Duke Nukem Forever
Duke Nukem Forever is a first-person shooter video game developed by 3D Realms and published by 2K Games for Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360. It is the fifteenth installment in the Duke Nukem series and the sequel to 1996's Duke Nukem 3D. Duke Nukem Forever entered development in 1997 at 3D Realms and was finished by Triptych Games, Gearbox Software, and Piranha Games between 2009 and 2011. In the game, the player controls Duke Nukem, an action hero who must come out of retirement and save the world from aliens when they begin kidnapping the women of Earth.
Duke Nukem Forever was originally announced in 1997 as the follow up to Duke Nukem 3D, but was thought to be vaporware due to its severely protracted development schedule, which saw the game being delayed numerous times and had 3D Realms, which was being underfunded and laying off staff in 2009, become involved in a lawsuit with publisher Take-Two Interactive. In 2010, Gearbox took over the game's development and finished the game on behalf of 3D Realms. Finally released on June 14, 2011, Duke Nukem Forever earned mostly negative reviews from critics, who criticized the graphics, dated humor and story, simplistic mechanics, and unpolished performance and design.
Gameplay
Duke Nukem Forever is an action-oriented first-person shooter. Players take control of Duke Nukem and navigate a series of levels which take place on Earth and beyond. The game allows players to interact with various in-game objects, including water coolers, urinals, and whiteboards, which allow players to draw their own images. The gameplay is similar in some respects to the first-person shooter games of the late 1990s and early 2000s, with each level culminating in a boss battle in which Duke has to fight and kill a large, significant alien.Unlike the previous games, Duke can only hold two weapons at any one time, in a manner similar to the Halo series, although pipe bombs and laser tripwires are considered inventory items and as such are not limited by this restriction. The PC version allows Duke to hold four weapons in the single-player campaign. Items that have an effect on Duke can be picked up by the player; these items are steroids, beer, and the holoduke. Steroids increase the strength of Duke's melee attacks by a great deal for a limited time. Beer makes Duke much more resistant to damage, but blurs the screen. The holoduke creates a hologram of Duke Nukem that looks and acts in a very similar way to Duke, but often says slightly twisted versions of his one-liners. While the holoduke is in effect, Duke becomes invisible and the AI characters do not recognize his presence. The jetpack also returns, but only in multiplayer.
Instead of the health system featured in the previous Duke Nukem games, in which health would be depleted when Duke was injured and would only increase upon finding a health pack, drinking water from fountains/broken fire hydrants, urinating, or using the portable medkit item, Duke Nukem Forever employs a system involving an "ego bar". The ego bar depletes when Duke is attacked; once it is fully depleted, Duke becomes susceptible to damage. Dying will result upon taking too much damage and cause the game to reload the last checkpoint. If the player avoids further damage, then the ego bar and Duke's health are restored. The player can increase the size of the ego bar by interacting with certain objects throughout the game, and by defeating bosses. The game employs a save system that is solely based on checkpoints.
Plot
, Duke Nukem is a worldwide icon, and has achieved great fame from his heroic deeds. After sampling a video game based on his past heroics, he arrives on the set of a talk show for an interview. On his way to the show, Duke witnesses a news broadcast announcing that aliens have once again invaded. Unlike previous encounters, the aliens initially appear peaceful and at first seem to pose no harm to the humans of Earth.Duke's talk show appearance is cancelled to allow television stations to cover the alien invasion, and Duke retires to the "Duke Cave", his home. There, he receives a call from the president and General Graves of the Earth Defense Force. The president orders Duke not to harm the invaders, and adds that he is in diplomatic talks with the alien overlord. Duke obliges this request, but he and Graves remain uneasy about the whole situation from the start. Before he can leave his chambers, he is attacked by hostile aliens who are swearing revenge on Duke.
Duke is forced to disobey the president's orders and fight his way through the alien hordes in an effort to save Earth. While fighting through his casino, Duke witnesses the aliens abducting women, including his two live-in pop star girlfriends. Graves tells Duke that the women are being held in the Duke Dome, and that the aliens have a vendetta to settle with Duke. He also warns Duke that the aliens are using the Hoover Dam to power a wormhole so more aliens can come through. Duke travels to the Duke Dome, using a wrecking ball to damage the building to gain access. Inside, he finds swarms of Octabrains and the missing women, who have been impregnated with alien spawn; Duke's girlfriends die after giving "birth" to alien babies, infuriating Duke. Duke finds the Alien Queen in control of the Duke Dome and kills her, but is wounded in the process and blacks out.
