So really, what is so especially interesting about Duke Nuke'm Forever? It just looks like... Dunno. Some doom-ish shooter. Except that you can draw on whiteboards. And pee. Like that is such an challange.
Let's reverse this for a second. Duke Nukem 3D was the second shooter after Doom and Wolf3D. I have always wondered what is so special in Halo after playing Duke Nukem 3D. Yes the graphics have improved since those days, but I can't help the feeling that overall gameplay is better in Duke3D than most modern shooters. Probably some sort of age thing. You get the same response from me of Halo:Reach demos, or Battlefield series that causes me to meh. But if Duke3D is any sort of indicator, there will be challenge.
Besides it's fun to play bad-ass last action hero who is composed of all possible action movie cliches and who doesn't need any sort of stinking body armors to kick ass. Always ready to spew one-liners after blowing someone up. And the motivation, ah, the lowest common denominator: aliens steal our women and thus need to be exterminated. And it's brutal, vulgar and politically incorrect too - just like the original! One thing though, don't even try to take it seriously. The game doesn't even take itself seriously.
No, you probably can't make many games of this sort before the thing gets old, but now it works well since the influx of "realistic" shooters. If they get it at least on the level of Painkiller, I'm sold.
There are a couple of things I don't like in the demos: glowing hints, regenerating health, continuous keyboard instructions and the two weapon limit. Especially the last one has to be the dumbest thing that could happen in a Duke game. Luckily, it is also likely the first thing that gets modded out of the PC version. So yes it seems to be affected by the consolization of the game markets.
So
YES, indeed