Poll: Impressions From the Duke Nukem Forever Demo.

[MercurySteam]

So after getting my First Access Code, I can safely say that the demo was.......................

Spoiler: Wait for it

Pretty damn disappointing.

I've seen similar things said by others, which really worry me because the only way to get access to the demo is through preorder or a code you get with Borderlands GotY Edition. It may turn out to be the most boycotted game of the year and I don't like using EB Games' return policy at all, let alone twice in two months so I hope the full game is better than the demo made it out to be.

So what impression did you get from the Duke Nukem Forever demo? Are you still jizzing your pants in anticipation or have you already cancelled your preorder?

 

[Bagged Milk]

I'm still excited, although a bit worried as well. That demo is the same demo they used a while back, 8 months ago. some of the weapons (the shrink gun) felt useless, and it being cover based also worried me. but I can overlook those if there's duke being duke, and explosions. BTW, the explosions in that demo are some of the best I've seen in a game IMO.

 

[AyaReiko]

Average, at best.

Not worth full price if the demo is any indication.

 

[Windcaler]

The demo is a demo much like Beta is Beta, we can never be sure of the finished product from just playing a Demo/Beta. Anyway, the first 10-15 minutes of the game is great, has excellent graphics and a pleasing aesthetic. The gunplay works well and feels a little retro but in a good way. Problem is that 10-15 mins is what theyve been showing at all the major publicity places and as soon as it ends it takes a turn for the worse making it probably the biggest switch since MGS2. That in an of itself shows some light hearted humor which is refreshing when compared with all the hyper realistic games of today

After thats over well, its just not very good IMO but its not bad either. The driving in the beginning is bad but its not as bad as the original halo's warthogs (which are IMO the worst handling vehicles in video game history). The gunplay still works but then we start seeing compromises that I dont really agree with. Now I barely remember duke nukem at all but one of the deal breakers IMO is only being able to have a couple weapons at a time. If theres one thing I remember about Duke Nukem games its the vast weapon selection you had at any time. In that one level you get a pistol, shotgun, sniper rifle (rail gun), shrink ray, machine gun, and an RPG. I would have liked to play around with the shrink ray more but being able to only carry 2 weapons at once means I have to cover basics which is shotgun/machine gun and sniper rifle.

I think this is a case of risks not being taken in order to stay true to source material. Instead of the game being made as a Duke Nukem game there were to many compromises making it seem more like Halo or Call of duty game with a different aesthetic. Honestly if this was a new IP instead of a franchise that I vaguely remember I would probably be kinder to it but thats just not the case

 

[Maya Posch]

I played DN3D a fair bit and thought it was an interesting game, very different from the Quakes and Dooms of that time. DNF isn't like that. It contains a lot of crude jokes which aren't funny, level design is poor at best, it's heavily scripted and linear, weapons which could be fun like the shrink gun aren't and in general I'd rather play Halo Reach or so

 

[Tdc2182]

Oh God was it bad.

It's one thing where I can sit there and realize how blatantly obvious things that would have made it better (No Sprint, Health bar, more than one gun, get rid of the driving that looked like an RC car). It would have been great if I was in charge of this game, but it became the same watered down FPS that every game is nowadays. And I even like CoD.

Seriously, the big "hmm, maybe this will be good" was relying on it being a fuck shit up 90s 2D FPS with better graphics.

It's now a cover based "hide to get your health back" shooter. Which would be fine if the series hadn't already been predetermined to not be just that.

 

[Keava]

Sadly they really ruined parts of the game that made Duke who he was. The gameplay itself is fine, run around, shoot things, visuals are at good level, art style is not bad. Problems however are in the details.

First thing first, regenerating health. Games with regenerating health pretty much assume that you will run away and hide to regain HP, means you have to play a coward. In old duke you had Armor, you had Med Kits, in DNF you don't have enough HP to start with to go and spread happy destruction left and right. Regenerating Health does not suit Duke.

