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Duke Nukem Forever. May 3. Confirmed.

Discussion in 'Gaming Forum' started by Desides, Jan 21, 2011.

  1. Desides

    Desides Well-Known Member

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    Finished the demo. It’s roughly 30-45 minutes long. It’s basically the PAX demo: you get to play part of stage 1, which is a remake and expansion of the final level of Duke 3D; and a later stage, where you’re driving Duke’s monster truck through the desert. Eventually you stop and go through a mine to get gas for the truck.

    Fun stuff on the whole. Reviewers will hate it because it’s not “modern” enough, but IMO it’s pretty Halo-like in the way it uses set pieces.
     
  2. Desides

    Desides Well-Known Member

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    Flashback. 10 years ago, 2001, E3. Arguably one of the greatest video game trailers of all time.

    [video=youtube;TDlB2P1leRM]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDlB2P1leRM[/video]
     
  3. Desides

    Desides Well-Known Member

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    So, reviews of the international release are coming in. The gaming press hates it, as predicted. They’re calling it misogynistic, anachronistic, pathetic, and boring. Duke is a zero-dimensional blowhard, someone to be laughed at and not with. He’s shallow and vulgar. The graphics are horrible, the quotes are recycled.

    Game of the year? Game of the year.

    The sad thing is that most of the descriptions above apply to almost every mega-hit game. Mario? Boy, yeah, he’s a really well-developed character. Call of Duty soldiers? They’re pretty one-dimensional, telling Ramirez to do everything including to stay frosty because they’re oscar mike. Master Chief! There’s a guy with some classic dialog, totally not just a bunch of flatly-delivered one-liners. And the graphics! I thought graphics don’t matter, and games should only be released when they’re done!

    I sort of feel like I’m subverting the greater gaming industry by anticipating and actually wanting to play DNF. And after this year’s crapfest of an E3, I don’t mind at all.
     
  4. Pagan

    Pagan Metal & a Mustang

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    Did you really think the press would be favorable towards a game that starts off with the hero getting a twin hummer?

    Just wait until the Feminazis get a gander at it. :wink2:
     
  5. Desides

    Desides Well-Known Member

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    Nope, but it’s reassuring that they hate it. Means it does something right.

    Funny moment: IGN’s Game Scoop podcast spend some time bashing the hell out of DNF, the Duke character, and everything associated with the franchise… but they have a Duke quote in their intro. :lol:
     
  6. Paul 13

    Paul 13 Chaotic Neutral & Unstable Genius Staff Member

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    I take it Walmart won't be selling this one?
     
  7. Pagan

    Pagan Metal & a Mustang

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    Wow...after completing the demo, I went to Gamestop and moved my preorder to Rage instead.

    VERY disappointed. The humor is still there, and Duke's an icon, but this game isn't very good. Feels and plays like a PS1 game. Not impressed at all, and from what the kid at the counter at Gamestop told me, I'm not the only one who rescinded my preorder.

    For all the time they had to develop this, it's a let down IMO.
     
  8. Stitches

    Stitches ThePhin's Biggest Killjoy Luxury Box

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    A couple sets of screenshots I've seen have the PC version looking ok, but the console versions look downright sad by comparison.
     
  9. Desides

    Desides Well-Known Member

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    They actually haven't had a lot of time. Development kept starting and restarting over and over again. There were a bunch of engine changes, design changes, etc. This is basically Duke Nukem Forever VII.

    I thought the demo was okay. It was basically the PAX demo. My biggest problem was that it was too short and didn't show me anything new.

    Worth noting that the PC version is getting better reviews than the console versions just because the PC version doesn't have 30 second load times.
     
  10. Desides

    Desides Well-Known Member

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    My Amazon preorder of the DNF Balls of Steel edition shipped.

    I'm not expecting the greatest game ever, but I'm expecting something that will just throw random off the wall BS at me, thus providing high levels of amusement and a stark contrast with the Modern Call of Battlefield Reach Warfare stuff that takes itself way too seriously.
     
  11. Desides

    Desides Well-Known Member

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    The Balls of Steel edition is sitting on my desk.

    Going to give this a playthrough soon and see if it lives up to my expectations, which are apparently quite different from reviewers'. No shock there.

