Duke Nukem Forever is out! No World Ending Reported!

[CeeKay]

I NEED to throw feces, NOW

well I did have Mexican food last night....

[Purge]

I NEED to throw feces, NOW

well I did have Mexican food last night....

Plus he's standing in your kitchen with a steel bucket and a latex jumpsuit...

wait for it... wait for it...


MENTAL IMAGE LOADED.



/flees

[CeeKay]

Duke Nukem History of a Legend - Chapter 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=DDHRJfl5ZOc

Duke goes 3D.  I imagine the bit about DNF will last 23 chapters.

also, Duke Nudem: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPx5owwRGVM&feature=player_embedded (SFW).  the site linked to is safe too, and even gives you a choice of FSW or NSFW.

[CeeKay]

OMG, the day you'd thought might never come has, um, come....

G.O.L.D.!

[Crusis]

Duke will be out before the rapture?!

[Blackjack]

Duke will be out before the rapture?!

No, but it will be out before Diablo 3! 

[Punisher]

Duke will be out before the rapture?!

I think this is why the rapture was delayed from Saturday..... Even God didn't believe this would happen...

[Lord Percy]

Posting on epic thread page.

[Appollo]

Will there be a seismic shift in the known universe if it is released

[CeeKay]

EVGA is offering Duke's Fully Loaded Package.  I was tempted, but it's onyl got the 1 gig 560 and not the 2 gig one.

[TiLT]

Well this sure snuck up on me. I just logged into Steam and was greeted by a "Duke Nukem is now available!" message. How typical to not be prepared for launch day after all these years.

Bought the damn thing and have started downloading it. I don't care about reviews. Even if it's a shitty game, I just have to play it because of its history.

[CeeKay]

history smistory, the demo sucked so I can wait for a sale.

[CeeKay]

Total Biscuit asks 'WTF is Duke Nukem Forever?': http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=y5Yngipvz6M
(somewhat NSFW)

[Bullwinkle]

IGN has an almost review up.

Not very positive.

At the outset of Duke Nukem Forever, the titular blond-haired, kill-crazy hero again embarks on a quest to wipe out lots of aliens. His reasons are simple – they stole his babes. The plot doesn't make much sense at the beginning, the character development is limited to crude dialogue meant to elicit nothing more than cheap laughs, and the secondary characters do little more than spout nonsense laced with profanity. It tries to be Commando with extraterrestrials, which, as a goal, is just fine.
 
What's bothering me after a few hours of play is how difficult Duke Nukem Forever makes it to enjoy the shooting parts. There's an overlong introductory sequence that does nothing but awkwardly glorify Duke's shallow, vulgar personality. Shooting sequences are constantly interrupted by weird puzzles and character dialogue that's about as entertaining to listen to as the rattle of subway trains. Then there's a bizarre vehicle sequence where Duke, after being shrunk down to a miniature size, needs to speed around in a toy car across broken floors and boost to clear jumps. The poor level design often makes stages unnecessarily confusing to navigate, and the inclusion of clumsy platforming sections is all the more off-putting.

When DNF finally does get to the shooting bits, it's more entertaining, though can't really decide whether it wants to be a pure nonsense murder-fest like Serious Sam or a modern shooter. Early in the game, Duke walks by a suit of Halo-like power armor and scoffs, saying he doesn't need it. Yet he has a regenerating health bar and can only carry two weapons at once; modern shooter mechanics popularized by the very game he so enthusiastically disparages. You do, at least, get to run through linear shooting galleries plugging away at aliens with turrets, shotguns, machine guns and rocket launchers, though even this gets wearyingly repetitive early on.
 
The look of Duke Nukem Forever is most certainly dated, with a level of detail way behind the bleeding edge and, on Xbox 360, framerate issues and unreasonabley long load times. Even if that's to be expected considering the game's been in development for over a decade, it doesn't make it any easier to look at. For sound, there's forgettable grinding guitar music and a handful of crude Duke quotes, which unfortunately start to be recycled far too soon. It feels like a game ripped out of the nineties with a few modern mechanics wedged in, which I guess isn't entirely surprising.
 
