Duke Nukem Forever reviews

Although I wasn't expecting a game that had a development time of 12 years I still expected a nice polished game.Sadly I didn't get this. Duke is still the man we love but the game is anything but. I feel a few decisions made by the people upstairs as well as an actual deadline have caused this game to feel like a rush job. I still managed to have fun but not the 90 dollars worth of fun I expected from a game that has Dukes name on it.

I'll start with the bad news first- This is not a game for PC gamers.

You have regenerating health, (Meaning strawberry jam all over the screen when you get hit) strange controls, and worst of all, you can only carry 2 weapons at a time with a truly pathetic amount of ammunition. 5 rockets for the RPG is not enough to warrant carrying it around instead of say, a shotgun, given how rare the ammo is and how sporadic the lazy-designer's-shortcut infinite ammo boxes are. The gameplay is disappointing in that regard.

Now I'll go to the good- Duke's style remains. (If you ignore the chance to fling poo in the tutorial)

Though the shooty parts of the game are a disappointment, the setpieces are decently designed, and there is much encouragement for exploration in the form of permanent ego boosts, which increase your maximum health. These take the form of one-off tasks you can perform, like bench pressing 600 pounds, getting a dunk in a basketball hoop, drinking all the beer in one level, finding a hidden adult magazine and flipping through it, and winning a boss fight, which gives the biggest boost.

The humour is definitely Duke. It starts off slow with the first few levels seeming clearly designed to suck you in and possibly draw a newer audience, but once the game gets going, it seems to get a lot more comfortable with itself. A great many of the jokes and jabs Duke makes are aimed at people who would have been old enough to play Duke Nukem 3D in the 90s, and so the youngsters may be scratching their heads wondering what Duke meant by a particular reference. Even if it's unintentional, since the game IS 12 years old, effectively, I think it's good they've shown a bit of love for the audience who have waited for Duke to come back all this time.

If you want a solid game with great gameplay… This isn't it. But if you want to hear Duke Nukem again, and miss his humour, then I don't think you'll be disappointed in that regard, as long as you give yourself a chance to warm up to it.

Game is nothing like the old school Duke3d. graphics look dated, only things that looked nice was the 1st boss fight and the ladies…

Hard to believe that this took 20 years to write. Mostly linear gameplay, with some hellishly difficult levels. Overall, quite entertaining if not challenging, but incredibly short. Borderlands was probably a better buy.

I don’t know who this game is for, but clearly not me. That doesn’t make a lot of sense because I’ve been FPS gaming since…FPS was invented. Juvenile humour, blatant clumsy attempts to cash in on the franchise, and an overall design that is…did I say this yet- Awful-

This game is a relic, and not the kind of relic that you might put in a glass cabinet and occasionally stare at with a glazed over look, thinking about days of yore; it’s more like the kind of relic you're embarrassed about because it lays plain your dubious past.

The fact is, nobody expected this game to ever come out and wouldn’t have missed it if it didn’t. “Duke Nukem Forever” would have persisted as a synonym for vapourware and there would have been no one specific to blame. But now it’s our modern day Daikatana, and we can point the finger squarely at 2K Games and Gearbox for this atrocity. Oh, and did you know they’re making a sequel/reboot-

When the inside story of its development comes out as a book here on mighty ape, I’ll buy it, perhaps in a two-for-one deal with Mein Kampf.

“IT'S TIME TO KICK ASS AND CHEW BUBBLE GUM AGAIN AND WE'RE STILL OUT OF GUM”.

My summery: Really Good Game; “Don't wait for christmas buy duke today.”

So much fun just like the original Duke 3D running around gunning one liners blowing stuff up, and massive boss fights, only one issue would be you can only carry two weapons which is lame but its still a boat load of fun for those that enjoyed the original

I have just completed Duke Nukem Forever. Wow, I haven't enjoyed a game this much in years. It brings back the oldschool days, graphics are good, gameplay is awesome and length of game took me 11 hours on medium. Duke's charisma carries this game brillantly and you won't be let down! Buy this game!

Good ole Duke Nukem still brings a smile with the cheesy sayings. The game play is a lot of fun with good ole shoot em ups against the aliens, bosses to kill, monster truck driving with turbo leaps off ramps and puzzles to solve and more. It is not all about in your face fighting. Some puzzles are pretty straightforward while others need quite a bit of thought to work out which is good. The two shooting weapons are all you have, but there is the arsenal of pipebombs, tripmines, steroids, beer and the hologram that you carry and can use to help you plus the meelee. The two weapon limit is not a biggy as I found I got used to it quickly and it made me think about what weapon was suitable for a particular enemy. Weapons are at your disposal in the environment so they can be swapped about, plus if you carry the same weapon and come across the same lying about it will restock as ammo. The game runs well on my pc and the graphics at 1920×1200 look really nice. There is a mouse glitch where occassionaly there will be two cursers onscreen, but alt+tab will get rid of it. The music and sound is also pretty good as is the voice overs. Duke Nukem's voice is true to the original. The game is reasonably linear, but it's not bad enough to have a trantrum about, as you are too busy playing the game and wondering what is coming up next. Game saves are done only with save checkpoints, but they are often and generally seem to be in very good spots. Health has been replaced by Ego which regenerates, but you can still die ingame. If you just want a fast shoot em up, non linear game without puzzles that require some thought this game is not for you. All in all it is reasonably faithful to the Duke Nukem games of old. Although it is not a “mind blowing” game it is still lots of fun to play.