    Edit: I'm being taunted. I inserted the DVD to begin installation, and it took me to Steam to redeem a digital download. Why even have a DVD, in that case? Duke's just making me wait longer.

    Edit 2: Thankfully, it's installing from disc rather than downloading. Works for me.

    Edit 3: I'm a few hours in now. Don't see what people are complaining about. Is it the best FPS of all time? No. But there's enough random BS going on to amuse you. The game at least stays fresh: you start out punching aliens and throwing stuff at them in a sort of semi-stealth "homage" to Doom 3; then you get to actually shoot the aliens and the game starts feeling a little more like Duke; you get shrunken down and have to navigate areas in an RC car, which is actually pretty fun, IMO; there's a boss section where you mount a turret and have to deal with alien fighter planes while attacking their mothership; and there are plenty of urban environments ala Duke 3D.

    So while people are correct in that this isn't exactly the most innovative game around, I'm having fun. Certainly entertains me more than CoD singleplayer.
     
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  12. Desides

    Desides Well-Known Member

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    Further in. Taking a break. Been playing all afternoon.

    There are parts that are going to offend the easily offended. Perhaps even the moderately-difficult-to-offend. After defeating a giant alien with three breasts, Duke is knocked out, and has a dream/fantasy about owning a crappy strip club. He completes a ridiculous objective (gather a condom, vibrator, and popcorn for the champagne room), and just as Duke is about to get some, he wakes up for more alien fighting action.

    But there are parts that are really fun. The RC car levels in the early going (Duke is shrunken down and has to drive around in an RC monster truck) are fun, especially the slight breaks in the action (shrunken Duke jumping across roulette tables and couches to reach a button to open a gate so his car can keep going). The guns are still some of the best in FPS gaming, especially the Shrink Ray. The new Railgun is the best since Quake II. The shotgun is satisfying, especially when you're in a destructible environment and you see your shells taking huge clumps out of support columns.

    If you can play games in a vacuum and not think "Man, Gears of Modern Battlefield Reach War did X better", then you might find something here worth playing. I'm definitely having fun. But I have odd taste, I totally admit that. I'm also not comparing it to Duke 3D. It loses that comparison: Duke 3D is a better game. But DNF is fun enough. I'm sure it'll be in the bargain bin soon, and if you're mildly curious, spending $20 on this is not a crime.

    You definitely need a very tongue-in-cheek sense of humor to play this, though. And having knowledge of FPS games from the last ten years will help a lot, because you'll recognize set pieces and gameplay elements from those games. The initial areas have you crawling through the dark to restore power to Duke's casino in a very Doom 3 like atmosphere. Then there are Halo references, with an AI squad and set pieces based on Duke manning turrets. Later on, Half-Life 2 and Episode 2 come into play, with a plot element taken right out of Episode 2 (if you've played it, you'll recognize it immediately) and some HL2-like set pieces. One could even believe there's a little bit of Fallout: New Vegas referencing, since one of the long-term goals is to get to Hoover Dam to stop an invasion.

    Also: the Duke Burger level is flat-out fun and I would not be surprised if future games ripped this off somehow.
     
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  13. Desides

    Desides Well-Known Member

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    Beat it. I'll spare the wall of text: 3 out of 5.

    Worth a play through if you're bored and have some cash to burn. Go in with no expectations and you'll have some fun, especially in the Duke Burger level.
     
  14. Pagan

    Pagan Metal & a Mustang

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    That's what I'm thinking...
     
  15. Desides

    Desides Well-Known Member

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    I don't blame you for canceling your preorder, but the game is still worth playing at some point.
     
  16. dolfan32323

    dolfan32323 ty xphinfanx

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    sounds like it could be entertaining... thanks for the write up Des
     
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  17. Desides

    Desides Well-Known Member

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    No prob. Best way to think of it: the big dumb summer action flick of video games. Ignore the 15 year development, it wasn't actually under continuous work for that long. There's a reason Gearbox and Triptych had to spend almost two years working on it after they acquired the rights. It also helps if you don't play games like a reviewer: looking for high poly counts in models, paying close attention to pacing and narrative and such. It's freaking Duke Nukem.

    Here's hoping the brand hasn't been so utterly destroyed by DNF reviews that Gearbox can justify making a sequel.
     
