Duke Nukem: Forever

By Tristan Tancredi

After 12 years in the making, the newest Duke Nukem release should be the greatest, most bad-ass game on the market.

But yet I'm left with this question, has a First-Person Shooter ever been more of a disappointment?

The hype surrounding this game was huge, Duke is back! The steroid taking, beer guzzling American hero has Returned! What mayhem will he cause this time?

This time, the mayhem includes completing mind blowing puzzles, jumping around trying not to fall down and even driving a bloody remote control car. If you didn't notice my sarcasm, it was there. Isn't the whole point of Duke Nukem, to just beat the crap out of aliens?

The storyline goes something like this:

- Alien invasion in Dukes home city of Las Vegas.
- The aliens swipe all the sexy girls and take them back to their hive (A very unsettling and weird level).
- This pisses Duke off.
- Duke's off to save the world.

The game is chock-a-block full of boring levels to stretch out the game and the action levels aren't much better. The controls are flimsy and the graphics worse, the background designs look terrible compared to other FPS games of 2011.

The game play also sucks. Jumping from ledge to ledge is the most frustrating thing imaginable. (It's no surprise the way Duke jumps, make him jump in front of a mirror, you will see). Combat also sucks, unless you are shooting aliens with the shot gun or RPG you don't even know if you are hitting them! There is no reaction, or blood. Oh, and Air Hockey at Dukes strip club, is nigh impossible.

Enough venting, let me discuss some good aspects of the game:

- Ummm, gee whiz. This is hard.
- Nope, still nothing.
- This might be something: The quotes from Duke at times can be funny. Is that something?

The multi player aspect of the game includes death-match and capture the babe scenarios. This too is riddled with poor graphics and massive frustrations.

OK, OK, you get the point, I'll wrap it up. Duke Nukem struggles in a lot of areas, he isn't even that bad-ass! There are times within the game when you begin to enjoy it, but that is short-lived.

If there is one positive to come from this game it's that if they make a sequel, they have a lot of room for improvement.

Game: Duke Nukem: Forever
System: Playstation 3
Developer/Co-Developer: Gearbox Software / 3D Realms
Publisher: 2K Games

Rating: 50%

(Ratings Key/Explanation)