Duke Nukem Forever

by Sarcasmo Jones

 Duke Nukem Forever was easily the most anticipated game on my list for a decade or so. 3D Realms started developmentin the late 90s but shut down the project before it was finished do to legal issues and George Broussard's uncontrollable impulsiveness to add new features or utilize a new engine. Several employess took it upon themselves to finish the game at home, but a single digit development team will npt get very far very fast on a Triple A title. Gearbox picked the game up and finished it. They did not build a new Duke from the ground up. They did not start over. They took what they had to work with and brought Duke back from the dead.

 Graphically the game looks pretty good. It's not a visual masterpiece. Some of it even looks dated, but given the history of the project I can overlook its graphical shortcomings. My biggest complaint is that Duke can only carry two guns at a time. Duke 3D he was able to carry every gun in the game plus ammo. Sometimes it was a bitch to find the right gun for the job, but I had a variety to choose from. Duke throws away perfectly good hardware in this game...that's some Master Chief bullshit right there. Duke has a steroid habit and can bench press 600 pounds, I think he could tote around a few extra guns with no problem.

  Duke is not a nice guy, and neither are his alien foes. This game has all the raunch and violence from its predecessor and then some. Duke has the sober duty of dispatching impregnated victims of the invaders, just like he did in the last game. The only difference now is that the victims are far more human. The rendering is better, the result is the same. Duke clobbers the balls of giant aliens like punching bags, there are tits on the walls, some portals resemble female genitalia and must be tickled to open...it's a Duke Nukem game and not for the sqeamish. If you are averse to nudity and violence maybe you should pass this game up, it will likely offend you.

  The game is full of some really cool scenarios and memorable moments. There's a ghost town shootout, a battle on top of and inside Hoover Dam, a sequence where mini-Duke drives a remote controlled truck through his casino. Duke Nukem 3D had a shrunken Duke scrambling to avoid being stepped on by his alien foes...this time he fights and navigates environments as mini-Duke. There are a few instances where he has to fight unshrunken opponents while shrunken. The driving sequences were exciting and driving over a pig cop with a monster truck was more satisfying than it had any right to be.

  It's not a perfect game and it's not for everyone. Duke is in limbo with one foot in the past and one in the present. Duke Nukem is an icon and deserves to be in a great game, i hope the wait is shorter for the next one.