Ok, I started playing this today. I spent 20 minutes attempting to play pool for an ego boost, getting very frustrated by the poor physics that frequently caused the balls to go flying off the table. Grr. A similar problem came up a little later when I played Balls of Steel (that's the pinball game) and not doing very well at it.
The game itself isn't bad, but it's also very mix an odd blend of old and new school gaming. The limited weapon selection is still an issue for me (and always will be) but the fact that the shotgun is so awesome kinda overpowers that. The action is above average and the constant humour is enjoyable, so while I've in no way finished the game, at the moment I'd give it a 6/10.
The run-and-shoot gameplay is actually kinda fun, but my biggest problem (aside from lack of weapon slots) is the tone of the game. It jumps around a lot, and it's quite distracting. For example, the game starts with a boss fight
(And eventually ends with the exact same one, from what I hear!)
, then goes to a slow-paced walkaround, then slowly reintroduces you to the combat, then lets you go full-on Schwarzenegger style for a bit, then shrinks you down and makes you go through a (surprisingly fun) driving section in a RC car, then more Schwarzenegger combat, then a physics-puzzle level, then a pseudo-horror section, then another dull walkaround level, then some fun combat, then some more fun combat as mini-Duke again, then more standard Schwarzenegger combat.
The feel of the game jumps around so much, it's almost like it doesn't have any real soul of its own, just elements borrowed from other games with a few random ideas chucked into the mix. Interestingly, it's those random ideas that are the most fun - the mini-Duke section are great fun (you spend the second one jumping around the kitchen of a Duke Burger), and early on you have to control an RC car to push a Maguffin into a slot. These sorts of sections are exactly what Duke Nukem is about - fun.
Sadly, they seem to be in the minority, with most of the game being spent in samey gunfights that have little variety to them. You'll quickly settle on your favourite weapons (Ripper and Shotgun for me) and will use them almost exclusively, only switching when the game forces you to, such as for bosses, which you can only damage using explosives and rocket launchers for some utterly bizarre reason.
Massive spoilers abound in this next bit!
The pseudo-horror section is an odd mix between the middle levels of Duke 3D's second chapter (with the alien menace) and Prey, of all things. Going from a standard action game to rummaging around inside an Alien Hive is a massive tonal shift, and it felt so wrong to see the women previously abducted being turned into incubators that spawn enemies unless you kill them. The Duke humour that was so prevalent just vanishes and it really does feel like an entirely different game.
And as soon as you beat the Alien Queen boss, you head into a dream sequence that kills the pace stone dead. You get to run around a strip club (complete with topless women and a lot of uncanny valleys) finding popcorn and replaying snooker. I must have lucked out when I first played that one at the beginning of the game, because it took me half an hour and the complete loss of my sanity before I was able to pot all the balls. Mother f**king broken physics! Luckily, I was brought back by an extremely fun round of Ice Hockey, of all things, followed by a game of whack-a-mole. See what I mean about pace? Deader than dead.
Don't get me wrong, I'm going to keep playing this game until I finish. But the more I play, the more I feel that this isn't a worthy sequel to Duke3D. It's got some nice ideas, but it's not enough. The game as is took some frankly bizarre design choices that limit it (WEAPON SLOTS!), suffers from huge tone shifts, and just wasn't meant to be released alongside modern games.
Double post, I know, but I've finished it. And I probably won't be replaying it.
My previous comment about the games tone stands, and are probably the biggest problem I have with the game. Even when you get to the vehicle section, the damn thing keeps running out of gas and you have to go around on foot to find some more. This happens, no kidding, three times. And there's no choice in the matter - you have to get out and fight enemies on foot. You have to get out of the Mighty Foot to fight enemies on foot. Huh.
But the tone is still all over the place, the game feels shorter than it is (15 hours is about right, though it really did feel like less than that, thanks to all the minigame padding) and the modern traits have a habit of getting in the way of the fun (three weapon slots would have been much more acceptable, and no, I will not let this go).
It's definitely worth playing, but as a rental, or possibly if you can pick it up cheap - say $20 or so. But it's not worth full-price.
If it had mod tools all those problems could be fixed by the community, however someone very stingy resides and makes all those decisions higher up and the PC players got a horrible console-limited game instead.
I seriously doubt mod tools could fix the way the game switches from standard combat to mini-duke driving to weak horror sections. It'd need to be completely torn apart and put back together.
