A classic case of 'try before you buy'. Make what you will of it.
With all the delays that Duke Nukem Forever underwent, it's difficult to really have an opinion of what to expect. Of course, you could argue that with all the time it spent in development, the game could be fantastic, and extremely polished, i.e. the developers put all their time and effort constantly improving the game more and more to reach gaming perfection. On the other hand, all the delays and changes in developers could lead to lots of ideas and work from one developer being abandoned or remade by another, resulting in a sloppy, unfinished or behind the times finished product. I think you can see what i'm getting at.
Before I get into the gameplay itself, here's just a brief summary on just what exactly is going on with the game, plot-wise. Well first of all you can forget about any Duke game released between Duke Nukem 3D and Duke Nukem Forever because this game is a direct sequel to the former. That also means that it's still a first person shooter, so any of those third person-based Duke titles are irrelevant. The game takes place soon after the events found in DN3D. Essentially, Duke has gained massive fame and popularity for saving Earth from the previous alien invasion and is basically just livin' it up in Vegas considering his massive wealth. Predictably though, aliens invade once again and abduct and impregnate Earth's women much like in DN3D. So it's a pretty generic, predictable setting really, but you have to remember that this is Duke Nukem, quite possibly the least intelligent gaming franchise ever, therefore the plot doesn't matter to me. Anyone who approaches the game expecting a Metal Gear Solid-esque plot obviously hasn't ever heard of or seen any Duke Nukem game before.
Staying true to most of 3D Realms' concepts for Duke Nukem Forever, final developers Gearbox Software have released a seemingly dated game, sadly. To be honest though, I really didn't know what to expect with the game. I kinda guessed that the gameplay would mostly resemble that of DN3D's, only it would be fueled by modern technology. Of course, I also expected all the crude humour and attitude of Duke himself to be in place too. In a way, this is all true, and that's not always a bad thing.
Very occasionally an old-school FPS hits the market and is actually a breath of fresh air to play when compared to all the run-of-the-mill shooters out there today with about a hundred primary and secondary objectives, weapons with God knows how many alternative firing options and irritating squad commands that are more complicated than sitting an all-trigonometry exam. Doom 3, Serious Sam, Painkiller...these were all great shooters despite the overall simplistic gameplay. Well there's no denying that DNF's shooting is simplistic, but there's a few aspects that Gearbox threw in here and there to the game that generally seem to take ideas from your typical FPS of the modern world. And the sad thing is that they often don't help the gameplay.
First of all, the two-weapon rule is in place in DNF. The game that popularised this FPS phenomenon was of course, Halo. Carrying two guns at a time does work well depending on whatever game it is that you're playing, and provided the weapons in the game are all balanced, it makes the game far more tactical because it makes you think which two guns would suit the current situation the most. While I generally don't have a problem with any of DNF's arsenal, the trouble is that it doesn't really matter which weapon you use for the most part. Other than using explosives against bosses, all the weapons are fairly competent for whatever situation you are stuck in; this means you'll pick up any weapon you can find and use it until you run out of ammo, and then replace it with another.
As you can probably tell, this renders the whole two-weapon rule pointless, as there is little strategy required. It's not like it drags the game down as such, as most of the weapons in the entire game are usually found from dead enemies, and you can normally find each gun at least once on most levels after some time, it just felt unnecessary. Gearbox probably threw this whole aspect of the gameplay in just to give the game a bit more of a modern edge, which is fair enough, but to me, it feels like that's the only reason why it's there.
The other relatively modern feature is that instead of having traditional health packs to heal yourself, you now have 'Ego', which stands as your health bar instead. All it is, is a regenerating health bar. Of course, it only regenerates if you've taken damage and held off taking another hit for a short period. We've seen this a million times in shooters these days, but the there's a twist with DNF - your Ego bar increases if you interact with certain objects scattered throughout the levels. At first I thought this whole system was a waste of time, but I soon grew to live with it and at least it encourages you to interact with the game world.
Speaking of interactivity, the list is HUGE for objects available to play around with in the game. Literally, HUGE. You could find yourself doing anything from drawing on white boards (this was actually a very neat little idea), playing pool, lifting weights, playing with remote control cars, spinning chairs, getting drinks from vending machines (and drinking them), smoking cigars and, er, urinating in urinals. And believe me, all this is just a fraction of what DNF has to offer. A lot of people may complain that all this is just ludicrous, and a way of taking the player's mind off the rest of the game, but I loved this aspect of the game. Not only does it give a point to the whole Ego business, but it's also a throwback and reminder of DN3D's interactivity, which was one of it's groundbreaking features back in the day. Of course, interactivity with the surrounding world in an FPS is nothing new these days, but DNF takes it way further than what you'd expect, and it's a just a nice thing to have in general and adds to the game's humour.