After regaining consciousness, Duke fights Pigcops and aliens in through the Duke Burger. Soon, he travels to the Hoover Dam in his monster truck; after battling through the dam, he finds his old friend Dylan, mortally wounded. He tells Duke that the reborn Cycloid Emperor is at the dam, and that the only way to shut down the portal is to completely destroy the dam. Before dying, he gives Duke his demolition charges and wishes him luck. Duke places the explosives and destroys the dam, but the currents nearly drown him.
Duke is revived by an EDF soldier, and awakens to find the portal gone. The president, who was also at the dam, rages at Duke for ruining his plans to work with the Cycloid Emperor, revealing that the president was actually intending to have the aliens kill Duke and he would cooperate with Cycloid Emperor so he could control the Earth, and that he has ordered a nuclear strike at the site of the dam to wipe out the remaining aliens, intending to leave Duke there to die as revenge for foiling his plans. The Cycloid Emperor emerges and kills the president and his security detail, revealing that he intended to kill the president after the deal. Duke kills the Cycloid Emperor and is rescued by Graves just as the nuclear bomb explodes.
The game ends with a satellite surveying the detonation area and listing Duke Nukem as killed in action, to which Duke replies off-screen, "What kind of shit ending is that? I ain't dead. I'm coming back for more!" In a post-credits scene, a short video depicts a press conference, where Duke announces his intent to run for the 69th President of the United States.
''The Doctor Who Cloned Me''
In the downloadable content The Doctor Who Cloned Me, Duke wakes up after the nuclear explosion and finds himself alive but trapped in a strange laboratory while video recordings of himself declaring his bid for Presidency play on monitors. After escaping, Duke discovers that not only are the aliens continuing their invasion, but his old nemesis Dr. Proton has returned and is building an army of robotic Duke clones to fight the aliens and conquer Earth himself.Duke infiltrates Proton's laboratory in Area 51 by posing as one of the clones. Eventually, Proton spots him and attacks Duke but he escapes and is reunited with Dylan. With Dylan's help, Duke locates and kills Dr. Proton. General Graves then communicates with Duke to inform him that the aliens are being bred by an Alien Empress that is nesting on the moon. After finding a teleporter leading up to the moon, Duke commandeers a moon rover and destroys the Alien Empress, saving Earth and its women once again.
Development
director George Broussard, one of the creators of the original Duke Nukem game, announced the development in April 1997 as a promotional stunt, and various promotional information for the game was released between 1997 and 1998. After repeatedly announcing and deferring release dates, 3D Realms announced in 2001 that it would be released simply "when it's done". No official video of the game was shown for over six years, until 3D Realms released a new teaser trailer in December 2007, but the game "sank" yet again soon afterwards.In May 2009, 3D Realms was downsized, resulting in the loss of the game's development team. Statements by the company indicated that the project was due to go gold soon with pictures of final development. Take-Two Interactive, which owned the publishing rights to the game, filed a lawsuit in 2009 against 3D Realms over their failure to finish development. 3D Realms retorted that Take-Two's legal interest in the game was limited to their publishing right. The case was settled with prejudice and details undisclosed in July 2010.
On September 3, 2010, after fourteen years, Duke Nukem Forever was reported by 2K Games to be in development at Gearbox Software. It was originally confirmed to be released on May 3, 2011 in North America, with a worldwide release following on May 6, 2011. This was, however, delayed by a month to June 10 internationally, with a North American release on June 14. On May 24, 2011, it was announced that Duke Nukem Forever had finally "gone gold" after 15 years. The launch trailer was released on June 2, 2011. Duke Nukem Forever was released for Mac OS X in August 2011.
Marketing
Duke's First Access Club is joined by using a code, obtained from either the pre-order of the game, the Borderlands Game of the Year Edition, or Borderlands on Steam, on the Duke Nukem Forever website. Members are granted access to the demo, wallpapers, concept art, artwork, podcasts, the theme song, and screenshots.Emails were sent asking members to "please help obtain the most accurate up to date information for your First Access profile." Members were then prompted to choose their preferred platform of choice for the Duke Nukem Forever demo by May 15, 2011. It then stated that "users that currently live in a territory where the demo may not be supported on console will automatically be defaulted to the PC Steam option." Gearbox sent a second e-mail to First Access Members in conjunction with a video showing that the Duke Nukem Forever demo was released on June 3, 2011.