One thing I forgot to mention is how the game occasionally just stops dead so it can shove a physics puzzle in your face. I wasn't a fan when Half-Life 2 did it, and time has not sweetened the idea. It just completely kills any momentum the game had, and it always seems to follow a great action scene, which really rubs it in.
Anyway. I agree that the PC version has not been optimized well. It sucks. But it's still an average game, and mods would not have fixed that.
Now, I actually like that about the game. It wasn't done as well as Half-Life 2 but I enjoyed the breaks when it wasn't all about shooting. Half-Life 2 did it even better. It breaks up the monotony. If you like to just go all out and shoot stuff then it isn't the kind of game for you I guess. I thought those sections were great. Just not done as well as HL2.
I wouldn't have minded quite so much if they hadn't killed the pace stone dead. And they're all the same puzzle - find barrels, place in seesaw. This is Duke Nukem! I don't wanna have to do this sort of thing!
I wouldn't have minded quite so much if they hadn't killed the pace stone dead. And they're all the same puzzle - find barrels, place in seesaw. This is Duke Nukem! I don't wanna have to do this sort of thing!
You can say Duke Nukem was all about the action, but that's not really true. All of Duke3D's maps had puzzles. Not so much like Half-Life, but even Half-Life borrowed some puzzle inspiration from Duke3D. The maps WERE puzzles, they were just loaded with enemies. Keycard hunting, switch combinations, navigating and exploring the game map, these are all rudimentary renditions of what the original Half-Life expounded on.
Honestly, if DNF was all action all the time (especially with it's control style, weapon limitations, etc) it would just be Call of Duty with aliens which would get extremely boring. Luckily, it's more than that. I personally consider FPS games like COD to be a step backwards in game design. Just because Duke's a bad*** doesn't mean that he can't solve some puzzles. I don't even think there were really that many puzzles. Certainly not as many as HL1 or HL2. And like I said, I enjoyed the break from the mindless arena action that gets extremely old after a while.
The reason I'm not satisfied by the puzzles isn't the fact that they're present, but they're lazily constructed. Good puzzles are solved by either exploration or gimmicks that require you to think outside of the box. DNF outright tells you what to do, and if you're looking for a crucial item to proceed within the game, the item you seek is always in that second door that isn't locked.
You don't have to be linear just because you include puzzles, that's what I'm saying.
Eh, I see what your saying and sort of agree, but I still feel they could have had something other than the same physics puzzle repeated almost verbaitim, which is rather jarring when it's part of the lead-up to the very final boss. Pace? Tension? What's that?
There's definitely a lot of variety, I can't fault the game on that. It's just the few odd bits of variety that really let the game down. The psuedo-horror section, for example. Completely different game.
I stand by my 6/10. When this game shines, it's amazing -
there's a brilliant section that has you climbing up the side of a Stratosphere-like building that's got alien tentacles surrounding it before getting grabbed by a jetpack-wearing enemy and quick-timing him to fly right into the top floor, and it's more impressive (and fun!) than anything I've played in months
- but it's when the game doesn't shine that the game gets dragged down. If they'd cut those sections out, or even just trimmed them, the game would be all the better for it.
Well, it becomes subjective entirely in that way and it doesn't seem fair. It's as bad as people rating video games without any true objective statistical standards . Historically and statistically games being rated as low as Duke Nukem Forever, are known as the worse games ever made.
We use numbers to rate a game , because we respond to numbers, numbers matter to us. When Simon The Sorcerer 3D came out in 2002 it was rated a 5 out of 10 or lower, and today it's still rated that low by current gamers. When E.T. for atari came out it was slated game historically and statistically . The evidence is clear. And games being rated by numbers, regardless of the time span apart, we can compare and contrast the historical statistics of video games. When they came out, and even now...and Forever does not deserve to be rated a 0-3 out of 10.
Duke Nukem Forever does not deserve to be received so critically , there are no true objective qualifiers for such a low score, when comparing other titles to this game which were rated extremely low based on all of their technical flaws, glitches, and crashes. Forever next to these games is no where close to those titles.
And Duke does not deserve to be statistically and historically rated as one of the worse games 0f all time by professional critics.
There are much worse games on the market and if we continue to rate video games as we have since the beginning of their time, a game like Duke deserves nothing under a 5 out of 10. It's just obscene to rate it any lower as a professional critic.
