Duke Nukem Forever – 3D and Gameplay PC Review

What do you say about a sequel to a game that basically helped start the first person shooter craze? Duke Nukem is a PC sequel to a series that started in 1991, albeit 2 dimensional at the time. Duke Nukem made its transition to Duke Nukem 3D in 1996, introducing the role casted macho, wise cracking, and toilet humor character that a large fan base of pc game players came to love when it was released.

Alot of the hype and large following of Duke Nukem came from the continued expansion packs, add-ons and eventually a source code release that gave users the ability to mod and port Duke Nukem to different systems.

Another large fan base was gained just from the sexual content within the game, which in itself caused much controversy and of course built up the hype for the series, some found it offensive, others found it morally questionable, while a good few enjoyed the shock value to the humor that created the “Duke Nukem” icon in most original gamers memories to date.

Duke Nukem Forever having been promised release dates several times in the past, and had become an ongoing joke in the gaming world, most honestly the community thought it would never come out.

Fast forward 15 years from the date of Duke Nukem 3D, and Duke is back on the PC, having traveled through a couple of game engines (Quake, Unreal), faced numerous development problems, and more then its share of bad publicity. Prior to its release and despite all the jokes and criticisms, fans were still lined up and packed at local gaming conferences like PAX and E3 to get their sneak previews of the game that was soon to be released.

Duke Nukem, as expected after waiting 15 years, will be to some a big disappointment. Large graphic improvements and game engines advances have been made over the last decade that were not used to get this game finally into retail (DX9 and Unreal Engine were used), not to mention there has been some dramatic cultural changes in regards to how appropriate sexism and crude comments are. On the other hand some will enjoy the different pace, aspects and mini games brought about by this sequel.

The off handed humor will be welcome by those that look at games in the “why so serious?” realms of thought. The graphics are indeed normal for the average game, nothing to write friends about, but definitely not something to cry over. To those that feel the game is lacking in graphics, I can only recommend to give Duke Nukem Forever in Nvidia 3D Vision a complete trial, there are aspects and graphical display during battles that make this a true sequel to Duke Nukem 3D, showing off true 3D dimensional aspects and gameplay that would make even the strictest critic gasp in awe. That being said on with the review…

Single Player Part 1 – Plot and Game Play

Plot:

Duke Nukem is relaxing in an upscale condo with a pair of orally talented twins (need I mention they were great singers as well?). Duke himself is preparing to do an interview for a talk show when the news of the new alien landing is broadcast across the television networks. The aliens haven’t made any aggressive moves, and the president is insistent on a peaceful solution to this round of contacts, in doing so he basically tells you to keep your nose clean and stay out of the confrontation else wise you might instigate another alien battle.

Things change as the aliens come after you and you find yourself neck deep in alien scum who not only kidnap your gifted twin escorts, but also are hell bent on taking every fertile woman in sight. What’s a hero to do, besides get bloody up to elbows in alien pigswine parts and guts as your hell bent to save the earth yet again from the hands of galactic creatures that the invasion has brought to your doorstep.

First Person Game play:

Duke Nukem Forever is a First Person Shooter (FPS) with average graphics and and adult themed blood splattering adventure to which there is humor and one liners galore. Duke is also enhanced by many mini-games within which can be completed in order to boost your “Ego”, in Duke Nuke Forever your Ego is similar to your health bar, killing things , interacting with in game objects, and avoiding damage for a time are ways to refill and even grow your health bar/ego even further. There are a variety of weapons in Duke Nukem to be used including your fists, pistols, shotguns, rapid fire machine/laser guns, rocket launchers, freeze and shrink rays, and a rail gun that can be used as a sniper rifle, but that is not all. There are also some special accessory weapons such as trip mines, remote pipe bombs, holographic decoys, and pretty much anything in the environment you can find to pick up and throw can be used as a weapon as well.

In Duke Nukem Forever there are several levels to complete that will take you through some very interesting and action packed environments, some of these include the intro scene in the stadium, battles within the broadcasting station including the Duke suite, the Duke Cave (as pictured below), a strip club, in a casino, shoot outs in deserted western towns, navigating a “Duke Burger” joint, above and below the Hoover Dam, and all parts in between including generator rooms and underground.

These levels all have unique graphics and require the use of problem solving skills in addition to the blood splattering alien bashing required to advance further in the levels and story-line.

