[Mongoose]

I did play through the demo myself (which I was pleasantly surprised to see ran decently on my old rig), and to be fair, the two-weapon limit didn't even necessarily feel all that "limiting," since there were extra guns scattered about literally every ten feet, so swapping out was almost always an option.  I can't even say I minded how the "Ego" meter was set up, mostly because it recharged fast enough that you didn't have to go hide behind cover for fifteen seconds in order to continue on.  I've played my share of healthpack-based games, and they mostly work out just fine, but there have been times when they turn into a frustrating exercise of always being at very low health, having to live from pick-up to pick-up, and dying enough to take you out of the flow of the game.  (Max Payne is currently giving me some grief in just this manner.)  Given the choice between that and the magical bloody-screen health refresh, the latter almost seems like the better choice.

The other thing I was surprised about was that the desert level was reasonably difficult, even on the normal difficulty; I died a few times at that fixed-gun encounter with several pigs.  (Shooting their limbs off was fun. )  The gameplay wasn't all that special, but the demo was short enough that it felt like more of a teaser than anything else; I feel like it was the dev team's way of saying, "It really isn't vaporware!  Believe us!"  I can see the full-fledged game being a fun time.

[Commander Zane]

I think it'll be fun to play, but it's by far not going to be the biggest thing since Jesus's rebirth that people make it seem like. Half Life 2 was the same way, absurd amounts of hype for a game that was only enjoyable.

[Kosh]

I think it'll be fun to play, but it's by far not going to be the biggest thing since Jesus's rebirth that people make it seem like. Half Life 2 was the same way, absurd amounts of hype for a game that was only enjoyable.

HL2 didn't take more than a decade to make. No matter how good the gameplay for DNF could have been it could not have justified that kind of wait.

[Commander Zane]

I'm aware that Half Life 2 didn't take over a decade to make. I didn't say anything about how long it took. Read the post again.

absurd amounts of hype for a game that was only enjoyable.

I only talked about its popularity before release.

[Mika]

Now that I have seen the game, it is a contender on my to buy -list.

What it is like by the first couple of hours? It is more like Half-Life 2, there is surprisingly lot of puzzles. Plenty of chuckling comes from appropriately named objects and places. Disappointingly, not all things can be shot to get through, and those iron fences and doors are one that I indeed think the RPG should devastate or go through. Note that it wasn't me who played it, I only sat and watched. But I think it is very likely that PC is the most fluent experience, especially the pig cops tend to cause trouble when they get close and there is no mouse-like precision in controls.

My first impression is that Duke has been modernized, and not all of the changes are for better - two weapon limit comes to mind, as was stated by my friend who uses PS3. It is as if something would still have been lost in conversion, BUT, and this is a big but, I need to try this on PC, the aiming seemed cumbersome on a console. Alien bastards have nasty shields that prevent their ships from being shot down, which was a bit of a disappointment too. Even though environment is destructible, it isn't as destructible as I wished for.

In the end, it might suffer from being modernized while still retaining some of the old, a compromise few might like. As I said earlier, it feels more like Half Life 2 instead of Painkiller. Can't yet tell, but it still seems to be worthy of buying. I need to check the current prices, though.

[Ghastly]

As an avid old-school FPS fan, DNF is just sad... The linearity, two-weapon mechanic, regenerating health + high-damage and hard-to-dodge enemies, unlimited-ammo crates, event-scripting (walk into a room, door locks, monsters show up, monsters get killed, door unlocks) and total lack of secrets come across as the developer ordering the player how to play, where to go and how to tackle each situation. Compare that with Doom, which has loads of secrets and often has several ways of tackling any one map.

[Mika]

As an avid old-school FPS fan, DNF is just sad... The linearity, two-weapon mechanic, regenerating health + high-damage and hard-to-dodge enemies, unlimited-ammo crates, event-scripting (walk into a room, door locks, monsters show up, monsters get killed, door unlocks) and total lack of secrets come across as the developer ordering the player how to play, where to go and how to tackle each situation. Compare that with Doom, which has loads of secrets and often has several ways of tackling any one map.

