So Duke Nukem has finally returned after a 13 year absence from gaming in the long awaited Duke Nukem Forever. After finally releasing in the shops, it was time to kick ass but as I got into the game, I had very little positive things to say about the game but after playing Duke Nukem Forever, there was a sense of nostalgia but all for the wrong reasons.
Problems with the game include clunky controls which give the impression that I am playing an FPS from over a decade ago and with this generation’s gaming library known for the amount of critically acclaimed shooters released, Duke Nukem Forever’s controls doesn’t do Duke or the player any favours. Graphics are not impressive either, the visuals compared to today’s games are weak, the game looks upscaled to HD for your HDTV’s sake but it is apparent with the animation, level design and overall presentation of Duke Nukem Forever shows it’s age. For a game that is retailing for £39.99, I feel so far that it hasn’t been worth the expenditure.
The main thing that royally angers me about Duke Nukem Forever is the Ego health bar and the weapon system. Duke Nukem 3D was old school cool! You had tons of awesome weapons at your disposal allowing you to carry them all at once and you can change your weapon with a press of a key. If you lost health, you’d hunt for health packs to ensure you weren’t going to be killed. Forever sadly goes into Halo territory [lame] which limits Duke to carrying two weapons at once, also Duke has regenerative health which leaves Duke in some messed up space time continuum bollocks gracing the game with poor controls and Halo game play mechanics.
Just to clarify, I liked shooters when you had no regenerating health, this meant you had no room to piss around with wasting ammo and allowed you to use your head before making unwise decisions which would inevitably lead you to your death. If you wanted health back, you had to find health packs but in recent times, everyone in first person shooter land clearly applied for the Weapon X program in Canada and acquired regenerative health just like everybody’s favourite mutant, Wolverine.
One final criticism for Duke’s return is the loading times. They are FOREVER or they seem like it to me. Why the loading times are this long are beyond my knowledge! The loading times should be shorter on PS3 considering you sacrifice Hard Drive space in order to play this game. 30 to 45 seconds of waiting times after completing part of a level or unfortunately dying can be especially frustrating or if you wish to be blunt, takes the piss. The last game I recall that had painful loading screens was the 2006 release of Sonic the Hedgehog, this game seriously took loading times to a new level and like Forever it technically wasn’t good.
I hope the game’s comedy value does a good job of preventing me from turning it off. Gearbox when they bought the rights to Duke Nukem should have scrapped the game and started fresh, they could have joked about the game being delayed and pissed off more people (the recent delay video was funny) and brought back Duke Nukem in style. On the plus side, I got a free Keyring.
