Duke Nukem Forever

[Nick]

The Hive was one part of the game that I didn't care for either. It's just weird because you feel bad that the aliens are doing this to the women, and it makes you want to stop it from happening. Then you remember you're playing a Duke Nukem game and didn't expect it to be making you feel this uncomfortable, or anything for that matter. Why you gotta sneak emotions all up in my raunchy humor game, Duke?



I'm really not sure where 3DRealms was going with this part at all. Why did they think we would want to suddenly be faced with all these kidnapped women screaming and crying for their parents as aliens gestate inside of them? The joke that Duke tells the Twins was also in really poor taste, even for Duke. He always seemed to have an air of gruff remorse about the women he can't rescue, just like when he says he couldn't save them after you kill one of them, so having him say this to someone you thought he at least tolerated seemed very out of character for him. :L

[Dr. Boogie]

Played through DNF in a single evening. Took me just under 6 hours (about an hour of that spent watching loading screens), and I almost wish it was shorter. Pretty much everything in the game has been done better elsewhere and earlier. It's like they just took elements from all the big titles and slapped them together, hoping the combination would be something people would like.

Also, the Hive level was a huge tonal shift that didn't work at all for the game. I get what they were trying to do, namely recreate that feeling from episode 2 of Duke3D where you go into space and discover the alien's diabolical plans, but that only worked because they kept everything very minimalist. The captured women would just say, "kill me" if you tried talking to them. No weeping, no retching, no crying out for their parents, just you gawking at the horrible sight.

And part of it didn't even make sense:

Spoilers!

When the Holsom twins first get kidnapped, Duke sounded legitimately angry, yet when he finds them in the hive, all he can do is make a snarky remark at how they're "fucked". Then you go slap some wall titties like nothing happened.

I went for the Balls of Steel Edition, and in the art book, Randy Pitchford said the entire game was the work of 3D Realms, with Gearbox just cleaning it up for shipping. If that's true, I can only hope the next Duke Nukem game is entirely the work of people outside of 3D Realms because they have nothing but terrible ideas.