Duke Nukem Forever Reviews

This game gets a bad rep, but is actually very good. A must play if you're a Duke fan.

Is it the duke game we all wanted? No. In my opinion it really isnt as bad as the reviews said and our (the fans) initial reaction to it back in 2011. That being said there are a couple things i dislike. 2 weapon limit (you can change it to 4 in the settings but even then i think thats too low for a duke game) the hive is absolutely the lowest point in the entire franchise, and captain dillan. Good lord dont get me started on captain dillan. But with that being said, if you're interested in this game wait for a sell.

Not perfect, some gameplay slogs, but it's still a fun game and it has its moments. I still enjoyed it and was worth the price on sale. Complaining about Duke's humour 14 years later is nonsensical. You travel back to 2011 when you play this game. If you don't like the one-liners, maybe find a modern socially-acceptable-inclusive title instead Duke rules

This game's main failing is that it just doesn't feel like old Duke: getting hit doesn't matter with rechargeable health, levels are corridors compared to old Duke levels that were open with a barrage of secrets, ragdolling downplays the enemy deaths, no iconic sounds from the older titles... pretty much the only thing Duke-esque in the game is the voice over and ability to interact with a slew of items. This doesn't get a pass just because it took forever to come out. Heck you could date where each gameplay segment was story boarded based on the hilariously outdated references. Your money is better spent on the remastered Duke Nukem 3D title on Steam or Ion Fury for a true Duke successor.

After 15 years of hype, Duke finally showed up... and brought jokes from 1998. The aliens are back sadly, so is the game design. Come for the nostalgia, stay for the disappointment.

The only reasons why I would recommend you buy Duke Nukem Forever is the DLC The Doctor who Cloned Me, the need to be on legal footing when trying the DNF Restoration Project, and the DNF Enhanced mod. Other than that, there's no reason to play this game over the superior 3D. You know the story of Duke Forever by now: Announced and intended as a direct sequel to Duke Nukem 3D, Forever lived up to its name and entered a hellish development cycle where the director George Broussard was so hellbent on making it the greatest game of all time that the game wound up sabotaging itself with bucketloads of feature creep and bad level design. And even years after the 2011 release date, Forever still stands as one of the worst games of the decade. It features terrible humour, lame combat, borked level design, and displays a thorough misunderstanding of the Duke franchise. Gameplay wise, the only weapons worth using are the Shotgun and Devastator, as most of the weapons lack any real sort of impact. The writing is very spiteful and try-hard in its attempts to parody shooter games of the time, and of course, this game is home to "The Hive": one of the worst levels ever put in an FPS game ever (good thing I didn't play it during my brief time with the main campaign). Overall, this is a franchise killer in every sense of the word, and unless you want to play the DNF Enhanced mod or Doctor Who Cloned Me, or be on legal ground with the DNF Restoration Project, I do not recommend you play it.

TLDR - Its got a much worse reputation than it deserves, all in all its a fairly decent game. The game has a lot of gameplay variety - puzzles, turret sections, vehicle sections, 3D platforming and bosses. Its not only a shooter. But it also suffers from this choice, it is a jack of all trades - not especially good at any of them. For each puzzle I enjoyed there are two that I did'nt like. The vehicle sections are in general not good, there are a few moments where they are fun but overall its not good. Turrets fall into same, they are not very good most of the time. So, how is the main part of the game - the shooter part? Well, its alright. There is a bit of variety in the guns since they keept the freezer and added in a sniper rail-gun. The enemies are pretty standard, gameplay here is okay-ish I would rate it. I did feel like lots of the gun fighting did'nt feel impactful enough. You never got that good feedback when you shot someone. They also made a terrible design decision to only let you carry two guns at a time. I think this hindered a lot of the overall design of levels and such, it feels like gunplay would have been much more interesting if you could have all the weapons at once. Then there is the fun-factor with Dukes many oneliners and comedy parts in the game. Its a bit hit and miss, I did crack a smile a couple of times. Its easy to see why this game got delayed so heavily - trying to do all of these different things in one single game... Not an easy task to do it well. They should have thrown away 60% of the ideas and just focused on making the core game part really good and everyone would have been happy... I still think this game is worth a play though, especially now when the price is kind a low. But go in to it with the right expectations and keep in mind its now a very old game at this point and you probably will have a good time.

I genuinely wish this was the game that put Gearbox out of business. Duke Nukem Forever is a boring mess with an identity crisis. Level variety is pretty good, though I honestly hated everything that took place inside of Vegas (except duke burger and the hive). The level design itself varies from somewhat good to really bad (especially true for the dlc). Gun play is serviceable, nothing feels particularly good to use outside of maybe the shotgun, pistol, and shrink ray (expander is good). The writing is just a total train wreck, it's painfully unfunny. The best example of this is the old man on generator room who might be one of the unfunniest characters in gaming history. Even in 2011, these jokes didn't land -- they are even worse now. As for Duke himself, he is some odd lobotomized version of his iconic character. It felt like Duke hardly ever talked or reacted to his situation, and when he did, he was sprouting dialogue that is either nonsensical or crude for the sake of being crude. It's not funny, it's not witty, it's just cringey. Sad, and cringey. Even Duke's one-liners don't hit as hard as they do in Duke 3D. Don't get me wrong, I love Jon St. John, but even he sounds about as bored as I am playing through this slog. I could go on and on, but the fact is this: Duke Nukem Forever is such a brilliant example of one of gaming's worst implosions of an IP. 3D Realms tried to create something and it fizzled out, and the pieces Gearbox put together are so bad, they should've just let it rot away.

Duke Nukem Forever is a modern remake of the classic FPS from the golden age of shooters. The game is rich with interactive elements which takes advantage of the Unreal engine used. The game also has many interludes such as a urinal to being with some girls. The game elements are what made Duke Nukem so popular way back when. I played this on my Dell Precision 3480 with Intel Xe Arc graphics and RTX A500 graphics. The game automatically set the screen resolution on graphics setting to the GPU capabilities.

Was it good Duke? The game, I mean. Yeah, but after 12 years it better be! Hail to the king baby! I love this game and I really wish Duke would get some more screen time. The classic alpha male boomer shooter reboot was awesome to me when it came out, and still fun for this most recent play through. Nice mix of puzzles, driving stages, classic Duke humor, and blasting the crap out of aliens. Maybe it's just me but I feel like a good joke never dies. So it's weird seeing people complain of "outdated humor". Like I don't even understand what that means. Jokes are only funny for a short shelf life? I don't have an attention span that can be measured in nano seconds, so I still find the references and memes they packed in to be hilarious. I had a great time playing this again and I truly hope more Duke games come around some day!