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After more then a decade of making jokes about the never ending delays of Duke Nukem Forever, we finally have it. Twelve long years to create another installment of the Duke Nukem franchise.
So was the wait worth it? No.
Ok, so maybe that is a little short and slightly unfair, but this game is a largely a let down. The game itself takes place twelve years after the events of Duke Nukem 3D, and the aliens have come back to get revenge mostly on Duke rather then the world, blah blah blah. The plot really just serves as an explanation for going from point A to point B. The lack of a plot isn't really a problem, Duke Nukem is hardly known for it's great plot lines, so I wasn't really let down by this. What Duke is known for is it's outrageous sense of humor, which is back though it feels extremely dated. Maybe it's because I've grown up, or maybe because the game's humor (ever low brow) hasn't changed. Other then a few political jokes, it's the same game it was 12 years ago and honestly, it's just not making me laugh anymore. I giggled a few times but for most of the game I found myself thinking: "Would I have ever found this funny?" They also make jokes about how long the game took to come out, which I didn't find funny, it a felt like a slap in the face and acted as nothing but a reminder of how much time they had and just how bad this game ended up being. Overall, the graphics are weak at best and the voice acting is awful.
The missions do have some variety, but it's not always a good thing. Early in the game you get shrunk to mini size and proceed to spend the next 15 minutes driving around in an RC car. To me, this was neither cute nor clever, rather just a way to remove all possibility of fighting and force me to drive and do some platforming when really I just want to shoot things. Once you beat this level, you might think you are done being small, but you aren't. It happens a couple of times and it doesn't get any less annoying as the game goes on.
Speaking of platforming, be prepared to do a lot of it. In fact, the amount this upset me. Some games managed to master the art of first person platforming - this is not one of those game. It's clunky, it's hard, it's a freaking 1st person shooter, I want to gun, not jump around. I could tolerate these little moments if it weren't for the fact that this game clearly was not designed for it. I found myself repeating a few of the platforming moments over and over because I just couldn't line it up right. In my opinion, first person is horrid for platforming and if as a developer you insist on putting it in a game, you better make up for the fact that the perspective is already working against the gamer.
The difficulty level is really hard to judge. I found myself blowing through parts of the game with ease and replaying other parts over and over and over. Your health is much like it is in Halo, you have a set amount and it reloads when not taking damage. Some enemies can barely damage you, others have one hit kills. It makes the game extremely frustrating because there is little curve, it's either extremely easy or you just die at the same part over and over. Other problems include reloading (super slow and you are left totally defenseless while doing it), targeting (I personally found myself adjusting and readjusting sensitivity and I could never find a way to make the targeting smooth), and zooming in (with the pistol it sometimes just blurs everything out, not only what is around you but what you are actually aiming at). The Rail Gun has great zoom but half the time when you hit the zoom button it doesn't actually zoom where you were aimed but at some random spot. There is an option for aim assist which turns the sight red when you'll actually land a shot, but it's hit or miss at best. At one point I had it zoomed in and scored a head shot but the aim assist remained white. Other times it'll be red but when you shoot it will cause no damage, implying it was never going to be a good shot anyways.
Death itself is not that annoying (other then it happens frequently thanks to problems previously mentioned) but it feels like a huge punishment thanks to the horrendous loading screens. Just a thought: if you have 12 years to develop a game, long loading screens are not acceptable. As for the weapons, both RPGs and Bombs have limited area blast, so hits with them have to be pretty much dead on which tactically is stupid (it's also lame in comparison to other FPS games). Thought I never experienced this specific glitch, some players reported getting stuck in elevators. I myself saw many fire extinguishers "disappear" so I would just have to randomly shoot around fires until the invisible thing would explode or reload check points. I also found Duke occasionally got stuck in certain spots for no reason, forcing reloaded checkpoint and long load screens. Honestly I could go on and on with problems with this game.
However, when it works it's fun. At the end of the day, it is a really nice run and gun game. Your max health can be increased by doing ridiculous stuff (like photo copying your butt). There are a number of achievements that come fairly quickly and easily, which is always nice for those hunters out there. There are a large variety of guns (though you are limited to just switching out one for one achievement) the fact that you can only have two weapons on you feels weak. There are also a variety of battle types and different things for the player to use for puzzles and enemies. Bosses are unique in the fact that they can only be hurt with turrets or exploding weapons, which makes them stand out but still there is nothing wow about this system. Also from everything I've heard the PS3 version surprisingly does not have all the problems with glitches and aiming that the 360 and computer versions did. And again, a few of the low brow jokes did make me giggle and if you were a fan of the older Duke Nukem's humor, it's still here and plenty of it. So there is some fun to be had, though in my opinion not enough.
Thanks!