Eh, I see what your saying and sort of agree, but I still feel they could have had something other than the same physics puzzle repeated almost verbaitim, which is rather jarring when it's part of the lead-up to the very final boss. Pace? Tension? What's that?
Yeah, it definitely could have been more polished. But at least they tried to add it. I still consider it more enjoyable than Halo, COD, Battlefield, or even Team Fortress 2.
There's definitely a lot of variety, I can't fault the game on that. It's just the few odd bits of variety that really let the game down. The psuedo-horror section, for example. Completely different game.
Well, that's something that even Duke3D tried to capture. It had the same captured slime babes all through the game. Especially in areas on the mothership right before Overlord battle. It really doesn't seem like it now because the engine looks so primitive and arcade-y, but I believe that section of DNF is what they were envisioning they'd wished Duke3D to be like.
As far as how it matches up with the rest of the game, though, yeah, it could have been done better. I kind of wished they'd have spread the slime-babe stuff out throughout the game instead of locking it into one level area.
Lots of stuff could have been better. They weren't kidding when they said there were a lot of disjointed pieces that weren't connected and joining them all together was difficult. You can still see that. There also apparently were tons of areas cut from the game. The game was not supposed to end at the dam, for instance. You were supposed to go up to the mothership, explore the mines a lot more (I was looking forward to that section, myself), etc. At least we'll be getting more SP levels (15 maps I believe) in a future DLC.
I wasn't aware they had to hurridly join a bunch of different sections together as you said. It does explain a lot though. Wish they'd spent a bit more time making the transitions better, but at least I understand why it's so disjointed now.
The problem I have with the psuedo-horror sections is that they feel completely different. With the similar section in Duke3D the feel of the game remained mostly the same, it's just the walls were covered in alien goop and there were loads more octobrains and facehuggers. In DNF, there's no light so it's hard to see the enemies you do fight and there's a bunch of 'roll the ball to the door lock' physics puzzles. If that's their original intention for Duke3D, I'm glad they didn't do it!
As for the cut levels... didn't Duke already blow up the mothership? Y'know, with the turret near the beginning of the game? Or were you supposed to run around the ruins of it or something? That might have been kinda interesting.
And there'll be single-player DLC? Now that I'll play.
Doodo - it's a 6/10. And screw anyone else who says differently. They're suck on the long development time and utterly undeserved expectations. It's stupid they can't get past that, but DNF is still gonna sell shedloads and people are going to make their own minds up.
No, you were supposed to actually go up into space and blow up their space ship. That's what I heard, anyway. Whether it was a different ship or an alternate way to take it down I don't know.
That has to be the most ridiculous article I've read in a long time. Railing on reviewers for being subjective? Seriously? Reviews are opinions. Opinions cannot be objective. One can (and should) form their opinion based ON objectivity, but the end result, by definition, is subjective.
I also laughed when I saw Jeff Gerstmann's name on the "untrustworthy" list. The man risked and lost his job at GameSpot because he refused to compromise his integrity. That's why Giant Bomb exists in the first place. He gave DNF a bad review because he thought it was a bad game. That's how reviews work. If I gave Ocarina of Time a 1 out of 5 and provided valid reasons as to why, I'd be doing my job just the same as if I gave it any other score.
I honestly wonder if anybody actually reads reviews to get a variety of opinions on products, or if everyone just checks to make sure that people agree with them. *sigh* This is the career I chose... oy vey.
There have been several arguments against this issue. And it's hypocritical to say that my opinion of reviewers isn't valid.
At any rate, you haven't identified my arguments against negative, outrageous reviews. We're not essentially talking about the very same things.
Well, it is un fair to label them as such, outrageous reviews, because you could perceive them differently. And I've quantified these reviews as bad, outrageous, and so my arguments are validations for my personal perceptions of this. It's my subjective reality, that I choose to have, rather than have, because I actually know better...I could try to be be un human. But, it's difficult.
Yet, again, I'm entitled to see the game reviewers how i see them, as that's subjective...But, what's the point you're trying to make?
Opinions are over rated. But, also beautiful, fascinating things. And philosophically can be mind blowing... I can make the same argument that they are unfair and rude to people with opposing view points. *sighs* so we really aren't saying anything here.
We are NEVER really saying much, but I don't want to take away from the point of life, entirely...
