Introduction
Duke Nukem Forever is a first-person shooter that took many different developers very long to make. It has gone through many years of development and changes throughout the years.
Gearbox has acquired the Duke Nukem IP and I think they used the Duke Nukem IP way to less. I had hoped there would have been a new game of Duke Nukem by now as of writing 2020.
Duke Nukem Forever has been all over the spectrum from a very bad game to praised as one of the best Duke Nukem’s ever. In the end, I think it comes down to preference in style, gameplay, and humor.
I really love the Duke Nukem series, I grew up with Duke Nukem 3D and I was very glad when this game came out. In my opinion, this game is a wonderful first-person shooter with Duke Nukem exactly how I pictured it after 12 years of waiting. My favorite quote from Duke Nukem is: It is time to chew bubblegum and kick some ass and I am all out of bubblegum!
In Duke Nukem Forever You will find many different weapons to add to your arsenal to defeat those pesky aliens.
Story
It has been twelve years since the aliens have been defeated and retreated from the earth. Duke Nukem has become a god-like icon in the world and has achieved great fame. The story begins with Duke Nukem playing a video game of his past heroic deeds. Duke Nukem is getting ready for a talk show but the aliens have once again invaded earth but this time they say they are coming in peace. Duke Nukem’s talk show appearance is canceled because the humans are more interested in the aliens.
Duke Nukem retreats to the duke cave and receives a call from general Graves and the president. Duke Nukem gets instructed to leave the aliens alone. Before Duke Nukem can decide what to do hostile aliens attack the duke cave.
Duke Fights his way through the duke cave and kills the hostile aliens that drank his beer. Disobeying the direct orders from the president Duke Nukem finds himself in the casino after exiting the duke cave. Fighting his way through the casino Duke Nukem notices the aliens are kidnapping the women of the earth including two of Duke Nukems babes. Duke Nukem contacts general Graves telling him about the situation in the casino.
General Graves finds out that the women are being held in the Duke dome. General Graves also tells Duke Nukem that the aliens have captured the Hoover Dam to power up a generator that will open up a wormhole to let the other aliens come to earth. Duke Nukem immediately sets out for the Duke Dome but the front door Is to heavily guarded by aliens.
Duke Nukem takes the side entrance by using a wrecking ball to open a hole in the dome. Inside the dome, Duke Nukem finds the missing woman including his two babes but they have been impregnated and they all die from giving birth to alien babies. Duke Nukem is furious and finds the Alien queen and engages in battle with her. After a long and intense fight with the alien queen, Duke Nukem manages to kill her but is exhausted by the battle and he passes out.
After Duke Nukem regains his consciousness he finds himself at the duke burger surrounded by aliens and alien pig cops.
Duke Nukem fights his way through the aliens and alien pig cops and he makes his way to the Hoover Dam but walking to the Hoover Dam is too far.
Duke Nukem finds a monster truck and uses it to drive to the Hoover Dam. He finds his old friend Dylan in the Hoover dam but unfortunately, Dylan is mortally wounded. Dylan gives Duke Nukem charges to blow up the dam and reveals the reborn cycloid emperor is near. Duke places the charges and blows up the dam but is caught in the flood.
When Duke Nukem wakes up he has been revived by an EDF soldier. Duke Nukem finds out the portal is gone and the aliens are unable to invade earth. Strangely enough, the president was also at the Hoover Dam. The president wanted to work with the cycloid emperor and kill Duke Nukem so they could rule the earth together. Duke Nukem tries to tell the president he is being used but the president does not listen to Duke Nukem. The president wants to cover everything up and ordered a nuclear strike on the location where the Hoover dam once was. The cycloid emperor emerges and kills the president and his security detail and confirms what Duke Nukem was saying. He was just using the president to rule the earth and take revenge on Duke Nukem. Duke Nukem fights the cycloid emperor and kills him once again. Before the nuclear bomb goes of General Graves rescues Duke Nukem just in time. The credits roll and show a scene where Duke Nukem is going to run for the 69th president of the United States.