The majority of enemies in Duke Nukem Forever are compromised up off charging PigCops and phase shifting Assault Troopers. Octabrains and Pregnators make quite a significant showing later on in the game near the enemies final lairs.

Single-Player Part 2 – Boss Battles & Alternate Game PlayIn addition to the normal enemies that the alien swarm that is thrown at you, Duke Nukem has Boss Battles galore with larger size bosses and mini- bosses to be found throughout the storyline. These enemies put your weapons and skills to the test with bigger and tougher aliens as the game progresses, This is where you’ll see the famed Assualt commander come into play and usually in pairs or greater numbers.

The Cycloid Emperor is one of the first Boss Battles you’ll experience as soon as you start the game, but don’t fret its just the beginning.

Another one of the boss battles is with the Battlelord, There are quite a few others, one I’ll keep to the Mature Audience page, but there is plenty to keep you entertained although there has been some discontent among community fans about the final battle being anti-climatic, in fact if you look on the Duke Nukem Steam page that is one of the first news posts you’ll see.. regardless of the end battle I think most overall will find most of the battles to be quite epic.

Alternate Game Play:

There are quite a few chances in Duke Nukem Forever for alternate game play above and beyond that of a first person shooter, One of the chapters has a shrunken Duke Nukem driving a mini-RC car through a casino of enemies as you race to save your beloved twin pleasures.

Monster trucks and even being the rocket launching gunner of a aircraft, or just getting behind a mounted machine gun to cause some significant carnage.

You’ll find that Duke Nukem offers a little bit of everything in regards to game play. And if thats not enough the aforementioned mini games such as pool, poker, slots, pinball, basketball shooting, wieght training and other enticements will help make sure you don’t get bored with the all familiar blood and guts shoot ’em up

Single-Player Part 3 – Crude Humor & Adult Oriented Jokes *MA Recommended*This part of the review is for educational purposes, I know some parents are full believers in video game rights and that they should be protected by journalistic and free speech rights same as any publication or book in a library, but that does not mean you should necessarily rent the book in question or hand your kids over a playboy without some serious consideration beforehand. The same goes with video games and especially this particular title, I’ll warn you this page is meant to be educational but does contain some adult content and graphics, this is done more so to keep readers informed of the contents of the game, its not like your typical Mature Audience title that so many parents succumb to their kids whining pressures to go out an purchase.

This is a true adult title, strippers, boobs, language, sexual content in addition to the mind numbing violence that so many parents have grown accustom to, I was abhorred to learn of a friends mother purchasing this game for her 11 yr old son, please take the time to read reviews and realize what your are buying for your children, especially before you go out and start blaming the gaming industry for faults that you as a parent had the opportunity to deny to your children’s viewing. **This is your last warning Adult Content Follows** Continued reading means your acceptance and acknowledgement of said content.

Right from the get go Duke Nukem shows that crude and adult humor that has come to be expected from the series.. From the start of the game your pissing in a urinal and then offered to explore the rest of the bathroom, even going so far as to let you pick up a piece of feces, carry it around and fling it at given things.

Here is an intro video of the type of things you can do with said feces from the start of the game, video courtesy of 2kInternational:

From here on out its all shock value toilet humor and sex oriented jokes, before you even make it to the fire your first shots at an enemy you’ll hear and see at least a dozen different curse words used in more rapid fire manners then bullets in a machine gun.

Other adult content comes from Duke’s one liners ” I’m going to rip your eye out and piss on your brain you alien dirtbag”, “Not my babes. not in my town, you alien mother^*&^7rs are going to pay for this” or the ultimate digg to halo fans everywhere “Power armor is for Pu#$i#$”, there’s much more including the famed Cuchi Cuchi reference made when Duke Fingers an Alien orifice for it to open, alot of the dirty humor is open to interpretation, but those with the right mindset will find themselves on the edge of their seats laughing.

Another adult oriented aspect of the game has to do with a complete chapter based in a strip club, where your on a leisure suit larry type of task set to find the required items in order to get lucky from your friendly hostess, she of course requires some snacks (popcorn), a vibrator and a condom in order to get things moving along.

Finally one of the most notable things I found in the adult parts of the games was the queen alien boss battle in which the queen has 3 breasts, this candid reference reminded me instantly of the movie “Total Recall”, of course its been used recently in the alien movie “Paul” as well, but its still an instant classic gag that causes me to laugh internally, not to mention they even included some decorations in the aliens lair to include 3 breasts hanging next to each other, Slapping them makes duke comment something along the lines of “Baby you make me wish I had three guns”.