Ah, humour. Duke Nukem himself is and always will be renowned for his sense of humour. Sadly, DNF is completely hit and miss in this respect. A lot of the jokes are stale, or are just re-hashes of jokes found in previous Duke titles. Duke's one-liners when blowing away aliens are always cool, but a lot of the other content in the comedy department was just flat-out lame. Really, the game was genuinely funny at times, and tried too hard at others. The amount of pop-culture references throughout the game is through the roof. Of course it's crude, rude and pretty childish too, but this is Duke Nukem. The nudity in the game isn't very often, but when it is there, it's a bit awkward simply because it's a friggin' game. But you expected a little nudity anyway right?
I think it's safe to say that for the most part, the attitude and overall 'feel' of Duke has survived. To me, DNF does feel like a Duke title, and that of course, is a good thing. Duke is once again voiced by John St.John, who is basically flawless in this role. If I had to give the game's trademark attitude a rating, it's a positive one overall. Like I said, sometimes DNF's humour did fall flat on it's face, but at the end of the day it's kind of what I was expecting anyhow. If you take your games seriously, DNF won't come across as funny, nor if you simply don't enjoy rude humour. But if you are a Duke fan anyway, then I see no reason what's not to like in this department.
Another definite plus in DNF is that Gearbox retained the atmosphere of the series is the artistic direction of the game's enemies. In short: the alien invasion looks good. Many of the classic enemies, the Pig Cops, Enforcers, Octabrains etc, all return. The whole point of them is to not take them seriously as you can probably imagine. They do capture the spirit of their original counterparts, and while they obviously have changed a little over time (for instance, pig cops can be armed with a number of different weapons, or nothing at all), they still fit in with the game's atmosphere perfectly, and they look cool too. There are a couple of new, interesting enemies here and there too, such as Impregnators which basically serve as the Slimer's replacement from DN3D. They aren't exactly very smart, but you knew that anyway right?
Bosses seem to play a large role in DNF. Whether this a good thing is up to you. I found the bosses to be hit and miss; some where fun while others were just plain annoying and made me want to punch a hole through my monitor. The final boss from DN3D is actually the first monster you'll fight, and the level is basically set as a remake of the infamous stadium in DN3D (the first level is actually Duke playing as himself in a game...if that makes any sense)(also, if you played the DNF demo, you'll know exactly what i'm talking about...hopefully). This was a nice, unique idea in my opinion. Obviously i'm not going to give away every boss in stock for you, but lets just say that there are more of them than you might think, which is either good or bad depending on what you like.
Like I said earlier on, the weapons in the game are cool, but they don't really work all that well with the 2-weapon rule. Many of the old favourites, such as the Pistol, Shotgun, chaingun cannon (now labelled 'Ripper'), RPG, Shrinker, Freeze Ray, Devastator, Pipe Bombs and Laser Tripmines are still here, and they still look similar to what they were like originally, which is great. They generally feel pretty good to shoot too, particularly the Shotgun, which is especially nice for blowing off a Pig Cop's head. There are also a few odd alien weapons such as the Railgun, which is essentially just a sniper rifle, and the Enforcer and Laser guns, but these are pretty standard, dull projectile-based guns that you probably won't use an awful lot unless you can't find anything else. As I said though, they all shoot nicely and this makes the combat rather fun, which is a massively important factor of the game. Another nice feature was the 'Execute' option; all this is, is the ability to finish off an enemy by melee'ing them in the face (punching their heads off etc), and it just adds to the overall attitude of the game. I was disappointed that the 'Mighty Foot' from DN3D was scrapped for DNF though, but this is just a minor complaint really.
There's also a few power-ups at your disposal. Jetpacks and Holodukes make a triumphant return (the Jetpack is self-explanatory, but for those of you who don't know what the Holoduke is, well essentially it's a hologram of Duke himself activated to distract enemies). Steroids also return, and they not only temporarily speed you up, they also turn Duke into a lean, mean punching machine. Sadly, I found myself rarely using Steroids other than in the early stages of the game because let's face it, the further you get through the game, the more enemies. And this means you WON'T want to be using your fists. You can chug cans of beer, making you more resistant to damage. Duke appears to be something of a lightweight though, because downing a beer blurs his vision quite considerably, which is the price you pay for being tougher. Even though these additions do come across as useless every now and then whilst playing the game, they're at least fun to use.
The use of vehicles is another thing worth mentioning. I dunno why, but it didn't surprise me that the developers wanted to include driving elements to the game. The first one includes driving an RC car in a casino when shrunk by the enemy. This was fun at first, and did make for a change of pace, but dragged on after a while and the controls are a bit twitchy too. The second involves Duke cruising through the rocky desert in his 'Mighty Foot' monster truck. No-doubt you've probably read numerous reviews slating this part of the game, but I for one actually really enjoyed it. Sure, you have to stop and look for fuel three times in the journey, but this again makes for a change of pace as it returns to on-foot shooting.
