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Duke Nukem Forever Demo is Live... for First Access Club Members!

Jun 3, 2011#1

AshburnerX

Go ahead and get it, if you pre-ordered the game or bought Borderlands: GOTY. Everyone else needs to wait a few days.

My thoughts? First level is awesome. They really emphasize the action once the aliens show up by playing the Duke music to get you pumped. Using the Devastator is fun because it feels powerful. The environment looks great.

Second level? Not so much... there's hardly any music, few enemies, and some of the weapons don't feel very powerful. The shotgun doesn't have any kick to it and Ripper feels like it should be louder at least. The pistol, Shrinker, and RPG are all fine though and the pipebomb is REALLY fun to use. However, there are stretches where enemies don't show up and those kinda... lull. They really didn't pace things very well in the demo. They should have given us more enemies to shoot and the music should have been playing.

I DO like how the EGO meter works though: It recharges naturally like shields in other games but it also charges by killing enemies and doing other bad ass things. This seems perfect for Duke... if your feeling invincible, you should BE invincible.

Jun 4, 2011#2

Azurephoenix

I loved it... has that old feel of Duke Nukem 3D.

I disagree about the shotgun though... it felt badass... and was pretty much all I used. I love that gun!

Jun 4, 2011#3

@Li3n

The demo was too short and buggy, but gameplay wise it was nice...well except the 2 weapon limit... at least allow us to use the pistol besides the 2 weapons.

But as others pointed out it's an old build, the newest one has a nuclear symbol when it's saving checkpoints...

Jun 15, 2011#4

Jay

The reviews on this game have been brutal.

Jun 15, 2011#5

@Li3n

But at least half the reasons they give are things fans of old school shooters should be able to appreciate...

Jun 15, 2011#6

AshburnerX

@Li3n said:
But at least half the reasons they give are things fans of old school shooters should be able to appreciate...

Basically this. This is definitely a retro game and as a result it suffers from a lot of the same problems that plagues entries prior to Halo/Half-Life. The people who were expecting some kind of revolutionary game after 12 years are completely missing the point and refusing to enjoy the game for what it is, rather than what they wanted it to be.

Besides, Gearbox never promised that the game would be excellent... only that it would be. I'm actually kinda surprised at how honest they were about the whole thing.

Jun 15, 2011#7

GasBandit

Frankly I find most of my frustrations with the game not to be the "outdated humor" or old paradigms all the "big time" reviewers bitch about... my gripes are the enforced non-duke "modernized" gaming tropes. The 2 weapon limit. The slow, plodding movement speed. The limited sprint that denies actions while sprinting. The "you're injured so your eyes are covered with blood and you can't see shit" thing. Instead of being able to carry tons of weapons and ammo with intermittent, rare refills like in Duke3D, now inventory is limited and you get maybe 4 reloads before empty, but dropped weaponry is ubiquitous. And OH MY GOD THE LOADING TIMES AND FREQUENCY.

The thing I liked best about Duke 3d multiplayer back in the day was all of us sprint-strafing around like mad firing off 50 RPGs until finally somebody gets explodingly, messily dead. There's not a single thing in that last sentence which you can do in DNF.

However, I'm really digging the novelty levels - shrunk Duke jumping across a shelves and furniture, the driving levels, etc.. I like the railgun, and the RPG launcher having a lock-on is interesting. Pipe bombs are a blast. Shotgun seems anemic, and the ripper is way too inaccurate and low damage. So far I'm 50 50 on the game... we'll see how it ends.

Jun 15, 2011#8

Frankie Williamson

Pretty much what Gas just said. AND FUUCK again on those load times. The first time I loaded a saved game I thought it had frozen it was taking so long.

Jun 15, 2011#9

Chibibar

I try to play it but getting dizzy after 20 minutes

Jun 15, 2011#10

@Li3n

Chibibar said:
I try to play it but getting dizzy after 20 minutes

The original Return to Castle Wolfenstein used to make us dizzy as hell after 10-15 minutes... we'd take turns playing it. One of my father's friends had it and we and his kids would play it all the time, taking turns sitting on the couch to recover. Great times.