Second thing. 2 weapons limit. Who the hell thought it is good idea? Duke is about rawr, kill, explode, shoot. Limiting players to only 2 weapons at time ruins the whole "fun" factor of old Duke. The game used to be about having all kinds of fancy toys to play with. Now, thanks to first issue you will play sniper Duke. That's no Duke.

Third issue - lack of Mighty Boot. Maybe i missed it, maybe i did something wrong, but seriously, why was the melee copy pasted from Generic_Shooter_071 ? Mighty Boot was Duke. Duke hitting with guns is not Duke.

The game could have been happy fun times careless shooter carnage but in current state it seems way too vanilla, way too tame. The fun factor is diminished by design choices that seem just forced due to how the market looks currently.

It's not bad, it's just not what many of those who enjoyed the old DN3D expected from DNF. It lacks the character.

 

[Doclector]

I'm planning to try and pre order it today and get the demo so I can see for myself, tried watching the demo on YouTube, but all the videos are too long for my poor little iPod to load properly, but the views on it are damn confusing. Almost everyone on here seems to think it's crap, but every professional review I've looked at lapped it up.

 

[gibboss28]

Sadly they really ruined parts of the game that made Duke who he was. The gameplay itself is fine, run around, shoot things, visuals are at good level, art style is not bad. Problems however are in the details.

First thing first, regenerating health. Games with regenerating health pretty much assume that you will run away and hide to regain HP, means you have to play a coward. In old duke you had Armor, you had Med Kits, in DNF you don't have enough HP to start with to go and spread happy destruction left and right. Regenerating Health does not suit Duke.

Second thing. 2 weapons limit. Who the hell thought it is good idea? Duke is about rawr, kill, explode, shoot. Limiting players to only 2 weapons at time ruins the whole "fun" factor of old Duke. The game used to be about having all kinds of fancy toys to play with. Now, thanks to first issue you will play sniper Duke. That's no Duke.

Third issue - lack of Mighty Boot. Maybe i missed it, maybe i did something wrong, but seriously, why was the melee copy pasted from Generic_Shooter_071 ? Mighty Boot was Duke. Duke hitting with guns is not Duke.

The game could have been happy fun times careless shooter carnage but in current state it seems way too vanilla, way too tame. The fun factor is diminished by design choices that seem just forced due to how the market looks currently.

It's not bad, it's just not what many of those who enjoyed the old DN3D expected from DNF. It lacks the character.

Got it in one, my thoughts exactly.

 

[Carbo]

I enjoyed it.

As I said in another thread - if it only has to conform to two modern FPS norms, regen health and 2 weapon limits, to also supply a great structure, progression and personality, I'm all for it. I'm so used to those norms anyway by now in shooters that I don't care whether Duke adopts them or not. Be it 12 years passed since development, I don't really care about that anymore. Now I just long for a good, fun game. Besides the weapon limit is made up with the fact that there's weapons fucking everywhere - and honestly, I doubt I even used more than 2 weapons when I could in DN3D. Most of the real problems I had with the demo are things that are more than likely going to be fixed in the final build since it's been 8 months since - Pitchford has been insisting that the game is a massive improvement over the demo, and since the campaign is set to be 16 hours long, I can't wait to see what variety and things they have in store for us.

Pre-order stands, still betting it all on Duke.

 

[MercurySteam]

Sadly they really ruined parts of the game that made Duke who he was. The gameplay itself is fine, run around, shoot things, visuals are at good level, art style is not bad. Problems however are in the details.

First thing first, regenerating health. Games with regenerating health pretty much assume that you will run away and hide to regain HP, means you have to play a coward. In old duke you had Armor, you had Med Kits, in DNF you don't have enough HP to start with to go and spread happy destruction left and right. Regenerating Health does not suit Duke.

