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.

I really, really thought... here it is, a FPS Duke Nukem with new 2010 graphics, I thought, let's take a look at it, why not. And I was disappointed. By much of it. Graphics were good, but not that great, some of the ideas where Duke can interact with other objects like in mini-games to upgrade your health... actually, your ego. So, instead to look for medkits around you look for some "manly" stuff to boost Duke's ego... kinda ideal. But still, the old look for medkit idea was better. Other ideas were taken from the 1996 game and just enhance it. The new thing is that Duke can drive a car. Why? and he can carry only two weapons. Why? Why driving and carrying two weapons. I think that they were trying to imitate Halo. The game that also move standards. Why do I feel that they spiced it up with the reality in a way? The game play could be much more better. Duke could be more agile, but here, he is just clumsy, he is stiff as a board, you can barely move! You really get your butt kicked on multiple occasions and when your, here I dare say it "ego" is low, you don't have a medpack and you can't move. You are really easy target, and you are pretty easy to kill, or to get hit, no matter the difficulty. I heard that PC version is better than XBOX or Playstation... I played it on PC, and I gotta tell you... It's not that much of fun. This game repels you. It really does. You are just not that happy to go back to it. Jon St. John is still here as Duke, well they kept that element right and he did a good job as always. Duke is a real badass. But, the humor is basically old and not that rich, also, the Duke's character is also pretty dry and outdated. Duke is pretty much... an a-hole. He is one big egoistical jerk and you just don't feel connected to him. He is loved by all people and they are all in shock and awe when they see him. OK, it's not supposed to be taken serious, but they could have make him more richer and more developed character. In the 1996 game, it was simple, and it was obvious, and it was cool in controversial way. Wall boobs? What a hell? Your opponents returns as enhanced, more powerful than ever, I don't recall seeing any new one... maybe a few. And also what I find irritating... is politics. President is more often here than before. That was not necessary. Game levels looks pretty cool, weapon design is also good, the idea that Duke can go around do some macho stuff as taking leak, playing pool, basketball, pinball and other "manly" activities. It has some good fun, but still, it's not that playable, if you ask me...

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.

3D works quite well to the point where you don't have to download any patches a la Helix or others. NVidia (sorry I don't do A.M.D)suggest you go to advanced video options and turn off "post special effects". Though 3D is great it isn't superb like some earlier games like Crysis 3 with full area 3D. Depending on the game not only is your hand piece - (that with which you kill enemies) at the front of the screen and quite pleasantly 3D to the point where it protrudes out from your monitor and hangs above your keyboard! but you can look out into the distance quite literally in full 3D!Like you are standing in a hallway and looking way down into it. OK that's enough for my attempt at 3D worthiness. Sadly you only get partial 3D depth as to distance perspective. Graphically the Devs have done well to present shiny textures and lots of fun via nude X rated CGI. AS to the story and re-playability well, This is definitely worth playing once only for the length of time waited since Duke version one. There are plenty of gags, tits, and puns but nothing to make the mature gamer want to come back for more.

Email me if you would like a game reviewed for its 3d worthiness - ratcat17@hotmail.com

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.