Duke was fun...

2011-06-30

Everybody agrees, Duke Nukem Forever got really bad reviews. You can basically put the reviews into two categories, those that complained that Duke Nukem Forever was not enough like Call of Duty and those that complained that Duke Nukem Forever was not enough like the original Duke Nukem 3D. But I tend to disagree and I think they kind of miss the point. Sure the game is not perfect, but the game was fun!

I assume that there are very few people that where able to keep their hopes high for the duration of all 12 years. For me, I basically assumed they kept the thing going as a publicity stunt at around 2000. But if you did then, definitely the game is a disappointment. The important part is that 12 years development are a management failure on the side of 3D Realms and has nothing to do with the final game. By the way, for those that dig deeper in the development history of Duke Nukem Forever, will learn the game we got today was approximately only 5 years in development, the previous attempt was scratched. It is still a bad score, but no as terrible as everybody said.

So if you take the game as it is, it is not that bad. You know what? I had a blast playing the game. Yes the graphics are not up to par, yes the puzzles are easy, yes the story is ridiculous, but the entire experience hit the right nerve.

This was a game where I really had fun playing. It wasn't deep, compelling, interesting or intriguing; it was fun. The speed of movement, the almost unlimited availability of ammo, the high number of relative simple enemies and the relative complex timed boss fights really where timed and executed in a manner that was just plain fun.

Many have said that games have evolved since the conception of Duke Nukem Forever and the game was just not up to par. But in my opinion those few things that followed the common "modern" trend rather deterred from the experience than added to it.

Seriously, since when where quick time events fun? Tapping repeatedly on the space bar to open a door or keying in a specific sequence to kill a boss where simply just annoying.

The fact that you can only carry two weapons, because your average console player is incapable to count to three, is just utter nonsense. Yes, I know that the official reason is that they did not find a way to map the weapons to the controller; but if I can select a weapon with the mouse wheel and specific with mouse button 4 (shock rifle) and 5 (rocket launcher) in Unreal Tournament; then maybe it is possible to map 5 weapons to a controller with 11 keys and two analog sticks. You know what, I do not want to make a guess of what is to come next and chose my weapon, I want to have the choice in the encounter. This lead to the weird situation that the RPG just happens to lie around when the next boss was up to come.

With health regeneration, I was not sure if that actually made the game harder or simpler. Sure you could just hide behind cover, like a school girl and poof your ego was fully recharged. But on the other hand, in the original Duke Nukem 3D you could take a few rockets to the face and still run around. With Duke Nukem Forever if you pick up a direct rocket hit, you would better get your pink tutu out and look for handy cover. Interestingly on the other hand Duke can absorb tons of repeated splash damage as you can very well see in the first boss fight in the stadium.

I agree with most reviewers, Duke Nukem Forever was not a great game; but honestly, it was more fun that almost anything that came out in the last 5 years.