Jun 15, 2011#11

Chibibar

@Li3n said:
The original Return to Castle Wolfenstein used to make us dizzy as hell after 10-15 minutes... we'd take turns playing it. One of my father's friends had it and we and his kids would play it all the time, taking turns sitting on the couch to recover. Great times.

Of course the rain drop "covering face" and the "drunk blur" didn't help either... bleh!

Jun 15, 2011#12

@Li3n

It's funny, in the old days i though the games moved a bit too fast, making you dizzy, but nowadays i fond most shooters are too slow... i'm guessing because controllers aren't as fast as a mouse when it comes to turning...

Jun 15, 2011#13

CrimsonSoul

Frankie Williamson said:
Pretty much what Gas just said. AND FUUCK again on those load times. The first time I loaded a saved game I thought it had frozen it was taking so long.

I really wish I knew what was up with the people that day that. My loads take about 5 seconds. Bit I do have an alienware computer

Jun 15, 2011#14

Jay

Same here, loads are only a few seconds.

Time to upgrade bitches!

Jun 15, 2011#15

Frankie Williamson

I was playing the 360 version.

Jun 15, 2011#16

Chibibar

Jay said:
Same here, loads are only a few seconds.

Time to upgrade bitches!

mine load pretty fast too (Alienware here too)

Jun 15, 2011#17

Shakey

GasBandit said:
The thing I liked best about Duke 3d multiplayer back in the day was all of us sprint-strafing around like mad firing off 50 RPGs until finally somebody gets explodingly, messily dead. There's not a single thing in that last sentence which you can do in DNF.

I loved doing this so much. I wish I had the money to pick up DNF right now.

Jun 15, 2011#18

AshburnerX

Does anyone else remember the crazy rocket jumping antics people would get up to in quake and other games? To the point where some of the very best maps REQUIRED the abuse of rocket jumping and the low gravity just to get around? THAT is what I miss most about old school gaming.

Jun 15, 2011#19

SpecialKO

That reminds me of an old Quake 2 video I remember from pre-Youtube where the guy managed to rocket jump across the screen so quickly, he could turn the first-person camera into a 3rd-person camera, because it was technically free-floating on your face.

Jun 16, 2011#20

@Li3n

CrimsonSoul said:
I really wish I knew what was up with the people that day that. My loads take about 5 seconds. Bit I do have an alienware computer

I hear the 360 version has the most problems... and most reviews are for it too.

Jun 16, 2011#21

Frankie Williamson

I wasn't going to buy the game, my room mate did for 360.

Jun 16, 2011#22

GasBandit

Shakey said:
I loved doing this so much. I wish I had the money to pick up DNF right now.

I don't think you read my sentence correctly. I said there's not a single thing in that sentence you CAN do in DNF. You can't sprint sideways (or even at a diagonal), you can't shoot (or reload) while sprinting, you get "winded" after sprinting for a while, you carry a maximum of 5 RPG rounds, and even sprinting you feel like you're not moving very fast compared to Duke3D.

Jun 16, 2011#23

Shakey

GasBandit said:
I don't think you read my sentence correctly. I said there's not a single thing in that sentence you CAN do in DNF. You can't sprint sideways (or even at a diagonal), you can't shoot (or reload) while sprinting, you get "winded" after sprinting for a while, you carry a maximum of 5 RPG rounds, and even sprinting you feel like you're not moving very fast compared to Duke3D.

No, I got what you said. I just mashed my thoughts together. Read them as two separate posts. sometimesi getallworkedupand cantform a cohesivethought anditallsortofmashestogether andidontknowwhatthehellishappeningso isaystuffthatmeanswhati knowitmeans to mebutit turnsouttomean somethingelse.

Jun 16, 2011#24

AshburnerX

Surprised no one has mentioned this: PR Company representative sends tweets stating that those who are "too harsh" on Duke Nukem Forever may find themselves blacklisted from receiving future titles.

Speaking as someone who's seen blacklisting happen (former coworker was blacklisted from Neversoft games after trashing Tony Hawk Underground 2), I'm not surprised to hear that they would do this but I am surprised that someone would be dumb enough to state it officially on Twitter. They've since apologized for the statement but it does show you why it's hard to find a trustworthy news/review source in the games industry these days.

