Duke Nukem Forever - A Colossal Disappointment!

Let’s get one thing straight. I love cheese. I’m not talking about the dairy product because who doesn’t love that right? I’m talking about the “cheese factor” you find in some games or movies that make you cringe in embarrassment but deep down give you some sort of a cheap thrill. I also from time to time enjoy some stuff that’s so bad it’s good (Son of Dracula anyone?) but Duke Nukem Forever is so bad, it’s just plain bad. All the sexual innuendos, juvenile humor, self-mockery and outdated parodies just fall flat on their face. Why? Because Duke Nukem Forever is a poorly made game that even after 14 years in the making feels like a rushed product.

Spam with rockets till dead

Now Duke Nukem never claimed to be an intellectual character and we loved him for it. He was the bubble-gum chewing, beer drinking, chick loving, alien butt kicker who never really cared about what anyone thought of his rather in-your-face ways. And when Aliens invaded earth in 1996 (in Duke 3d) and took his “babes”, that was it. He unleashed hell upon them because no one, and I mean no one f***s with Duke’s babes – except you know the little Duke in his pants. Unfortunately the aliens he fought back in the day have returned albeit more than a decade later to take his babes away once again. You did not see that coming right?

No one takes Duke's babes

Like most of you know, DNF is a shooter at heart and if core gameplay was solid, I would have gladly looked past all the other glaring flaws but sadly it isn’t. DNF seems like a game stuck in the nineties, be it in level design, painful loading times or the sheer amount of time you’ll be staring at the loading screen waiting for another chapter to load. For a game that’s trying to embrace its old school roots. Duke falters by limiting players to carry just two weapons. I mean, really, WTF is that all about? Is that their way of appealing to today’s FPS crowd? Since when is Duke going in for realism? And speaking of realism, it seems Duke has become somewhat of a wuss over the years. He starts panting after sprinting for like five seconds and can withstand hardly any damage. Every few minutes my life bar would start flashing red because I had been shot by a pig - wielding a tiny pistol. Umm did I miss something over here? Was I magically transported to Operation Flashpoint where one bullet can end my life?

Eat my fist fool

You’ll come across a ton of weapons in the game but all of them are nothing but shinier variants of the ones found in Duke 3D. 14 years ago, the Shrink Gun was innovative and hilarious to use. Today it doesn’t seem that impressive after players have been spoilt by a plethora of innovative weapons over the years. Boring arsenal aside, the gameplay in DNF is painfully predictable as well. The entire game oscillates between boring driving segments, turret sections, predictable boss fights, and annoying platforming sections.