through another bankruptcy and then they'll sell an IP, beg for more financing for a new game and then promptly burn through the cash from the IP sale and go bankrupt again. Rinse, Repeat

Re:a bit arbitrary

[Chris Burke]

I guess I'm not so concerned with the Descent property itself, in so much as it seems to be the only game of its kind. Really has nobody else wanted to tackle the idea of a gravity-less 6-degrees-of-freedom shooter?

Re:a bit arbitrary

[OrangeTide]

Well there was Wing Commander. Which was a first-person space shooter. Those are pretty easy to write because drawing space is really fast. I think Wing Commander was sprite or voxel based rather than 3D polygons. Descent is a little harder because of the terrain and caves need to be drawn in an optimized fashion, but I think one person with a little practice in OpenGL or whatever could write a clone of it these days without it becoming a Herculean effort. Most of what you have to do is well known and well documented now. It's easier now that a path has been beaten, rather than being a trailblazer trying to take on such a project before 3D accelerators became a commodity.

Re:a bit arbitrary

[Chris Burke]

I think Wing Commander was sprite or voxel based rather than 3D polygons

Yeah, wing commander was sprite-based. That's a really old game, so you know can't knock 'em for that.

Descent is a little harder because of the terrain and caves need to be drawn in an optimized fashion, but I think one person with a little practice in OpenGL or whatever could write a clone of it these days without it becoming a Herculean effort

Seems like any modern engine with 6dof support should be able to handle Descent-style levels with no problem. 3D interior structures aren't a big deal anymore.

It's easier now that a path has been beaten, rather than being a trailblazer trying to take on such a project before 3D accelerators became a commodity.

True that. I tried to make a 3d texture mapping engine in college, software-only of course because that was the only choice, and it was a huge amount of work getting to the point where I could draw a single square with a simple texture on it and view it from arbitrary angles. Oh, and that engine used a standard rotate transformation matrix, and so suffered from the gimble locking problem, which I'd observed, so I really had no excuse to forget. ;)

Kids these days can just create an OpenGL context with just a few lines of C and start feeding it triangle and texture data. Spoils 'em, I says!

If it's that bad...

[sootman]

... maybe we can give it honorary "never released" status so it can continue to earn a spot on "top vaporware" lists. Or we can all just say "The original was great--too bad they never made a sequel", like The Matrix.

Re:Offensive?

[IICV]

Killing rape victims is offensive. Full stop.

(you aren't allowed to leave until they're dead, though apparently they will just die eventually)

Times change

[fantomas]

"So back then it wasn't a big deal, but now it is?"

Times change, attitudes change. In the last century some time ago it would be perfectly acceptable in some countries to suggest that women shouldn't vote and public facilities could have signs saying "Whites Only".

May I get the 2001 version Gearbox?

[Edsj]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDlB2P1leRM Seems more funny. No kick-ass graphics needed. You just need to use a little more imagination when making a game.

Bring Back Old-School Duke Nukem

[adamanthaea]

I found that I enjoyed the old platforming side-scrollers more than Duke3D. How about getting rid of the FPS idea and making a 3D platformer instead? It can keep the humor and tone of Duke3D, but make it play like Ratchet and Clank. I'd be far more interested in that than DNF, which I have no interest in purchasing at all.

Re:in other news

[Toonol]

Bioshock was a cultural work.

They all are. They just differ in how good of a cultural work they are. DNF is a cultural work on par with, say, Scary Movie. Bioshock has value, but I don't think it is something that should be held up as a pinnacle of the genre... they set their sights high, but fell shot, imo. The story got ridiculous past the half-way point, and the gameplay was more shallow than I expected. System Shock 2, which it was modeled after, was more impressive. Still, though, a respectable game. If we are looking for a movie comparison, I'd compare it to... maybe... Pirates of the Caribbean?

If we are looking for a game that could be compared to some of the best of cinema, I'd probably point to Planescape:Torment.

nice try

[Thud457]

back in the days when Andrew Dice Clay was still alive

good one, if anybody still knew who he was

And what? Wait for the sequel?

[Sir Realist]

"Their verdict? Skip this one."

And what? Wait for the sequel?

my backpack only holds nine items!

[Thud457]

gee, couldn't that be one of the parameters of the game type? That way, you could chose how you wanted to play.

Problem with duke...