This guy has some major problems, but the main one is fairly simple and doesn't even require ripping apart his statistics:
He never gave an objective basis for the game's quality. Without that being proven, or at least argued in a convincing way, we could easily argue that EITHER major spike in the distribution are major liars. There's an idea presented that those who gave it a poor score are simply trying to spike their viewcounts, but no real evidence is given for that(have they done the same with other titles? Does the review lack arguments based on structure, design, and actual gameplay value?). More than that, we have many assumptions without proof(Where are the graphs for other major games to PROVE what review distribution we should see?), and it seems that he hides his lack of common logic behind graphs and words that I'm not sure he entirely understands.
There have been several arguments against this issue. And it's hypocritical to say that my opinion of reviewers isn't valid.
At any rate, you haven't identified my arguments against negative, outrageous reviews. We're not essentially talking about the very same things.
Well, it is un fair to label them as such, outrageous reviews, because you could perceive them differently. And I've quantified these reviews as bad, outrageous, and so my arguments are validations for my personal perceptions of this. It's my subjective reality, that I choose to have, rather than have, because I actually know better...I could try to be be un human. But, it's difficult.
Yet, again, I'm entitled to see the game reviewers how i see them, as that's subjective...But, what's the point you're trying to make?
Opinions are over rated. But, also beautiful, fascinating things. And philosophically can be mind blowing... I can make the same argument that they are unfair and rude to people with opposing view points. *sighs* so we really aren't saying anything here.
We are NEVER really saying much, but I don't want to take away from the point of life, entirely...
My rant wasn't directed towards you at all, just the guy who wrote that article.
My friend has it, (probably the xbox version), and last I heard, he thought it was alright.
We tend to like some "bad" games.
I think it may be in part due to our gaming experience (we grew up in the Snes/megadrive - early playstation/n64 era), but could also just be open mindedness.
Everyone is tearing this game apart, mostly because they want to seem "clever", not because of the actual game itself.
I still look forward to playing it, when it goes on sale later this year. (maybe about £7-8 on steam maybe some mods could be out then)
My friend has it, (probably the xbox version), and last I heard, he thought it was alright.
We tend to like some "bad" games.
I think it may be in part due to our gaming experience (we grew up in the Snes/megadrive - early playstation/n64 era), but could also just be open mindedness.
Everyone is tearing this game apart, mostly because they want to seem "clever", not because of the actual game itself.
I still look forward to playing it, when it goes on sale later this year. (maybe about £7-8 on steam maybe some mods could be out then)
Honestly, I dislike the game because of the core mechanics. I expected it to be more Serious Sam / DN3D like. Not a budget Halo clone. Also the super linear levels. Everything else I'm fine with. However since the core of the game sucks I can't really give it much praise.
Honestly, I dislike the game because of the core mechanics. I expected it to be more Serious Sam / DN3D like. Not a budget Halo clone. Also the super linear levels. Everything else I'm fine with. However since the core of the game sucks I can't really give it much praise.
Thats a legitimate criticism right there.
Its a shame most of the reviews i have read, even from people who are paid to review games, quite clearly just wanted the game to come out, just so they could have fun hating it.
Its the overall experience that matters in the end for me at least.
I love Deadly Premonition, and that game is absolutely full of poor mechanics and bizarre design decisions.
Honestly, I dislike the game because of the core mechanics. I expected it to be more Serious Sam / DN3D like. Not a budget Halo clone. Also the super linear levels. Everything else I'm fine with. However since the core of the game sucks I can't really give it much praise.
By that, did you mean the limited weapon slots and regenerating health? 'cause if so then I share your problem, though it's not as much of a deal-breaker for me. It really does change the feel of the game though.
By that, did you mean the limited weapon slots and regenerating health? 'cause if so then I share your problem, though it's not as much of a deal-breaker for me. It really does change the feel of the game though.
Not just those but also the shooting. Shooting didn't feel fun to me. When an FPS makes shooting not fun I simply don't play it.
Not just those but also the shooting. Shooting didn't feel fun to me. When an FPS makes shooting not fun I simply don't play it.
Fair 'nough.
For the record, I found the Ripper (the machine gun, basically) and the Shotgun fun, if generic, and I never used anything else because I simply didn't want to. I simply didn't want to swap them out for anything else, and even when the game forced me to with the Freeze Gun, I simply picked it up and then immediately switched back to the Ripper with absolutely no penalty or restrictions during the following sections.
My two weapon choices were enough to get me through everything except the bosses (for which I was forced to swap to a rocket launcher in one of the more baffling design choices) and one incredibly annoying underwater section where there were too many leech-type enemies to deal with without blowing them up.
