I dont mind Duke himself but the other NPCs are cringe worthy with their jokes.
The level design is still sucky so from what ive played up to. The crane section was clearly just there to add length to the game. Its far too linear and even then ive had a few parts where for a minute i had no idea wtf i was doing. Another thing i hate is the shooting mechanics are like an early PS2 game it doesn't feel fluid and the hit detection is just meh. The statue section and the RC car at the start of the game are fun but the game makes you go back all the way you came on the RC car when you become big again and they just do this to add length to the game, it doesn't enhance the game or anything it feels repetitive. I already mentioned the dodgy AI and scripted events in another post.
The game is nothing like Half Life 2, the level design in that game was infinitely better even though they are both very linear games and even though that was a 2004 game its puzzles are much better. Just coming of the back of completing BC2 and Duke looks very shitty in comparison. Ima try finish this game but it feel like a chore.
You can troll or hate on me but i dont care, i dont think its that good a game and im saying that from an experience of having played it. If you can debunk any of the reasons i gave fair play but i bet most people just moan a bit.
It looks like you've played a bit further than I have.
I
thought I had to repeat the same section after the RC car, now you said it, that's confirmed it. I can't see any point to it either, so yes, it does feel like they've cheated there. :shadedshu
HL2 similarity: it's funny how people's perception is different. I can only say again that it feels a bit similar, but can't quite put my finger on why. And oh yeah, HL2 is most certainly better - I actually played it all the way through three times!
That won't be happening here.
I can hate and troll you? Oh goodie!
j/k I can't see anything wrong in posting that you don't like the game very much. Heck, everyone's different.
Why the game isn't more after 12 years of development? Well, it's not that surprising really. Beyond a certain point, having more development time doesn't bring any improvements and can actually retard the game.
The technology has improved enormously and continuously in that 12 years, which means that the developers have to keep going back to the drawing board to redesign the graphics and such to keep it current - and that's a real drag. The story won't really change all that much in that time though, hence all those negative comments from reviewers about it being stuck in the 90s. Yes, it
is a 90s product rendered with modern technology. And no, I don't see that as a "major failing". Think how many classic games people like playing today? Think about
www.gog.com who specialize in these old games and sell them cheaply DRM-free. The original Unreal Tournament from 1999 still kicks ass with it's gameplay, cool (DX7!) graphics and excellent electronica/trance soundtracks. And of course it runs smooth as silk on today's hardware. Heck, it still has a significant online multiplayer presence!
Buy it there for a tiny amount of money:
www.gog.com/en/gamecard/unreal_tournament_goty
A while back, I read the full history of DNF and I can see why 2k just wanted to get it out the door. The previous developers wanted to make a totally kickass game, perfect in
every possible way and way better than the competition. Trouble was they were
too perfectionist and so their efforts were never enough to ever call it "done", therefore it wasn't. The story is obviously more complicated than that, but that's the essence of it.
Now, 2k Games got the rights a year or two ago and I bet they told their developers "Just get the damned thing
done!" So you can see how they just grabbed a standard engine (UE3) designed some (reasonably) modern graphics and just chucked it out the door. I think they were right not to "update" the story to modern values. That would have sucked the life out Duke Nukem, as un-PC is what he's all about - making it politically correct would have been like making dehydrated water...
Finally, I hope that sales don't tank, despite the negative reviews as I would like to see a sequel to this. Perhaps, like Vista and Windows 7, that will be the game that "this should have been?"
If it has one flaw it's intermittent framerate issues, but they are not all that serious and I hope they'll be fixed with a patch - it needed the latest nvidia driver just to work at all in full screen mode. Perhaps the next driver version will sort it out?