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  18. Pagan

    Pagan Metal & a Mustang

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    Oh I agree...just not for $60. It's the same as movies. I love "The Hangover," but I'll wait until "The Hangover II" is on cable to see it instead of spending $35 to go to the movies. It won't lose anything in the transfer from big screen to smaller screen. ;)
     
  19. ScottishFin

    ScottishFin Season Ticket Holder Club Member

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    This is an awful game , if you like your FPS to be stuck in the 90s then you may enjoy it. Some of the dialogue is not too bad but the basic game is **** IMO.

    Thankfully I only rented it so only cost me a small amount. in no way would i even recommend this as a bargain bin game :(
     
  20. Desides

    Desides Well-Known Member

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    Sounds like you were playing a console version. My condolences: the 360 and PS3 versions truly suck. The game is best played on the PC.
     
  21. Desides

    Desides Well-Known Member

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    So apparently DNF is doing okay at retail. Tweet from Randy Pitchford (@duvalmagic):

     
  22. #1 fan

    #1 fan Well-Known Member

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    Just finished L.A. Noire and I started playing this today. I'm about three hours or so in (I'm about an hour after the race car level). Some impressions . . .

    The first hour of the game or so sucks. I almost put the game down, but thank god I didn't. There are a lot of annoying puzzles, and a lot of unnecessary homage towards Duke 3D. You have to wade through a lot of fat before the game actually "starts."

    Soon after that race car level you actually fight aliens for extended periods of time. At this point I'm really liking the game. I'm on a level now that's on the streets of vegas. I just did a boss battle that was pretty fun. I shot him a bunch of times with an RPG until he was subdued. I then stabbed him in the eye with a sword or something, and then finished him off with a punch in the nuts.

    Yes, this game feels different. If you want to play Call of Duty 79 you will be disappointed. You fight aliens, take steroids and drink beer for power, look at yourself in the mirror for health boosts, and get BJs during cut scenes. The graphics are cartoonish and the weapons do feel like they're out of the '90s (you still get trip mines and pipe bombs). There's no cover button, only a crouch.

    Complaints about the graphics might be overstated. I'm playing this on a PC, and it looks better than L.A. Noire on a PS3 IMO

    The character is awesome, and to be honest, it's what kept me going during the beginning rough patch of the game. To complain about arrogance is misguided. The health bar is called your "ego." There's a Duke museum in the game. If anything Gear Box did a really good job of developing this character and centering it around his arrogance. The depth of the Duke character far extends those of other shooters, but yes, it does so in arrogance. I guess Gearbox didn't pay off the magazines to write a good enough review.

    The humor is corny, but funny. At one load screen, one of the tips was something like "If you get stuck, go online, cheat and look at one of the FAQs." There's another moment where some guys you're fighting with offer you a gun and some power armor. You tell them "power armor is for *******" and only take the gun. The power armor is Master Chief's.

    I'm not sure of the long term value of this game, but I think a lot of the negative reviews have been over stated. I'm actually going back to play it right now.
     
    Desides likes this.
  23. Desides

    Desides Well-Known Member

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    A lot of criticism is directed specifically at one level, The Hive. You'll get there pretty soon. Duke Burger is a couple levels after, so if you utterly hate The Hive, it's worth staying on to see if Duke Burger piques your interest.

    Also, 3D Realms made most of the game, with Triptych Games (dev studio made up of 3DR employees who formed up after 3DR laid everyone off) responsible for finishing the singleplayer. There are parts toward the end that feel disjointed because more content was clearly planned but not implemented: Triptych just finished up what was there, they did not add the missing content. Gearbox internally made the console ports, which were admittedly pretty crappy and another big reason why reviewers are dumping on the game.

    Gearbox will probably create Duke 5 (they bought the IP, you know they aren't going to just release DNF and call it a day) with cooperation from Tryptych, who moved into the same building that Gearbox works in (Bank of America Tower in Dallas).
     
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  24. #1 fan

    #1 fan Well-Known Member

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    Just finished the game, and I feel the need to defend it some. To be honest I'd give it about an 8 / 10 (not including multiplayer, which I can't play).

    What the game does well is put the player in cool "new" situations and different environments. I love drinking a beer for strength and watching the screen get fuzzy as I blow up Pig Cops with my Devastator. In the Duke Burger, you're shrunk down in your own restaurant, and you fight guys on the opposite shelves (surrounded by Duke Sauce). You crawl in and out of walls, vents, etc.