When a game can be played with two basic weapons, and there is literally no reason to use anything else, something has gone wrong. If I ever do replay the game (which may well be when the DLC comes out), I'll try the other guns, but I'll have to force myself to do so, and where's the fun in that?
For the record, I found the Ripper (the machine gun, basically) and the Shotgun fun, if generic, and I never used anything else because I simply didn't want to. I simply didn't want to swap them out for anything else, and even when the game forced me to with the Freeze Gun, I simply picked it up and then immediately switched back to the Ripper with absolutely no penalty or restrictions during the following sections.
My two weapon choices were enough to get me through everything except the bosses (for which I was forced to swap to a rocket launcher in one of the more baffling design choices) and one incredibly annoying underwater section where there were too many leech-type enemies to deal with without blowing them up.
When a game can be played with two basic weapons, and there is literally no reason to use anything else, something has gone wrong. If I ever do replay the game (which may well be when the DLC comes out), I'll try the other guns, but I'll have to force myself to do so, and where's the fun in that?
Eh, I could only find the pistol to be okay. Every other weapon I just couldn't stand. But I agree, when onl 2 weapons are fun to use (or less) there is a problem.
It wasn't that they were fun, it's that they were all I needed. Whatever the situation, either the shotgun or the ripper could handle it. Shotgun for close range, ripper for long. With the exception of the boss battles, I literally did not need any other weapons, no matter how much the game tried to make me use them.
Actually, come to think of it, it was sort of the same for Duke3D, wasn't it? Well, let's call that a retro feature and leave it be.
^I still ask myself, is it should be so that you have to squeeze the fun out of the game in order to be satisfied or should the game try to give a ton of different varieties of fun and you just choose which one to like and which one not to?
DNF just can't entertain me. Level design is unimaginative, gameplay is hideously redundant and the aspects falling into this redundancy are not bearing any kind of consistent entertainment value, and... it doesn't have any kind of charm or soul. It's what they try to give and what they're unable to give. I'm no American but the American flag on the logo and title card just amazes me to death, but all the promised badassery is pretty much abandoned afterwards.
You know what this game also lacks? Variety of environments. Okay we got Vegas, we got that horror themed level... I don't feel like I'm in Vegas. I don't feel like I'm in a horror movie -which is already a bizarre choice for a Duke Nukem level but if you do it right, nothing can be too wrong-. Worst of all I don't feel like I'm Duke Nukem. I feel like one of those pansy actors running around everywhere in Independence Day. Yeah, the game is exactly like Independence Day and I'm nothing but a family father running around in places and shooting at my enemy only when they cross my path of survival. It's ironic that I'm saying all those for Duke Nukem... But once you leave out the whole "Duke loves tits and incest" part (I'll give you that, they make it very sure we understand that Duke loves them a lot) he's only a victim of an alien-takeover movie.
You know what this game also lacks? I realized this when I was watching TotalBiscuit's review. He constantly had to mumble the Duke Nukem theme to himself so that he won't forget he's playing a Duke game. The game has the most boring, clichéd, ridicilously tiresome and uninteresting soundtrack ever. This is a disgrace for a videogame character that had his theme covered by the FUCKING Megadeth. Sure, I can't say each track in Duke Nukem 3D can win a SpikeTV Best Music award; but those tracks AT LEAST weren't some varieties of those sickening MOVIE TRAILER songs that we're CONSTANTLY exposed to, for, I don't know, longer than the development time of this game!
One thing that made weapon selection a little bit strategic that I thought was neat was the freezeray. It never runs out of ammo (it just has to recharge) and always gurantees you a finishing move, which instantly completely refills your Ego. So it's like a portable medkit in a way. Whenever I had the chance to acquire the freezeray I'd keep it and finish all the enemies I could with it. Any damage I took to my ego from the short amount of time it took to freeze an enemy I gained back after defeating him.
Comments
The game itself isn't bad, but it's also very mix an odd blend of old and new school gaming. The limited weapon selection is still an issue for me (and always will be) but the fact that the shotgun is so awesome kinda overpowers that. The action is above average and the constant humour is enjoyable, so while I've in no way finished the game, at the moment I'd give it a 6/10.
