Duke Nukem Forever

Caught up in over a decade of delays and a company change, Duke Nukem Forever finally sees the light of day fourteen years later. Duke is back, full force and still as vulgar as ever, to take on aliens that are now taking Earth's women away. Especially the hot ones.

You control Duke, obviously in first person, going from place to place shooting aliens, pissing, collecting weaponry, driving a monster truck, shrinking in size, and so on. There is a lot of variety, but it isn't utilized to the fullest. The big problem is the control.

The controls take getting used to, flickering occurs sometimes, and the screen ripples when turning. After about an hour of straight forward playing I really didn't notice it at all. The graphics, while nice and colorful, aren't very elaborate. It looks like first generation Xbox, but again, they could've been a lot worse. There is still major detail in places like the strip club and on food containers.

What's one thing you hate doing in any game? Dying. Well, in Duke Nukem Forever, I hate dying for the wrong reason; the loading screen. It takes a good thirty seconds to jump back in the action. You're mad not for dying, but for having to deal with the loading screen. Being that Duke Nukem is an action game, you naturally want to respawn as fast as you possibly can to get back in the action. Doing that here is impossible. You must cope and wait patiently for the game to load.

So far, after two days, I find myself on chapter seventeen ("The Shrunk Machine") with a 360 gamerscore in the game. Getting the achievements aren't very hard. Again, you are awarded for things you're expected to do. Kill ten, twenty, fifty, one hundred, two hundred and fifty aliens and you already have over one hundred points.

Though it has its share of peculiar achievements. Pick up a piece of crap, quite literally, and you have ten points. Watch the end credits all the way through, five points more. And so on. This is a game where you really don't need to try and get the achievements. They come to you.

The two most frustrating levels of all, are "The Duke Burger" and "Queen Bitch." In "The Duke Burger," you have to rescue some blabber mouth woman who is stranded in the middle of the restaurant's kitchen with electricity going ape on the floor. You try to concentrate, but she will not stop talking stupid things; "Be careful, Duke!" Gee, thanks for the tip. That's what I was trying to do.

In "Queen Bitch," you must kill the alien queen. It took me four times and the course of two days because of how frustrated I got. I could get her down, but then she'd spit aliens out at you. Two hits and you're dead. No recovery time. But after you defeated the three-breasted beast you go to Duke Nukem's Titty City. The title speaks for itself.

The nostalgia value is high, but outdated. The fun is there, but not at full force, and the replay value is medium depending on your satisfaction. Maybe if I waited all fourteen years for this followup to Duke Nukem 3D I would've been letdown greatly. After three days of almost constant playing, my time was well spent. For a shooter it's good, for a sequel it's fair, for a fourteen year wait it's a fail to the king.

Its true, Duke Nuke is back in this computer game on the Xbox 360.

So this game is quite a long playthrough and I suppose that is a good thing because people complained about a game such as Splinter Cell: Conviction as being too short.

This game is R18 because partly it has some of the most profound nudity I have seen in a computer game ever but that is just Duke Nukem for you. Duke Nukem is a real American badass and that is how you explain it.

One gripe is that there are so many boss levels in this game it can become quite frustrating because after so long such as an all nighter you just want the game to finally end and give you achievement points. But on the plus side, a lot of them are reasonably easy to defeat if you know how. I completed the game on hard but it really isn't all that hard so I recommend that is what you should do to get those points.

So add another to your collection. Considering this was developed in 2011 it will be cheap as chips by now. You will probably have to buy online because a place such as EB Games only have so many titles and they can double up.

Good luck.

Going into this game with low expectations, I expected a first-person shooter game with, of course, the man himself Duke. What I actually found while playing this game is that it reminded me of Half-Life a lot more than any of the classic 90's shooter games. While the combat can feel a bit clunky at times (like Half-Life), and sometimes the puzzles can be too tricky to solve without referring to a guide (like Half-Life), I have so far enjoyed playing this game, with the Duke Nukem humor being one of my favorite aspects.

I don't even know who Duke Nukem really is back then as a kid but I saw this game from an old magazine that I read. Once I bought this game I decide to try it out.

To be honest I really absolutely fun on playing this game. As usual I did alot of the shooting and I get to trigger short kill animations. It's pretty fun to do about the many ways to kill. But the story in this game is absolutely absurd. I thought the Saints Row or Postal has weird over-the-top stories, but I didn't expect this game to be that much. And I did not expect to have nudity appear out of nowhere. Plus one thing that frustrated me is the animation which one evidence is the drawing scene for a plan and signing autographs.

Duke Nukem Forever did not make me hail to king for him and Duke may act like a rude guy for no reason but this game is still fun to play.

Being a big Duke Nukem fan while growing up, I have to say this was a big letdown for me. And I'm far from the only one. While I don't consider it terrible, it isn't good either.

Twelve years after Duke Nukem 3D, our cool, wise-cracking, and hypermasculine, womanizing hero is living like a king in Las Vegas. Then, unsurprisingly, the alien scum return and it's up to Duke to once again kick ass and save the world.

Thanks to a very troubled development, the graphics and animation were outdated and looked average at best for the time. All the levels looked plain and barren, and there's inadequate lighting everywhere. Some of the enemy models were decent, but the NPC models were as unimpressive as the graphics, looking more like lifeless animatronics. The performance was sluggish, the loading screens were irritatingly long, and the multiplayer was chock full of bugs and lagging that made it nigh unplayable.

For the most part, the gameplay was routine and predictable, mostly involving running around, killing aliens, rescuing civilians, spouting one-liners, etc. Sure, it's par the course, but nothing new innovative for Duke Nukem or any other game for that matter. At least the armament was extensive and included classic weapons like Dukes trademark gold-plated handgun, pipe bombs, a freeze ray, and others. You'll fight classic enemies, like Pig Cops and Octobrains, bringing a bit of nostalgia to the game. And finally, Jon St. John is as entertaining as ever voicing the titular hero, so there's at least a few highlights.

Clearly the developers were trying to ride on Halo's coattails by copying its formula; like giving Duke access to vehicles, having regenerating health called EGO, and being able to only wield two weapons at a time, but this just made the game feel warped and jarring. Plus, there were annoying and difficult minigames that felt completely out of place. If they included more traditional Duke Nukem features, like exploring and discovering secret areas and captured babes, or including more gadgets in single player, like Duke's night vision goggles or his ever-trusty jet pack. This could have been better.

There's unwanted gross out humor everywhere, like pissing, belching, and throwing crap. Ugh! Seriously? This could have been better if the developers tried to keep up with the times but instead stuck with outdated and immature humor involving innuendo, swearing, and rampant chauvinism that really made Duke look like a sad, washed-up has-been who should have retired years ago. Yes, I know that's his character, but it just didn't belong in the 21st century, and it was so overdone, it made you cringe.

In the end, this game was mediocre at best and would only be enjoyed by die-hard Duke Nukem fans or bored gamers stuck at home on a rainy day. Still, it probably would have been best if it stayed in development hell instead of becoming one of the biggest let-downs in video game history.