Come Get Some.... The Duke Nukem: Forever 1st impressions thread

[EagleFan]

About 3 and a half hours until the midnight release of a game that we all thought was dead and buried long ago.

Will try some tonight but not sure how much time I will have. I will add my first thoughts before I go to bed though.

At this point I am getting it out of nostalgia. I am not expecting greatness and will be more than happy if the game is fun to play. If it keeps the edge that Duke brought us and is something that I could play against some friends on XBL and enjoy.

[Rizon]

I'm still waiting for this to be some type of major joke. I mean, it's been in development since the Atari 5200 and had twice as many release dates than Maxmium Football.

[mckerney]

Wot I Think: Duke Nukem Forever | Rock, Paper, Shotgun

I can well imagine It doesn’t realise how boring and annoying it is, and with a squint you can well imagine how it became so oblivious. The graphics are fine – hardly 2011 at the top of its game but neither are they are world away from today’s B and C-list fare, with the exception of the diabolical running and jumping animations. There are plenty of weapons, even if they’re mostly old ones, and plenty of enemies, even if they’re mostly old ones. The environments are ambitiously different – a city, a casino, underground slime tunnels, a desert… – but they’re bound to on-rails Find The Door quests peppered with occasional turret sections and visually spectacular but irritating and long-winded boss fights. It accomplishes the singular feat of being highly repetitious and ever-changing – again, clearly determined to entertain even if it’s perhaps lost sight of how to entertain.

“It’s fun!” is the defence I’ve most often heard. Perhaps it is: a torrent of ludicrousness, violence and garbled smut. I can see why people think it’s a much-needed nod back to a lost gaming ethos, and God knows I agree with any sentiment that so many action games these days take themselves and their painfully earnest, overbaked plots far too seriously, but that doesn’t make Duke Nukem Forever good enough.

It’s a misfire as a Duke Nukem project, it’s a misfire as a first-person shooter and it’s certainly a misfire as a legendary game we’ve waited over a decade for. I also agree with any sentiment that argues it was always impossible for any Duke Nukem Forever to live up to its hype and infamy, but that doesn’t give it a free pass to be quite so patchy and thin, to be forgiven for being this irritating, uneven mess.

It means well, I have no doubt of that. It wants to be loved, it wants to make us laugh, it wants to show us big things exploding, it wants us to not get bored, it wants us to have ‘fun.’

Unfortunately, too much of that depends on thinking the presence of Duke is in and of itself ‘fun’ enough. Take him (or at least the vague, fan-fiction-like concept of him, which is what we really have here) away, and what’s left? The trailers for about 30 different games from 1997-2011 stitched awkwardly together and made passingly interactive, with little rhyme or reason. Duke Nukem Forever’s legacy, then, becomes a strangely apt one – a raddled document of the last decade and a half of game design fads, trends and values. Duke Nukem Forever was always going to make history, and history it is.

[mckerney]

First impressions video. Don't watch if you don't want spoilers, first 40 minutes or so of gameplay (if you want to actually see Duke shoot something fast forward to about 20 minutes in)

[EagleFan]

My opinion is that I am enjoying it. It's what I expected. It's not going to be a game of the year candidate but is an entertaining nod to the original. I went in expecting that and anyone that didn't is a fool (looking at rock, paper, shotgun guy). No game that has been this long in the waiting is going to reach expectations.

There have been a couple laugh inducing moments, and a couple smile inducing ones.

[jeff061]

After all the negative reviews I successfully returned it via Steam, was surprised that was so easy to accomplish.

I could see myself playing it for nostalgia's sake, but I'm not rewarding anyone with $45-$50 of my money for nostalgia alone.

[mckerney]

I was considering preoeer it before I played the demo but I really did not enjoy the game. I wasn't even expecting a great game, just hoping for a fun action packed shooter. Instead I thought it was a fairly boring game with dodgy mouse controls. I might buy it out of curiosity and nostalgia when it hits $5, though the nostalgic gameplay I was hoping for isn't there. There doesn't seem to be a whole lot of nostalgia in the gameplay (which is the one thing I was holding out hope for) department though with a limited arsenal, linear level design with a lack of secret areas to explore, regenerating health, and quick time events.

[EagleFan]

So far it's been a fun ride (considering the low expectations). It's like going to the movies to watch a B movie. If you don't go in expecting an oscar winner you end up enjoying it much better.

I will admit that if I actually went into this expecting to be blown away it would have seriously disappointed me.

With that said, I am getting entertainment out of it. It's fun looking for the different references which are made. Some to his earlier games (like the key card crack) and some other references (like a Princess Bride reference).

[Lathum]

A friend of mine wrote the strategy guide for this

[RainMaker]

I get the feeling it's a game that'd be worth picking up for $20 someday down the road, but not at full price.

[EagleFan]

There was one huge negative to last night. The hot chick that usually works the midnight releases was not there... maybe she was afraid of what the crowd would be like.

[Groundhog]

Out of curiosity, how many folks attended the midnight release?

I enjoyed the original Duke Nukem, but I have no real desire to give this title a shot.

[EagleFan]

There were probably about 20-30 people.

[dubb93]

I played the first half hour last night and it was a blast. Pretty much exactly what I expected. I still can't believe there were people out there that expected this to review well when compared to Halo 3, Black Ops, and Bad Company 2.