A special limited Collector's Edition was available upon release called the "Balls of Steel Edition" for all platforms. This version includes a five-inch bust of Duke Nukem, a 100-page hardcover artbook following the development of the game, postcards, sticker, a comic book, playing cards, dice, poker chips, and foldable papercraft, and with every item being marked with the Duke Nukem Forever logo. Another edition called the "King Edition" was made available exclusively for pre-order from EB Games in Australia and New Zealand. It comes with the bonus "Ego Boost", Duke Playing Cards and Duke Bubblegum.
Two themes, avatar items, and a gamerpic pack are available for download for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. The premium theme for the Xbox 360 showcases the inside of Duke Burger during the alien invasion. The avatar items for said system include Duke's outfit, his throne, the Freeze Ray, a Pigcop mask, and a pet Octabrain, while the gamerpic pack features "babes, aliens, and the King himself." The official Duke Nukem Forever website hosts the free PlayStation 3 theme, which includes three wallpapers and an icon set.
2K Games launched a website titled "Boob Tube" to promote the game. The website features videos and features to download. On May 19, 2011, a flash game was released on the website titled Duke Nudem where players have to shoot targets against a CPU bot "woman" of their choice, and if successful will have a piece of clothing taken off the girl until she is topless. However, if the player loses, the actress will act as though Duke has stripped naked. Additionally 2K released for iOS a Duke Nukem Forever Soundboard which includes a number of Duke Nukem's phrases to be played back.
Originally set for release in Australia on June 10, 2011, the game was made available for sale a day early on June 9 from all retailers due to street date being broken.
Downloadable content
''Duke's Big Package''
In North America, video game retailer GameStop promised exclusive in-game content for customers pre-ordering Duke Nukem Forever. The exclusive content, known as "Duke's Big Package", allowed the player from the start of the game to access "Big Heads", the "Ego Boost", and custom in-game T-shirts. A code printed on the final receipt could, at the time of release, be activated over Xbox Live, PlayStation Network, and Steam.''Hail to the Icons Parody Pack''
Duke Nukem Forever: Hail to the Icons Parody Pack contains three new game modes, and four new multiplayer maps, each with new weapons. It is available on the PlayStation Network, Xbox Live, and Steam. It was released on October 11, 2011.''The Doctor Who Cloned Me''
Duke Nukem Forever: The Doctor Who Cloned Me includes an all new single-player campaign which features the return of Duke's nemesis from the original Duke Nukem game, Dr. Proton. It includes new weapons, enemies, and bosses. The Doctor Who Cloned Me also includes four new multiplayer maps. The DLC was released on December 13, 2011. It holds a score of 52/100 on Metacritic for PC and 58/100 for Xbox 360. GameSpy rated it a 1.5/5, OXM rated it 4/10 and Eurogamer rated it 5/10 and stated "Duke's trying his best, but there's still too much of the past hanging around and holding him back."Reception
Critical reception
Duke Nukem Forever was critically disappointing, receiving negative reviews, with most of the criticism directed towards the game's long loading times, clunky controls, offensive humor, and overall aging and dated design. Elton Jones of Complex chose the game as one of "the most disappointing games of 2011". Jim Sterling, review editor for Destructoid, said that this game was "like a disease" and named it the "shittiest game of 2011". Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw, creator of Zero Punctuation, listed it as #2 on his list of the worst games of 2011, losing to both Battlefield 3 and .Many critics took issue with the level design and shooting mechanics, particularly when compared to both the original Duke Nukem 3D and those of other modern-day first-person shooters. Kevin VanOrd of GameSpot felt that the "joy of that game's shooting has been flattened" with "little sense of impact", finding the overall design to be "tedious", and ended his video review by calling Duke Nukem Forever a "bad, boring, bargain bin kind of game". Eurogamer commented that "few of the locations the sort of exploration and excitement that made Duke 3D such a memorable experience. Duke Nukem Forever is linear to a fault, and huge chunks of the game are spent simply walking from one fight to another through uninspired corridors." IGN criticized "the frequent first-person platforming segments that make up an unnecessarily large percentage of the story mode", although they stated the "shooting sections are simple fun". GamesRadar concluded that "Duke Nukem Forevers world-record development time has produced an ugly, buggy shooter that veers back and forth between enjoyably average and outright boring, with occasional surges of greatness along the way." GamePro felt that "Unexpected moments... are really the game's biggest strengths. But they're few and far between." X-Play gave the game a 1 out of 5, criticizing the graphics, load time, number of enemies onscreen, the multiplayer, being called "an afterthought", the game's "creepy, hateful view of women", and the hive level, with Adam Sessler saying that "this is all played for laughs".
