demongoat Posted February 9, 2014 Posted February 9, 2014 I feel like Forever got a bad rep for the wrong reasons. I think that, had it been a stand-alone title, and not a Duke Nukem that was 11 years or so in the making, it would have gotten much better reception. the problem with DNF was that they tried to shoehorn modern mechanics onto a game that no one wanted modern mechanics on. the audience for duke was mostly people who played 3d back in the day and having cover shooting and regen didn't make any fucking sense in it. neither did the two weapon limit or big weapons ready for big bosses. the tone was fucked up halfway through the game, making duke look like a callous asshole instead of the big egoed action hero we liked. it would have been good about 3-4 years after 3d, since the whole big action hero craze was still alive, but 2012? no one but people following it gave a shit.
demongoat Posted February 9, 2014 Posted February 9, 2014 I never felt any love for first person shooters so maybe that's what it is but I remember hearing people talking about how you could piss in toilets and thinking it was dumb at the time, double that now, People are talking fondly about Halo already, in a few years it will be: "Hey man remember Halo? That was the shit you could drive around and stick nades on people, sick!" Nostalgia is hilarious. it wasn't nostalgia for me, it was purely being able to affect the game world in ways games hadn't done yet. when 3d came out i spent 20 mins running around clicking on shit, destroying objects and fucking around with tripmines. the ability to piss in a toilet amused me for about five seconds. if all you got from the game was hear "you can piss in toilets!", of course you thought it was dumb, you aren't playing the game yourself, you don't have any context to why people thought it was worth noting. the interactivity was why it was cool. games barely had any environmental interactivity in the early 90's that didn't have to do with objectives, so doing something like pissing in a toilet was pretty new just based on being able to. of course the humorous nature of it was part of it too, i'm not saying gamers were above toilet humor, since that was part of dukes personality. up til then we had faceless, voiceless protagonists and duke stood out.
jxm Posted February 9, 2014 Posted February 9, 2014 of course the humorous nature of it was part of it too, i'm not saying gamers were above toilet humor, since that was part of dukes personality. up til then we had faceless, voiceless protagonists and duke stood out. That cannot be underlined enough. I mean, yes, Duke's personality was ... well ... kind of asshole-ish and stuff, but way over the top. Like taking all characters from Schwarzenegger, Stallone, Segal, Norris etc. and throwing them into a bad 80ies sci fi movie... Compare that to the voice and faceless Doomguy (so much wasted opportunities), or the rather weird Gordon Freeman (who gets talked to all the time by hot Alyx but never seemed to care...). Duke (or Lo Wang) at elast gave you a chuckle and sense of triumph when he utters one of his cheesy oneliners... Recently I watched the first couple of minutes of a Lets Play of Duke Forever. And I can already say where the problems are here: After the "Prologue" (which actually is okay as a one-time gag) it drags for almost 20 minutes or so until you finally get to shoot things!! Why??? You have a boring turret-sequence where you fire at some spaceship for another couple of minutes? Why? You can grab feces (!) and throw them around! Thats not funny and even the humourless "Epic" or "Scary" movie-parodies wouldn't consider that a joke... Throw in some pace-killing RC-Car-Controlling passages and wannabe-puzzle...and you got everything a Duke-Game should not be about... For the franchise, I'd say: Forget and erase Forever from the timeline (Hey, you could make an ingame-joke if you care) and try a different approach: Modern graphics. Adult, sarcastic, cynical humour (quotes from old movies are not jokes!). A straightforward gameplay that's mostly about using guns to kill a bitch! And storywise, well, I think Duke is so "outdated" nowadays, why not go the Austin Powers-way? Have him frozen and woken up in modern america (Forever nothing but a fever dream of his massive ego), where he is confronted with political correctness, gender-mainstreaming, tough girls, smartphones, a tendency to make everything mature and dark, and poke fun of this! Even though it might ound weird but: To make someone like Duke funny you need intelligent storywriters, and not the kind of writers that think throwing feces around is what makes Duke look kewl...
Duoleb The Chosen Posted February 9, 2014 Posted February 9, 2014 THE MAN, THE MYTH, THE LEGEND! A BERSERKIN PACK MAN-AND-A-HALF IN A 12.0 of 10 IN SCALE OF BADNESS WHO READY TO PUNCH CYBERDEMONS WITH HIS NIGHT TRAIN, AND WITH A UNSTOPPABLE RAGE THAT MAKES ANY RED LANTERN PROUD! doesn't need to talk for his actions Because we already know what he thinks
Spectre_15 Posted February 10, 2014 Author Posted February 10, 2014 Compare that to the voice and faceless Doomguy (so much wasted opportunities) To the best of my knowledge, Doom came out before voice acting was even a thing in video games. Don't forget how much earlier it was than Duke 3d or Half-Life, coming out 3 years before Duke 3d, and thus 5 years before Half-Life.
jxm Posted February 10, 2014 Posted February 10, 2014 Compare that to the voice and faceless Doomguy (so much wasted opportunities) To the best of my knowledge, Doom came out before voice acting was even a thing in video games. Don't forget how much earlier it was than Duke 3d or Half-Life, coming out 3 years before Duke 3d, and thus 5 years before Half-Life. Sorry, I was actually not thinking of the original doomguy, but the one from Doom 3. In regards of the original doomguy, the Duke was simply "new" and therefore "special" - but somehow the industry rarely dared to voice their main chars, which is a wasted opportunity in my opinion. I never got behind the concept of "you the player is Doomguy/Freeman/Whoever" ... I am not roleplaying a silent faceless weapon with parts of an arm attached to it... And the video above is actually kinda funny^^
Spectre_15 Posted February 11, 2014 Author Posted February 11, 2014 Sorry, I was actually not thinking of the original doomguy, but the one from Doom 3. Couldn't agree more.
Duoleb The Chosen Posted February 11, 2014 Posted February 11, 2014 well about talking characters in FPS, here's the fucking king
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now