Now if your a wholesome church going zealot, there’s no way your going to be playing this game, some reviewers even went so far as to say only truly demented and twisted people are the ones that would enjoy the game. in that criticism , I guess I must be one of the twisted and demented ones, because I saw through most of the shock value comments and one liners, laughed quite a few times, and even shook my head in a “no they didn’t just do that” manner.

Multi-Player and Upcoming DLCMulti-Player was where I found Duke Nukem Forever extremely lacking. For the good points there was excellent map selection using most in game scenarios , also the idea of leveling up and customizing your Duke character was something to keep experienced players entertained. To further detail the map choices, there were a total of 10 different maps included in the initial offering for Duke Nukem Forever, including Morning Wood, Hoover Damned, Hollywood, Duke Burger, Vegas Ruin, Hive, Sausage Factory, Casino, Erection Site, and Highway Noon, and from the looks of rumored content to be released in the 2nd installment of DLC, their should be 4 DeathMath(aka DukeMatch) maps upcoming.

Multiplayer game types for Duke Nukem Forever comes in 4 varieties, Duke Match (DM aka DeathMatch) Team Duke Match (TDM), Capture the Babe (CTB), and Hail to the Kink (HTTK aka King of the Hill).

I mostly played Death Match and Team Death Match and found the game play to be quite lacking and definitely compromised of most problems of old days from multi-player games, including spawns points that are quickly learned and easily forecasted, and experienced players guarding the most powerful weapons spawns so the new players spawn in only with a pistol to be easily outmatched by a player with a rocket launcher and rocket pack camping chokepoints to the best weapons.

The Multiplayer experiance is also based upon a player who is the host creating a game so all the advantages of hosting a game are also inherent to the system, as is the lag as well that can cause in game warping and repetition action loops that I haven’t seen for many years in multiplayer gameplay since hosted servers were introduced.

Rumoured DLC Content:

From what I’ve read around various parts of interviews and leaks, and around the net from eurogamer.net and http://egamer.co.za, it looks like there are going to have new weapons released in the first DLC pack, deathmatch maps in the 2nd DLC pack and the third DLC pack will include more singleplayer gameplay.

DLC Pack #1 contains four new weapons – a minigun, a “noob tube”, a sticky grenade and a “BFG” – the latter of which was a big plasma weapon found in Doom and Quake.DLC Pack #2 consists of three new deathmatch maps – “EDF Base”, “LKR” and “Map 3”, presumably for the game’s multiplayer mode.
DLC Pack #3 includes 15 new single-player maps, arm wrestling, the “Impregnader” weapon and a karaoke machine.

3D Review, Testing, and Game PlayDuke Nukem Forever was meant to played in 3D, all the criticism its received about its graphics and game are obviously done by those who have not experienced the game with Nvidia’s Sterescopic 3D technology. Nvidia got it right and must have had this game in mind when they made the slogan “Nvidia:The way it’s meant to be played”.

Playing this game in anything other then true stereoscopic 3D vision is like going back to the 90’s in terms of 3D where mazes where drawn in perspective 3D and all enemies were just 2D sprites. The effects from rain, smoke, blood splattering and entrails flying was a true experience to behold when playing in 3D, The games engine and environments are so expansive that when viewed through 3D the multitude of objects and depth gives such a perception of immersion that is beyond the typical caverns in predecessor games like Batman, rather the whole world is in so many depths including bosses, objects, landscapes and even flying missiles.

The screen shot below really doesn’t do the game justice when compared to the 3D experience, the missiles are flat and the only thing that helps you deduce their distance is their size, while in 3D mode you can actually see the missiles flying right for you, its easier to judge their distance and gives you a tremendous advantage in the ability to dodge out of the way or run in between the trajectory paths.

