![]() It doesn't try to tell a story and doesn't force you into poorly conceived vehicle sequences or drawn-out platforming sections, so it doesn't share the story mode's identity crisis. It's a traditional approach to online first-person shooting filled with chaotic action, jet packs, jump pads and goofy weaponry like freeze rays, shrink guns and trip mines so you'll never feel safe. Online play is characterized by fast, frequent kills and success is largely determined by your ability to memorize map layout and weapon spawn points. Play Once the story's done, you can drop into the online modes like deathmatch, team deathmatch, capture the flag (or, more accurately, capture the babe), and king of the hill. These 'Duke-like' actions extend the length of his Ego (health) bar, adding concrete incentive to explore and discover more ways for Duke to express his boundless self-satisfaction. These are meant as distractions, but along with his ability to interact with a handful of other random objects, they're distractions with a point. In a strip club stage that's crudely deployed as a dream sequence Duke can play air hockey, a version of whack-a-mole, and a simple pinball game. There are throwback moments in Duke Nukem Forever to his early days when keeping a finger off the trigger earns rewards. It might be different if Duke approached a puzzle section, laughed, lobbed some curse words at it and moved on, but since we're forced to solve the puzzles to continue it's not tongue-in-cheek satire, unless the joke is on us. In most cases, the sections in Duke Nukem Forever that connect the shooting are dull, derivative experiences that feel like they exist for no other reason than to bloat the story mode, and it isn't clear if they're meant to parody video game filler content. Then there are the Half-Life 2-style physics puzzles where you'll need to remove barrels to lighten minecarts or add barrels to shift the positions of platforms that do nothing but waste gameplay space, forcing us to relive poor imitations of 2004's highlights. It's creative in concept to have Duke bounding over hamburger buns to cross a hot cooking surface, but the actual mechanics are as dull and straightforward as possible. But when Duke shrinks to miniature size and drives toy cars over jumps and hops across shelves over an electrified kitchen floor, Duke Nukem Forever loses all its entertainment value. I understand that games like this need to slow down from time to time in order to space out encounters. Turret sequences are too often used as a crutch to break up on-foot fights, but they're a welcome alternative to the frequent first-person platforming segments that make up an unnecessarily large percentage of the story mode. Duke Nukem Forever takes cues from games post-Duke Nukem 3D and clumsily straddles over a decade of genre growth. Play What falters is just about everything else. It's all straightforward, classically-styled kill-factory sequences that let you turn off your brain and revel in the primal glory of the aim-and-shoot gameplay loop. The multitude of stage bosses are enormous and some of the action set pieces exciting. The shrink and freeze rays are toys, adding some humor value as Duke stomps on miniaturized aliens or executes their frozen bodies. ![]() The real star of the show is the shotgun, which unlike the other weapons that lack a sense of power, can obliterate enemies at close range, sending them arcing off in the distance after a well-placed burst of lead. Charging humanoid pigs and zig-zagging jetpack aliens spawn in battle zones and Duke gets to pulverize them with shrink rays, freeze guns, shotguns and his fists. To the game's credit, Duke Nukem Forever's shooting sections are simple fun. Duke is one of the elder heroes of gaming, and could say whatever he wanted with legitimacy if there was a first-class shooter experience backing him up. Instead of playing with the idea of Duke as an anachronism, Duke returns in classic form, and he's never felt so old, so out of place, and so embarrassing. ![]() It's disappointing that during Duke Nukem Forever's preposterously protracted development, nobody took advantage of the immense opportunity to do something thematically creative. He's unapologetically vulgar, which is good for a few nostalgic laughs as he again kills aliens to save the world. Play Duke still has the maturity of a twelve year old boy, objectifying women whenever possible, and barking out movie quotes with voice actor Jon St.
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