Gameplay
In Duke Nukem Forever you will need to save the world from the aliens. You can punch them to death or use your guns. You can also throw objects at aliens and then you are able to execute the aliens. There are a lot of objects in the game that you can interact with. Each level leads up to a big alien that Duke Nukem needs to take out just like other Duke Nukem games from the series. You are able to carry four different weapons in the single-player campaign. There are four difficulties that you can access. I am still trying to complete damn I am good but some battles are really hard! Health points are nonexistent in this game. Instead, you have an ego bar that acts as your shield. When you get hit the ego bar drains and when the ego bar is empty you will take damage.
You can increase your ego bar by interacting with some items like for example: mirrors or lift some weights. When the ego bar has been fully drained and you take enough damage you will die. You will restart at the last checkpoint which will also act as the save system in Duke Nukem Forever. The core of the game is the same as with most first-person shooters. You walk through the level and kill anything in sight while collecting new weapons and upgrades! In some instances, you get to drive or interact differently with the world. Hearing Duke Nukems quotes are still awesome to hear! All hail to the king baby!
In Duke Nukem forever you can use the D-pad to use other items that help you fight the aliens. The duke’s vision will allow you to see in the darkness and surprise the aliens. You can drink beer to become tough as a rock and reduce the damage you take but the screen will be blurred. You will have trouble maneuvering through the map as if you were drunk. The steroids make you insanely strong and allow you to punch everything to pieces (literally). You will also gain access to the holo duke which creates a bad version of Duke Nukem including twisted one-liners to provoke the aliens creating a distraction for the real Duke Nukem.
Weapons
In Duke Nukem, you have a variety of weapons you can find to dispose of the aliens that are invading the earth. There are a few alien weapons but I have not included them because these are used as disposable weapons.
Pistol
The pistol can be found early in the game. The pistol won’t cause to much damage on aliens, this means you will need to find more ammo to efficiently use the pistol.
Shotgun
The shotgun deals heavy damage when it is fired on the point-blank range.
Ripper
The ripper is a fast firing gun that shoots many bullets, The ripper is Capable of taking out aliens quickly because of the high firing rate.
The shrink ray
The shrink ray does exactly what the name implies it does! Shrinks the alien so you can stomp on it with Duke Nukem’s mighty feet!
Freeze ray
Ice ice baby! You can use the freeze ray to freeze aliens and then shatter them into pieces.
Pipe bomb
The pipe bombs can destroy large groups of aliens at once when you are in trouble but be careful you can only hold four pipe bombs at once.
The rocket launcher
The rocket launcher shoots rocket-propelled grenades that you can use to blow everything into pieces Including yourself
Sniper rail gun
The sniper rail gun is an insanely overpowered weapon that makes no sense whatsoever to be in this game. You can fire through walls and make alien heads explode.
I personally avoided using this weapon because it is way to overpowered.
The devastator
The devastator fires two rockets at once and holds a total of 69 rockets. This weapon is mainly used for the endgame boss the cycloid emperor.
Pros
– Having more Duke Nukem games is always good.
– Duke Nukem quotes are the best in-game quotes ever. “I have balls of steel!”
– The story is good but farfetched.
– Except for one weapon, the weapons work very well.
– The graphics are beautiful.
– You can interact with many items in the world.
Cons
– The game has very mixed ratings.
– I would have liked it if the storyline was longer.
– The alien weapons feel very underwhelming.
I really like this game and I am glad that this game won the poll of the week! No worries people if you like Duke Nukem I am going to review both Duke Forever world tour 20th-anniversary edition and Duke Nukem megaton edition in the future.
Thank you for voting everyone!
I give this game a …drumroll…
8.2
I hope you liked reading this review on Duke Nukem Forever, you can leave a comment with your thoughts or rate the game yourself!
I will see you in the next review!
This was a fun read, I’m genuinely surprised to see more positive reviews of DNF! I quite liked the game, too. Got it for my birthday – I still play it from time to time.
I run a review site of my own – if you ever want to join, just hit me up sometime. 🙂
Nice to see a positive review of DNF! 🙂
I grew up with one of the first 3d Duke Nukem games and waited for ages to play this one. It was solid fun … but nothing groundbreaking. It’s fun to read your old review. They really have changed a lot =)
Yeah, the reviews underwent serious changes, I do intend to revamp most, if not only, the popular reviews, or which I like, but with this many reviews, it is going to take a while.