Duke Nukem Forever starts off 12 years after the events of Duke Nukem 3D – which, in case you have been living under a rock and did not know, also came out 12 years ago. Duke has basically become the king of Las Vegas after single-handedly stopping an alien invasion of the planet. Unfortunately, the aliens are back and Duke is called upon once again to stop them. STOP here if you are looking for anymore story, serious Modern Warfare-esque undertones, or deep meaning. Duke Nukem Forever is a misogynistic, raunchy, fun-filled game full of alien-blasting and boobs (both human and alien – Duke doesn’t discriminate when it comes to boobs). That’s it. If you are willing to leave your preconceived, “This game took 12 years to make it has to be the best thing since the rise of free porn the Internet”, notions as well as sense of decency and cultural morays at the door – you should have a great time! I know I did.
Seriously, this game starts off with the player controlling Duke’s aim while he urinates and, shortly thereafter, is seen just after getting oral sex from his two favorite “babes”. The controls are very straightforward for a shooter, WASD and mouse for movement/aiming and a couple of number buttons to plant explosives and throw grenades. Oh, also, you can use a couple more numeric keys to throwback a bottle of steroids for extra melee strength or can of beer for extra toughness. That’s right – steroids and beer, people, I told you this game was not a politically correct affair. Duke, being the guy that he is, is not powered or fueled by a health bar. Instead, Duke runs on pure, unadulterated EGO. By interacting with various, random objects in the environment (like alien boob sacks or a weight bench) you can increase your maximum amount of EGO. When hit, Duke feels less manly and, as such, his EGO bar decreases temporarily until you can get somewhere to allow it to refill. Obviously, this is just a health bar re-named, but it plays into the game’s main character and just feels right for this one.
The game also features several mini-game sections such as signing a young fan’s copy of your autobiography, “Why I’m So Great”, or even piloting a wrecking ball into the side of a building. The shooting sections are very simple in a Serious Sam kind of way and these additions to the gameplay help keep things interesting in between inappropriate sequences.
Duke has a couple new features since his last outing. It seems that he has developed (well, SOMEONE else developed it for him, most likely) “Duke Vision”, a night vision-like system of seeing in the dark. Oh, it also allows you to see through the clothes of the female characters in the game right down to their exposed breasts and panties. In case you have not deduced this from my description thus far, Duke Nukem Forever is a very mature game in terms of content.
Visually, the game is attractive to look at. I don’t think it will be winning any “Best Of” awards for its visuals but they do the job and appropriately show off every breast, corpse, and pig cop. The audio is similar to the game’s visuals in term of quality and appropriateness, but the real star here is John St. John, the original voice of Duke Nukem, returning to voice the titular character once again. He simply elevates the experience to another level. The level designs are fairly straight-forward and should not present too great a challenge to an experienced gamer. Throughout the game, players get to tour several areas of Las Vegas, such as the Duke Dome, and even get to see sights like the “Fellatio” hotel (a take on the Bellagio hotel).
Throughout the game, Duke rags on video game characters like the the Master Chief from the HALO series and even Isaac Clarke of Dead Space fame. He spouts a ton of inappropriate one-liners and references to a multitude of genre films like Big Trouble in Little China and Commando.
Some DNF Quotes that I Enjoyed
“If I promised to kill you last. I lied.” (killing bad guys)
“You must make a good hero sandwich, cause your giving me a footlong!” (talking to his maid)
“I’m from Las Vegas and I say kill ’em all!” (killing more bad guys)
“Take your tentacles back to Japan you sick freak!” (killing even more bad guys)
On the “bug” front, I did experience a strange graphical glitch while running with the post-processing enabled. Disabling this made it cease and I was able to enjoy the three-boobed alien fun on my 5760×1080 displays. Also, Duke has a tendency to get stuck on things at times which requires the player to move him backwards and jump over whatever is holding him up. Aside from these, I encountered no other bugs or game glitches to speak of.
Overall, Duke Nukem Forever is a mindless, misogynistic game for adults that has a lot of raunchy fun should you leave your morality and preconceived notions at the door. If you are easily or, hell, MODERATELY offended by inappropriate content I highly recommend you skip this one. Otherwise, pick it up on the PC platform and try it out. Come get some!
