Journal RogueyWon's Journal: Review: Duke Nukem Forever 4
At 23:00 on Thursday 9 June - 12 years late and 1 hour early, my pre-order copy of Duke Nukem Forever unlocked on my Steam account. My expectations for the game had already been lowered by the demo, so I had a feeling when I first started the game up that it wasn't going to be stunningly good. However, after spending a sizeable chunk of my life knowing that this game would be released "when it's done", after seeing all hope apparently lost with the collapse of 3D Realms and after the stunning last-minute reprieve granted at the hands of Gearbox, there was no way on Earth that I wasn't going to play the game through. By Saturday evening, I'd finished it - and now I thought I'd share my views. For once, I'll start with some scores:
Graphics - 3/10
Sound - 6/10
Gameplay Longevity - 3/10
Overall (not an average) - 3/10
Those are not good scores. This is not a good game.
Genuinely bad commercial games are rare these days. Spiralling development costs means that every middling-to-major release has a lot riding on it, so a lot more effort tends to go into quality assurance and playtesting than was the case in the past. As such, even the games which underwhelm and disappoint tend not to be actually bad. Look at Homefront - a game which managed only mediocre reviews and was widely considered a waste of potential. If you showed Homefront to somebody who hadn't seen a game in 5 years, they'd probably be very impressed. It's only because the competition had come so much further in the mean-time that Homefront was regarded as a disappointment.
However, the occasional genuinely bad game does manage to still sneak out. I'd count Lair - the PS3 flight-action game with the famously unplayable controls - as one example. More controversially, I'd count Mario Kart Wii, with its utter destruction of anything that might possibly be considered "fun" from the series's heritage in the name of cramming more racers and more weapons onto the track, as another example. But these games don't come along often - you don't always see one in any given year. With the release of Duke Nukem Forever, we've now seen two such games in 2011 before the year is even half done (Hyperdimension Neptunia being the other).
The first thing that you'll notice when you start playing the singleplayer campaign is that the game is ugly. Environments are spartan and lacking in detail, looking for all the world like an Xbox 360 launch title - or even a PC port of a late-cycle Xbox game. Worse still, there's a particularly crude and intrusive blur-filter applied over objects in the middle difference (even with all graphics settings maxed) which verges on the headache-inducing after a while. PC players can take some comfort in the thought that they are at least playing the best version; early reviews of the console versions are complaining about long loading times, poor framerates and screen-tearing, none of which I encountered on my PC (a two and a half year old Core i7 quad 2.66ghz, with 6 gigs of RAM and an Nvidia 290-series graphics card, which struggles a bit with Bulletstorm on maxed settings).
If the ugliness were purely technical in nature, that could be written off as an ultimately forgivable consequence of the game's development time; after all, we could have understood why Gearbox wouldn't have wanted to start porting the game to yet another new engine. Unfortunately, the ugliness is as much about design as it is about technology. Levels are, for the most part, bland and drab. Duke Nukem 3d was known for its vibrant, colourful sections, but aside from a few short sequences early in the game, you can expect to spend most of your time in Duke Nukem Forever running down brown or grey corridors - periodically made even more tiresome by the frequent necessity to make use of what must surely be the worst ever implementation of night vision in a game. Enemies are similarly unimpressive, being lacklustre visual updates of the old Duke Nukem 3d enemies, but with none of their predecessors charm or character. A few boss fights feature slightly better visual design and do provide a couple of rare high-points. Human character models, unfortunately, are particularly unconvincing, both in terms of their design and their animation.
Things are somewhat better on the sound side. The game has an effective soundtrack, which makes good and varied use of Duke's iconic theme music. This is supported by a hammy but effective voice-track, with voice acting that ranges from the adequate to the quite good. Most of the weapons sound reasonably convincing, with the shotgun sounds adding a real feel of heft to the weapon.