[blahplusplus]

... is that the better designed levels are in the later half of the game. The thing that really bothered me though is that it tries to be a modern rail shooter but it absolutely sucks at it. The design feels schizophrenic. Like they wanted to take the game in too many directions and it shows through in the game

Too much of the game takes place in boring drab places like the whole dam/warehouse near the end of the game. That and the enemies don't feel 'alive' they feel like plastic toys, they have no real life in them. The guns in the game though have to be the worst, many of them just aren't fun to use and the stupid limits they put on the weapons/items is just ridiculous.

One problem

[SmallFurryCreature]

There is ONE huge problem with Duke Nukem Forever and nobody seems to get it.

What is a PC game done being reviewed on a console?

Lots of weapons? Do you remember how you selected them? That is right with the row of number keys. Easy and fast to select a weapon. Can't do that on the console. THAT is why Halo has a two gun limit, because the x-box controller lacks a means to very quickly switch weapons.

Same with the inventory items, you can't use half a dozen inventory items on a console, so they limit it.

Duke Nukem Forever just shows just what consoles have removed from games. Checkpoints? For the Duke? That nobody evens cries out about this horrow shows how much we have lost.

Is it any wonder they added poop slinging? It is the level a console player would enjoy.

The Duke is dead, the consoles killed him.

Re:One problem

[Ant P.]

the x-box controller lacks a means to very quickly switch weapons. Same with the inventory items

And the Sega Saturn controller also lacked a means to look up/down quickly. But then the Sega Saturn wasn't full of Microsoft and EA shovelware, nor was it released in the youtube generation. The consoles are not to blame for the current shitty games epidemic.

Re:One problem

[RogueyWon]

There have been console fpses - good ones to boot - that don't have a two weapon limit. To my mind, the greatest console fps ever made was the original Resistance: Fall of Man for the PS3. It used a weapon-wheel system. Properly implemented, this system doesn't need to be any more than "hold in the right bumper button and nudge the right analogue stick in the appropriate direction".

Resistance 2 went for a 2-weapon system. The outcry was so great that Resistance 3 will return to the weapon wheel. Given half a chance, even console gamers will opt out of the 2 weapon limit.

There are a few games where such a limit makes sense. An Operation Flashpoint-style military simulator, for example. I could even stretch that definition to include the Call of Duty games, although they are a long way from being simulators. The problem is when it is pushed into non-realistic games where it doesn't belong - games like Duke Nukem Forever.

Re:One problem

[LordLimecat]

Yes, thats exactly right; certainly, I dont remember playing Perfect Dark a decade ago and being able to quickly swap between tens of weapons with ease. Certainly I dont recall playing the Turok games and having more than two weapons, or checkpoints. Certainly GoldenEye, or even that crappy South Park n64 game didnt have multiple weapons.

What games have YOU been playing? This isnt a limitation of consoles, its a limitation of limited games.

Re:One problem

[Admiralbumblebee]

Lacks a means to switch more than 2 weapons?

You need to take a look at ratchet and clank or resistance 1/2 on ps3. The ps3 controller is no different in its ability in this respect, and it's executed perfectly. ~20 weapons easily switchable without problem.

Can't use half a dozen inventory items? What the ever loving fuck. I don't even know how to address that any other way. Once again, reference insomniac games, or you could even look at mass effect. Quick and easy examples that show it can be done and done extremely well.

Checkpoints? Yeah there's checkpoints in games now. You know why? Because the levels are 10x bigger. Go play Duke 3d, Quake, Doom II or your nostalgic not freespace game of your choice. The levels were quite small. How small? About the size that exists between checkpoints in most modern games. The difference is that in modern games you don't have to spend 30 minutes exploring the same area just to find the 'blue card' so you can progress. Yeah some modern games suck because they're on-rails shooters, but acting like checkpoints are the problem wreaks of confirmation bias. You want to talk about wussy, you could have god-mode, noclip and skip to any level you wanted in 15 seconds in those old games. Checkpoints? HAH. Just throw in rise of the triad and jump straight to El Oscuro. Talk about having it easy.

Never

[Kamiza Ikioi]

So, the summary of "Duke Nukem Forever" is "Duke Nukem? Never!"

The Mighty Foot(s)!

[XiaoMing]

After reading all these posts about wonky-but-nostalgic gameplay mechanics, I have to ask:

Are the two mighty feetses still there? I remember pressing the tick (tilde) key to use my left mighty foot, but could also hit the gun button to kick with my right mighty foot. For some odd reason these two feet would kick a bit off beat, and it was always satisfying to deliver into a JUMPING (with the third leg, of course) two-legged kick into an alien's chest.

I loved Quake

[SmallFurryCreature]

I was slightly older then most then the battle between the Duke and Quake raged and well... it took those who were 12 and male to like the duke back then. As it does now.