Jun 16, 2011#25

GasBandit

AshburnerX said:
Surprised no one has mentioned this: PR Company representative sends tweets stating that those who are "too harsh" on Duke Nukem Forever may find themselves blacklisted from receiving future titles.

Speaking as someone who's seen blacklisting happen (former coworker was blacklisted from Neversoft games after trashing Tony Hawk Underground 2), I'm not surprised to hear that they would do this but I am surprised that someone would be dumb enough to state it officially on Twitter. They've since apologized for the statement but it does show you why it's hard to find a trustworthy news/review source in the games industry these days.

That PR firm also got dropped for that.

Jun 16, 2011#26

Jay

Many reviews look jaded and disappointed. I even read a woman review the game calling it sexist.

She greatly missed the point as many "critics" who once again I'll state, "can suck my di-"

As some pointed out before, the humor in this game is a lot of satire and lots of nods to old school gaming. Is the game great? No. Is it good? Not really. But deserves a solid gameplay at least once.

Jun 17, 2011#27

Frankie Williamson

The sexist part comes from the parts, I imagine,

where girls are being raped by tentacle things while moaning then screaming, "Don't dump us Duke, we can lose the pregnancy weight," before you can murder them and quip, "They weren't even human anymore."

Jun 17, 2011#28

AshburnerX

Frankie Williamson said:
The sexist part comes from the parts, I imagine,

where girls are being raped by tentacle things while moaning then screaming, "Don't dump us Duke, we can lose the pregnancy weight," before you can murder them and quip, "They weren't even human anymore."

Five seconds later you can slap a set (3) of alien breasts growing from the wall for an Ego Meter increase. Truly this is a game with mature themes.

Jun 17, 2011#29

@Li3n

Frankie Williamson said:
The sexist part comes from the parts, I imagine, FROM THIS BEING A DUKE NUKEM GAME!!!

Yeah, that's more accurate...

Jun 17, 2011#30

Frankie Williamson

There's a difference between humourous portrayal and outright misogyny.

Jun 17, 2011#31

Chad Sexington

Two interesting commentaries on Duke, the first one addresses the misogyny/sexism: http://3liza.tumblr.com/post/6617744271/dukes-kind-of-party

http://3liza.tumblr.com/post/6617202882/duke-newcomb-forever

Jun 17, 2011#32

CrimsonSoul

I'd give the game a 5 or 6

Jun 18, 2011#33

R

Raemon777

AshburnerX said:
Five seconds later you can slap a set (3) of alien breasts growing from the wall for an Ego Meter increase. Truly this is a game with mature themes.

Up until I saw some the videos for that section, I had mentalled filed Duke's misogyny as "dumb and ignorable." I don't see a reason to get in a tizzy over every sexist game or movie. In some ways I'm actually less offended by Duke than I am by every other game that features sexed up women with no personality - with Duke, you know exactly what you're getting. You know it's ridiculous and are enjoying it for the ridiculousness. Whereas I suspect other games subtly alter your perception of "normal" and actually contribute to a world that still has a lot of sexism in it.

Then I watched this, and read some commentary from people who'd played the game without realizing how far it went (one person identified himself as a sadomasochist in real life), and god, this shit is just sick. The knowledge that SOMEWHERE out there are people who enjoy sitting around watching women get raped by aliens, making immature comments about it, and then killing them, makes my skin crawl in a way worse than even the worst japanese porn that I've stumbled across.

(Okay, I've stumbled upon some really horrifying japanese porn. It's a toss up. But still, jesus)

Jun 18, 2011#34

CrimsonSoul

I have to agree with raemon. Sexism is wrong, and being wrong is for women.

Jun 19, 2011#35

@Li3n

Frankie Williamson said:
There's a difference between humourous portrayal and outright misogyny.

Unless you're Duke Nukem and your shades obstruct your view of the difference!

Seriously, the pod women where not something new, see at 2:40 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6JcZv3wPuU

And here: http://dukenukem.wikia.com/wiki/Babes

And Duke 3D was called sexist by people for the same reason, look it up...