The run-and-shoot gameplay is actually kinda fun, but my biggest problem (aside from lack of weapon slots) is the tone of the game. It jumps around a lot, and it's quite distracting. For example, the game starts with a boss fight
The feel of the game jumps around so much, it's almost like it doesn't have any real soul of its own, just elements borrowed from other games with a few random ideas chucked into the mix. Interestingly, it's those random ideas that are the most fun - the mini-Duke section are great fun (you spend the second one jumping around the kitchen of a Duke Burger), and early on you have to control an RC car to push a Maguffin into a slot. These sorts of sections are exactly what Duke Nukem is about - fun.
Sadly, they seem to be in the minority, with most of the game being spent in samey gunfights that have little variety to them. You'll quickly settle on your favourite weapons (Ripper and Shotgun for me) and will use them almost exclusively, only switching when the game forces you to, such as for bosses, which you can only damage using explosives and rocket launchers for some utterly bizarre reason.
Massive spoilers abound in this next bit!
And as soon as you beat the Alien Queen boss, you head into a dream sequence that kills the pace stone dead. You get to run around a strip club (complete with topless women and a lot of uncanny valleys) finding popcorn and replaying snooker. I must have lucked out when I first played that one at the beginning of the game, because it took me half an hour and the complete loss of my sanity before I was able to pot all the balls. Mother f**king broken physics! Luckily, I was brought back by an extremely fun round of Ice Hockey, of all things, followed by a game of whack-a-mole. See what I mean about pace? Deader than dead.
Don't get me wrong, I'm going to keep playing this game until I finish. But the more I play, the more I feel that this isn't a worthy sequel to Duke3D. It's got some nice ideas, but it's not enough. The game as is took some frankly bizarre design choices that limit it (WEAPON SLOTS!), suffers from huge tone shifts, and just wasn't meant to be released alongside modern games.
My previous comment about the games tone stands, and are probably the biggest problem I have with the game. Even when you get to the vehicle section, the damn thing keeps running out of gas and you have to go around on foot to find some more. This happens, no kidding, three times. And there's no choice in the matter - you have to get out and fight enemies on foot. You have to get out of the Mighty Foot to fight enemies on foot. Huh.
But the tone is still all over the place, the game feels shorter than it is (15 hours is about right, though it really did feel like less than that, thanks to all the minigame padding) and the modern traits have a habit of getting in the way of the fun (three weapon slots would have been much more acceptable, and no, I will not let this go).
It's definitely worth playing, but as a rental, or possibly if you can pick it up cheap - say $20 or so. But it's not worth full-price.
One thing I forgot to mention is how the game occasionally just stops dead so it can shove a physics puzzle in your face. I wasn't a fan when Half-Life 2 did it, and time has not sweetened the idea. It just completely kills any momentum the game had, and it always seems to follow a great action scene, which really rubs it in.
Anyway. I agree that the PC version has not been optimized well. It sucks. But it's still an average game, and mods would not have fixed that.
http://forums.gearboxsoftware.com/showthread.php?t=125256&page=4
You can say Duke Nukem was all about the action, but that's not really true. All of Duke3D's maps had puzzles. Not so much like Half-Life, but even Half-Life borrowed some puzzle inspiration from Duke3D. The maps WERE puzzles, they were just loaded with enemies. Keycard hunting, switch combinations, navigating and exploring the game map, these are all rudimentary renditions of what the original Half-Life expounded on.
Honestly, if DNF was all action all the time (especially with it's control style, weapon limitations, etc) it would just be Call of Duty with aliens which would get extremely boring. Luckily, it's more than that. I personally consider FPS games like COD to be a step backwards in game design. Just because Duke's a bad*** doesn't mean that he can't solve some puzzles. I don't even think there were really that many puzzles. Certainly not as many as HL1 or HL2. And like I said, I enjoyed the break from the mindless arena action that gets extremely old after a while.
You don't have to be linear just because you include puzzles, that's what I'm saying.
There's definitely a lot of variety, I can't fault the game on that. It's just the few odd bits of variety that really let the game down. The psuedo-horror section, for example. Completely different game.
I stand by my 6/10. When this game shines, it's amazing -
Well, it becomes subjective entirely in that way and it doesn't seem fair. It's as bad as people rating video games without any true objective statistical standards . Historically and statistically games being rated as low as Duke Nukem Forever, are known as the worse games ever made.
We use numbers to rate a game , because we respond to numbers, numbers matter to us. When Simon The Sorcerer 3D came out in 2002 it was rated a 5 out of 10 or lower, and today it's still rated that low by current gamers. When E.T. for atari came out it was slated game historically and statistically . The evidence is clear. And games being rated by numbers, regardless of the time span apart, we can compare and contrast the historical statistics of video games. When they came out, and even now...and Forever does not deserve to be rated a 0-3 out of 10.
