Review: Duke Nukem Forever

So the Duke finally has a next generation game but has many years of development hell taken its toll?

The straight up answer is yes! Duke Nukem Forever feels like a game made 14 years ago, for release 14 year ago!

I played the PlayStation 3 copy of the game and found that for each level there was an astounding period of staring at a static picture with some pointless and really quite condescending hints displayed whilst the level loaded. Whilst I haven’t timed these loading screens, I think I lost most of my weekend to them. When the level has loaded, which has taken an age, you’d hope for something rather spectacular but no. Blocky graphics and levels that don’t feel particularly detailed await.

The control mechanisms are just clunky and the shooting dire. There is very little to like about this game unfortunately. Duke’s one liners are back and add some light relief to a game that is painful to play – when you can actually play.

The health system now works on ego – the more damage you take the less ego you have. Defeat the enemy and your ego restores. You can also extend you ego bar by certain actions – admiring yourself in a mirror for instance. Defeating bosses also extends your ego bar. However this seems very old fashioned in itself. The modern man has moved on, technology has grown greater and the nerd is now king, not the jock.

There’s not much to say about this game. It not worth the recommended £49.99 and I would be looking to pay sub £20 for this game, if you really want to play it. Maybe worth putting on Price Watch but don’t set the value too high!

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 5th, 2011 at 8:16 pm and is filed under General Gaming, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.