Review: Duke Nukem Forever

Fifteen years ago, back during an age in which consoles were just beginning to discover the possibilities of compact discs and PC gaming was most commonly done on a DOS or Windows 3.1 platform, a game came along that stood out amongst the various Doom clones that plagued the mid 90s.  Duke Nukem 3D was more than just another shooter: it was a game whose action, humor, and gameplay advances made it stand far apart from the other titles on the market.  So, naturally, when a sequel was announced for the game it was natural to expect a next-level experience.

Unfortunately, Duke Nukem Forever became the running joke in the gaming industry for over a decade with the most lengthy development timeline of all time.  After multiple engine switches, complete redesigns, and years of development controversy finally, a decade and a half after it was conceptualized, the next adventure of the legendary alien ass kicker as on our doorsteps.  With so much time gone by though can the King’s old school gameplay aesthetics match up to the Call of Duties and Halos of modern gaming?

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Fashionably Late

Twelve years ago (much like the game’s actual timeline), Duke Nukem saved the world from an alien invasion, saving both our planet and our chicks in the process.  Regarded as a world hero from then on, Duke has passed the time as a successful entrepreneur, opening up a large casino in Las Vegas, a fast-food chain, and living off his celebrity status ever since.  After finally getting his hands on the game based on his exploits from twelve years ago though he learns that the aliens have returned and, despite the President’s intentions to negotiate, the invaders make their first target the very man who defeated them previously.

If that amazing plot description intrigues the story critic within you then allow me to be clear: in the realm of great story telling, Duke Nukem Forever lives in an entire state away.  Despite having the development time of five or six triple-A titles, 3D Realm’s swansong weaves a tale that would be an insult to even B-movie critics.  There is virtually nothing memorable about the game’s overall story as even this writer, just hours after finishing the game, could not find a truly memorable sequence.  All the player needs to know is this: there are aliens in your way and you need to kill every last one of them.

The appealing factor of Duke Nukem Forever shouldn’t be its story so much as its titular character.  After all, who wouldn’t want to play as the most sexist, crude, and awesome killing machine on the planet?  Duke’s character hasn’t changed in the decade and a half he’s existed and this is unfortunately where the game seems to be quite confused with itself.

The problem with Duke lies in the fact that he is simply a character that is stuck in 1998.  Back in the mid-90s the actors he was based on like Jean Claude Van Damme and Bruce Campbell were still at the height of their popularity and as such Duke was prime satirical material that both appealed to those wishing to play as a self-imposed awesome character and for those who wanted nothing more to live the life of a B-movie character.  With the decline of the actors he was based on and the rise of modern action stars like Daniel Craig and Matt Damon Duke is a character whose only real audience are those who remember the 90s action scene fondly.  The point of Duke’s character back then was to make fun of the entire action and B-movie genre but today he’s alone with little to no modern basis for which to be as entertaining as he was in 1996.  There is no depth to Duke Nukem: he’s just one big ego whose sole goals are to get laid and kill more aliens.  Today’s modern gaming scene demands a character more complex than that and for Duke to receive a visual update and not a character one is a failure.

That isn’t to say that Duke Nukem Forever isn’t an entertaining character at times.  Despite his temporal displacement Duke is still able to get in a good one-liner or two with references to Robocop, Halo, and even Inception.  Players can exploit Duke’s manly personality to hilarious results and you’ll definitely be entertained when being shrunk.  Aside from this however Duke remains the stupid, macho idiot he’s always been and if you can get past the fact that he’s long since overdue for retirement then you’ll certainly have fun with him.

Somebody Get This Man Some Gum!

If there’s one thing that can be said about the transition from Duke Nukem 3D to Forever it is that the gameplay is quite different.  No more keychard hunting, no more wide levels to explore, and certainly very little in the way of secrets and surprises to be had.  The Forever experience is unfortunately a watered-down corridor crawler with a handful of open environments and almost no exploration to be had.  If you are okay with this then I have to ask: why?  With so much time in development hell one would have assumed that Duke’s level design would allow for large environments to explore but when you actually get to these levels there simply isn’t anything to be found.

The only really worthwhile levels to check out are the ones in which Duke is shrunk down to action figure size and must do his best to find an expansion pad to get back to normal size.  One of these stages in particular had you doing some first person platforming around the flooded kitchen of a Duke Burger attempting to reach a circuit breaker to help a trapped employee who is in danger of being electrocuted.  As you make your way across shelves, tables, and hot grills with burgers in the process of being cooked several shrunk aliens will attack you and you must fight while taking cover behind bottles of pickles and mayonnaise.  The result is a bit fun but the shrinking levels seem overdone as a whole.  By the time I was shrunk for a third time I was growing heavily frustrated that the mechanic was being used again.