Duke Nukem Forever does not deserve to be received so critically , there are no true objective qualifiers for such a low score, when comparing other titles to this game which were rated extremely low based on all of their technical flaws, glitches, and crashes. Forever next to these games is no where close to those titles.
And Duke does not deserve to be statistically and historically rated as one of the worse games 0f all time by professional critics.
There are much worse games on the market and if we continue to rate video games as we have since the beginning of their time, a game like Duke deserves nothing under a 5 out of 10. It's just obscene to rate it any lower as a professional critic.
Yeah, it definitely could have been more polished. But at least they tried to add it. I still consider it more enjoyable than Halo, COD, Battlefield, or even Team Fortress 2.
Well, that's something that even Duke3D tried to capture. It had the same captured slime babes all through the game. Especially in areas on the mothership right before Overlord battle. It really doesn't seem like it now because the engine looks so primitive and arcade-y, but I believe that section of DNF is what they were envisioning they'd wished Duke3D to be like.
As far as how it matches up with the rest of the game, though, yeah, it could have been done better. I kind of wished they'd have spread the slime-babe stuff out throughout the game instead of locking it into one level area.
Lots of stuff could have been better. They weren't kidding when they said there were a lot of disjointed pieces that weren't connected and joining them all together was difficult. You can still see that. There also apparently were tons of areas cut from the game. The game was not supposed to end at the dam, for instance. You were supposed to go up to the mothership, explore the mines a lot more (I was looking forward to that section, myself), etc. At least we'll be getting more SP levels (15 maps I believe) in a future DLC.
The problem I have with the psuedo-horror sections is that they feel completely different. With the similar section in Duke3D the feel of the game remained mostly the same, it's just the walls were covered in alien goop and there were loads more octobrains and facehuggers. In DNF, there's no light so it's hard to see the enemies you do fight and there's a bunch of 'roll the ball to the door lock' physics puzzles. If that's their original intention for Duke3D, I'm glad they didn't do it!
As for the cut levels... didn't Duke already blow up the mothership? Y'know, with the turret near the beginning of the game? Or were you supposed to run around the ruins of it or something? That might have been kinda interesting.
And there'll be single-player DLC? Now that I'll play.
Doodo - it's a 6/10. And screw anyone else who says differently. They're suck on the long development time and utterly undeserved expectations. It's stupid they can't get past that, but DNF is still gonna sell shedloads and people are going to make their own minds up.
Oh, and doodo? Here's a link just for you.
That has to be the most ridiculous article I've read in a long time. Railing on reviewers for being subjective? Seriously? Reviews are opinions. Opinions cannot be objective. One can (and should) form their opinion based ON objectivity, but the end result, by definition, is subjective.
I also laughed when I saw Jeff Gerstmann's name on the "untrustworthy" list. The man risked and lost his job at GameSpot because he refused to compromise his integrity. That's why Giant Bomb exists in the first place. He gave DNF a bad review because he thought it was a bad game. That's how reviews work. If I gave Ocarina of Time a 1 out of 5 and provided valid reasons as to why, I'd be doing my job just the same as if I gave it any other score.
I honestly wonder if anybody actually reads reviews to get a variety of opinions on products, or if everyone just checks to make sure that people agree with them. *sigh* This is the career I chose... oy vey.
At any rate, you haven't identified my arguments against negative, outrageous reviews. We're not essentially talking about the very same things.
Well, it is un fair to label them as such, outrageous reviews, because you could perceive them differently. And I've quantified these reviews as bad, outrageous, and so my arguments are validations for my personal perceptions of this. It's my subjective reality, that I choose to have, rather than have, because I actually know better...I could try to be be un human. But, it's difficult.
Yet, again, I'm entitled to see the game reviewers how i see them, as that's subjective...But, what's the point you're trying to make?
Opinions are over rated. But, also beautiful, fascinating things. And philosophically can be mind blowing... I can make the same argument that they are unfair and rude to people with opposing view points. *sighs* so we really aren't saying anything here.
We are NEVER really saying much, but I don't want to take away from the point of life, entirely...