Many reviewers questioned the design choices in comparison to Duke Nukem 3D, with Kotaku stating that "Old-school shooters, and this is definitely trying to be one of those with its basic AI and lack of cover mechanics, always had two great things going for them: speed and a ridiculous arsenal of weapons... Forever eschews this in favour of a plodding pace and two guns." Noting its negative mix with modern shooter conventions, The Escapist agreed: "having been almost cryo-frozen for more than a decade, then awoken and peppered with modern touches, Duke Nukem Forever feels so out of place."
Another common criticism was with the game's lack of technical sophistication, including inconsistent graphics and unacceptably long loading times, which GameTrailers called "unholy"; Eric Neigher of GameSpy found the console versions took up to 40 seconds to load a level. He also criticized the game's multiplayer mode for running so slowly, no one can play it without experiencing large lag spikes. Edge commented that "the myriad technical shortcomings – particularly prevalent on the console ports – only get worse the further you progress into the campaign", a view echoed by Game Revolution: "when they started on the design, that tech was already outdated". The PC version has since been patched to greatly decrease loading times and to add two optional inventory slots.
The use of the series' trademark humor received a mixed response. In one regard, some critics such as Team Xbox praised the voice work of Jon St. John, who did an "excellent job as always with Duke's persona", while others such as Machinima.com appreciated the comedic gameplay tips and pop culture references; however, the same critic also noted that "parts of the narrative and dialogue show clear evidence of the game's elongated development. Many pop culture references refer to media in the early 2000s, with one-liners co-opted from 'guy' movies like Old School, Highlander, and Commando, which in itself could cause blank stares from most of the current potential audience." Australian gaming website PALGN felt the game was "saved only by its humor and nostalgic value". Official Xbox Magazine UK thought that the humor "isn't so much offensive or misogynistic as just suffering from an adolescent fixation with boobs and crowbarred-in innuendo". Joystiq noted that the game's multiplayer mode "Capture the Babe", involving "spanking a woman into submission", "really is as painful as it sounds".
One particular section that received considerable criticism is the hive level, in which Duke encounters abducted women who have been forcibly impregnated with aliens. Duke has to kill them before the alien's birth does so. Both the level itself and the inclusion of disembodied, slappable "wall boobs" were listed in GamesRadar's "8 worst moments in Duke Nukem Forever". OXM noted that it "doesn't mesh with the rest of the game's tone at all", and the fact that Duke remains unfazed and continues to crack jokes about the situation was considered "outright revolting", which led to labelling Duke a "thoroughly detestable psychopath" by 1UP and Destructoid respectively. Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw, in his Zero Punctuation review, noted that the level is "as jarring a shift of tone as you can get without splicing five minutes of The Human Centipede into the middle of Mallrats."
Quite a few critics cited the long and fragmented development time as a major factor in the finished product. In a positive review PC Gamer noted that "years of anticipation will spoil Duke Nukem Forever for some", adding, "There’s no reinvention of the genre here, no real attempt at grandeur... Check unrealistic expectations at the door and forget the ancient, hyperbolic promises of self-deluded developers", and concluded, "Don’t expect a miracle. Duke is still the hero we love, but struggles to keep up with modern times." Game Informer, while disappointed in the game, concluded "I'm glad Gearbox stepped up and finished this game, but after hearing about it for 12 years, I have no desire to relive any of it again. I’m now satisfied in my knowledge of what Duke Nukem Forever is and ready to never talk about it again. Welcome back, Duke. I hope your next game goes off without a hitch." Giant Bomb however concluded that for those "part of that faction that finds yourself so fascinated by this whole project that you need to know how it ends, I recommend you play Duke Nukem Forever for yourself. But I'd practically insist that you do so on the PC and try to wait for a sale. If you're not willing to play a sloppy, cobbled together first-person shooter just because it has some kind of weird historical meaning, though, just forget this ever happened and move on." Jake Denton of Computer and Video Games wrote that parts of the game were fun to play and listed it as one of the "5 most underrated games of 2011", while admitting the game's overall faulty structure. Also Joseph Milne of FPSguru.com featured the game on his list of "Top 5 underrated games" at number 4 on the list.