[Commander Zane]

Looks like killing the rest of them doesn't make swarms of octobrains spawn. Guess the RPG addicts won't worry about collateral damage anymore.

[BlueFlames]

It does rather highlight the game's biggest issue.  If you played Duke Nukem 3D, you should have expected something like this to pass for humor in DNF.  But, if you played Duke Nukem 3D, you're probably old enough by now to have grown out of that style of humor.

I refute this.

Well, now I'm curious.  On what basis do you refute my statement?  Does DNF have bigger problems than targetting its middle school humor towards an audience that's way, way past middle school, or do you think that a majority of DN3D's audience hasn't grown or matured in the last decade and a half?

[headdie]

I played Duke Nukem 1, 2 and 3D back in the day (all be it at about 15 for 3D), along with Manhattan project a few years ago and loved them all.  And would be disappointed to loose the politically incorrect theme that ran through the games in any sequel because it is part of the character of the series and an element that evolved through out and something I still enjoy about them.  You say fans of the games from when they were first released would have grow out of the in your face political incorrectness by now, I am in my late 20's and still enjoy it.

[Commander Zane]

I think it was about four years ago when I last did runs of Duke Nukem 3D and Shadow Warrior, at 18. Still ****ing hilarious.
Another game that's politically incorrect (To a different scale), Postal 2. Watch people panic as you piss on Gary Coleman's burning corpse then piss on the panicing shoppers, and kick them as they vomit in disgust, fight alongside priests against an invasion of stereotype Middle Eastern suicide bombers, pick up a stray cat walking across the street; voila! Instant shotgun sound suppressor.
(I still need to play through more of it to see what else it has, there's a reason Australia banned it.)

[The E]

Personally, the biggest difference here is that the original DN3D was a game made for 12-year-olds by people who were in on the joke and who were taking a piss.

DNF, however, feels like a game for 12-year-olds made by 12-year-olds. Painkiller and Bulletstorm are probably the better DNF's, at least Bulletstorm managed to be actually funny ever so often. This is just offensive in order to be offensive, not offensive in order to be funny.

[Commander Zane]

Painkiller's only funny factor was trying to get the most spontaneous gib deaths in one place; minimalistic plot and pure bloodshed in every corner, I don't see how that could be compared to games made with verbally offensive material.

Forgot to say, made offensive on purpose.

[Mika]

Painkiller's only funny factor was trying to get the most spontaneous gib deaths in one place; minimalistic plot and pure bloodshed in every corner, I don't see how that could be compared to games made with verbally offensive material.

Was?? Only??

In game play terms Painkiller was and still is what I have missed for a long time. Ridiculous but at the same time awesome levels, secret areas, tons of varied enemies and good overall playability. And deducing from some of the negative feedback of DNF, I'm not the only one who has been looking for this sort of FPS.

I actually saw the scene shown in NSFW while it was played. I didn't find it offensive, and was kind of expecting it given that the captured women in Duke3D asked to be put out of misery. Although I had to ask for a confirmation from a friend that did I really see those twins being killed. It was sort of unexpected, though.

What it comes to growing up, some people do, some people don't 

[Commander Zane]

Are you trying to tell me there are other funny things in Painkiller besides the different ways to mercilessly slaughter seemingly endless waves of skeletons and demonic beasts sent from Hell? Perhaps you didn't read the post thoroughly, Painkiller doesn't have corny one-liners and lame puns tossed around like confetti, it was made to shoot at things, and kill them, and shoot at more things, and kill them too. It's not made to be funny unless you have that sadistic streak where seeing things explode is funny to you - then otherwise the game is knee-slap hilarious. Painkiller is still awesome, but I wasn't talking about how good it was or how cool the levels were, I was talking about how Painkiller cannot be a valid compairson to Duke Nukem Forever because of the extreme difference in design.

Duke Nukem Forever and Postal make better comparisons because both have degrees of intentional offensiveness and vulgariy. To compare Painkiller and Duke Nukem would be like comparing Raptor: Call of the Shadows to Touhou, which while they're both vertical-scrolling Shoot'em Ups, their design is very different.

[BlueFlames]

I played Duke Nukem 1, 2 and 3D back in the day (all be it at about 15 for 3D), along with Manhattan project a few years ago and loved them all.  And would be disappointed to loose the politically incorrect theme that ran through the games in any sequel because it is part of the character of the series and an element that evolved through out and something I still enjoy about them.  You say fans of the games from when they were first released would have grow out of the in your face political incorrectness by now, I am in my late 20's and still enjoy it.