There's quite a lot of dialogue in the game, which is something of a mixed blessing. As noted above, the voice cast are enthusiastic, but it's clear that they have their work cut out in livening up a dull and uninspired script. Duke's famous one-liners haven't aged particularly well, to put it mildly. Back in the days of Duke Nukem 3d, Duke's occasional comments were fairly few and far between. As such, they were usually unexpected when they arrived - and timing is a huge part of comedy. In Duke Nukem Forever, Duke has a severe case of verbal diarrhea; he has a repetoire of 3 or 4 "witty" comments he makes after the player kills an enemy which he repeats over and over and over again. He makes an incredible number of very, very stupid comments (not even jokes, really) about willies and poo, most of which would embarrass a 12 year old. And he makes the occasional joking reference to other games - which would be fine, if the other games in question weren't all so much better than Duke Nukem Forever that it is invariably the Duke himself who ends up with egg on his face.
Which leads into the biggest problem with Duke Nukem Forever - the gameplay. And when a game's biggest problem is its gameplay, that's not a happy situation to be in. Duke Nukem Forever's problem is that its development span means that it incorporates gameplay concepts from over a decade of gaming history - and that in each case, it seems to choose the worst and most irritating aspects to incorporate.
Think back to the fpses of DUke Nukem 3d's generation. What were the best aspects? The open level design, which required players to explore and think. The ability to hold as many weapons as you could find, which meant that the player had to think about how to manage the ammunition for all of those different weapons and actively choose the right weapon for each fight. The pacing, which allowed for "slow" sections as an antidote to the all-guns-blazing bits, meaning that games of this era often felt more complicated and nuanced than their successors. And what were the worst aspects? The all-too-frequent bad level design which gave the player absolutely no idea about where to go next. The feeling that the game-world wasn't particularly interactive. Dumb-as-bricks enemies. The occasional platforming sections. The often complete absence of any kind of narrative to drive the game forward. All of the latter complaints show up in Duke Nukem Forever, while all of the former strengths are conspicuous by their absence.
Now think about modern fpses. What are their best aspects? The way they use modern technology to create atmospheric, highly scripted set-pieces. The clever cover mechanics they've developed to help combat look and feel more realistic. The way they manage to incorporate plot sequences seemlessly into the gameplay. And what are the worst trends in modern fps games? The extreme linearity which forces players down a single, tightly defined route, removing any kind of freedom. Two-weapon-only systems that mean that you know that if you find a rocket launcher, you're going to be fighting tanks within the next couple of minutes, and if you find a sniper rifle, you're going to have a sniper nest right next to you. The "relentless" pacing which means that all of the battles just end up blending into each other in the player's mind. The tedious vehicle and turret sequences which feel awkward and were clearly included just to tick some box on a marketing checklist. Again, all of the weaknesses show up in Duke Nukem Forever, with all of the strengths absent.
So when Duke cracks a joke about not needing a suit of Halo power armour, it's hard not to want to shout "But you only carry 2 weapons and have recharging health, so how are you any different"? Jokes about hating Valve puzzles are undermined by the fact that they are made while the player is being made to solve tepid puzzles that, in all likelihood, Valve would have been far too embarrassed to have included in one of their games. And oh god the platforming sections. Don't make me write about those. It's just too painful.
Again, one or two of the boss fights (though certainly not all of them) provide a slight high-point. There are a couple of clever bosses in there (an underwater boss near the end of the game stands out) which both look impressive and play well. These are just a few small points of consolation against a pretty dismal backdrop, however.
In terms of longevity, the game is not great. The campaign is about 7 hours long, which is at least longer than some of its competitors (yes, Modern Warfare 2 and Homefront, I'm looking at you). However, I found it so actively unpleasant to play in places that there's almost no chance I'll ever replay it. The multiplayer feels dated and my (admittedly brief) experiences with it have shown up poor map design and balance. I doubt there will be many people playing it in a month's time.
In conclusion, while almost nobody will have been expecting Duke Nukem Forever to live up to the kind of expectations that a 14 year development cycle creates, I think we can be forgiven for feeling deeply disappointed by what was put out. This is a game that sacrifices all of Duke Nukem 3d's charm in exchange for some dull, over-used modern fps conventions, without importing the more impressive aspects of the modern fps experience. I suspect a lot of people - like me - will feel compelled to play the thing through just because of its place in gaming lore. Don't let me stop you - but prepare to be disappointed.
Graphics - 3/10
Sound - 6/10
Gameplay Longevity - 3/10
Overall (not an average) - 3/10
Those are not good scores. This is not a good game.
