Ars Technica Review Slams Duke Nukem Forever

Kethinov writes "Ars Technica writes one of their most negative reviews of a game in a long time, referring to Duke Nukem Forever as 'barely playable' and 'one of the worst games from a major studio in quite some time. The jokes border on hateful. The graphics are a blurry mess. The shooting is unsatisfying.' Their verdict? Skip this one."

hmmmm......

[robthebloke]

That game map in the review is indeed damning...

the WTF videos

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6MjzgTZriw [youtube.com]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5Yngipvz6M [youtube.com]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q86vWgaLuwE [youtube.com]

watch in that order, and you will see about a first couple of hours of gameplay along with the reviewer's impressions. Saved me some time otherwise possibly spent downloading and trying the game myself (let alone buying it).

Re:duh?

[TheRaven64]

Yes. I was expecting something that was a pretty average game with a decent feeling of nostalgia. It sounds like this is an incredibly bad game that's superficially similar to Duke3D, but without any of the things that made the game fun at the time. This is quite sad, because Duke Nukem: Manhattan Project was a lot of fun. If you haven't played it, gog.com has it for $5.99 [gog.com]: I got it for $2.99 in their christmas sale and played it all the way to the end - lots of fun and exactly the kind of humour and gratuitous violence that I remember from duke3d, without the need for achievement for picking up your own shit (read the review: that's really in DNF).

Re:duh?

[Kelbear]

Well, I'm almost done with it.

For one, the console versions take an eternity to load by all accounts. The PC version loads each level in about 8-10 seconds (my pc is nothing special, it's been 3-4 years since I've changed any parts).

I'd give it a 6.5 or 7. The bit in the review about killing the rape victims was spot on. It wasn't funny at all. It went from crass to disgustingly callous.

But setting that aside, the ancient gameplay is strangely refreshing in comparison to the bevy of modern military shooters that have flooded the market. It's a game from a different era in gaming, for better or for worse. It takes you through a pretty entertaining variety of levels that military shooters will never attempt to do.

The combat feels good. The weapons feel good. The humor aside from the situation mentioned above, is the kind of low-brow humor you expect. The graphics are subpar as you might expect, but older gamers, particularly those who have played Duke3D, should have no problem with less-than-bleeding edge graphics. Haven't run into any bugs on the PC version.

I am definitely getting a strange sense of nostalgic value here, even though the Duke Nukem experience is fairly limited. It's really the old gameplay design that is driving the nostalgia. As I play, I think to myself, "Yeah, 13 years ago, this was what they thought would be awesome to have in a game." I particularly enjoy these throwback areas. There are some modern design conventions brought to the table, for better or for worse. 2-weapon limit, regenerating health, good checkpoint placement, player path indicators in level design (such as putting a bright lamppost next to the path out of the area).

Older players from the Duke3D era should get some enjoyment here. Newer players will probably just get tripped up on all the cludgy game design they haven't seen before, but older gamers still remember and have developed a thicker skin against. To be frank, the game is not good, but there is still fun to be had here.

Now that Gearbox has finally put this beast to rest, I wonder what they could do with the license starting from scratch?