GAMEPLAY

DNF plays like a classic and this is mostly a good thing. DNF is a challenge to the trend in modern shooters of scripting every single “cinematic” moment, the scripting in DNF is used to move Duke from one area to another such as jumping onto a jet packing alien and rocketing to a roof. Unfortunately there is no jet pack game play in DNF’s single player campaign and I felt this was a massively missed opportunity seeing as how well it worked in Duke3d. All the classic weapons (minus the microwave expander from the atomik pak) return and are faithfully recreated with some nice new additions such as a lock on for dukes rocket launcher. The game fails however to add as many weapons as people expect; a new sniper rifle (that feels just like quakes railgun) is a great addition but two variations of the same laser gun and the new rocket launcher just feel derivative and un original. The fire fights in DNF are a lot of fun and include everything you would expect; a wide range of enemies that will use a variety of attacks on you, a pace reminiscent of old school shooters and great power ups such as steroids (which allow you to punch aliens fifteen feet and the holo duke (which creates a decoy of duke and renders you invisible to enemies). The shooting also included something I have sorely missed in shooters ; trip mines and pipe bombs which are plentiful enough to be used in every battle and add another layer of old school strategy. Duke features some clever puzzles and not too difficult plat forming sequences, many have complained that the puzzles are reiterations of puzzles in past shooters (such as half life 2′s physics mind benders) and they are, but who cares? Those games are getting a little bit old now (half life 2 is ancient) and shooter games of late (call of duty) have not challenged me to think all that much so I welcome a little brain bending in this type of game. The plat forming is not the demon everyone makes it out to be, it is very easy and serves the purpose of keeping the game play varied. Most of the plat forming will have Duke shrunken down to pint size bouncing on couches and smacking the shit out of rats (which can be quite formidable when your three inches tall). DNF furthers the variation with a couple of vehicle segments that are quite fun and short enough as to not become too familiar, the sequences that have you driving an RC car and Duke’s monster truck are great but later in the game when you have to roll around in a forklift it gets a little stale. Where DNF’s game play fails is its inhibition to adhere to the good trends that shooters have adopted over the years and its failure to retain the classic mechanics that so many of todays shooters lack. Duke can only carry two weapons and that is pure bullshit, Duke3d like every other classic shooter allows you to carry every weapon in the game at once and more ammo than you could ever hope to shoot. Why DNF features a mechanic popularized by more serious shooters like Halo and Call Of Duty ill never know and I guess its just bandwagon crap. Duke does include some modern trappings that work well such as a rebounding Ego (health) shield that thank goodness is visually represented by a bar. DNF features a lot of mini games, nearly halfway through the game you are presented with a lengthy strip club scene where you can kind of kick back a while. During the strip club scene you may play a faithful recreation of the duke nukem pinball, air hockey, pool, whack a mole or video poker. Throughout the game winning these mini games or doing silly actions like throwing a paper airplane will add to Duke’s ego the first time you do them allowing Duke to take more hits in battle, an interesting mechanic that allows the player to explore the comedy while having fun with some of the side attractions. The Boss battles in Duke are exactly what you would expect; circle strafing and rocket launching, they are fun but we have done this before in countless other shooters. You will most likely get about ten hours out of the campaign another modern shooter trend. Duke Nukem Forever is fun but it cant decide whether its a classic throwback or a modern shooter.