He never gave an objective basis for the game's quality. Without that being proven, or at least argued in a convincing way, we could easily argue that EITHER major spike in the distribution are major liars. There's an idea presented that those who gave it a poor score are simply trying to spike their viewcounts, but no real evidence is given for that(have they done the same with other titles? Does the review lack arguments based on structure, design, and actual gameplay value?). More than that, we have many assumptions without proof(Where are the graphs for other major games to PROVE what review distribution we should see?), and it seems that he hides his lack of common logic behind graphs and words that I'm not sure he entirely understands.
My rant wasn't directed towards you at all, just the guy who wrote that article.
We tend to like some "bad" games.
I think it may be in part due to our gaming experience (we grew up in the Snes/megadrive - early playstation/n64 era), but could also just be open mindedness.
Everyone is tearing this game apart, mostly because they want to seem "clever", not because of the actual game itself.
I still look forward to playing it, when it goes on sale later this year. (maybe about £7-8 on steam maybe some mods could be out then)
Honestly, I dislike the game because of the core mechanics. I expected it to be more Serious Sam / DN3D like. Not a budget Halo clone. Also the super linear levels. Everything else I'm fine with. However since the core of the game sucks I can't really give it much praise.
Thats a legitimate criticism right there.
Its a shame most of the reviews i have read, even from people who are paid to review games, quite clearly just wanted the game to come out, just so they could have fun hating it.
Its the overall experience that matters in the end for me at least.
I love Deadly Premonition, and that game is absolutely full of poor mechanics and bizarre design decisions.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPrVo-x5dYA
Not just those but also the shooting. Shooting didn't feel fun to me. When an FPS makes shooting not fun I simply don't play it.
For the record, I found the Ripper (the machine gun, basically) and the Shotgun fun, if generic, and I never used anything else because I simply didn't want to. I simply didn't want to swap them out for anything else, and even when the game forced me to with the Freeze Gun, I simply picked it up and then immediately switched back to the Ripper with absolutely no penalty or restrictions during the following sections.
My two weapon choices were enough to get me through everything except the bosses (for which I was forced to swap to a rocket launcher in one of the more baffling design choices) and one incredibly annoying underwater section where there were too many leech-type enemies to deal with without blowing them up.
When a game can be played with two basic weapons, and there is literally no reason to use anything else, something has gone wrong. If I ever do replay the game (which may well be when the DLC comes out), I'll try the other guns, but I'll have to force myself to do so, and where's the fun in that?
Eh, I could only find the pistol to be okay. Every other weapon I just couldn't stand. But I agree, when onl 2 weapons are fun to use (or less) there is a problem.
Actually, come to think of it, it was sort of the same for Duke3D, wasn't it? Well, let's call that a retro feature and leave it be.
Shame that the freezeray is utter junk, especially when it comes to MP. That and the tripmines are what made 3D's MP so good.
DNF just can't entertain me. Level design is unimaginative, gameplay is hideously redundant and the aspects falling into this redundancy are not bearing any kind of consistent entertainment value, and... it doesn't have any kind of charm or soul. It's what they try to give and what they're unable to give. I'm no American but the American flag on the logo and title card just amazes me to death, but all the promised badassery is pretty much abandoned afterwards.
You know what this game also lacks? Variety of environments. Okay we got Vegas, we got that horror themed level... I don't feel like I'm in Vegas. I don't feel like I'm in a horror movie -which is already a bizarre choice for a Duke Nukem level but if you do it right, nothing can be too wrong-. Worst of all I don't feel like I'm Duke Nukem. I feel like one of those pansy actors running around everywhere in Independence Day. Yeah, the game is exactly like Independence Day and I'm nothing but a family father running around in places and shooting at my enemy only when they cross my path of survival. It's ironic that I'm saying all those for Duke Nukem... But once you leave out the whole "Duke loves tits and incest" part (I'll give you that, they make it very sure we understand that Duke loves them a lot) he's only a victim of an alien-takeover movie.
You know what this game also lacks? I realized this when I was watching TotalBiscuit's review. He constantly had to mumble the Duke Nukem theme to himself so that he won't forget he's playing a Duke game. The game has the most boring, clichéd, ridicilously tiresome and uninteresting soundtrack ever. This is a disgrace for a videogame character that had his theme covered by the FUCKING Megadeth. Sure, I can't say each track in Duke Nukem 3D can win a SpikeTV Best Music award; but those tracks AT LEAST weren't some varieties of those sickening MOVIE TRAILER songs that we're CONSTANTLY exposed to, for, I don't know, longer than the development time of this game!