You are not the only one. Plenty of people from Duke modding community were pissed off when they heard about two weapon limit and health regeneration. They accepted it at that time though, and gave the game a chance. However, the response has been mostly negative on these two issues. They still don't like the two weapon limit, but a lot of PC gamers have likely trusted on the fact that it is likely the first thing that gets modded out of the game. BUT, the console window has been removed from the retail version, and some anti-hacking stuff has been added in! In the demo version, they have already put in FOV adjustment and Depth of Field adjustment tools. Also they added in a possibility of first person view when driving, which seemed actually pretty good (this happened in a couple of days)! Linearity I can accept when done well, Painkiller is still the best modern shooter I have played in the recent years, and it was pretty linear, though that didn't interfere with the shooting part.

The biggest flaming seems to be coming from that Gearbox has removed the console from the game, as everything else could be fixed by the community that did eDuke with Polymer renderer to allow Duke3D still to be played. The official reason for this is that console allows for nasty stuff to be done in multiplayer.

Plenty of old school gamers are likely going to be disappointed, this was supposed to be the last bastion of old school action shooter. All hope lies now on the modding community. I still think I'm going to buy this, but wait for SteamWorks crack (I'm not going to register to a service I'll only use once) and mods that take away the design decisions that don't seem to work.

DNF is likely the last new game I'll buy, I don't find anything interesting looming on the horizon any more. Current anti-piracy measures are unacceptable - I had to apply crack to a legitimate Dead Rising 2 to get it working - and if there's going to be DLC within two weeks of DNF's release, that's going to be taken as a giant middle finger from Gearbox. PC gamers just don't swallow this, if you want to do an expansion disk, then do a real expansion disk instead of flimsy DLC.

[Mongoose]

I can definitely see the complaints about weapons limits, but I can't really say the same about the regenerating health, since I felt like the demo handled that well as a whole.  The way I see it, it beats having to limp from one encounter to the next, hoping that your meager health bar holds out until you can find the next scarce medkit (which will probably be erased by the enemy encounter in the very next room anyway).

[Commander Zane]

Playing through each level of Quake 1 and 2 on Nightmare with less than ten health per room is still fun.

[NGTM-1R]

Playing through each level of Quake 1 and 2 on Nightmare with less than ten health per room is still fun.

Like all things, Pucker Factor loses its impact if employed constantly.

[Mongoose]

Playing through each level of Quake 1 and 2 on Nightmare with less than ten health per room is still fun.

Oh God no...that sort of thing is one of my arch-peeves in terms of game design.  If I'm at least fairly-competent at your game and yet still managed to get killed by the same room of baddies several times in a row because you're being ridiculously stingy with health packs, you're Doing It Wrong.

[Commander Zane]

Quake 2 requires you go back and forth on a few levels to progress through the story, and when you do gain access to new areas within the levels you've previously visited you'll also fight more Strogg. Get hit too many times beforehand and there won't be enough packs to pick up when you eventually start fighting again. Being able to maintain a high armor rating for the Body Armor and cells for the Power Shield makes health loss a non-issue unless you're unable to fight Gladiators properly and get whacked by hypersonic slugs too many times.

Odd that I'd forget about the Gunner's grenade spam. Ever since I had patched it to have Nightmare as a selectable difficulty their firing pattern changed to where it becomes unpredictable, and a hit from one of the three - four grenades is guarenteed; even with all the armor and trinkets active they'll still take out a good bit from of you.

[mxlm]

This NSFW gameplay video has moved DNF from my sub-$10-Steam-sale list to my get-the-****-out-you-creepy-mother****ers list.

[General Battuta]

This NSFW gameplay video has moved DNF from my sub-$10-Steam-sale list to my get-the-****-out-you-creepy-mother****ers list.

what the ****

[NGTM-1R]

This NSFW gameplay video has moved DNF from my sub-$10-Steam-sale list to my get-the-****-out-you-creepy-mother****ers list.

They sent up Alien in the most offensive way possible.

Not surprised. Vaguely expected. This is what Duke does.

[Pred the Penguin]

Basically the only expression I was capable of showing was "wtf" one...

[Unknown Target]

Haha well I smirked.

[Mongoose]

Yeah, I kind of lol'd myself.

[BlueFlames]

This NSFW gameplay video has moved DNF from my sub-$10-Steam-sale list to my get-the-****-out-you-creepy-mother****ers list.

what the ****

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.

[headdie]

This NSFW gameplay video has moved DNF from my sub-$10-Steam-sale list to my get-the-****-out-you-creepy-mother****ers list.

what the ****

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.