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    Duke Nukem Forever

    Game » consists of 14 releases. Released Jun 14, 2011

    After approximately fourteen years of development, the heavily infamous sequel to Duke Nukem 3D was finally released, in which the macho Duke must damper yet another alien invasion.

    sdoots's Duke Nukem Forever (Xbox 360) review

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    • sdoots wrote this review on .
    • 3 out of 4 Giant Bomb users found it helpful.
    • sdoots has written a total of 22 reviews. The last one was for Quake
    • This review received 1 comments

    Well, it's a game.

    Duke Nukem Forever excels at one specific thing: Making the act of alien genocide fun as hell. All of the weapons have a great feel to them, and even the starting pistol packs a punch. Unfortunately, Duke Nukem Forever really wants you to do things other than shoot aliens, and that's it's biggest downfall. 
     
    12 years after the events of Duke Nukem 3D, Duke is now a mega-celebrity. Girls want him, guys want to be him. About 5 minutes after pressing start, aliens invade earth, steal our chicks, and Duke has to go kick their ass. You can knock this for being poor storytelling, but it's really all you want or need from Duke Nukem. However, even here the game really wants you to pay attention to things other than the alien ass kicking.  
     
    To elaborate, there are long sections of this game where nothing happens. You'll either be jumping from platform to platform, driving a awkward handling vehicle, item fetching, and even just standing around listening to dudes talk. Want to go back to the fun part and kill things? Fuck you, have some boring story. 
     
    I wish these issues weren't as severe as other reviews have made them seem, but I can tell you firsthand that at least half of the campaign has nothing to do with the actual act of firing a weapon.  
     
    Additionally, everything in Duke Nukem Forever looks shitty. It's somewhere between late PS2 and early 360 in terms of it's graphics, with all the bad bloom and shading that entails. Even the more unique areas like the Duke Burger look and feel boring as a result of this, and that only adds to the general sense of tedium the game carries.
     
    But hey, it can't be all bad. After all, Duke is there to give witty and amusing commentary, right? Well, sort of. Somewhere along the line, the writers forgot what makes Duke the fun and amusing character he is. While some of his lines did elicit a laugh, the more common reaction was a groan. References are poorly made, easy jokes are made even less funny than I thought possible, and...you know, I think the best way to put it would be to just say that if you lose at pinball, Duke says "I've got balls of fail." 
     It's like they took the Duke we loved and replaced him with a Family Guy loving, meme spouting clone. Only it's worse than that sounds. 
     
    On the multiplayer side, Duke Nukem fares slightly better. The sheer focus on combat means things are more enjoyable, but issues with lag, and generally feeling old (not arcadey, not classic, just old) means it's still not worth your time. 
     
    Duke Nukem Forever does have some geniunely funny and entertaining parts, and at times the classic Duke Nukem dialogue I loved shines through the meme-riddled bullshit, but overall, this game probably should have stayed dead.

    Other reviews for Duke Nukem Forever (Xbox 360)

      Duke is Back, and He's Gotten Old 0

      I'm sure there's a joke about size not mattering I'm missing here. Duke Nukem Forever is finally out. That is a statement that most gamers thought they would never hear. After being stuck in development limbo for 14 years, becoming a running joke in the gaming world, and even being cancelled at one point, the long awaited sequel to Duke Nukem 3D is available on store shelves thanks to Gearbox Software picking up the reins from former developer 3D Relams. Unfortunately, the tale of the game’s bi...

      6 out of 10 found this review helpful.

      Brand New...Yet Old 0

      I'll avoid the usual list of things that have happened since Duke Nukem Forever was announced (OK, just for giggles, I'll remind people that President Clinton got impeached since the game was announced, to give an idea how long this has been in developmental hell). Gearbox decided to pick up the pieces from whatever the heck 3D Realms was doing besides releasing games or finishing this repeatedly-rebuilt-from-scratch game of infamy. And the game will likely sell pretty well simply because it is ...

      1 out of 1 found this review helpful.

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