Played through DNF in a single evening. Took me just under 6 hours (about an hour of that spent watching loading screens), and I almost wish it was shorter. Pretty much everything in the game has been done better elsewhere and earlier. It's like they just took elements from all the big titles and slapped them together, hoping the combination would be something people would like.
Also, the Hive level was a huge tonal shift that didn't work at all for the game. I get what they were trying to do, namely recreate that feeling from episode 2 of Duke3D where you go into space and discover the alien's diabolical plans, but that only worked because they kept everything very minimalist. The captured women would just say, "kill me" if you tried talking to them. No weeping, no retching, no crying out for their parents, just you gawking at the horrible sight.
And part of it didn't even make sense:
 Spoilers! |
When the Holsom twins first get kidnapped, Duke sounded legitimately angry, yet when he finds them in the hive, all he can do is make a snarky remark at how they're "fucked". Then you go slap some wall titties like nothing happened. |
I went for the Balls of Steel Edition, and in the art book, Randy Pitchford said the entire game was the work of 3D Realms, with Gearbox just cleaning it up for shipping. If that's true, I can only hope the next Duke Nukem game is entirely the work of people outside of 3D Realms because they have nothing but terrible ideas.
Not that I was particularly interested in the first place.
Linear Mode
