Take2 Interactive, 3D Realms and Gearbox Software bring the all mighty Duke Nukem back from a twelve year wait for all the old school gamers. The badass of the badass is back once again to kick alien butt in space and away from earth for the second time. Don’t get ready for some serious gaming as the game is all about comedy, exaggeration and vulgarity. So after twelve long years, here he is… Finally!

The story takes us twelve years after Duke Nukem 3D where Duke has got a huge reputation and is a world hero while enjoying the company and services of two sexy girls while playing the last level from Duke Nukem 3D. After you play through this re-make level, an emergency breaks loose and you head to the Duke Cave where you will receive a call from the President and General Graves commanding you not to take action against the coming alien race. Of course Duke will shove the commands up their backs and do whatever is in his mind. The game is as the predecessor, filled with a huge amount of vulgarity, comedy, jokes and lot of sexy moments which will make you laugh and remember most of the famous Duke quotes like ‘Come get some’ and ‘Hail to the king, baby!’.

To the new guys, Duke Nukem was a 1980’s action parody of a badass comic Rambo style man called Duke Nukem with big guns, no fear, lots of girls drooling for you and killing brain-like aliens and pig guards. The game was a very anticipated from the old school players since it was a long wait of twelve years! So after waiting for twelve years for this shooter one would expect a lot, but unfortunately it seems that the game has been developed a long time ago and just released. It seems as you are playing an old game with lower graphics than the average nowadays games and gameplay features. Don’t get me wrong, the graphics looks good but not what one would expect from today’s games. Although the game feels retro, the shooting parts are quite fun and the Duke quotes are great because in the end it’s a shooter about shooting aliens and saving babes. The comedy is great in the game and the vulgar quotes of Duke never stop, especially when you’re in the toilet throwing a turd around the place or peeing in the urinal and singing about it.

The game offers a variety of weapons with unique capabilities and a fun way to use them but you can only carry two. Some of the weapons include freeze guns, shrink rays, shot guns and of course the all mighty duke fist. The game health bar is auto generated so if you take a good hit, make sure to cover to get back the health lost, thou in this game it’s called Ego and not health. Ego can be increased by exploring the surroundings and finding object of interest. As I told you before the game is a shoot and kill and it’s mostly straight forward, just destroy all that you can see (except the babes). The parts that I loved were the boss fights were you will find gigantic bosses and the action is awesome!

The game isn’t just a plain first person shooter, shooting everything in your path. The game offers some turret sequences, and running around in miniature and driving a radio controlled car around. Apart from that the game has a number of platform-genre moments where you need to jump here and there to flip a switch to open a door. Funny at first but having a lot of these sequences, loses the entertainment part of the game that the people are looking for in a Duke Nukem game i.e. action packed shooting sequences. Apart from those there are the sequences in the strip club where you can play Air Hockey, Whack a Mole and a very simple pinball game.

When you are bored with the single player mode, you can always head yourself to the multiplayer mode which offers death-match, team death-match; capture the flag and king of the hill. The gameplay is fast paced and with all the weapons available. During the online gaming, you will be levelling up to have access to the top duke-award you can get i.e. the penthouse with a lot of stuff to explore and see. The multiplayer does give a bit of a buzz but it seems a bit old like if you are playing an Enemy Territory game.

So, the single player looks a bit retro and the shooting sequences needed to be increased and the multiplayer isn’t much… but the thing that I hated most is the loading times on my PlayStation 3. I would be afraid to die during a level because of the loading times, even to reload a level which you just started and died in the very beginning.

Conclusion

Duke Nukem Forever was a myth and at first I was very excited that it was released, but it seems that it got stuck in the 1990 as regards to gameplay and innovation. The shooting sequences are great and the comedy along with the vulgarity of Duke will keep you at it. Unfortunately in this age one would at least expect better graphics from a game which was in development for ages. But as for the shooting parts and comedy, two thumbs up. Let’s just hope we don’t wait twenty years for another Duke release.