It's been 12 years since Duke saved the planet. He's now a super mega star with his own musical, his own museum featuring statues of familiar enemies, and he even has his own mega hot blonde twins, and so on. Nothing has changed that much for Duke in terms of his mouth though, he still loves to dish out the cheesy one liners, regularly laugh out loud funny, and often embarrassingly crude and tasteless (voiced by the returning Jon St. John). You either love him or hate him, but you have to respect him for not giving a damn. The game may have been in development for 14 years, but there are plenty of references to current day games and films we know and love, from Halo to Dead Space to Team America.
If you've come looking for a deep story you're in the wrong place. Duke Nukem Forever is all about saving Las Vegas (and the world) from those same pesky aliens. It's all about Duke, some awesome arsenal, a bunch of aliens and plenty of ass kicking (and gum chewing, but he's all out of gum).
The shooting is competent and fun, with a host of new and familiar guns to play with. The trusty pistol, shotgun, the Ripper (Chaingun Cannon), pipe bomb and RPG return, along with some other awesome weaponry such as the freeze gun, shrink gun and the awesome Devastator. That's not forgetting the fists and mighty boot, amongst others. The gun play can often be fast and frantic, forcing you to spray lead in the enemies' direction and often missing as they fly and run about. You can zoom in slightly closer to your target, but don't expect much help with pansy auto-aiming. If you're stepping in Duke's shoes, it's down to you to get the job done. Some may complain that you can only carry two weapons at a time, rather than keeping every gun you find, but you really only ever need a pair of guns to get through the heavy combat areas.
Shooting aside, the game offers enough variety to keep it interesting. There's numerous sections where you become mini Duke, about the size of a rat. These sections are short but platforming around kitchen shelves and cookers is nothing short of genius. There's also a lengthy Monster Truck section which resembles Highway 17 (Half Life 2, if you lack knowledge). Naturally it's not as exciting as Valve's masterpiece, but is still great fun nonetheless as you speed over canyons, race down highways and stop off to collect more gas and kick more ass. Then there's the underwater sections, which usually mean trouble, and when you first go for a dive you'll see why. These sections don't outstay their welcome though, thankfully.
Along with this there's a bunch of mini games to kill time on: Air Hockey, Pinball, etc. Plus you can interact with a lot of things spread around the levels. Granted, I expected more interaction than there actually was. The first time you interact with an object you'll be rewarded with an Ego boost, which is the game's version of a health bar. A regenerating health bar at that, so taking cover replaces the desperation of finding a much-needed med kit. There are a certain number of Ego boosts in each level, so you really need to take the time to hunt around every locker and desk to get the bar up.
Unfortunately it's not all good news. The level design is very linear. Those who remember Duke 3D will remember the many secret areas and shortcuts that were well hidden throughout the levels. You could comb every nook and cranny, only to find you still missed several secrets on the end of level stats page. Sadly DNF lacks this. The levels are also cut up by tediously long loading screens. It's particularly annoying when you die and are very desperate to quickly fix your mistake, only to be greeted by one of these screens. Admittedly, while this could feasibly be a 360-related issue and can be slightly relieved by installing the game, it's still an annoyance. At least there's some witty advice to read whilst you're waiting.
By no means is Duke Nukem Forever perfect. Far from it, in fact. But I can forgive the slightly dated (but by no means bad) visuals , I can forgive the loading screens and times, and the reason why is that DNF is pure fun from start to finish, all 10+ hours of it. Sure, it contains very linear levels, even some annoying and some dull sections, but there's also some works of genius too. It's not the second coming of Christ, it's not even the best Duke Nukem game, but if you know what you're going to get and don't go in with overloaded expectations, you'll have a hell of a lot of fun.
Admittedly, it can be argued that only the older generation will understand what the game sets out to achieve, while the Xbox 360 generation will claim the likes of Halo and Call of Duty are better. Activison and Bungie's shooters are top notch games of their time, there's no doubt about that, but there's still plenty of room for Duke. Hell yes there is.
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