Duke Nukem Forever is a game that was first revealed in 1997. Later thought to be released in 1999, that never quite happened. It's become the joke of the industry. 3D Realms remade the game multiple times on different engines, delayed it over and over again, then it looked like it was finally going to be released around 2008, but 3D Realms went belly up. Looking like it'd never see the light of day, Duke Nukem Forever fell 6 feet below into its own burial spot, but then came Gearbox to save the day. Gearbox decided not only to bring Duke Nukem Forever to gamers, they also decided to buy the rights to the intellectual property. However, was this a wise move- Read on to find out.

This game is not a throw back to '90's FPS. This is a modern shooter with a Duke paint job and some of his one liners.

Ignore the 12 year wait and throw away any idea of exaggerated expectations, because ignoring all that stuff, the bottom line is this. This game is terrible, awfully boring affair. Kind of picks up towards the end, but by then it's much to late to save it. 14 hours to complete on hardest setting and the multiplayer is a terrible bore. Not fun like old Duke. Didn't bother trying to get the 1 achievement I still needed, just uninstalled right away.

Take this review however you wish, I guess.

Past it to fast…Bring back FALLOUT>>

Its been a while since I played with the Duke. Its good to see he's still as badass as ever. Thoroughly enjoyed the game play – even if I did end up with motion sickness once or twice.

Good timewaster with some giggles if you have a sense of humour. But this game was in development for around 10 years so considering that it really is a disappointment but for what it is, its pretty good.

I'm an old school Duke fan and loved him then and still love him now. Great stuff

As a fan of the orignal 2D scrollers and the first DUKE NUKEM 3D I couldn't wait to get my hands on this.

It's the same irreverent Duke that captured the hearts of many 90's gamers, with his witty one-liners and sexual innuendo. While blasted by fans of games such as COD for supposed bad graphics and gameplay etc, I thought it was great.

Not a very long game but I enjoyed it and if you were a fan of the original 90's game you'll enjoy this one.

Ok So there's no way I would've paid full price for it but can't understand why everyone has rubbished it. It may be short by modern standards (30–40 hours), shouldn't have taken 12 years to develop and probably could've have done with less puzzle solving and more action but generally caught the flavour of Duke Nukem pretty well (Others have complained about the over the top chauvinism and gutter level sense of humour – Hello! – It's Duke Nukem!) It's not exactly hard based on the initial playthrough, but to me that's good. I would describe it as a good old fashioned FPS!

Decent game nothing special

Average pretty much sums it up. I am a huge Duke fan from the old days but lets be real, for the years in the making this is below par for the wait and the technology behind it. Story is bland, single player is short and multiplayer is on par with Quake III without the fun. However Duke fans will simply buy this like me because we.......“Hail to the King Baby!”

I'd give a better rating, but …

• The graphics get corrupted within minutes to the point it's unplayable
• It makes my computer crash
• It's powered by the Steam platform. You can't play it without being logged in (i.e., you need Steam's permission to play your own game!) I suggest stay away from Steam if you have any choice!

Wish I could say it was better (I loved DN3D in it's day), but Duke Nukem Forever is the worst gaming experience I've ever had.

I had this game on back order for ten years (it's true) before I decided to cancel it, on the grounds that it was never going to see the light of day.

OK, so I was wrong about that but the fact that Gearbox saw fit to bring it to the market shows that they believed it was worthy of release. I agree, but only as a budget release, not the full priced disappointment it turned out to be.

Like many others I spent months of my life with the original Duke 3D and they were enjoyable times. This dinosaur of a game bears little resemblance to its predecessor and not just for the obvious advances in gaming technologies. For a start, where is the humour- Duke's wisecracks used to add to the mix but now they are just desparate attempts to offend while trying to cram in as many schoolboy level visual gags and fart gags as possible.

A sad legacy for the game. I won't go on about the two weapon limit, the vague controls or the adequate graphics, others have covered that already. The “on rails” progression through the game was annoying but there were a few spots where things worked well and you got a hint of what this product could really have been capable of turning into.

So, overall I have rated it as average, but I'm just paying respect to the memory of Duke, before he lost the plot and any credibility with today's generation of gamers.

On the plus side

What took them so long to bring back Duke Nukem. This is one of the hottes PC games and the best Duke Nukem game ever. You should come get some of the best game ever.

Not “Gears of War”- I don't know or care. A great reprise for Duke, yeah baby! Great sound, graphics and music. Ride of the Valkeries was sublime.If the puzzles seem obscure, there are video walkthroughs on line. Fill your boots, baby! Oh yes, “steam activation” downloads gigs, the only flaw, so I have to limit myself to only 12 out of 10.

--Dad

Yep, The Dukes back alright, And some of the one liners are damn funny, The game itself is pretty average and could have been improved upon by simply having Health Packs and the ability to carry a shed load of weapons, After all, this is the Duke and can carry a tank. Load times are quite slow but for a 12 year old game I thought the Graphics were pretty good, but dont expect cutting edge. So is the game worth the $90 street price- Well I would have to recommend waiting for a Mighty Ape sale before parting with your hard earned dollars. I did enjoy it, but it could have easily been so much more.

I'm 63 and just can not have enough of it. The baseball hat with the can opener just got to go in the picture frame. When is the next one comin- I wonder-! Like to wait for it.