Duke Nukem Forever after 14 years of development has finally been released. The game that was considered folk lore to most in the gaming community, has changed games engine more often than the ones underwear and bankrupted its original developer. And from what I’ve played so far it’s been nothing but a disappointment. The only thing it has going for it, is it’s the sequel to the Duke Nukem 3D game.
So all the bad points; the engine is on the Unreal engine that bought us Unreal Tournament 2004 so its 7 years old and graphics have come a long way since then and when you are “admiring” yourself in the mirror, it doesn’t look much better then then the original.
Having purchased this on the Xbox360 I would like to know if the very poor interaction with the environment and control response is as bad. The interaction with the environment is a little moody, at times it works fine while at other times you have your crosshair in the same place and it won’t allow you to do the required action. This includes shooting. If the crosshair isn’t red for the enemy, it doesn’t matter if you are hitting it or not, you will not do any damage to it. So when the pigcop is jumping at you and normally you would stop that with a point blank shot form the shotgun, more often than not you will somehow miss the thing even with it taking up your entire screen.
Ok let’s end on a high note and say all the good things about Duke Nukem Forever. After 14 years the only thing that’s changed for Duke is he’s older, still the same the macho, misogynistic, wise-cracking character. He’s still spouting some great one liners throughout the entire game and having every girl fall to their knees just to please you.
The actual story is a nice change to the current games in the genre using a more classic first person shooter design; but with a game 14 years old what would you expect?
Can I recommend this game to anyone? Well sadly no; this is a game that anyone who has been a fan of Duke Nukem should play but with the new release price tag it’s just not worth it. So when you see it in the cheap bin at your local game store that’s when you should think about buying it. Till then here’s the trailer.