[Chojin]

now that i've played through it twice and done a decent amount of multi, here's some more input.

re: multiplayer stuff; as mentioned before, your mic is on by default if you have one connect, but there is no option to turn it off. what the fuck were they thinking?

i also only get about 6 or 7 servers in the list when i browse, and some of them suffer from really bad rubberbanding. also i'm kinda disappointed that everyone gibs when they die since i love ragdoll, and it just feels wrong when you splatter someone with a pistol. the devastator feels kinda OP, but then again most of the weapons kill in one shot anyway. the one map everyone wants to play is Hollywood Holocaust (e1m1 from duke3d), but it has the worst spawn points i've seen since goldeneye 64. often you'll spawn right in the middle of a room. you do have 2 seconds of invincibility, but you'll also usually spawn right next to where you just died so the dude with the devastator gets 2 or 3 kills from you if you spawn as quickly as possible. i guess that's why you're allowed to wait to respawn.

'capture the babe' is kinda fun but feels like it would be impossible against a decent team. when you pick the women up, they wave their hands in your face and you have to press action to spank them to make them stop. you also get limited to a magnum, but it's super-powered and can kill anyone in one shot--frankly, i'd rather be able to use that gun regularly.

i beat the game again on the hardest difficulty and the ending didn't change, which was bizarre to me since the ending is about 10 seconds long and really seems like a 'try again' ending.

there's some stuff in the game that i think is really unique and neat. i love that you can see duke's body when you look down, i really like the effects when you get knocked over and have to pick yourself back up--seeing that much of your body in a first-person perspective lends a lot to feeling like you're really duke. however, duke is kinda a pussy and can be killed in a single lunge from a pigcop. it feels like he should be able to take a lot more damage, and the challenge from harder difficulties should be more/respawning enemies, not hemophilia. some of the single player maps border on brilliant, most are bland, some are quite bad.

the single player campaign is still better than most people give it credit for being, i feel. the multiplayer is a huge nostalgia rush that quickly ends when you notice just how poorly it was put together.

i'd say the game is about a 6.5 objectively, but a duke fan will probably feel like it's more of a 7.5 and want to pick it up.