Review: Duke Nukem Forever

Played on PS3

So, I was not a Duke Nukem fan originally. In fact, not even sure I really had seen the game until Philip started playing it to get ready for Forever's release. That being said, I wasn't really buying into the hype. Then we went to the Gearbox Community Day. It was pretty cool. We didn't stay long, but we got to see some cool 3D stuff and listen to the Borderlands panel. The voice actor for Duke was there also and every time he spoke he reminded us that he had balls of steel. Anywho, that helped me to get a bit more excited for Forever's release. I watched Philip play the demo and I was offended, but optimistic. Then came the real game.

Ok so, from my understanding, Duke Nukem is loved because of his stereotypical machismo and the fact that his misogynistic tendencies get him laid by bimbos the world over. When not spreading his wild oats (and I would guess a multitude of viruses and bacteria), Duke fights aliens. Perhaps this is something from the old game that I don't get, but aliens? I suppose it just makes him more macho if he kills multiple species...

Visuals: I would genuinely like to applaud the makers of this game for their creative use of the female genitalia. The doors in several wilderness areas are modeled after the female organs and are opened by Duke using his finger. Further, some of the aliens hatch from vulva-shaped pods. I could go further, but they don't really try to hide these references, so you're sure to find them (or you need to review reproductive anatomy). The game itself isn't particularly pretty, but there are some interactive pieces to the environment that are kinda cool.

Audio: There's not much to say here. It's a shooter so there's a lot of gun noises. Duke's catch phrases can get a bit redundant and (at least to me) they loose their humor pretty quickly. The strip club had some catchy music (yes, I said strip club). That's really it...

Involvement: There really aren't many options for girlfriend involvement, and to be quite honest, if you are even close to a feminist, you will likely be offended at least once per area. There are some quests/trophies that you can assist in helping find certain objects, but for the most part this is very one-person.

Overall: Ok, even though I find a large portion of the game to be obscene and offensive, I do realize that that's what the game is trying for. They wanted to bring back the sleazy, outrageous Duke Nukem and put him in a new era of gaming. However, strippers are much less offensive as pixalated movements than they are in the new graphics. Anyone who has read any of my other posts knows that the fastest way to turn me off a game is to portray women as idiots who are only there to have large bouncing breasts. However, I have tried to watch this game and excuse it as the obsession of once-horny-college-freshman-computer-geeks, but I just haven't found much that I like about it. I don't think it's a bad game in and of itself, I just can't get in to it. Perhaps it is because I was not a Dukette to begin with and that I haven't been waiting 14 years for this game to come out, but to me it wasn't anything special.

I will say that Philip was a Duke fan with the original game and he has really enjoyed playing Forever. He finds the crudeness to be funny and even more funny in the context of the story of The Duke. In all honesty, it looks like it's probably fun to play, just make sure there aren't any children or feminists near by.