No your eyes do not deceive you. We’ve just been among the first lucky few in the UK to play Duke Nukem Forever – the arse-kicking, alien-blasting- masochistic sequel to Duke Nukem 3D. It’s finally around the corner, after what? 12 years in the making. It couldn’t possibly live up to its own drawn out hype, could it? That’s another question altogether, but it’s looking bloody good so far.
We were joined by Randy Pitchford, founder of Gearbox Software to give us our first proper look at Duke Nukem Forever – a title we’ll be hearing a lot more of before its release on Xbox 360, PS3 and PC in 2011. It’s happening, Duke Nukem fans.
“I’m here to talk about this crazy impossible thing,” Pitchford opened. “It’s hard to believe this is happening.” Happening, it is. It simply had to, Pitchford told us. “Duke 3D was fun, it was great, it innovated in some ways, that was the beginning of shooters. We had so much fun with Duke Nukem 3D that we were so excited there was going to be a sequel.”
On the delays in development he revealed how even he was getting frustrated at how long the sequel was taking, to the point that the team would laugh and joke about it. Equally jovial about it today Pitchford let us in on some of the conversations that went on.
“Duke Nukem forever will ship when it’s done, trust us,” the developers would say.
“More time goes on and we start to wonder what’s wrong. I remember it was 2000 and four years had gone. Whats wrong with you fuc*ing people what’s taking so long. We began making fun of it.
“It became a joke for many of us. We went through the whole range of emotions from laughter to anger to confusion.”
Things soon got worse before they got better, Pitchford went on.”In 2009 3D realm shut its doors, the story was – Duke is dead. That sucked. That was a terrible story. Many of my friends lost their job that day. Imagine working on something for that long[…]. There was no hope left.”Again, something had to be done. Duke Nukem had to be rescued:
“It’s like an italian sports car, your driving and the car in front of you smashes. Imagine the people in that sports car are people you care about. Lets imagine theres some love there. That probably changes your reaction. Lets imagine you’re a doctor you know how to save peoples lives. Maybe you’re in an ambulance with all the tools to provide assistance. Now imagine it’s in a dessert. You gotta do all you can. Imagine this is Duke. We can do something. We had to do something.”
But now it’s on the way, the end of a long, long cycle is near. “Hype without substance is a problem. There’s been so much talk. We need to walk the walk. The only way to believe it is to play it yourself.”
Pitchford could still barely believe it. “You’re going to play it today! Can you believe that. You are going to play it today. It’s like Bigfoot or the Lochness Monster. It’s like ‘you’re kidding’, ‘you’re tricking us’. ‘Why is the photo blurry if you’re not kidding us’. But it’s here.We are in the polishing stages of the game and there is a lot to do, but we’re feeling that we’re in a good spot now.”
But before we could – what’s the story this time around?
“The story takes place 12 years after the events of Duke Nukem 3D. He’s [Duke] become the most famous and wealthiest guy on the planet, everything he does he succeeds at.
“He owns his own hotel in Vegas, has the most opulent, decadent lifestyle.” The game begins in his penthouse where Duke’s playing his own game. “He’s peeved he saved the world and it’s taken 12 years to play this video game.
“It’s at this moment the aliens reappear. He knows this is a big problem.” Apparently the aliens want to come in peace this time. The president believes this, but Duke isn’t so sure.
“The president buys into this, and asks Duke not to interfere. Duke knows these aliens are tricking us. They plan on stealing the women to breed their own army and take over the planet.
“Duke doesn’t like this. He’s going to save the world and you’re going to save the world in this wild adventure.” It was then time to “shake Bigfoot’s hand” or “ride the Lochness Monster” as Pitchford earlier put it.
By now the hardcore Duke fan among you will have already seen Duke Nukem Forever’s first unveiling on YouTube (see below). The first level we played was that very one shown, opening up in the changing rooms of an American Football team, with the Duke taking, what looked like a much needed leak at a urinal as you steer his aim. Wondering over to the cracked bathroom mirror gives a first look at Duke. Pitchford told us there’s lots of work to do on Duke Nukem Forever, but it’s already looking as polished as any first-person shooter out there.
There are some nice little touches throughout. You can turn on the showers, flush the toilets, but more impressively, pick up excrement from the toilet bowl and throw it at people, or leave a mess all over the mirror, like we did.
Getting onto the more serious business, the stadium soon comes under alien fire. All hell breaks loose and nearby guards are clearly struggling as a firefight breaks out. You soon don a jetpack to briefly hover up to the pitch, before equipping a multi-rocket launcher to take on a giant alien robot, evading its own rocketfire and foot stomps. It’s a matter of evading its moves with the sprint action before unleashing a barrage of rockets at it before making it meet its doom in a frankly embarrassing death. If you haven’t seen it on YouTube we won’t spoil it. It’s just as fun as it looks on YouTube. Explosions looked amazing, the frame-rate is smooth and the lighting effects on the robot looked wonderful.
Controls-wise Duke Nukem Forever is similar to other FPS’s such as the Modern Warfare series. Playing on an Xbox 360 pad pushing down on the left joystick makes Duke sprint. A is to jump, X is for actions such as opening doors and picking up objects, left trigger is to aim closer, right trigger is for firing your weapon. Of course anyone can reconfigure these, but the point is that Duke Nukem Forever is as simple to pick up and play as anything out there, and all the more enjoyable for it.
The second level we played was a rocky/dessert-like affair with huge stony walls, cacti and abandoned wooden railtracks. Just before the level gets going proper you get to drive around in a jeep. On seeing this we were a little worried. Duke, driving? Thankfully the driving scenes (from what we played) play well, with a combination of tight, yet loose drift style controls as you evade (or run over) aliens and incoming boulders.
You soon run out of gas and it’s time to go on foot. Here we got to play with even more weapons and take down some of the more conventional alien enemies you’ll find in Duke Nukem Forever.
Weapons we fired included the Ripper: a devastating machine-like gun, Shotgun, Railgun: a futuristic laser-firing sniper rifle, M1911 handgun, RPG and a Shrink Ray that when used on aliens lets you stomp all over them.
Two-thirds into the game this level appeared a little more run-of-the-mill, with no memorable features we could sample in our short play of it, but we can safely say that the gameplay stands up with the best around. Duke Nukem Forever might have been in development long enough to be old school, but it feels distinctly modern.
Aiming is smooth, the weapons are great and aren’t clunky or unresponsive at all, and the enemies take just about enough hits to kill to make things believable, whilst erring on the right side of fantasy. As our Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days review showed us enemies that take too long to kill can screw a game.
Enemies will either strafe, charge into you when you turn your back near to them or hide behind scenery on occasion. Though more often than not they couldn’t help but charge into us, forcing us to take cover. But if you wish, you can play them at their own game. Duke Nukem Forever is not about sneaking around. It’s about blasting aliens to bits and having fun.
Fun – keyword right there. Duke Nukem forever is stuffed with all the ridiculousness you’d expect from Duke, and all the blatant innuendo and smut that comes with it. If Duke Nukem Forever was a man, it would be a man’s man.
After 12 years in the making even Pitchford conceded that no game can live up to that length of development time. “It’s just a game” he said, but a great one it’s looking so far. Good to have you back, Duke.
Out 2011 | £TBC | Duke Nukem Forever
