The videogame industry’s longest-running joke has finally arrived at its painfully unfunny punchline. Duke Nukem Forever is here after 14 years in development and it feels about as irrelevant and embarrassing as a Sex Pistols reunion tour.
Gearbox Software, which now owns this decidedly unintellectual property, stepped in to save Duke Nukem after its original developer 3D realms cancelled it after more than 12 years of work.
On one hand, it seems miraculous that Gearbox managed to salvage a playable and shippable game out of Duke Nukem Forever after all this time. On the other, it’s a shame to see such a great developer sully its name by associating it with such a substandard product. With its abysmal loading times, dated graphics and wobbly gameplay, Duke Nukem Forever is in every way an authentic 1998 experience.
The last time we met Duke in a full retail game was 1996’s Duke Nukem 3D, which was a refreshingly politically incorrect take on the young first-person shooter (FPS) genre. Its colourful lead character — an affectionate parody of bone-headed action movie heroes like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sly Stallone — stood out for having something the likes of Doom guy didn’t: a personality.
You’d think in today’s shooter market, which is even more homogenised than it was then, there would be plenty of space for the king. Sadly, Duke Nukem just isn’t as funny and subversive as he once was, unless you think that dick jokes and endless repetition of one-liners from Commando and Evil Dead are the cutting edge of wit.
Duke Nukem Forever is crass. Within the first few minutes of the game, you’ll hit a button so that Duke can relieve himself at a urinal and get a boost to his ego, the game’s equivalent to health. A couple of minutes later, Duke will be fellated offscreen by two cooing bunnies as he plays his own game.
But it’s not the vulgarity that offends as much as the stupidity. Somewhere, someone bought into the myth of Duke’s sex appeal and invincibility and the intended irony behind its cartoon machismo and sexism got lost along the way.
Duke Nukem Forever’s visuals bear the scars of its long and troubled development cycle. The game’s graphics fare badly enough next to games from near the beginning of the current console cycle such as Call of Duty 2 and Prey. Compared to the likes of Halo: Reach and Crysis 2, it looks utterly primitive.
The game’s world is a mess of jagged shadows, blurry textures and boxy objects with little in the way of subtle geometric definition. The character models and animations are so awkward that one could easily believe that they have been in place for a decade or more.
Despite the low-detail graphics, the frame rate of the Xbox 360 version of the game starts to chug as soon as there are a few explosions or a handful of enemies on the screen. (Apparently the PC version performs much better.)
The art design is as undistinguished as the technical performance. Sadly, there’s not much here that will remind one of the cartoonish look and feel of Duke Nukem 3D. The game’s colour palette is largely the same mix of muddy browns and washed-out greys that so many developers have favoured this console generation.
Duke Nukem Forever fares a little better on the gameplay front, offering glimpses of something that may have been a great game if it shipped in 2005. For all its faults, it is a videogame that is not trying to be a “gritty cinematic experience”.
Duke Nukem Forever — E3 trailer 1998 (via YouTube):
There’s a playfulness here that has sadly gone missing in the insipid, self-important military shooters that have come to dominate the gaming market. It’s not often these days that you’ll find an FPS that puts a whiteboard in its world that you can draw on and working air hockey tables and pinball machines, all just for the hell of it.
Steering through a canyon level in a monster truck is a blast, even if the level goes on for longer than it should. Levels where a shrunken Duke drives a toy car and navigates the perils of a restaurant grill by leaping between hamburger buns are goofy fun.
The classic Duke Nukem arsenal is back, including the shrink ray, freeze ray and devastator. These weapons are as much fun to use as they ever were. Happily, shrinking a monster to ant-size and crushing it under the heel of Duke Nukem’s size 14 boot has yet to get old even after a decade and a half.
Unfortunately, though, the old-school charm can’t make up for the many other problems with the gameplay. Whereas Duke Nukem 3D offered sprawling levels full of hidden rooms and secret corners, Duke Nukem Forever is a linear corridor crawler with uninspired level design.
The game copies the two-gun load-out and rechargeable health system that most post-Halo shooters use, but these mechanics don’t work well with its old-fashioned run-and-gun, strafe-and-circle gameplay.
Graphics 3/10
The visuals look contemporary with Half-Life 1 rather than Crysis 2.
Sound 5/10
Generic rock riffs on the title screen and Duke repeating the same phrases over and over again. It gets old quickly.
Gameplay 5/10
Classic weapons and old-school playfulness delight; lousy level design and cheap boss fights annoy.
Value 3/10
There’s not much reason to look at the single-player again once your morbid curiosity has been satisfied with one playthrough. The multiplayer isn’t even worth a glance.
Overall 4/10
Duke Nukem Forever offers up some old-fashioned FPS fun, but it is so shoddily put together that 2K Games and Gearbox should be ashamed of themselves for selling it at the cost of a full retail game.
The boss encounters are infuriatingly cheap, the enemy artificial intelligence is basic and the controls are not as tight as they should be. There’s also far too much platform navigation — seldom a good idea in an FPS — as well as too many unimaginative and inane puzzles. How you’ll laugh when Duke says “I hate Valve puzzles” – just one of the many ill-advised jokes the game makes at the expense of its betters.
Multiplayer — a laggy bare-bones experience that offers the usual gameplay modes — is barely worth a mention. There’s one gameplay type called “Capture the babe” that involves kidnapping the other team’s babe after you’ve spanked the squealing girl into submission. Classy stuff indeed.
Duke Nukem Forever launch trailer (via YouTube):
If Duke Nukem Forever was priced as a budget release, it would be easier to recommend. The product is finally on the shelves – a swaggering monument to lost opportunity, squandered money, and wasted time — and that’s something after all. There are some good times to be had with the game and it does have a certain nostalgic charm and curiosity value.
But for sweary, full-priced shooters with a rude sense of humour, the vibrant Bulletstorm is a far better buy. With the classic Duke Nukem 3D available on Good Old Games for US$5,99 and the price of a 27MB download, those who want a genuine Duke experience might be better off reliving their memories with the king’s best game. — Lance Harris, TechCentral
- Reviewed on Xbox 360. Also available on Windows PC and PlayStation 3
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