Duke Nukem Forever: 12 Years Dashed?

Player Name for friending: nitsudstems

-Note: When talking about other games their single player campaign is implied… until I get to test the multiplayer.

-Also: There are topless girls with bikini bottoms in this game and really, really blatant innuendo. I’m indifferent to it but some people might care.

~2hr mark – 06-18-2011
I was tired when I started and expecting to head to bed because I need to be up early tomorrow… yet it’s midnight and I’m reluctant to stop. That bodes pretty well for once-through playability. It’s Halo retooled for a human protagonist… rather than having a solid level like in Duke Nukem 3D so far it’s just been a series of hallways. I hope it’s not Halo all the way through, that was a playable but underwhelming game.

~7hr mark – 06-20-2011
I’ve noticed the music on more than one occasion… it’s can be pretty sweet and matches to the levels pretty well. The game has actually gotten more fun once I got to the “Duke Dome”. The “teehee” and “this is actually pretty sweet” moments are actually coming more frequently and it feels a little more like a Duke game to me. I would actually put it on par with Half Life 2… which is 7 years old, but that’s still saying something in my eyes. I haven’t really gotten into the whole realistic ops phase of first person shooters which have become prevalent since consoles could handle this kind of thing so perhaps my perspective is a little retro. But all excuses aside, I’m genuinely enjoying Duke Nukem Forever.

~12.3hr mark – 06-21-2011
That’s all there is to the single player campaign; pretty short game for having over a decade to work on it so the customer can pay $50 to play. The end promises a sequel and the game package says there will be downloadable content later in the summer; hopefully that means free downloaded expansion? Who knows. Yeah, once you get past the initial stage the environment feels more Duckish, interacts a lot like Half-Life 2, with the hud/life system of Halo. I still can say I enjoyed the single player and the cheesy console-like achievements are actually pretty fun challenges tempting me to play though again (much slower) on “Damn I’m Good” mode while keeping Duke’s gold gun the whole game. After I get the petty achievments like killing all the cat fish and finding the ego boosts. But tomorrow hopefully the real fun begins: Dukematch!

Ending SP Note: There’s already youtube videos and info online for achievements that aren’t skill based. Search and you will find.

~~~~Multiplayer~~~~
06-23-2011 – Getting my twitch on
Playing online is chaotic fun; mostly 8 player holy-crap fests so far. I need to get the rust out of my twitch reflexes but I’m interested in sticking with it. We’ll see how it goes. BTW: Love the shotgun 🙂

He’s kind of a big deal

I did start a post about Christmas/holidays and family… touchy feely stuff that got complicated and wordy so I decided to move on for now, I may go back to it after Christmas. This post I aim to talk about another subject that’s popped up just last week. It’s inspired me to create a wallpaper and listen to theme music repeatedly. None other than that egotistical fictional icon from my youth Duke Nukem. The guys at 3D Realms came out with a teaser last Wednesday breaking a hiatus of nothing for a officially substantial couple year period… nearly 10 year period for me. I gave up on a new game when their website switched to saying “When it’s Done.”

Blond military style crew-cut, tank top showing off a ripping bicep that slowly, easily, reps a massive dumb-bell in a dark room while wearing sunglasses, smoking a big stogy, and a ready beer beside him. He drops the weight, stands up and calmly blows smoke in your face. The cliche self-absorbed, larger-than-life, testosterone filled action hero personified in every extreme. If I didn’t know the guy I probably wouldn’t have even opened the teaser, like so many other games that have been released in the last 10 year… has it been 10 years already?

The beer on the ground with a label only viewable by pausing and zooming shows the only hint of the developers sense of detail and humor. “Scores: all the time.” This interactive creativity and wit is what made so many gamers love Duke Nukem. The replay-ability of single player because even after you beat the levels there are functional secrets and easter eggs that often also reward you with funny one liners from Duke. You find a hung Luke Skywalker “Now this is a force to be reckoned with.” The final level of one of the episodes you can blow up a Duff Beer blimp. In multi-player some of the best maps were actually single player levels, which says something about how non-linear the levels can be. Imagine that, explorable levels in a FPS…

I look forward to dukematch again. deathmatch= fun through competition, if you don’t practice you suck, dukematch from my memory=just have fun, if you suck… just give em hell as best you can. There are plenty of options for that.

Needless to say, when Duke Nukem Forever comes out I’ll be updating my system to play it.