Duke actually gets pissed pretty consistently throughout the game every time it’s mentioned that the aliens are taking women. Of course, he has to say things like “why is it always the hot ones?” to remind you he’s a sexist dumbass, but he’s pretty uppity about the women being taken. It’s not a sudden thing.
Duke’s base personality, sadly, is one a lot of us have probably run into before: the macho tough guy who sees women mainly as sex objects but puffs out his chest and gets all protective if anyone messes with them. It’s hard to sell that character unless you make him so cartoonish you can’t take him seriously. And, you actually have to be funny, which Duke is not in DNF.
I don’t know. I remember liking Duke Nukem 3D. A lot for some reason. I certainly liked it more than Quake, Doom clones, and other pre Half Life FPS. It was bright, colorful, allowed you to do more than most FPSs at the time and some of the humor was fun. Or at least funny to my 26 year old self. I remember being really hyped about DNF. Even during the times when development just dragged and there didn’t seem to be any way this game would came out. Now that its out, the whole thing just puzzles me. I don’t think I’m significantly different than I was back then but some how the game offends me in a way that no game has. Is it because I expected more? After all this time was I expecting a game that was as different from other FPS as Duke 3D was? Is it because I’ve gotten older and more stuff offends me. Or is DNF just a horrible game? If I decide that Duke Nukem 3D is a horrible and offensive game, why do I feel I still need to buy it?
From the time I’ve played with the demos and watching others play it on YouTube and quick looks, DNF is getting the reviews and the scores it deserves. The game is still rough, unfinished, and lacking in focus. There are some interesting concepts and set pieces and I can’t help but think there was an older version somewhere that was better than was is being sold today.
I know this would nor could ever happen but I think the situation would have been better if DNF wasn’t released and promoted like a full price AAA title. That is the real crime. Take Two spent money, real money to promote this game like it was a major release. Did no one at Take Two or Gearbox look at DNF before deciding to push it? Maybe Take Two did back when they refused to fund DNF any further causing 3D realms to shut down. If I was in their position, I wouldn’t have given Realms another several million after seeing DNF. So then we have Gearbox and Randy Pitchford. Exactly what was his goal when he bought DNF and all the related IP? I’m assuming they wanted to make more Duke Nukem games. I don’t see how that can happen at this point. Very few people who bought DNF at $60, especially 360 owners, will want to put down another $60 on the next Duke Nukem title.
If the game was sold at $20 and the first thing that the player saw was a statement explaining the state the game was in was from a difficult development cycle that was interrupted before it was finished, it would have been viewed more favorably. I don’t see how Gearbox can continue making Duke Nukem games from this point on and that should have been the ultimate goal.
As for what Duke Nukem should have been, I like how Giantbomb put it. Duke should have been the joke that everyone in the game been in on. As Duke enters the scene spouting some movie line line people would say, “Well, ok Duke whatever.” Only to turn to the guy next to them and say “The guy is crazy but we need to put up with him since he can kill all the aliens.” Instead of the world being Duke crazy, like some 12 year old’s fantasy, the world should have been as normal as possible, and then we have crazy old Uncle Duke.
What the fuck happened in this thread? Or in this game, for that matter?
Gearbox stepped in it a bit with this one. Wonder if they will make their money back. Oh well, if they make Borderlands 2 without sexist alien-impregnated chicks all over the place, all will mostly be forgiven.
(There was never a goal to make more Duke Nukem games; the only goal was to suck whatever possible money could be extracted from the swollen, putrid corpse.)
I’d be all over a Duke game developed by Gearbox. I don’t hold DNF against them because 1.) it’s clear they were only really after the IP and 2.) they helpfully released a demo that made it quite clear the game wasn’t worth more than $5 from a Steam sale. If anyone is buying this title for $60 after 12 years of development hell, it’s their own damned fault.
From the press release: “Gearbox Software announced today that it has acquired the full intellectual property rights of the ‘Duke Nukem’ brand including Duke Nukem Forever and all future projects in a cooperative deal made with 3D Realms. The first product to be available under the Duke Nukem brand will be the long awaited Duke Nukem Forever.”
They want to make more and the original announcement even says so.
Yeah, as game costs have risen, major publishers are always on the lookout for that cash cow, or at least a property with wide recognition that makes it stand out among the now all to similar FPS landscape. Duke Nuk’em is a widely recognized IP, both by people who played the original back in the day and by gamers who kept seeing the title pop up in gaming media as commentators wondered if it would ever be released.
I got a feeling that the sales are validating Take 2’s choice to back the franchise, though perhaps they should have been willing to pour more money down that rabbit hole and several layers of polish. Good sales will produce at least one sequel, regardless of critical reaction or how players who actually bought the game felt.
I don’t know about the rest of his post, but THIS. Being a rape victim or a female doesn’t make them acceptable targets - being carriers of cute little alien babies, however, does. Even if you don’t actually wait around for that scene to fully play out but kill them yourself, it’s still basically a mercy kill… after all, what the fuck else is there to do with them? Leave them suffering? Or do you expect the character to do pull some McGyver level of super-duper-advanced field surgery shit with a gold-plated belt buckle, a bit of duct tape, and his elbows held just at the right angle and somehow save them?
Over here you need to be of full age to purchase the title, is that any different in the US or UK? If so, why? If not, why are you people complaining? Maybe you are after the possibility of a quasi full censorship even for grown-ups, just like here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BPjM
Context, right? They’re the lesbian twins who performed fellatio on Duke, the implication is that they’ve been impregnated against their will and face death, and it’s in the area where you go through doors shaped like vulva that you have to finger to open.
Alien/Aliens-style preying on male fears of rape this ain’t. That’s why it’s so bloody different.
I wasn’t making any comparison to Alien in the first place. But thank you for the details proving my point - the killing* is a) as much of a necessity as that of the aliens attacking you with guns and b) sexualized because of the world itself is. It’s tasteless, sure, but to interpret it as condoning violence against females / rape victims is just a bit disingenuous.
*it’s actually killing only if you can’t be arsed to listen to like two lines of dialogue, right after which they burst on their own
You don’t need to make the comparison with Alien - everyone else in the thread has been doing so because it’s a blatant ripoff with added titillation. In Alien it’s meant to be horrific; in DNF, because of the context it’s just scumbag writing. You’re right that they’re dead anyway - it’s kinda my point because they’ve irretrievably merged gratuitous sex and violence against the same women.
Context truly matters when it comes to the message you’re giving. Otherwise you may as well try to claim that Japanese hentai tentacle rape cartoons are the same as Evil Dead because of the tree scene.
