This months early access review, as nominated by Patrons, is Duke Nukem Forever. You can read this review right now!
I got the nomination for this month and it appears that you have picked Duke Nukem Forever for this month’s early access review.
I think the story behind my perspective of this game is very similar to a lot of other people who were waiting for this game since the beginning. I got to see the trailers for the 1998 and 2001 versions. Was stoked to be able to get to play it, but it went through multiple iterations. The cluster that was the development process was quite obvious. Really, I think this game should have been Duke Nukem 6, not 4, but because of poor management decision making, we are stuck with this game instead.
Unsurprisingly, this game was finally released after being one of the most famous vaporware stories ever (only to be eclipsed by Star Citizen in recent years). While I got to experience it many years later, I had heard about the disappointment ahead of time. I wasn’t really sure what to make of the disappointment because I was trying to figure out if the disappointment revolved around so-called sensibility issues (to which, I’d respond, “Seriously, you are playing a Duke Nukem game. What did you expect?”) or if it was related to bad gameplay (to which, I’d respond, “OK, this game sucks.”)
Well, as it turned out, this game actually fell squarely in the latter category of possible reasons people didn’t like the game as far as I could tell. I mean, Duke Nukem Forever could have very easily been the signal that the franchise was well and truly back with promises of more games in the near future. Instead, this game face planted hard in terms of trying to meet expectations for what the game promised and what it actually delivered. While the small things like putting popcorn in the microwave and signing that kids autograph were nice touches to the game, the slapping on of all those restrictions for no real reason other than those restrictions existed in other games made no sense whatsoever. Because of that, this game really departed from why Duke Nukem, specifically Duke Nukem 3D, was such a great game in the first place. So, I’m not surprised we haven’t heard anything about any more Duke Nukem games since then.
Want to check out the review? Head on over to Patreon, sign up to the Chilled Out Tier or up and check it out right now!
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