Duke Nukem Forever

Since I was six years-old, Duke Nukem Forever has been in the works in some way or another. Now, after what seemed like forever (Huh? Yeah? You like what I did there? Alright, let's move on.) and quite a few development teams, the King is back baby, and boy has he aged poorly.

Pros:

• It's somewhat rewarding to be playing a game that has been through so much for so long.
• You can write/draw whatever you want on dry erase boards.
• ONE of the minor characters has a funny line. It's the guy who says, "Um, okay" when Duke exclaims that power armor is for pussies. Also, did you see my emphasis on the number? Yeah, it's sad.
• The shotgun blasting pigs against the wall is a saving grace from just about everything else.

Cons:

• Duke Nukem. His personality, his dated one-liners, his blatant misogyny; every aspect about Duke makes him appear sad and pathetic. He reminds me a little of Uncle Rico from Napolean Dynamite in that he’s stuck in a past generation and can’t get with the times like everyone else.
• While the single player campaign is longer than the average first-person shooter’s, the story’s pretty forgettable. The game begins with Duke pissing, the game ends with Duke pissing. All the beats in between? Um, well, I’ll have to get back to you on that one.
• It’s downright boring! The only thing that kept me going was having some credibility when writing this review.
• Dated visual presentation. Duke Nukem Forever probably would’ve looked alright had it come out in 2007. Instead, it came out in 2011, and it’s not pretty. In fact, if you look at the main pig enemy screenshot that you unlock after you beat the game, the most up-to-date image is actually from 2007, and it looks exactly like how it does now. Figures.
• Dreadful variety of gameplay types throughout. The driving sections, the shooting sections, the puzzles sections, and especially the underwater sections. Just when I was contemplating suicide after all the elementary-grade puzzles, they throw me under water. They might as well have packed a noose with the game.
• Slow controls make everything, especially those god-damned puzzles, require more effort then needed.
• Ugh, the puzzles!
• Horrendously long load times when you start a level and after every time you die.
• Frequent framerate issues and uncommon full-on crashes.
• Duke has a recharging health meter and can only carry two weapons at a time, yet he knocks on games like Halo... because that makes sense.
• I’m sorry, but when Duke goes to piss in a stall, why does he lift the seat? This isn’t important enough to actually knock off the score, but still, why?

I originally had this game pre-ordered, but I then cancelled it after reading the many negative reviews across the internet. When I approached the Gamestop employee about canceling my pre-order, he tried to convince me that the game is going to be bad, and that I should be buying it for its legacy. I’m sorry, but no one in their right mind would ever spend $60 on a legacy, especially since the final product makes that whole legacy thing seem like a complete waste of time. This brings up a very important question: Who would I recommend Duke Nukem Forever to? The answer: No one. I can’t recommend DNF to die hard Duke Nukem fans because it might ruin their previous views of the franchise, and I can’t recommend this game to players who are looking for an entertaining shooter experience because... well, look at the cons. Maybe this game will sell well, and they can make a sequel that improves on just about every aspect of this game, but that won’t happen until at least 2025.