Raemon777 said:
Up until I saw some the videos for that section,

Ok, the crying is a bit too obviously someone's fetish...

Jun 19, 2011#36

Frankie Williamson

Yes, sir, I understand it isn't something new. I have played the original game. Which was rad, when I was 12. In the old game they PLEADED FOR DEATH, also were pixelated messes and not quite the same thing as the far more realistic crying and pleading, "PLEASE CONTINUE TO LOVE US DUKE!" followed by Duke killing them and the not human anymore quip. It isn't quite the same thing.

Jun 19, 2011#37

ScytheRexx

Okay, I am not doing this to stir the pot or anything, more just curious what peoples opinions would be.

Now imagine the game exactly as it is right now. You enter the room and see men hanging upside down, stuffed with alien eggs, and you shoot them saying "Sorry, you are not human anymore." How would a person feel to that image compared to it being a women? Would it be the same? or par for the medium?

Jun 19, 2011#38

drifter

Are the men also pleading with Duke not to dump them 'cause they're fat from the alien pregnancy, and entreaty him to continue loving them?

Jun 19, 2011#39

AshburnerX

Honestly, I think it only seems so bad because it's Duke (who has a history of misogyny) and he's just so cold about it. He treats them as a disposable commodity because in his world, they are. Duke will always be able to find more "babes" because he's Duke Nukem and EVERYONE falls to worship at his feet. Why should he get hung up over these two if there are 200 more waiting just outside his door?

If you want to complain about anything, don't complain about his actions but rather the environment that completely justifies it for him. That's the far more disturbing aspect.

Jun 19, 2011#40

ScytheRexx

Are the men also pleading with Duke not to dump them and entreaty him to continue loving them?

For the sake of the argument, sure. Let's just say they are all major Duke fanboys like that one that has a heart attack when he sees you.

I am just curious, because I have seen many horrible things happen in games (including many shooters, like Prey). The difference seems to be when that horrible thing happens to a women, it's sexist, but when I watch men get infested by something and I have to kill him, it seems par for the medium.

Be aware, I know Duke in general is a very sexist game. I am not trying to argue it is not, because it straight up tells you that with the sex jokes, twin lesbians, strippers, etc... I would have even preferred they added a way to save the women. I just wanted to know what people would think if the gender role, hypothetically, was reversed.

Jun 19, 2011#41

drifter

So we'd have dude strippers? Knowing Duke Nukem, I'd figure the dudes would all be talking with a lisp and waving at Duke all limp-wristed. Lots of jokes asking about hot beef injections and whatnot. Yeah, still not good.

Now, if we're talking complete gender reversal with a woman Duke and dudes being strippers and everything? Well, I suppose you could still call it sexist, but it would never garner the same amount of outrage much the same way many people don't consider male rape seriously.

Jun 19, 2011#42

ScytheRexx

drifter said:
Now, if we're talking complete gender reversal with a woman Duke and dudes being strippers and everything? Well, I suppose you could still call it sexist, but it would never garner the same amount of outrage much the same way many people don't consider male rape seriously.

You are right, that would probably be a better hypothetical, at least closer to what I was going for.

As for outrage, my opinion is that under that situation no one would actually be outraged, or even call it sexist. Maybe that's just the cynical part of me, but I grew up in a world where a scantily clad woman was considered sexist and a big chested hunk on a romance novel was not, it has come to the point that anytime someone calls something sexist I try to break it down and see if the same people would call it sexist if the gender roles were reversed. I have found that most wouldn't.

Now once again to be clear, I am not attacking people that feel one is sexist over the other, our society and history have made it clear that these type of reversed situations can never hold the same gravitas. All I did by bringing this up was to see people's opinions, as I felt it was an interesting topic to break down.

Jun 19, 2011#43

drifter

I don't think you can say that just because someone isn't outraged that it wouldn't be sexist. I think the disconnect comes from the stereotypes related to sexism being considered negative or positive, similar to stereotypes related to racism being regarded as positive or negative. For example, people will raise hell if you say all black people criminals. No one's gonna say shit if you say all Asians are doctors.