    In the dessert, you can run over guys with a monster truck, and then get out and sniper other ones with a Rail Gun. It feels sort of GTAish (or like Halo). I liked the dessert levels the best. Other things like Pipe Bombs and Holodukes are awesome, and fun to play with. Taking steroids before a big fight is pretty cool too.

    What Duke lacks is "story." Duke also has no mission objectives, or statistics. I missed this a little bit, but not that much. One issue for me was the puzzles, but they were more frequent in the beginning and they really weren't that hard. If you get stuck in the race car, look for a ramp. I never needed to read a walk through, and to be honest, some of the puzzles were actually fun. However, there's not much to DNF after you beat it (once again, I haven't tried multiplayer).



    For some context, I've matched it up against other games I've played this summer:

    Killzone 3. Generic to the Max. 5 / 10. This is a game I bought the move controllers for (and the gun) and still can't finish. Duke squashes this game with it's different environments, guns, and aliens. I'd give the edge in graphics to DNF. Shooting the same gray bad guy, over and over, is nowhere near as cool as freezing someone and then shattering them.

    Crysis 2. 7.5 / 10. This game looks a lot better than DNF. The game play in the beginning feels very polished, and it does allow the player to do cool things in "stealth mode."

    The game plateaus from there: the same guns, routines, and bad guys are repeated so often that the game becomes tiresome to finish. Duke never gets stale. Crysis 2 to start, but Duke as it finishes. As a whole, I liked DNF better.

    *** Crysis 2 (for PC) also has a bug where you loose all the points to customize your character. DNF, as far as I can tell, has no bugs.

    LA Noire. 8.5 / 10. LA Noire feels like the most polished of the bunch, but you never die. You can't "loose" a level, and at some point it feels more like Oregon Trail or Carmen Sandiego. For a thirty year old, it's the Apple IIe games from school all over again, but with dead naked women. Awesome game, but with no real "tension," it makes it a little hard to finish. Great plot and polish. Overall a "better game" than DNF, but I enjoyed DNF more.
     
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  25. Desides

    Desides Well-Known Member

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    To be fair, he does have a mission objective: get back the kidnapped babes by kicking alien ***. After The Hive, the goal is simply to kick alien *** out of revenge.

    In other words, Duke has the same motivation and objectives as Master Chief in all three Halo games. There are aliens, they're bad, go shoot them.
     
  26. #1 fan

    #1 fan Well-Known Member

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    Fine by me. I loved the "story" or lack there of, but some critics / players might want long, melodramatic cut scenes.
     
  27. Desides

    Desides Well-Known Member

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    I think it's funny that Duke got criticized for being a one-dimensional character when the three biggest-profile protagonists of the last decade are Gordon Freeman, Master Chief, and Kratos. Gordon Freeman has no personality, motivation, lines, or development; we only know that he went to MIT because Barney says so, for example. Master Chief shoots aliens because he's told to shoot aliens, and once in a while he might deliver a flat line about doing something or not doing something. Kratos, well, he has a loud yell and a really loud yell.
     
  28. Desides

    Desides Well-Known Member

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    Wow. Finally a DNF opinion worth reading:

     
  29. Alex13

    Alex13 Tua Time !!! Club Member

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    its time to get a console in my house, can´t still decide if its a PS3 or Xbox 360 though, LA Noir will be released for PC too now i read
     
  30. Stitches

    Stitches ThePhin's Biggest Killjoy Luxury Box

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    I just bought this off Amazon's digital distribution for $.99. :lol:
     

  31. Do you play online? If you do, go with 360. Both are good systems though.
     
  32. Desides

    Desides Well-Known Member

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    It's down that far already? Wow. Well, at least you won't say you've been ripped off!

    Give it a play through and tell us what you think. I still say it's fundamentally an acceptable game that just doesn't adhere to conventions that most reviewers expect. And I think it's pretty hypocritical of them to love Gears of War 3 but hate this game.
     
  33. Stitches

    Stitches ThePhin's Biggest Killjoy Luxury Box

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    It is $5.99, but I had a $5 coupon because I bought Shogun 2 (for $7.49) in december.
     
  34. Destroyer

    Destroyer There for every play.

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    The actual disk was on sale at bestbuy.com for 5 dollars last week.
     

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