Combat in Duke’s latest outing, as far as the console version goes, is a tossup between decent and terrible depending on where you are in the game.  For the most part the fights you experience are decently challenging on harder difficulty settings but the AI pendulum at times swings heavily in their favor.  The main problem to be had is the game’s aim assist, or lack thereof.  Aiming at enemies more than ten meters away is a dodgy exercise at best unless you have the game’s sniper rifle and the lack of even minimal target tracking can lead to a painful experience.

Like all other shooters these days the game utilizes a health regeneration system ala Call of Duty except this time they call it Ego (and what an appropriate term it is).  This unfortunately turns the game into a cover-based shooter which is in direct confliction to the nature of Duke’s character.  Players can increase the size of their Ego bar by interacting with certain objects in the environment but it still doesn’t make up for the fact that Duke Nukem is not a hide-and-shoot character.

The largest problem in Duke Nukem Forever isn’t the combat so much as the lack of fresh material present.  There are no new weapons or enemies to be had: they are all virtually the same as they were in Duke Nukem 3D with minimal AI improvements.  Boss battles in the game are throwaway levels and you can easily tell when one is coming upon inspection of your new environment.  One particular boss battle against the Octoking is one of the most frustrating combat experiences I’ve had in years and until you nail down the strategy necessary to defeat it.  Boss battles shouldn’t be painful guys: they should be challenging but not overly irritating.  I don’t think 3D Realms got that message however.

Duke Nukem Forever does feature a multiplayer suite but, like many aspects of the game’s design, it is an uninspiring offering at best.  The usual assortment of deathmatch options are accompanied by one other mode: Capture the Babe.  Between the three modes however nothing is truly memorable.  Players can build their own mansions in the My Digs section as tributes to your accomplishments in the multiplayer but you should expect to return to your favorite shooter within days instead of weeks.

Subtlety Is Not His Trademark

Twelve years, four engines, and over two hundred developers later Duke’s newest title should logically be one of the best looking games  on the market.  It shouldn’t surprise you that it isn’t however.  Character models look outdated and NPCs in particular are both lackluster in appearance and animation.  Had Duke Nukem Forever been released in 2006 or 2007 it probably would have been one of the best looking games on the market but against today’s offerings of Crysis 2, Call of Duty, and Dead Space 2, the results are just disappointing.

One thing that the various development teams got right is the level of interactivity present in the game.  Few shooters focus on more than just the combat and Duke Nukem Forever shines in this department as there is an assortment of activities to do between stints of fighting such as drawing on dry erase boards, pinball machines, pool tables, and even an air hockey game.  The sad thing is that none of these activities in particular are well done and the pinball game’s physics are some of the worst I’ve seen in a long time.  Still, the effort is definitely there so the game gets points for that.

Wherein the interactivity is one of the few highlights of the game the single most deplorable aspect of the game’s design is the loading times present.  Designed like an old school shooter, levels are divided by loading screens and do not blend into one another well, if at all.  The loading times are simply some of the most abysmal to be had this generation, taking upwards of a full minute to load completely.  It seems that the game has to reload the entire level instead of just the section in which your checkpoint is at so, coupling this with a difficult section of the game, you are looking at an excessively frustrating experience at times.  Installing the game to your hard drive does little to abate this problem so it is best to go into the game with as much patience as possible.

Time for the King to Step Down

Duke Nukem Forever is many things to gamers.  It is a title of solace in an age of serious, hardcore shooters.  It is a game in which many have devoted large portions of the lives to completing.  It is proof that, even in the darkest, most heartless pit of development hell there is still light at the end of the tunnel.

What it is not is a good game.

The game’s singleplayer experience, which should be very entertaining, turns out fruitless and many pieces of its design and the multiplayer is simply a momentary try for most with little incentive for continued play.  It seems that the only truly worthwhile fruit to bear is that the rights and ownership of the brand belongs to Gearbox Software now and, if they studio can devote even a marginal amount of effort in comparison to most of the titles they’ve produced over the years then Duke’s future may well be a bright one.  For now though you should stick to Duke Nukem 3D for your womanizing, ass-kicking needs.