Test system:

• Asus GTX560Ti DirectCUII w/1GB GDDR5
  
• Intel I7 875k Processor (O.C. to 3.5 Ghz)
  
• ASUS P7p55DE Pro MotherBoard
  
• 4gb of Kingston HyperX 1600Mhz DDR3 Ram
  
• Intel 40gb SSD drive for OS
  
• 1TB Hitachi Hard Drive for game installs
  
• Windows 7 HP 64Bit OS
  
• Cooler Master Silent Pro M 1000 Watt Power Supply
  
• ASUS VG236H 23-Inch 120 Hz 3D Ready Panel Monitor with nVidia 3D Vision Kit
  

I tested frames per second using Fraps in battles with Cycloid Emperor in both 3D and non 3D formats, and also tested 3D and Non-3D multi-player battles while on the Hollywood level, as with all tests, although I did my best to reproduce results and make each test fair, its difficult to maintain the same viewing and movement paths without having an ingame benchmark tool so use the data with that interpretation in mind. As you can see from the data the single player FPS showed the most dramatic change in 3D usage, but kept a good average above the 30 FPS mark, which is usually the threshold that the human eye can discern. In no instances did the game feel laggy or did I have any difficulty moving. In multi-player mode there was very little difference between the two numbers, difficult to say whether the host or game might have been limiting the non 3D FPS numbers, but regardless as you can see by the 53 FPS average it wouldn’t be a concern as it was very fluid enough to even play quite competitively.

Tests were done in 1920×1080 resolution with all video graphics settings to their highest.

I really wish there was a way other then words that I could explain to you the full magnitude of awesomeness that this game has to give when viewed in 3D. I’m hoping you don’t just take my word for it, find a 3D demo at your local store and ask them to load up Duke Nukem Forever, or better yet go to a friends house to experience it, I guarantee you’ll be racing the store to buy your own setup when you realize the difference of night and day that you can experience in games like this in 3D.

The NVIDIA logo and the “The way it’s meant to be played” logo are registered trademarks or trademarks of NVIDIA Corporation.

Final Thoughts

I felt Duke Nukem was a very fun game to play through, sure there are parts like any other game out there that could have done a bit better, (multiplayer comes immediately to mind), but overall it was an enjoyable and humorous experience. Sure it was a bit dirty and twisted at times, but I’m an adult, its an adult oreinted game and its nothing that hasn’t been seen in movies other publications these days, so it wasn’t overly shocking, but reminds me more of the “Drive Angry” sense of humor that either some people love it and think its brilliant, or their so shocked they can’t see the fun and humorous side of things.

The game play was typical and I’d say most of it reminded me of a “Halo” type atmosphere, despite the diggs made at the Halo series, the running to hide when your ego/shield reminded me so much of it, especially combined with the alternate game play such as using a large machine gun or manning the rocket launcher in the aircraft instantly brought about memories of recently playing through Halo Reach. There were aspects that made it distinctly its own, obviously the adult humor, the mini games, being shrunk and mini car RC experiance brought about a unique experience.

As an added replay-ability feature after completing the game you unlock several extras including a Duke sound board, chapter select, extra game settings including invincibility, 1shot kills, game speed adjuster and head size adjustment.

Regarding 3D and Hardware, playing in 3D 95% of the time I didn’t notice the lack luster graphics that so many other critics have whined about in their reviews. Maybe I missed it between dodging all the missles and in your face gameplay I experienced, maybe the other reviewers need to upgrade their game rigs, to me listening to most reviewers whine about the graphics was similar to having a reviewer put all your graphic settings on low because your machine can’t handle it, then complaining about the graphics in their review. I understand that some people can’t afford a 3D solution, but complaining about a game without experianceing it in its full glory is like arguing a subject without having any knowledge on the topic. I’m sure most of these same reviewers are right all the time, even when evidence shows their wrong, they still believe they are never wrong. Now a days the technology has dropped down quite a bit in price on the hardware side, just need to some lower priced monitor solutions to truly make it an easier transition, but overall if you’ve got the extra money to spend and gaming is your priority for your machine, I highly recommend the solution for the high end 3D gaming crowd.

Pros:

• Adult humor, lots of blood and gore, and plenty of jokes

• 3D graphics are amazing and truly immersive, dodging projectiles in 3D made it an unrivaled experience

• Added playability after finishing game, unlocked extras such as game speed, infinite ammo, invincibility and head size adjustments

• Tons of miniGames and alternate gameplay that keeps the game from becoming boring including racing around in a mini RC car and turbo boosting in a 4 wheel monster truck
  

• Various weapons and methods of destruction including executions, that will keep the steam achievements personalities happy as well
  

Cons:

• Multiplayer suffers from old school problems of spawn and weapon camping
• Graphics are a little outdated if not playing in 3D mode
• Can be considered vulger, abusive and uncouth to those without the right sense of humour

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