Similarly, how many stereotypes related to women would be considered strengths versus how many are considered weaknesses? Seriously, put a man completely in a stereotypically sexist situation for a woman; stays at home, brainless, basically there to cook, clean, and fuck; someone clearly subordinate, and treated accordingly. Are you gonna respect that guy? You think if roles were really reversed it wouldn't be a big deal? To me it seems like your mental exercise largely overlooks the history of sexism and the fact that men clearly have had the upper hand through it, and still do.

Also, who thinks women being scantily clad is sexist? It's thinking that women offer nothing beyond being scantily clad that is sexist.

Jun 19, 2011#44

ScytheRexx

Good points. Though I never said that the fact people wouldn't be outraged implied it wouldn't be sexist. It is obviously still sexist, though I argue less overly sexist then most of the earlier game. My question, like I said, was more an idea of what people here would deem it. You would consider it sexist, but would others here? Would others on the street?

Also, I apologize I was not clear. I was not overlooking the history of sexism, but my question was supposed to be from a neutral standpoint and the history often brings in "exceptions through guilt". The history will obviously make us more sensitive to female sexism, but I am curious how "desensitized" we may be to male sexism.

Nice to have a civil discussion about it.

Jun 19, 2011#45

CrimsonSoul

Your doing it wrong if it were a female duke she would have to kill the guys because the aliens shrunk their "little guy" to where you cant even see it then she kills them because "they aren't even human anymore.". As a guy I would play the game and probably laugh at how horrible it is (as I do with DNF)

Jun 19, 2011#46

ScytheRexx

CrimsonSoul said:
Your doing it wrong if it were a female duke she would have to kill the guys because the aliens shrunk their "little guy" to where you cant even see it then she kills them because "they aren't even human anymore.". As a guy I would play the game and probably laugh at how horrible it is (as I do with DNF)

hahaha I would play that game too. Wait didn't someone in the game say he named his little girl Dukette and gave her a toy rocket launcher for her birthday so she could grow to be like him? I smell spinoff.

Jun 19, 2011#47

drifter

Civil? Fuck you.

Jun 19, 2011#48

ScytheRexx

drifter said:
Civil? Fuck you.

Fuck you too, pal.

"picked a better smiley to convey what I was meaning"

Jun 19, 2011#49

AshburnerX

CrimsonSoul said:
Your doing it wrong if it were a female duke she would have to kill the guys because the aliens shrunk their "little guy" to where you cant even see it then she kills them because "they aren't even human anymore.". As a guy I would play the game and probably laugh at how horrible it is (as I do with DNF)

Not a problem. There is already a weapon for that little problem: The Microwave Expander.

Jun 20, 2011#50

GasBandit

The main difference to me in regards to this content was that in most cases in D3D, you had the option to just circumvent the podded women, and if you left them alone no ill came of it. Now, there are places where you cannot progress without killing them, and if you don't kill them, they die excruciatingly and explodingly, giving birth to annoying micromobs that try to swarm you. Thus, through bad level design practices (funneling and plot boulders) and negative reinforcement/feedback, the game not-so-subtly forces you into that channel.

But I was only moderately discomfited by all that... what I'm still the most grumbly about is the adoption of contemporary FPS-du-jour BS paradigms in my Duke Nukem game. I'm not all the way through the game yet (I just killed the octobrain boss in the hoover dam), but so far I'm still liking the gimmicks and hating the crap I griped about earlier. It also occurred to me - so far all the levels are the same COD-esque "single hallway pretending to be a large environment/building" stuff. Remember in D3D, how it was possible to go in circles through most of the levels, and there were multiple paths to the goal? I miss that too.

Jun 20, 2011#51

Jay

Pretty much what you said.

Level design is very lazy and take on modern lacking of level creation. It's not as epicly bad as say... Dragon Age 2... but I remember the old game not being so goddamnned limiting.

Jun 20, 2011#52

GasBandit

Jay said:
Pretty much what you said.

Level design is very lazy and take on modern lacking of level creation. It's not as epicly bad as say... Dragon Age 2... but I remember the old game not being so goddamnned limiting.