To be honest, there's quite a lot of other small gameplay details and it would take me a long time to list all of them. Playing as shrunken Duke happens a few times in the game, and this was actually something that played a minor role in DN3D too. However, in DNF, it's actually quite prominent. It's cool to be climbing shelves, running across pool tables and hear Duke throw insults at aliens in a sort of chipmunk-like voice, but at the same time I think it was overdone and happens just a little too many times within the story, i.e. it gets old the second time round. It was fun at first but it didn't need to be there as many times as it was. It just seems like Gearbox were desperate to make DNF feature plenty of variety in gameplay, which it does to an extent, but there is such thing as going too far. Lets not forget that DNF is a first person shooter after all.
The level design is hit and miss as some levels were thoroughly enjoyable while others I just wanted to get through as fast as possible. The game is set in America as you can already guess. Most of the game takes place in Vegas and the Hoover Dam which was a nice setting, considering it was L.A. in the first chapter of DN3D. The level design isn't particularly great though. Unfortunately, other than the 'Mighty Foot' driving sections, the levels are pretty small for the most part, and they feel a bit rushed in places. The Vegas casino was split into far too many levels, and should more of them should've been blended into one larger level. The later levels seemed to be a bit longer, though they were still noticeably shorter than your average FPS. It's not like the game 'short' as such - it took me just over seven hours to complete, which is pretty standard with most shooters these days, it's just the levels are cut up into too many parts.
There's a few annoyances within the levels, namely too many turret sections (you know the drill - mowing down endless spawning enemies with a mounted gun - we've seen this in just about every shooter), but these aren't massive complaints. I enjoyed the single-player game as a whole, but as you can tell from my endless banter, the game design is far from perfect, and there's a lot of room for improvement overall.
Duke Nukem Forever is powered by the Unreal Engine 3 (UE3), and it looks like, well, a UE3-powered game. The only problem is that the levels aren't very exciting from an artistic point of view, which brings the visuals down unfortunately. Just about every review i've read of DNF has moaned about the game's graphics, but if you ask me, they get the job done just fine...it's just the dull design of the game and poor animations that lets them down, not the textures and whatnot.
Speaking of animations, human characters are quite poorly optimised. They all seem to have blank, emotionless expressions on their faces, like they have no reaction to the alien invasion that's wiping everybody out. They must really hate their lives! Character movement of civilians and fellow EDF troops aren't terrible I suppose, but they are a little clunky and in definite need of improvement. On the plus side, I did explain earlier that the enemy design is great and the same applies for the visuals and animations, so it's not all bad on this front. A lot of people have complained about the load times and performance of the game, but i've only played the PC version, and if you ask me it's just fine on that platform. The load times are relatively quick on my PC anyway, and I don't really have any complaints other than the fact that there's a lot of them due to the levels being short. Of course, I have no opinion on the Xbox 360 or PS3 versions because I haven't played them but i've read that they pale in comparison to the PC performance and graphics-wise.
I won't lie when I say that the game is a little behind-the-times in terms of visuals. However, I don't think it's nearly as dated as some people are claiming. It's just nothing spectacular, even on maxed out video settings and higher resolutions, and anyone who approaches this game for the first time must keep this in mind. DON'T expect the game to look like Crysis. It should also be noted that the PC version runs through Steam, so if you have a problem with that then get over it, because you're stuck either way.
There are a few multiplayer modes and extras in stock for you. The multiplayer is certainly some fast-paced fun but predictable at the same time. It's good, but nothing ground-breaking. All you get are your typical deathmatches and capture the flag modes, which is pretty standard amongst any shooter these days. The interesting arsenal of weapons in the game and power ups (which i listed earlier) do make for some cool online battles though. Also, the whole 'Ego' health system and two-weapon rule seem to work a bit better online than they do in the campaign. The maps aren't all that great though as they are mostly just edited multiplayer versions of levels found in the single-player. It feels as though Gearbox threw together a simple multiplayer without really giving it any thought despite the great potential that DNF has. Still, I have been enjoying playing the game online for the most part.
At the end of the day, the big question is 'should I buy Duke Nukem Forever?'. Well first of all i'd like to say that the game is certainly a case of 'try before you buy', and I really do mean it because opinions towards the game are so divided it's difficult to know who to go by if you haven't played the game yet. It certainly isn't worth new-game price, so don't go wasting your hard-earned or not so hard-earned cash on a copy of the game asking for the price of a brand new game. Duke Nukem Forever is flawed. It is dated. It is a mixed bag. But it is Duke Nukem, and you can't deny that. All I can say is that I had fun with it, but there are a fair few negatives to be had along the way. It's not great. It's not even really that good. But it did provide me with some mindless, simple fun. It's Duke Nukem Forever - make what you will of it.