Ridiculously, I'm pretty excited to play this game, for a few reasons:
Morbid curiosity
The hope that it will be like a B-movie Crysis 2. Full of stupid bombast (though with less fidelity and cohesion)
Because I went to the press launch party and had a great, memorable time. To finally actually play the game will hopefully add some extra nuance to that memory. (I managed to get invited as a plus-one despite not being press, I think by Steve Hogarty. Will Porter, Matt Lees and Suzy Wallace were there amongst others. It was not as gross as you might expect, although there were women dressed in school uniform pouring shots into people's mouths. There was a big throne to take photos in, a lifesize statue of Duke, and a big dude dressed up as Duke. At one point I posed for a photo pretending to fellate the statue. I suddenly noticed people were gathering around and watching, and I thought I'd somehow got traction with a pretty standard 'joke'. I then realised that the Duke Nukem guy was standing behind me, as I pretended to suck off the statue of him. I backed away slowly into the crowd. I also got a copy of the game which I must have ebayed and a crappy t-shirt which is too small for me and so sits in a binbag somewhere until I lose 4 stone and can wear it proudly.)
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Well, this game certainly reflects its predecessor so far: dense interactivity, and cartoonish machismo. I'm barely out of the first level and so far, I've pissed in a ton of toilets, washing and drying my hands afterwards, drawn on a whiteboard with the dexterity of a two year old (I drew a winky on the alien), taken down the EOGB from DN3D without breaking a sweat in what turns out to be me as Duke playing as Duke in a video game called Duke Nukem Forever, received a blowjob from identical schoolgirl twin popstars The Holsom twins (which I'll take to be biting satire on sexualisation of minors in the media) - competing with Call Of Juarez for start-to-blowjob - looked out on a Las Vegas expanse from my hideously gaudy Donald-Trump-esque penthouse (floor 69), played some pool (I must have spent 15 minutes trying and failing to sink all the balls in the hopes of increasing my max Ego, i.e. health, to the amusment of the Holsoms), turning off all the lights which caused the Holsoms to alternately get scared and suggest hide and seek, walking around a talk show studio punching out a Christian Bale-a-like ranting at some sound guy, exploded a rat in a microwave, found the make-up person's Duke-branded dildo, used a remote controlled car to push an energy core within hand's reach, taken a wrong turning in some vents and spied on a lesbian couple, shot some hoops, lifted some weights, played some pinball, and shot down an alien mothership.
The shooting's not great and the graphical fidelity's a few years behind - it's hard to find a definitive answer as to what engine it's in though it feels very DooM3, especially as it seems to straight up copy the 'imp crawling past on a window' animation - but I'm having fun! They do seem to be taking the piss out of Duke in this game, rather than buying into the worship, and I've chuckled a fair few times. Plus the opening was genuinely stylish and well done, a pulpy Robert Rodriguez type thing.
I found a quote from someone (Randy Pickford?) saying that it's running on a heavily adapted version of Unreal Engine 1, but there are so many things that are so close to Doom 3 I find it hard to believe that engine's not in there. If it isn't, they've made a ton of bad design decisions.
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Predictably, the game is getting worse. There was a fun section where I was miniaturised and doing sweet ramps in an RC car or fighting with rats (they came for revenge!), but then the shooting proper started and the DooM3 engine is just not suited here. Where that game utterly reinvented its predecessor into a slow horror with a custom-fit engine, this one tries to stay the same blastathon and it doesn't fit. For one thing, there's regenerating health and I as Duke am often running (or rather speed-walking - Duke is as slow as Doom Guy here) away and cowering in corners to recover. Also, there are only 4 weapon slots, and I had to go into the settings to change that up from the default 2 (as well as taking auto-aim off) [EDIT: apparently the 4-slots option was patched in after release]! It's also really stingy with ammo - I've come perilously close to running out a few times. I really wish I'd taken my own advice from DN3D and put it on easy!