I see it as a tradeoff that I wouldn't have made. In Duke3d, a hallway was 4 polygons and a low res bitmap texture. Now the same length hallway is 100,000 polygons, sparking particle effects, a steam geyser, hi-poly rendered pipes and breakers and fire extinguishers and conduits and switches and knobs and consoles and shove-able carts and litter on the ground and phys-x shattered glass and chest high destructible barriers. It probably took someone as long to make that hallway and its assets as it previously did to make an entire Duke3d level.

Jun 21, 2011#53

R

Raemon777

GasBandit's comment is interesting.

I cut my FPS teeth on Marathon. It had winding, twisted maps that made no sense for a space station to actually be built around. A lot of times you'd be running through a maze with limited ammo facing off against bad guys that could turn invisible. Or trapped in a flooding labyrinth with a gradually rising water-level. After the water rose above your head, you wouldn't be able to fire your gun, and you'd slowly run out of oxygen supply and you'd have to run from monsters that you couldn't shoot and you'd have absolutely no idea where you were going.

It was creepy as hell, and awesome in its own way. But it was also really frustrating and confusing and more than once I quit in frustration. It was years before I finished the game.

I'd always assumed modern games with their often-linear corridors were an overreaction to that. I remember liking Portal 1's level design, but in Portal 2, stretched over 3 times the game time, eventually it became really frustrating that these huge vistas were really just linear corridors. I found myself WANTING the solution to a puzzle to be "backtrack for a while and flip a switch you didn't notice before," but they kept ramming the solution right in front of me.

It makes sense, but is a little sad, that a possibility is that it's not JUST an overly-carebear gameplay philosophy, but genuinely cost-prohibitive, to have games with the huge open worlds we remember as kids.

(Then again, we've watched WoW make that transition within the past 6 years - exploring Black Rock Depths felt like you were literally in a city that you had to navigate, whereas the newer dungeons.... same ol' linear corridors. WoW graphics are probably faster to put together though.

Jun 21, 2011#54

@Li3n

Frankie Williamson said:
In the old game they PLEADED FOR DEATH, also were pixelated messes and not quite the same thing as the far more realistic crying and pleading, "PLEASE CONTINUE TO LOVE US DUKE!" followed by Duke killing them and the not human anymore quip. It isn't quite the same thing.

So it was ok because they weren't drawn well enough and they where using a quote from a film series about face rape?

Raemon777 said:
It makes sense, but is a little sad, that a possibility is that it's not JUST an overly-carebear gameplay philosophy, but genuinely cost-prohibitive, to have games with the huge open worlds we remember as kids.

Actual sandbox open worlds tell a different story.

The reason FPS's have such small maps is because the consoles can't do both the graphics ppl are used to and a big open world at the same time... and once it's become industry standard everyone does it without even thinking about it.

Jun 21, 2011#55

Frankie Williamson

GasBandit said:
The main difference to me in regards to this content was that in most cases in D3D, you had the option to just circumvent the podded women, and if you left them alone no ill came of it. Now, there are places where you cannot progress without killing them, and if you don't kill them, they die excruciatingly and explodingly, giving birth to annoying micromobs that try to swarm you. Thus, through bad level design practices (funneling and plot boulders) and negative reinforcement/feedback, the game not-so-subtly forces you into that channel.

Jun 21, 2011#56

@Li3n

But that doesn't have much to do with Duke being sexist or not... a guy who only says sexist stuff when he's prompted is still sexist.

Jun 21, 2011#57

AshburnerX

@Li3n said:
Actual sandbox open worlds tell a different story.

Actual sandbox, open world games are 90% empty. You can't go inside most of the buildings in Liberty City, only the ones with things to do in them. It's easy to make a city when most of the buildings are just empty shells. Just ask North Korea!

Jun 21, 2011#58

@Li3n

AshburnerX said:
Actual sandbox, open world games are 90% empty. You can't go inside most of the buildings in Liberty City, only the ones with things to do in them. It's easy to make a city when most of the buildings are just empty shells. Just ask North Korea!

Well of course they are, putting that much content in the game would take way too much time... and wouldn't be worth it even if it didn't cost anything. And Russia did it first.

But in a FPS making the map bigger and then just spawning random monsters that walk around shouldn't be too hard. But of course random spawning points aren't cinematic enough.