I'm not saying that Duke should have grown up.  You're right that Duke behaving like a mature adult would be wildly out-of-character and a betrayal of the franchise.  I'm also not saying that you're 'wrong' for still liking Duke (though I won't take you at your word, the next time you tell me something is absolutely hilarious).

I'm saying that this game no longer has a valid target audience.  The age group that's most likely to find this kind of thing funny won't have the nostalgia associated with the previous Duke Nukem games, because they're too young.  The people who do have that nostalgia aren't likely to find the humor funny anymore, because they've grown up.  It leads me to think that if there is a market for this style of humor in a game, it would have been better served by a new franchise altogether, since slapping the Duke Nukem name on it isn't going to draw in much (if any) of the old audience.  They could have milked this cow for additional sales in 2000, when we were still teenagers, but not in 2011.

Whether or not there is a market for this style of game anymore is also something worth questioning.  From a sales perspective, ESRB ratings didn't mean much in 1996, because parents and retail chains were poorly educated about what the ESRB was and what their ratings meant.  Now, the difference in sales between a T-rated game and an M-rated game with similar themes and play style is enough for publishers to take note.  I'll be interested to see how well DNF sells, with a sense of humor targetted towards twelve-year-olds and a rating restricting it to the seventeen-plus crowd.

[Mongoose]

Well here's a question: what if I'm only playing through Duke 3D for the first time at this present moment, without any sort of nostalgia filter, and yet I'm finding it to be largely hilarious?  I'd like to think that I (largely) don't have the sense of humor of a twelve-year-old, but sometimes I just want some stupid goofy fun, and DNF looks to deliver it.

[The E]

But the question is, does it deliver the goods as good as or better than DN3D? As far as I am concerned, it doesn't. DN3D was by no means a deep exploration of the human condition or anything, but it was easy to pick up, nice to play, and pretty funny.

DNF, from what I have seen in the Demo, is just utterly boring and derivative in comparison. Especially when compared to Bulletstorm, which was, even in the demo, very fun, and (crucially) looked and played brilliantly, despite, as Yahtzee put it, being constrained by the conveyor belt system of being a AAA production.

[Commander Zane]

You keep saying that, yet when I looked at Bulletstorm gameplay videos, the people trying to kill you miss when firing from ten feet away, which sounds very unfun.

[BlueFlames]

Well here's a question: what if I'm only playing through Duke 3D for the first time at this present moment, without any sort of nostalgia filter, and yet I'm finding it to be largely hilarious?

I just want some stupid [...] fun.

You answered your question for me.

You're also either missing the point or taking my statements much too personally.  To reiterate, I questioned whether or not there was any benefit a game bearing the Duke Nukem name this long after the last entry in the series and whether or not there was still a place in the market for a Duke Nukem-style game.  I just don't see what 2K and Gearbox hoped to gain by acquiring this property and pushing DNF out the door, instead of letting it die in 3DRealms' care.

[Dragon]

Perhaps they hoped for people buying it just to see what all that fuss with "vaporware" was about.

[The E]

You keep saying that, yet when I looked at Bulletstorm gameplay videos, the people trying to kill you miss when firing from ten feet away, which sounds very unfun.

That would be missing the point. Sure, you can point to something like that and say "Haha, that's poor, your AI suxx", and you'd be right.

But the complete package, the entire presentation, is much more refined, much more surefooted, and ultimately more entertaining than DNF. At least in my opinion.

To reiterate, I questioned whether or not there was any benefit a game bearing the Duke Nukem name this long after the last entry in the series and whether or not there was still a place in the market for a Duke Nukem-style game.

Yes, to both questions. But DNF is, IMHO, not that game. It was trying to be, but failed, for whatever reason.

[Hades]

One question, The_E. Have you actually played Duke Nukem Forever, the full game, I mean?

[General Battuta]

One question, The_E. Have you actually played Duke Nukem Forever, the full game, I mean?

Have you actually played Big Rigs: Over The Road Racing, the full game, I mean?

[The E]

One question, The_E. Have you actually played Duke Nukem Forever, the full game, I mean?

No, only the demo. Which, granted, isn't really enough to form an informed opinion I'll admit.

[NGTM-1R]

Have you actually played Big Rigs: Over The Road Racing, the full game, I mean?

Yes.

[Mongoose]

Have you actually played Big Rigs: Over The Road Racing, the full game, I mean?

Yes.

Lucky bastard, I wanted to try that myself too.