Duke Nukem Forever: How Can it Blow Us Away?

by Cavin Smith on December 19, 2007 at 1:49 pm

Over ten years in the making, Duke Nukem Forever has the potential to be a bloated, confusing mess of worn-out ideas and half-hearted attempts. Overambition is the enemy of any game designer (just ask Peter Molyneux or Yasumi Matsuno). Yet, even when the main goal at this point is to just hurry up and get the product out the door, there are still a few ways that the game could capture our hearts and minds all over again.

The first thing they need to do is give us the most interactive environments this side of a Kojima game. Remember how we obsessed over the way ice cubes melted when the first hands-on previews of Metal Gear Solid 2 hit the web? With this much development time under their belts, Broussard and company better have a crazy amount of detail in their game.

It was always a hallmark of the series in the first place. Being able to go into a bathroom and flush the toilet (plus getting a health boost for it) was pretty crazy stuff back in the time of Duke Nukem 3D. Shadow Warrior continued the tradition.

What’s changed since then? Not as much as you’d think, to be honest. Many of the most high-profile first-person-shooters out there still feature remarkably static environments, save the odd exploding barrel or flipped vehicle. The rare exception would be, of course, Half-Life 2 and its unforgettable Gravity Gun, which allows you to pick up or manipulate almost any object in the world.

The reluctance to make more interactive environments might come from a fear of letting the player control too much of the experience, resulting in unforeseen glitches or ways to ruin the way the game is played . Even HL2 must occasionally fall into the trap of creating tight, scripted sequences intended to keep the player on track.

DNF will hopefully break this mold, but even if it doesn’t, we’d probably just settle for some tactile wackiness. Let us grab breasts, let us go gambling in the casino, let us tear down a building with our bare hands. That’s all we ask!

Broussard’s claimed before that Forever would be one of the best action games ever, and the only way to accomplish that is to either provide the player with the freedom to shape their environment or give them the most memorable set pieces they’ve ever experienced. Both would be nice, of course, but one could imagine the nightmare that would cause for play-balancing. Maybe that is what they’ve been doing all of these years…

Regardless, I hope 3D Realms lays it on thick. Just make the whole scenario as nutty as humanly possible. Duke Nukem doesn’t need a good story, but he needs a crazy one that’s going to allow for all sorts of over-the-top sequences nobody’s seen before. How about riding an atomic bomb Major Kong-style as it rockets towards the ground, all the while dual-wielding rocket launchers and blasting pigcops out of the sky as they attempt to thwart your effort to blow up a major alien stronghold.

There’s no need for rules or regulations to apply in Duke’s world, because he can do whatever the hell he wants.

Which is another thing I want from Duke Nukem Forever, just let Duke Nukem be as “Duke Nukem” as he wants to be. The more I look back at what I’ve written so far, the more I realize that what I’m asking for is a Duke Nukem game — everything that made the original game so much fun amped up to 11. Keep Duke’s ass-kicking, lack-of-bubble-gumming, wise-cracking attitude and all that it entails.

My concern is more about whether we’re going to be getting Duke Nukem Forever 2008, or if we’re merely getting Duke Nukem Forever ‘97 in the year 2008. As great as the old tropes were, we don’t need similarly old concepts that ignore all of the advances and changes made to the genre (and, really, games in general) since the late nineties.

There have been impostors over the years (Serious Sam), but it’s time for the king to reclaim his throne. Duke Nukem Forever may end up being a pile of ass, but we should be willing to give it the benefit of the doubt. No amount of awesome graphics or multiplayer features are going to make DNF a great game. No, they’d merely make it a good one. What’ll make it great is the Duke’s style, and more than anything, that’s what needs to stay the same.

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Tags: 3D-Realms, Duke-Nukem-Forever, george-broussard

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ken
on December 19, 2007 10:00 pm

“Which is another thing I want from Duke Nukem Forever, just let Duke Nukem be as Duke Nukem as he wants to be.”

do you ever read what you write? Read that sentence you wrote and tell me that it makes sense please… oh wait it doesn’t.
Cavin Smith
on December 19, 2007 10:04 pm

Makes sense to me (then again, I wrote it). It was a roundabout way of saying that 3D Realms shouldn’t feel pressured to compromise the character at all. Duke Nukem should be just like Duke Nukem has always been.

Yes, I turned “Duke Nukem” into an adjective. Was that your problem?
John
on December 19, 2007 10:20 pm

Makes perfect sense. Kids an idiot.
Dan
on December 19, 2007 11:06 pm

It’s 98.76% sure that this game will not meet up to expectations. You assume that 3dRealms is organized and has built generations of this game. The fact is their development is and has been a shambles for years.
Jess
on December 19, 2007 11:17 pm

You guys talk about this as if they’ve really been working on this game all this time. The whole thing is a publicity stunt. If the actual game ever does come out, it’ll be something they worked on over one to three years and not a whole decade.
VhailorZ
on December 20, 2007 7:33 am

you obviously haven’t played Crysis, Bioshock or Call of duty 4. the environments are completely interactive:

the telekinesis ability in bioshock can push/pull just about anything, Crysis can pick up anything and throw it, and call of duty 4 is just plain awesome.

so ALLOT has changed in FPS gaming.. OK? Much more than a toilet flush and getting health, or Half Life 2’s gravity gun…ALLOT!!!
Hitman Justin
on December 20, 2007 9:11 am

The only think im afraid of, is the whole “our programmers had spent a few extra late nights making this trailer” thing, I mean im afraid that this is it.. just a trailer and no game… 3D realms has been being a bit crazy lately
Keith
on December 20, 2007 9:54 am

*shrug* Team Fortress 2 was vaporware for years. While not fundamentally that different from Team Fortress Classic, it turned out really well.
Cavin Smith
on December 20, 2007 12:14 pm

VhailorZ,

I haven’t played Crysis, so I can’t say much about that one (not my fault it wasn’t made to run on 99% of the computers out there!), but Half-Life 2 is a lot more about manipulating objects than “using” them.

I think that’s a subtle, but important distinction. You can pick up just about any soda can laying around in the game, but you can’t *drink* a soda, nor do its contents spill out when you fling it around.

CoD4 doesn’t really feature any kind of interaction at all, either. What these two games have (and from what I’ve seen of Crysis, it has it, too) are advanced physics.

Duke wasn’t about just throwing things around, but making a connection between the avatar and the world he’s in. Hell, there’s not even a model of Gordon in Half-Life 2! But Duke feels real, because you can make him do things and he’ll respond to it. Of course, that response is usually some sort of one-liner, but he’s not some mute, non-existent hero.

In Duke, you don’t just merely flush a toilet, you go to the bathroom. You don’t just fling a movie projector across the room, you can make it play a movie. Those things are what made it so damn fun, and as simple as these examples might be, that’s what Duke Nukem is about.
GrayFox
on December 20, 2007 1:21 pm

“Guns Bullets Babes ,, Hail to the King Baby”
thats how a DN game should be
Matt
on December 20, 2007 4:46 pm

Good article.
I concur.
Lou
on December 22, 2007 9:17 pm

I keep physics interactive and interactive apart. Everybody can throw a ton of objects that you can push into a game, but there’s fewer that makes fun stuff to interact with (Okey, it’s pretty funny to shoot down trees in Crysis).
Anonymous
on January 3, 2008 2:55 pm

“Duke Nukem Forever has the potential to be a bloated, confusing mess of worn-out ideas and half-hearted attempts.”

Just like every other game (sequel or not) since 2005. Can’t get any worse than today’s games.

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