Jun 21, 2011#59

Chibibar

@Li3n said:
Well of course they are, putting that much content in the game would take way too much time... and wouldn't be worth it even if it didn't cost anything. And Russia did it first.

But in a FPS making the map bigger and then just spawning random monsters that walk around shouldn't be too hard. But of course random spawning points aren't cinematic enough.

This is where mods come into play

Make the game modable and bam! a whole community will gladly put stuff in it.
Look at Fallout 3! people put in new lands, missions, items (mod from original or even brand new one) and dialog!

Jun 21, 2011#60

GasBandit

@Li3n said:
But that doesn't have much to do with Duke being sexist or not... a guy who only says sexist stuff when he's prompted is still sexist.

By that logic, Commander Shephard is a loose cannon even if you never take a single renegade action.

And really, Duke seemed a whole lot more grudging about the pod girls in 3D, whereas in this one it's more "Oh well!"

This is all irrelevant though.. it's not about Duke being sexist, Duke IS sexist. It's one of his defining characteristics, and frankly, there's nothing wrong with it because he's parody. A caricature of the gung-ho he-man action hero. What made me uneasy was that the choice to be not just sexist, but violently misogynist is not given, but decided and thrust on the player - which is a change from Duke3D. Duke 3D had avoidable pod women who the player COULD kill (and indeed, asked to be put out of their misery), and caused you damage and spawned extra enemies if you did kill them, while Duke angrily growled "Damn it!" Now, they beg NOT to be killed, are blocking the only exit path, and if you don't kill them you suffer the spawning of extra enemies. And when you do, Duke makes a flippant, uncaring remark.

Jun 22, 2011#61

@Li3n

GasBandit said:
By that logic, Commander Shephard is a loose cannon even if you never take a single renegade action.

Well he did destroy an entire inhabited solar system...

GasBandit said:
And really, Duke seemed a whole lot more grudging about the pod girls in 3D, whereas in this one it's more "Oh well!"

This is all irrelevant though.. it's not about Duke being sexist, Duke IS sexist. It's one of his defining characteristics, and frankly, there's nothing wrong with it because he's parody. A caricature of the gung-ho he-man action hero. What made me uneasy was that the choice to be not just sexist, but violently misogynist is not given, but decided and thrust on the player - which is a change from Duke3D. Duke 3D had avoidable pod women who the player COULD kill (and indeed, asked to be put out of their misery), and caused you damage and spawned extra enemies if you did kill them, while Duke angrily growled "Damn it!" Now, they beg NOT to be killed, are blocking the only exit path, and if you don't kill them you suffer the spawning of extra enemies. And when you do, Duke makes a flippant, uncaring remark.

Yeah, but the whole discussion started when i said this:

@Li3n said:
The sexist part comes from the parts, I imagine, FROM THIS BEING A DUKE NUKEM GAME!!!

Click to expand...

Yeah, that's more accurate...

Jun 24, 2011#62

@Li3n

Wow, an 80: http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/06/10/duke-nukem-forever-review/

Anyone else thinks they padded the score because of the way too low scores it's been getting elsewhere (if they where actually gonna buy reviews they'd have done it in those other places too), or is that just a side effect of the fact that nowadays any score under 90 is considered low?

Jun 24, 2011#63

AshburnerX

It's more likely the reviewer likes retro games.

Jun 24, 2011#64

@Li3n

Yeah, but based on the way shooting worked in the demo it's not really retro enough for an 80...

Jun 27, 2011#65

GasBandit

Ok, I finished it. The final boss fight, in my mind, was damn good. It reminded me a lot of original duke.

Now, really, if we were to judge DNF alone on its own merits (and ignore the 15 year development period), I can think of a lot of games that are worse than DNF - for instance, Homefront. I do have to say there were a couple levels in DNF that I found irritating to the point of nearly quitting, but overall I enjoyed the game. Was it an A game? No. Was it as good as Duke Nukem 3D was back in the late 90s? Not even close. But is it a bad game? Not really... and most of its shortcomings I ascribe to trying to adopt bad ideas from other contemporary FPS games.

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