I'm still playing through at this point for review, so maybe Duke Nukem Forever will get better further in. So far, there's little worthy of praise. It's a clumsily put together game that, even when it tries hard to deliver exciting action set pieces like fights against giant bosses, feels dull and derivative. The only impressive part about Duke Nukem Forever is that it exists as a finished game.
 
Look for a review early next week, as I'll be spending the next while getting through the rest of the story and trying out the multiplayer modes.

I imagine I'll be going the Daikatana route on this, meaning I'll buy it, just because I feel like I have to see it for myself, and I may even make an attempt at finishing it, just to say I did, and then the game will defeat me and I won't.

[ibdoomed]

Well this sure snuck up on me. I just logged into Steam and was greeted by a "Duke Nukem is now available!" message. How typical to not be prepared for launch day after all these years.

Bought the damn thing and have started downloading it. I don't care about reviews. Even if it's a shitty game, I just have to play it because of its history.

You must not be in NA... bastard.

[jztemple2]

IGN has an almost review up.

Not very positive.

<snippity-snip>

I imagine I'll be going the Daikatana route on this, meaning I'll buy it, just because I feel like I have to see it for myself, and I may even make an attempt at finishing it, just to say I did, and then the game will defeat me and I won't.

Somehow I figured it would never be as good as everyone hoped after twelve years. But I'll wait for some more reviews.

[TiLT]

Total Biscuit asks 'WTF is Duke Nukem Forever?': http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=y5Yngipvz6M
(somewhat NSFW)

Judging by that video and the Magicka one from him, I'd say Total Biscuit is funny, but an ADD-ridden mess who can barely form a coherent thought. He misses completely obvious things and must SHOOT THINGS all the time to be happy. I think he'd be more happy just playing multiplayer. He doesn't strike me as very smart.

I enjoyed the part of the game he shows in the video, btw. Haven't gotten much further than that yet, but it's fun so far without being mindblowing. It does feel a bit old in the tooth.

[Gryndyl]

Total Biscuit asks 'WTF is Duke Nukem Forever?': http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=y5Yngipvz6M
(somewhat NSFW)

Judging by that video and the Magicka one from him, I'd say Total Biscuit is funny, but an ADD-ridden mess who can barely form a coherent thought.  

Yeah, he comes across to me as a bit of a twat and the humor in his Magicka video was mostly from the Yogscast guys. I'm hoping Yogscast does Duke-their videos are much funnier.

EDIT: Just watched his Duke video and yeah, kinda wanted to strangle him through most of it. Game looked fun though.

[kratz]

I'd say Total Biscuit is funny...

I would not say that.

[TiLT]

I'd say Total Biscuit is funny...

I would not say that.

I guess it's the Magicka videos that make me say that, and when I think about it, my impression might come more from that game than from Total Biscuit himself.

[TiLT]

Just completed the game. According to Steam it took me 13 hours, which is just about one hour for every year of development. It doesn't feel like a triple-A game, but I enjoyed the entire thing, even including the final boss (which I feel most games get wrong by making it too difficult).

[CeeKay]

well, it's out almost everywhere now and there has been no world ending reported nor is Hell icy.

[jersoc]

http://www.giantbomb.com/quick-look-duke-nukem-forever/17-4385/

this does not look good. at all. lol. 12 year old mechanics :|

[Old Negus]

Aw, man. The PC version uses a checkpoint save system? 14 years of waiting all for nothing! It takes something amazing to make me play a checkpoint save system game but this doesn't quite qualify. Sad day. Maybe they'll patch it in 5-6 years to make it save anywhere.

[TiLT]

Aw, man. The PC version uses a checkpoint save system? 14 years of waiting all for nothing! It takes something amazing to make me play a checkpoint save system game but this doesn't quite qualify. Sad day. Maybe they'll patch it in 5-6 years to make it save anywhere.

It saves so often you'll barely notice anyway.

[Old Negus]

Aw, man. The PC version uses a checkpoint save system? 14 years of waiting all for nothing! It takes something amazing to make me play a checkpoint save system game but this doesn't quite qualify. Sad day. Maybe they'll patch it in 5-6 years to make it save anywhere.

It saves so often you'll barely notice anyway.

Really? Did you ever get frustrated by having to re-play parts? I have an insanely low tolerance for re-playing sections just because of poor game design. But if it saves every 20 feet I'm probably ok with that.