Genuinely bad commercial games are rare these days. Spiralling development costs means that every middling-to-major release has a lot riding on it, so a lot more effort tends to go into quality assurance and playtesting than was the case in the past. As such, even the games which underwhelm and disappoint tend not to be actually bad. Look at Homefront - a game which managed only mediocre reviews and was widely considered a waste of potential. If you showed Homefront to somebody who hadn't seen a game in 5 years, they'd probably be very impressed. It's only because the competition had come so much further in the mean-time that Homefront was regarded as a disappointment.
However, the occasional genuinely bad game does manage to still sneak out. I'd count Lair - the PS3 flight-action game with the famously unplayable controls - as one example. More controversially, I'd count Mario Kart Wii, with its utter destruction of anything that might possibly be considered "fun" from the series's heritage in the name of cramming more racers and more weapons onto the track, as another example. But these games don't come along often - you don't always see one in any given year. With the release of Duke Nukem Forever, we've now seen two such games in 2011 before the year is even half done (Hyperdimension Neptunia being the other).
The first thing that you'll notice when you start playing the singleplayer campaign is that the game is ugly. Environments are spartan and lacking in detail, looking for all the world like an Xbox 360 launch title - or even a PC port of a late-cycle Xbox game. Worse still, there's a particularly crude and intrusive blur-filter applied over objects in the middle difference (even with all graphics settings maxed) which verges on the headache-inducing after a while. PC players can take some comfort in the thought that they are at least playing the best version; early reviews of the console versions are complaining about long loading times, poor framerates and screen-tearing, none of which I encountered on my PC (a two and a half year old Core i7 quad 2.66ghz, with 6 gigs of RAM and an Nvidia 290-series graphics card, which struggles a bit with Bulletstorm on maxed settings).
If the ugliness were purely technical in nature, that could be written off as an ultimately forgivable consequence of the game's development time; after all, we could have understood why Gearbox wouldn't have wanted to start porting the game to yet another new engine. Unfortunately, the ugliness is as much about design as it is about technology. Levels are, for the most part, bland and drab. Duke Nukem 3d was known for its vibrant, colourful sections, but aside from a few short sequences early in the game, you can expect to spend most of your time in Duke Nukem Forever running down brown or grey corridors - periodically made even more tiresome by the frequent necessity to make use of what must surely be the worst ever implementation of night vision in a game. Enemies are similarly unimpressive, being lacklustre visual updates of the old Duke Nukem 3d enemies, but with none of their predecessors charm or character. A few boss fights feature slightly better visual design and do provide a couple of rare high-points. Human character models, unfortunately, are particularly unconvincing, both in terms of their design and their animation.
Things are somewhat better on the sound side. The game has an effective soundtrack, which makes good and varied use of Duke's iconic theme music. This is supported by a hammy but effective voice-track, with voice acting that ranges from the adequate to the quite good. Most of the weapons sound reasonably convincing, with the shotgun sounds adding a real feel of heft to the weapon.
There's quite a lot of dialogue in the game, which is something of a mixed blessing. As noted above, the voice cast are enthusiastic, but it's clear that they have their work cut out in livening up a dull and uninspired script. Duke's famous one-liners haven't aged particularly well, to put it mildly. Back in the days of Duke Nukem 3d, Duke's occasional comments were fairly few and far between. As such, they were usually unexpected when they arrived - and timing is a huge part of comedy. In Duke Nukem Forever, Duke has a severe case of verbal diarrhea; he has a repetoire of 3 or 4 "witty" comments he makes after the player kills an enemy which he repeats over and over and over again. He makes an incredible number of very, very stupid comments (not even jokes, really) about willies and poo, most of which would embarrass a 12 year old. And he makes the occasional joking reference to other games - which would be fine, if the other games in question weren't all so much better than Duke Nukem Forever that it is invariably the Duke himself who ends up with egg on his face.
Which leads into the biggest problem with Duke Nukem Forever - the gameplay. And when a game's biggest problem is its gameplay, that's not a happy situation to be in. Duke Nukem Forever's problem is that its development span means that it incorporates gameplay concepts from over a decade of gaming history - and that in each case, it seems to choose the worst and most irritating aspects to incorporate.
