When I was on my plane to Seattle, getting ready to play some games, meet some gamers, and prepare for tomorrow's Destructoid LIVE panel, I never thought I'd be leaving the first day of PAX with the ability to say that I have played Duke Nukem Forever.
Sometimes things happen that are so bizarre, you don't know how to process them.
I played Duke Nukem Forever today, and I liked it.
[Note: Please excuse the poor quality of the photographs. We were caught short and had to improvise with my video camera.]
Do you know how you can tell that a game is going to be something special? When it starts with a tutorial telling you how to piss into a urinal. That's how the demo for Duke Nukem Forever starts, and it really doesn't get much more highbrow than that.
At its core, Duke Nukem Forever is a solid first-person-shooter. The controls at this stage feel a little loose, but the fundamentals are sound. As you might expect, the gameplay doesn't exactly have a modern feel, but that's part of the charm. It feels like a Duke Nukem game -- rough and ready, but it absolutely does the trick.
The demo was full of weaponry, ranging from the standard pistols and shotguns to the explosive Devastator, the machine-gun like Ripper, the sniping Rail Gun and the all-important Shrink Ray. Shrinking a porcine alien and then squashing him with a deft melee attack never felt so satisfying.
Duke is capable of performing finishers if he can cripple an alien into a dazed submission. A simple button press and the chewer of bubblegum will perform a gruesome execution. As if ticking all the FPS boxes, there are also gun turret sections. This is not a game that intends to innovate. It just intends to kill loads and loads of bipedal pigs.
As well as the shooting, Duke will also get to drive a logo-branded vehicle. Controls for the driving sections are decent and do a good job of getting our hero from A to B, although the car itself is a little bit bouncy, and there's plenty of risk of flipping it. Fortunately, Duke can get out of the car and flip it back. In any case, it's a fun break to just mow down enemies in your car, and at this early stage, with vehicular sections blended into the main gameplay, it doesn't look like this new form of play will intrude.
One of the highlights of the demo is a huge boss fight against a one-eyed monster, the same fight you may have seen in screens leaked from the game's long-winded past. Armed with explosive missiles, it's a pretty easy first boss fight, although when it starts boosting toward Duke and kicking him over, things get a little hairy. The fight takes place in a football stadium, which comes into play during the battle's grand finish, when the boss's eye falls out, and Duke proceeds to kick it over the goal in a glorious finisher.
And that, right there, is the kind of thing that is making Duke Nukem Forever look so very promising. As a game, it looks very standard, with graphics that look like they belong in a game that started development twelve years ago, and shooting foundations that don't feel evolved. As a piece of shameless, crass, unapologetically immature cavalcade of humor, however, Duke Nukem Forever may very well be genius.
Gearbox Software is possibly insane for taking on this project, a game which has twelve years of expectations and notoriety behind it. However, the studio has risen to the challenge and created a game that feels so incredibly Duke that you have to respect it no matter what. This is Duke Nukem at his puerile finest, and just from the demo, I was laughing out loud. It's not even that it's particularly witty. The humor is just so incredibly stupid that it starts to take on the illusion of brilliance, and that's what matters.
Do you know how you can tell that a game is going to be something special? When its demo ends with the main character getting his dick sucked by twins, then admits that his game better be good because it "took twelve fucking years" to make.
Duke Nukem Forever is something special indeed. Tits and pigs and kicking eyes like footballs conspire to make this a serious game of the show contender for me.
Contest:
1:45 AM on 09.04.2010
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Is this still funny? In all cerealness I'm jealous.
When you do it. <3
That and if it does tank it will mean no Borderlands 2 or, worse, an outsorced Borderlands 2 to the tune of Bioshock 2.
Quick way to correct this problem: http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/duke_nukem_3d_atomic_edition
Excellent use of $6. :)
Also, I am looking forward to this game, I'm gonna work on a post about why it's good to have Duke back.
LOL! WTFZ? That shit better be in the game and not just some PAX exclusive. That's definitely one way to stay true to Duke and say fuck all this mess now just sit down shutup and play my fuggin game. Wow - cant wait to see the reaction.
Nice work :D
Ya, and so does this urinal section wasnt that another duke game or something? Or maybe it was some kinda advertisement at a convention im remembering.
So utterly shocked at the news. I wonder what else they can add to 3D Realms' legacy to make it even more special/modern/Gearbox-y. I LOVE SELF AWARENESS.
The only thing that would make this fail is if Duke was not really Duke. But he is there, together with the shitty game that made our past.
Jim, you gave me hope.
I just see a FPS that any competent studio could fart in 1 year or 2, with 12 years I want a GENRE DEFINING MASTERPIECE!!!... Well lets stop this and join the masses... " Its the Duke, dude, He FTW!", "Finally, the Duke is back", "I'm having an orgasm", "I can't believe what my eyes are watching!, snif... snif I'm so happy".
Still, it's great to hear that it has old-school charm. I wish more shooters realized that not everything needs to be hyper realistic.
so evil.
That makes the fuck you even better.
http://bit.ly/c9PJ48 (ding!)
All I can say is oh yess! BRING IT ON, DUKE! yes!!!
I'm glad somebody mentioned it. I was going out of my mind wondering why none of the preview writeups were talking about the demo level and how it was a throwback to the end of Duke 3D.
From the back of Computer Games Magazine, in 1997.
*whispers - its only out of envy though...for now
Stop being pussies and just enjoy it for what it is! How often do you spend $60 just for nostalgia's sake? what else are you gonna spend that money on? the next fucking iteration of Call of Duty?!
you make me sick...
Seeing as everyone here is also looking forward to it, bring on the fuckin' DUKE baby!
I've just woken up... :(
Well sincce you just woke up you must have a boner too for Duke.
You are aware that "lardy" is married, right?
Im in love with the stupidity of this game already!!!
BUBBLE GUM. ASS. ETC. I am excited!
While I doubt the console versions will contain anything like Build, I sincerely hope that the PC version will. If it does, it might prompt me to upgrade my PC for it. I literally spent weeks and weeks of free time constructing levels for myself and my friends, even stringing together an entire Episode once or twice.
To people saying this should be a masterpiece because it took 12 years to make, keep in mind that that's one year of Gearbox doing real work on it. The rest was 3D Realms piecemealing stuff together in between massive sessions of dicking around at their office. It's not going to be revolutionary, but it might just bee stupidly fun. Just like Duke Nukem 3D.