[TiLT]

Aw, man. The PC version uses a checkpoint save system? 14 years of waiting all for nothing! It takes something amazing to make me play a checkpoint save system game but this doesn't quite qualify. Sad day. Maybe they'll patch it in 5-6 years to make it save anywhere.

It saves so often you'll barely notice anyway.

Really? Did you ever get frustrated by having to re-play parts? I have an insanely low tolerance for re-playing sections just because of poor game design. But if it saves every 20 feet I'm probably ok with that.

I don't think it ever forced me to replay parts, though I may be misremembering. I suppose it might have been more of a problem at higher difficulties, but on Normal it never bothered me (except for one boss where I had to sit through about half a minute of dialogue before each attempt).

[ibdoomed]

I just played 97 minutes of it and it was great. Classic Duke.

Some reviewers are complaining about load times so I specifically timed each one with a stopwatch from the moment I saw the loading screen to when it let me hit the spacebar and they range from 5 to 11 seconds. Are they really so impatient that this bothers them? Do they get longer in the future? I was expecting 30-90 seconds the way they were talking.

I think it was only 15 minutes before I finally got a gun drop and started shooting things, until then there was some punching, so again, it seems like reviewers are just impatient.

I love the way not all of the game is handholding with giant red "hit this" and "go here" arrows but there is still some item highlighting. I think I saw an option to turn that off.

[The Grue]

Some reviewers are complaining about load times so I specifically timed each one with a stopwatch from the moment I saw the loading screen to when it let me hit the spacebar and they range from 5 to 11 seconds. Are they really so impatient that this bothers them? Do they get longer in the future? I was expecting 30-90 seconds the way they were talking.

From what I have read, it is only an issue with the console versions.

[Tscott]

On the PC my initial load times can be fairly long.  After that, it's maybe around 5 sec.

[Crusis]

I just played 97 minutes of it and it was great. Classic Duke.

Some reviewers are complaining about load times so I specifically timed each one with a stopwatch from the moment I saw the loading screen to when it let me hit the spacebar and they range from 5 to 11 seconds. Are they really so impatient that this bothers them? Do they get longer in the future? I was expecting 30-90 seconds the way they were talking.

I think it was only 15 minutes before I finally got a gun drop and started shooting things, until then there was some punching, so again, it seems like reviewers are just impatient.

I love the way not all of the game is handholding with giant red "hit this" and "go here" arrows but there is still some item highlighting. I think I saw an option to turn that off.

Could not agree more. I love the part where he says something like:

Spoiler for Hiden:

I don't need a f*cking red key

There is a lot of nostalgia in the game especially the first levels at Duke's place. I wonder how far the reviewers played into the game?

[The Rocketman]

I replayed the original (with some better graphic mods) 2 years ago, and had an absolute blast. Does this game have the same 90's feel (eg. Fast player movement, slow enemies, enemies die easily...)?

[CeeKay]

looks like someone had a mild meltdown today via Twitter over reviews.

[ibdoomed]

Some reviewers are complaining about load times so I specifically timed each one with a stopwatch from the moment I saw the loading screen to when it let me hit the spacebar and they range from 5 to 11 seconds. Are they really so impatient that this bothers them? Do they get longer in the future? I was expecting 30-90 seconds the way they were talking.

From what I have read, it is only an issue with the console versions.

OH alright. Isn't that like buying a yugo and complaining to the dept of roads that ferrari's are passing you? They got in cheap, suck it up.

[Tscott]

looks like someone had a mild meltdown today via Twitter over reviews.

BTW, that rant got his whole PR firm fired from 2K Games.  Way to go.

[Purge]

well, it's out almost everywhere now and there has been no world ending reported nor is Hell icy.

Winnipeg gets an NHL team AND DNF comes out? Hell is stocking up on mittens this fall.

[Ridah]

Giantbomb's review of the game is depressing, frankly. Looks like another game is coming off my summer backlog (Red Faction Armageddon was removed too, and inFamous 2 is being considered).

[CeeKay]

new patch:

4 weapons at once!

[EngineNo9]

new patch:

4 weapons at once!

Yay, only a couple more patches before you can play it like a proper old school FPS. 

[CeeKay]

wow, fired up MP last night to see how dead it was and there were a whole 4 servers running.