Think back to the fpses of DUke Nukem 3d's generation. What were the best aspects? The open level design, which required players to explore and think. The ability to hold as many weapons as you could find, which meant that the player had to think about how to manage the ammunition for all of those different weapons and actively choose the right weapon for each fight. The pacing, which allowed for "slow" sections as an antidote to the all-guns-blazing bits, meaning that games of this era often felt more complicated and nuanced than their successors. And what were the worst aspects? The all-too-frequent bad level design which gave the player absolutely no idea about where to go next. The feeling that the game-world wasn't particularly interactive. Dumb-as-bricks enemies. The occasional platforming sections. The often complete absence of any kind of narrative to drive the game forward. All of the latter complaints show up in Duke Nukem Forever, while all of the former strengths are conspicuous by their absence.
Now think about modern fpses. What are their best aspects? The way they use modern technology to create atmospheric, highly scripted set-pieces. The clever cover mechanics they've developed to help combat look and feel more realistic. The way they manage to incorporate plot sequences seemlessly into the gameplay. And what are the worst trends in modern fps games? The extreme linearity which forces players down a single, tightly defined route, removing any kind of freedom. Two-weapon-only systems that mean that you know that if you find a rocket launcher, you're going to be fighting tanks within the next couple of minutes, and if you find a sniper rifle, you're going to have a sniper nest right next to you. The "relentless" pacing which means that all of the battles just end up blending into each other in the player's mind. The tedious vehicle and turret sequences which feel awkward and were clearly included just to tick some box on a marketing checklist. Again, all of the weaknesses show up in Duke Nukem Forever, with all of the strengths absent.
So when Duke cracks a joke about not needing a suit of Halo power armour, it's hard not to want to shout "But you only carry 2 weapons and have recharging health, so how are you any different"? Jokes about hating Valve puzzles are undermined by the fact that they are made while the player is being made to solve tepid puzzles that, in all likelihood, Valve would have been far too embarrassed to have included in one of their games. And oh god the platforming sections. Don't make me write about those. It's just too painful.
Again, one or two of the boss fights (though certainly not all of them) provide a slight high-point. There are a couple of clever bosses in there (an underwater boss near the end of the game stands out) which both look impressive and play well. These are just a few small points of consolation against a pretty dismal backdrop, however.
In terms of longevity, the game is not great. The campaign is about 7 hours long, which is at least longer than some of its competitors (yes, Modern Warfare 2 and Homefront, I'm looking at you). However, I found it so actively unpleasant to play in places that there's almost no chance I'll ever replay it. The multiplayer feels dated and my (admittedly brief) experiences with it have shown up poor map design and balance. I doubt there will be many people playing it in a month's time.
In conclusion, while almost nobody will have been expecting Duke Nukem Forever to live up to the kind of expectations that a 14 year development cycle creates, I think we can be forgiven for feeling deeply disappointed by what was put out. This is a game that sacrifices all of Duke Nukem 3d's charm in exchange for some dull, over-used modern fps conventions, without importing the more impressive aspects of the modern fps experience. I suspect a lot of people - like me - will feel compelled to play the thing through just because of its place in gaming lore. Don't let me stop you - but prepare to be disappointed.
Thanks. (Score:1)
I appreciate your reviews, RogueyWon (Score:2)
Thanks again for another thoughtful and first-rate review. Your reviews are as good as any I've seen on the Internet and I always look forward to your opinions on games and gaming.
I agree with your assessment of Duke Nukem Forever. It could have been so much better. There appears to have been a few people with some good ideas on the project, but so many corners were cut, so many poor decisions were made, so much sloppy "get it out no matter what" execution ruined the whole thing.
Plus, there's definitely
Susprised and disappointed at DNF (Score:2)
Good review. I was actually surprised that DN3D turned out to be a lousy game. 3D Realms' last long-time vaporware project, Prey, was an excellent game.
It's really too bad that they ruined the humor of the game, from everything I've been reading. Good humor could have made an otherwise unremarkable game enjoyable enough to play through, but all the reviews I've read call it unfunny and deeply offensive - and not South Park style intentional, clever hyper-offense that is a joke in itself, but offensive in an
Re: (Score:2)
Of course in my first paragraph, by DN3D I meant DNF.