Duke Nukem Forever was announced to be under development in 1997, almost a year after the testosterone injected success of the Duke Nukem 3D. 3D Realms struggled over the next 13 years against technical hurdles, funding, and publisher pressure. The complete overhaul and change from the Quake II engine to the Unreal engine impacted the development of the game significantly. The other major factor was George Broussard’s, the development head of Duke Nukem Forever at 3D Realms, insistence on keeping the DNF team small. After missing countless deadlines, 3D Realms laid off the DNF staff because Take-Two Interactive was no longer funding the project. These employees formed an independent studio called Triptych Games where they continued to work on Duke Nukem Forever while Take-Two attempted to take legal action again 3D Realms for not completing the contracted game. After the official shut down, 3D Realms approached Gearbox to help finish the marathon project. Randy Pitchford, ex 3D Realms employee and now CEO of Gearbox, couldn’t let Duke die and purchased the Duke Nukem intellectual property from 3D Realms. With Piranha Game porting and working on multiplayer, Gearbox and Triptych completing the game, and 2K Games publishing, Duke Nukem Forever is finished and the unshippable game was shipped.
By Griff Hoffmann Duke Nukem Forever is a game. A full priced, published, buy-able on story shelves game. Despite being forgotten several times and canned once, Duke Nukem Forever does the unthinkable and comes out. That’s about as far as it goes. DNF feels like a game that has taken 15 years to create. The three distinct art styles/settings, the lack of any story or intelligent writing, and just the dated feel of the game make Duke Nukem Forever below average at best. Still out of bubble gum Duke Nukem Forever was announced to be under development in 1997, almost a year after the testosterone injected success of the Duke Nukem 3D. 3D Realms struggled over the next 13 years against technical hurdles, funding, and publisher pressure. The complete overhaul and change from the Quake II engine to the Unreal engine impacted the development of the game significantly. The other major factor was George Broussard’s, the development head of Duke Nukem Forever at 3D Realms, insistence on keeping the DNF team small. After missing countless deadlines, 3D Realms laid off the DNF staff because Take-Two Interactive was no longer funding the project. These employees formed an independent studio called Triptych Games where they continued to work on Duke Nukem Forever while Take-Two attempted to take legal action again 3D Realms for not completing the contracted game. After the official shut down, 3D Realms approached Gearbox to help finish the marathon project. Randy Pitchford, ex 3D Realms employee and now CEO of Gearbox, couldn’t let Duke die and purchased the Duke Nukem intellectual property from 3D Realms. With Piranha Game porting and working on multiplayer, Gearbox and Triptych completing the game, and 2K Games publishing, Duke Nukem Forever is finished and the unshippable game was shipped. Of course Duke drives a monster truck It’s important to at least have a little awareness of the DNF saga before sitting down to play the game, or ever to consider picking up a copy to begin with. The troubled history is not an excuse for the low quality but instead a tempering of expectations for the once upon a time blockbuster. That being said, Duke Nukem Forever is not a good game. In fact, Duke Nukem Forever is a shining example of why games aren’t made like that anymore. To start off, there are three activities you do as Duke. The first and most prevalent is the shooting. The second is the first person platforming. Finally, the last is the driving. The first person platforming is the worst. Couple the concept of jumping around without being able to judge distance with the already clunky, boat-driving controls of DNF and it’s a disaster. Do that over and over and over again and it becomes painful. Like I said, games aren’t made this way anymore. The driving isn’t too bad. It’s surprisingly forgiving with the soft retry if a jump is missed. Soft meaning it doesn’t have to reload the entire level if the Duke’s monster trunk doesn’t make the leap. Both of these diversions are bad, but would create a nice distraction from the combat if they didn’t go on for what seems like an eternity. Do I smell bacon? The combat is what Duke Nukem is known for. Unfortunately, it suffers from soggy AI and the weird corridor style pacing of old. Duke does manage to crib a few features from the current breed of shooters. Now only two weapons can be carried at a time, excluding pipe bombs and sticky mines. Also, Duke has a recharging Ego bar. Ego acts like a shield. A few hits are allowed after the bar has been drained and after a brief bit of hiding, the bar will regenerate. The Ego bar serves one more function and that’s to give purpose to interacting with all those pool tables, drinking fountains, and skin magazines you run into in the world. With each “manly” thing Duke does, he gets an Ego boost extending his bar just a little more (sorry, I feel very dirty writing the sentence.) This is a good step forward, but that’s as far as the innovation goes. There are no iron sights on the weapon zoom, enemies get stuck in the level geometry, and boss battles consist mostly of shuttle runs between boss and ammo pile. Occasionally the combat can be downright unfair and the only way to progress is to cheese the enemies by running away enough to regain health. Besides the dull to vexing regular enemies and uninspired boss fights the worst part about the combat is dying. No surprise there but it’s the awful checkpointing compounded by the long load times. Loading a new level or the next section of a level or the level reloading after a platforming fall, all take enough time to drive to a store to go buy a better game. These epic loading screens provide “humorous” tips suggesting that the player get shot less to take less damage or go online for an FAQ if stuck. Perhaps Duke Nukem Forever is taking cues from Idiocracy and Duke, severely not funny, has become the funniest man alive due to the degradation of humor over the passing of time. Interactive whiteboard That is even too much credit to give to the writing department of Duke Nukem Forever. The story is paper thin and easy to miss only until the end of the game when just for a moment, a glimpse of potential gravity is given to what has been happening but it is easily erased and forgotten just as quickly as it had come. That story beat being the President reprimanding Duke for attacking the aliens while negations were being held. This presents a brief moment for the player to question if Duke is a hero or just a blundering idiot. Unfortunately, Duke is a hero and must save whatever mutant Earth he inhabits and comedy doesn’t. That’s the story: there are aliens, Duke must kill them, Duke kills them (much like Solitaire: there are cards, you must stack them, you stack them.) Duke is Master Chief Besides killing the aliens, Duke is best known for his unoriginal one-liners. In Duke Nukem Forever, all the classic Duke-isms return but the new bits are straight rips from internet memes of five years ago. Shouting “Pork chop sandwiches,” after killing a pig cop is not funny and especially not funny when you hear it more than once. These uninspired quotes are only shadowed by the direct jabs at far superior games. Duke saying, “Power armor is for pussies,” when he is offered a suit that looks identical to the iconic Master Chief gear makes no sense since DNF adopted features from the Halo franchise. These attempts at humor are so feeble it actually made me feel uncomfortable to hear Duke trying to compare himself to far better products. It's just Thousand Island dressing Surprisingly, the multiplayer isn’t bad. Neither is it good but it does work and provides the bare amount of diversity to have it be serviceable. With Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, and Capture the Babe, the Duke Nukem online modes tag all the standard bases. The actual shooting players online is unrefined but goofy enough to provide a little amusement for a short amount of time. The best part of the multiplayer is that there are no achievements or trophies tied to it. It is miraculous Duke Nukem Forever exists as a playable game today. This is the extent of the miracle as the game is plagued by clunky controls, poor level design, a nonexistent story, cringe worthy humor, and subpar multiplayer. This game’s only value is in its historical significance. Time is better spent on other games and not Duke Nukem Forever unless you are solely looking at the game as bizarre piece of video game history.
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