I've also got to the alien hive level, where the treatment of women gets really gross. It's the old Aliens cocoon gag from DN3D, but in hi-res and with a lot more invasive imagery. The game condones shooting them through Duke's dialogue, and the alien rape is made explicit and wholly sexual - the women weep about what was done to them, and the cocooned and nude Holsom twins (who are recurring sympathetic characters at this point) talk about it being their first time, before their bellies suddenly swell and burst, releasing a bunch of scuttling little aliens. It's repulsive in all the wrong ways.
There are still some redeeming qualities, though - it continues to introduce fun little moments (although there are also physics puzzles and hunt-the-battery bits) and make good jokes. It also pokes fun at contemporary(ish) FPSes Doom and Prey - the marine armour is offered to Duke by an EDF soldier, to which he replies "power armour is for pussies", and in the alien hive Duke gets through sphincteral doors by gently tickling them with his finger.
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I just got to the worst boss fight ever. It is fucking awful. Takes so long, is insanely difficult, there's no cover and Duke's shitty health system means that it's incredibly easy to get one-shotted when you're seconds away from finally finishing it.
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I got past the infuriating boss fight, which as a final spit in the eye also demands that you find the right spot on the defeated boss to press E for a glory kill within a small amount of time otherwise it resets and you have to start again). Speaking of glory kills, mortally wounded regular enemies allow you to perform these in order to gain health back, preempting Doom '16 by 5 years!
Anyway, the game has picked up again. There was another fun miniaturised section in a burger joint, avoiding mouse-traps, using waffle toasters to get propelled to higher shelves, and running over dead staff members to avoid electrified waters, and a scavenger hunt in a strip club, the setting of which came off as pretty juvenile but was full of fun arcade games, especially a really solid air-hockey table. The other levels have felt very reminiscent of an American SouthWest Half-Life 2, climbing a tentacle-choked tower then driving a monster truck along a highway stopping occasionally for some shooting and light puzzling. It's a damn shame that the shooting isn't up to much, because apart from a couple of ropey sections, this game steals from the best and so far has kept the variety and attention to detail high throughout.
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I've given up. Too many crappy shooting sections, then the Battlelord (a giant version of one of the lizards) shows up again. You're stuck on a dam top fighting him, and it's rather dull, but at least there's vehicles for cover. Then you defeat him, successfully perform your glory kill, and he gets up and recharges anyway and you have to do the whole thing a second time except now he follows you around and stands on top of you shooting you. It is stupid and I couldn't be bothered to make 50 attempts at it until I got lucky with the AI and health recharge.
I scrubbed through a playthrough to see if I was missing anything after that, but it goes from this to:
A corridor section where you turn valves to stop steam and push buttons to turn off fans (FPS tropes 1138 and 1139 respectively - although at one point you stop a massive fan by pushing a filing cabinet into it which is pretty cool)
A platforming bit set in a giant clockwork bit which looks nice but knowing the sluggish movement of this game would be a pain in the arse; another miniaturised section (weird how often they go to this well considering it presents Duke as emasculated)
A boss fight with the Octaking (a giant version of one of the octaliens)
Tons of concrete/canyon corridors
A forklift truck section (in which, amusingly, you smash through any crates and impale enemies)
Another boss-fight with the Octaking, except this time you're on a tiny platform
Some incredibly clunky pop culture references ("There can be only one...king. You fuck.")
A boss fight with a giant tentacle underwater where you need to repeatedly go to a pipe directly in its attack path to top up on air
Another boss-fight with the Cycloid Emperor which now resets twice
And finally an interactive cutscene where a mushroom cloud goes off in the distance (I feel like this is becoming pretty standard too - COD:MW, FEAR, maybe one of the Crysis games?).
So not missing much, really.
If someone got this for free, I'd probably recommend playing it through on easy until they got bored (perhaps to the canyon minecart bit). The front half of the game is pretty stacked with detail and variety. It's just let down by the actual shooting and repetitive second half - it could probably be vastly improved by a fan mods with a few basic changes, but as it is it's impossible to call it a good game.
Rating: Orange.
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