ZDoom

As the fourth main game in the popular series (Duke Nukem 1, 2, THREE-d, FOUR-ever), I don't think I have to explain to any of you the bumpy history and awful development cycle of this game. Changed engines, changed developers, scrapping the game and starting over for a new engine, etc.

But I genuinely enjoyed the final product? There were definitely cons, such as the 2 weapon at a time system (because of their stupid idea to compete with Halo much earlier in development; later patched to include more weapons), more linear level design (I don't fault them for this, it was the evolution of the genre, for better or worse, Doom 3 / 4 [2016], Half-Life 1/2 Portal 1/2 etc. all follow this), and the end boss was pretty anti-climatic.

But growing up, Duke Nukem was always one of my favorites. I grew up with the 1st DOS game with Dr. Proton and then Duke Nukem II, and finally his step into the 3D world and solidifying his character as a vular, hyper-masculine action hero. I got to do more Duke Nukem with better graphics, and I had a blast playing DNF.

When I hear complaints like "all you did was blow aliens' brains out with a shotgun, drink beer, and play with some titties." And I'm thinking, "and?????" lol "That sounds like a good ass Friday night to me..." and I don't know what else you were expecting from a Duke Nukem game. Yes, you lose the Doom-style secrets and key-hunting filled play of 3D, but that didn't make me hate Doom 3 or 4 (2016) at all.

Hell, I consider Half-Life 2 and Portal 2 to be two of the greatest games human beings have ever created, and they are pretty linear.

(The reason I thought of this topic is I have been playing through all the main Duke games, 1-2-3D+-4+, and I'm currently in the middle of the 3D expansions like Duke it Out in D.C.)

Maybe it's the so called "Firefly Effect".

We waited so much, and expected so much from this game, that no matter what efforts the producers took, it would be a deception for most players.
Not only that, the time it took for DNF to hit shelves was enough for us to see games actually EVOLVING. EDIT: I remember some folks here discussing this as a reason of why Half-Life 3 would probably be considered a bad game if it ever gets released.

I certainly don't treat it as the turd people paint it, but we live in times where an IGN article or a youtuber opinion is enough to get people talking bad things about the game without actually even PLAYING it.

EDIT 2: Take Shaq-Fu for an example. I did a honest review about it here (and i own the SNES cartdridge), but it's easier to treat it as a meme and talk shit all around.

Duke Nukem Forever for me sits at a perfectly average 5/10. It's not terrible, but there is nothing about it that is objectively great or even good. Its a passable game that never achieves anything besides being a passable game. You play it once just to see what it's about, then you forget all about it and move on.

I don't really fault it for the design so much as the lack of satisfaction. Somehow, despite DNF doing everything Duke 3D used to do, it doesn't feel anywhere near as fun to do. I think most of it's down to the game just arbitrarily wasting your time on all this other stuff (like, why in the hell is there a turret-based boss battle that early in the game, and why does it last more than 15 minutes?) and trying to convince you that it's fun, when in reality, I had more fun drawing dumb crap on the whiteboard in the introduction than I did with the entire rest of the game.

Well....I like Duke Nukem, I only played 3d on my psx long time ago when it came out but just to express how much I like the concept of Duke Nukem(not necessarily games though) I play the MMORPG game called world of tanks, and I replaced crew voiceovers for Duke Nukem best quotes from Duke Nukem Forever

I sometimes ask myself what could've been if DNF was released in the late 90s/early 2000s, at first it was developed for the Quake 2/id Tech 2 engine until they switched to Unreal Engine 1 and later 2. The trailers around the time show a more sinister, serious and overall dark setting. IIRC it was originally planned for the EDF to be adversaries too, similar to the HECU in Half-Life and the scientists and security in the Alpha.

It's a solid game. Not bad, not a hit. Worth playing through, but not much more. Duke3D was novel both in gameplay and style with its destructible architecture and props and tongue-in-cheek adult content. DNF however, when played by the same players who are now in their 30s or 40s themselves, seems immature and out of place in this time.

It was genuinely bad. The level design was not only linear, it was limited in unprecedented way, you could hardly do a single step away from predesigned path. Stark contrast with the Duke 3D where all levels were as open as the game could afford at that time. Also badly optimized so you had loading screen every two minutes. Gameplay was really bog standart at the time, which means subpar compared to today or 90 gameplay. 2 weapon limit, regenerating health, lock player in room and spawn waves of monsters... Duke character and story tried too hard to be funny and ended up being just embarassing. Less is sometimes more.
I wholeheartedly hate this game with passion. I am just glad that my aversion to steam stopped me from preordering it.

I liked it but not too much. The 'The Doctor Who Cloned Me' DLC was quite okay but far from great.

Generally, I found it too linear and too much trying to be a parody of a parody, although it had some interesting new gameplay elements (I did enjoy driving the moon buggy, that was fun).

The only truly positive thing about that game was performance. Back in 2011, it was capable of running on then-current low-end hardware. I had a desktop and a laptop, both cheapo office machines featuring AMD APUs, and both could run DNF at native resolutions (desktop: Full HD, laptop: HD) smoothly, something that was impossible with games like GTA 4 even on the lowest settings.

I enjoyed it for what it was. I got it for dirt cheap though, if I was a die-hard Duke fan and paid full price at launch I’d probably have a much lower opinion of it. But in the end it was a flawed but fun game. I’ve played far worse.

Those console load times though…

about 14 years of development time for a meager 6 or so hours of gameplay. it's alright. definitely not worth the full price for what little game you get, but it gets extreme discounts at times like this, so that's fine. i think i had more fun playing poker in the dream world section than i had actually playing the game itself.

Viscra Maelstrom wrote:about 14 years of development time for a meager 6 or so hours of gameplay.

I have little to no interest in playing DNF and even I find this assessment rather unfair. The dev time for the final product was much, much less. Too little, maybe, but at least they were trying to finish something instead of switching up engines forever.

Then again, they failed to put in those 14 years, leaving Duke saying, "After 12 years, it should be" (good).

Somtimes, the fault might not come from the ideas of the main creators, or bad designers who wish to put their own ideas above a general vision of player feedback, but rather a short deadline.

Indeed, DNF took almost 15 years to be released, but during this time, many artists, programmers and designers left the involved teams of all engines they've tried out. And rushing development just because you WANT TO see something complete (since the Duke series was already a joke itself), may lead to reeeeeal bad results.

Anybody remember Tattoo Assassins? An average Mortal Kombat clone that could be something actually cool, if the programmers didn't had to work 12 hours non-stop.

NeuralStunner wrote:

Viscra Maelstrom wrote:about 14 years of development time for a meager 6 or so hours of gameplay.

I have little to no interest in playing DNF and even I find this assessment rather unfair. The dev time for the final product was much, much less. Too little, maybe, but at least they were trying to finish something instead of switching up engines forever.

maybe so, but what ultimately matters when a project has development issues like this is what the end product becomes, and the result of DNF is honestly pretty anemic. it's not completely awful and unsalvegable, but it's not exactly excellent either. it's pretty average, which is a far cry from what a titan the first few games are, especially 3D.

honestly though, i'm pretty fine with the game existing as it is. it's harmless, but underwhelming. i'm far more upset with what a bad job that Gearbox has done treating the IP after the fact. way to kill the legacy of the series by making previous titles completely unavailable on digital stores.