DNF is like the A-Team movie. When you were a kid you loved it, now that your an adult, you are embarrased you were ever 12.

REALLY, replay the game, it is the kind of humor that young males like. It was as hostile to women back then as it is now because when you are 12, women are scary... oh okay, also when you are nearing 50.

The game hasn't changed, the players have. Well, some of them. Poo slinging? It is the Duke, this is what it was all about. Some people just need to replay the original to remember what they once admired so much.

Only those who back then played Quake instead can bitch about DNF, we were the enlightened, the couragous, the brave, the divine.... yes I used the nick "dirty old man" if I could... what are you trying to say?

Is there a public demo?

[antdude]

I want to see how bad it is. :P

Thin-skinned reviewer is even lamer

[Quila]

The game has strippers. It's Duke. If you can't handle sexist non-PC, then you have no business playing the game. I figured from the beginning that it would be a standard shoot-em-up with the non-PC parts being what makes it more fun.

It's like James Dobson of Focus on the Family reviewing a porno and complaining that it contained explicit sex scenes that made him have to go wash his eyes out and pray for a week straight. Thanks Jim, that's pretty much a positive recommendation from you.

Nicely done sir!

[Marrow]

Well played.

This is what happens...

[mr_lizard13]

This is what happens when you rush a game to market.

ars and duke

[epyT-R]

As far as the game goes, it's ok, but nothing great. Some of the levels looked nice but it has none of the speed of the original. It plods along like a modern shooter. Give me my fast movement and near instant weapon switch back!..and please, those cutscenes every 5 feet annoy me. After all this time, I expected a much more polished game, but it is playable, and considering all the other tripe that passes for AAA titles these days... especially on PC..

I've noticed that ars tends to have a left wing bent on its politics so it does not surprise me they got emo over duke's quips. The quips and interactive jokes don't bother me, and a few made me chuckle. It's duke nukem, people, so don't expect spongebob or dora the explorer. Today's culture needs to can the ultra-feminization and grow a tougher skin, but that's a subject for a different story.

"A witch!"

[sznupi]

DN3D wasn't that great in the first place, largely simply masking it with cheap teenage-level "humour", many cheap tricks to trick young males in... when was the last time you gamed through it?

Also, in searching for convenient scapegoat, don't forget how PC gaming actually looks like. How many things it had killed? The actual PC gaming, not some self-described "elyte" (not like things would be better if they had their way; most likely very much the contrary)
Vast majority of PCs ship with integrated GFX (and the proportions will only go up). Most popular are popcap / browser / flash / fb games, that's how the "casual" got big. Too many games always had controls, & game mechanics overall, boiling down to pointing at things (no wonder, the only widely available analogue controller is meant to... point at things) and/or grind (the hallmark, WoW, not available on any console)

You know, I do mind a bit how the last two themes are now way too widespread on consoles; how their most popular games are PC ports in those regards, not specifically taking advantage of machine characteristics. And how (first thing, GFX & "power") games are mostly made on crossplat

Interesting timing...

[BrimstoneAshe]

Out of boredom, I was browsing old games at a discount on Steam and came across the game Bulletstorm. I downloaded the demo and found it enjoyable and bought the game. From a single player experience it feels more like what DNF should have been. Granted the bad thing about Bulletstorm is the multi-player is only co-op. But I really enjoy the game .

Re:arbitrary triangles

[Chris Burke]

I specified in my first post that it was polygonal geometry. I forgot to mention that in my second post, so good catch.

Simulating a curved surface was using as many polygons as you could get away with -- which could be surprisingly many, if you were a level designer who knew the ins and outs of quake's engine and limitations.

Re:Offensive?

[anss123]

They die pretty quick. You pretty much have to shoot them straight away, without looking for some way to save them first.

Re:Right

[goarilla]

then get the PC version it's 35 $.

Re:Compare "faggot" to "nigger"

[HBI]

Pretty much, yes. The overemphasis on the word is a sign of discomfort with your own race.

Re:Offensive?

[nytmare]

What's funny is the second paragraph of the review, which you could not be bothered to read, is devoted to describing you personally.

Contrary to popular opinion ...

[RockDoctor]

You really CANNOT buy advertising like this.

I was in two minds about whether to get a copy ; now I've decided that I've got to, even if I have to get a (slightly pirated) windows drive to do it.

After a slamming like that, it's got to be good (for certain values of "good")

Mighty feet

[DrYak]

Saddly, not as a user selectable weapon.
Feet are only scripted-in to open doors or to execute enemies.