Second thing. 2 weapons limit. Who the hell thought it is good idea? Duke is about rawr, kill, explode, shoot. Limiting players to only 2 weapons at time ruins the whole "fun" factor of old Duke. The game used to be about having all kinds of fancy toys to play with. Now, thanks to first issue you will play sniper Duke. That's no Duke.

Third issue - lack of Mighty Boot. Maybe i missed it, maybe i did something wrong, but seriously, why was the melee copy pasted from Generic_Shooter_071 ? Mighty Boot was Duke. Duke hitting with guns is not Duke.

The game could have been happy fun times careless shooter carnage but in current state it seems way too vanilla, way too tame. The fun factor is diminished by design choices that seem just forced due to how the market looks currently.

It's not bad, it's just not what many of those who enjoyed the old DN3D expected from DNF. It lacks the character.

I agree with most of these points. The long delay for health regen and short health bar on normal made me rage a bit, not to mention how lacklustre the overall experience was. I hope the final product can do better.

 

[Mouse_Crouse]

Well I will say that this poll really needs a "in between" option. While I didn't like the 2 gun thing. The Ego was ok by me because on the loading screen it tells you that killing bosses extends it(permanently for that playthrough). And performing certain contextual kills (shrink-stomp and the such I assume) instantly refills the ego meter. I will say the Demo is VERY short and VERY lackluster with nothing really to get me excited, I will still buy the game. It isn't Duke as I remember him. But I still had fun with the demo.

 

[Murais]

Whatever. I liked it. I didn't expect it to be the second coming of gaming. I expected to blow shit up and have fun, and I did, and I'll never expect more of the Duke.

I feel like people are WAAAAAAAY too negative about games lately. When's the last time people (for the most part) unanimously agreed a game was good? Portal? Minecraft?

I dunno man. I dug Mass Effect 2, and Dragon Age 2, and L.A. Noire, and The Witcher 2, and a whole host of other "Bad" games. So, honestly? I'm taking public opinion in gaming with a boulder of salt these days.

 

[Mouse_Crouse]

I've seen similar things said by others, which really worry me because the only way to get access to the demo is through preorder or a code you get with Borderlands GotY Edition.

Just wanted to point out you can also get the code by pre-ordering from many retailers. And the demo will be released to the general public on game release day.

Edit: missed the part about the pre-order, but the general release statement is still valid.

 

[Shio]

Whatever. I liked it. I didn't expect it to be the second coming of gaming. I expected to blow shit up and have fun, and I did, and I'll never expect more of the Duke.

I feel like people are WAAAAAAAY too negative about games lately. When's the last time people (for the most part) unanimously agreed a game was good? Portal? Minecraft?

I dunno man. I dug Mass Effect 2, and Dragon Age 2, and L.A. Noire, and The Witcher 2, and a whole host of other "Bad" games. So, honestly? I'm taking public opinion in gaming with a boulder of salt these days.

A whole lota people hate Minecraft and Portal. Freaks, though they may be.

OT: I've no doubt this game will sell average to okay on the day of release, then bomb hard and be hammered by reviews.

 

[FoolKiller]

This makes me a very sad person. I have been sick of the foolish norms that recent shooters have come out with. I still miss the old days of Quake, Duke, and Unreal Tournament where I had 10 weapons, armour, limited health and the fun of running around and shooting things. Lots of things... with lots of weapons.

Now it seems that the game has adopted itself to same old modern mechanics of a game. I already have many of those, I was looking for something different.

EDIT: I don't get why companies only give the demo early to people who pre-order and that the demo isn't available till the game is. Isn't the idea that you want to entice gamers to pre-order and wait for it with baited breath? I guess if your game isn't great, then you don't want to let people know about it till it's too late. That is the only logic I can think of.

 

[Murais]

Whatever. I liked it. I didn't expect it to be the second coming of gaming. I expected to blow shit up and have fun, and I did, and I'll never expect more of the Duke.

I feel like people are WAAAAAAAY too negative about games lately. When's the last time people (for the most part) unanimously agreed a game was good? Portal? Minecraft?

I dunno man. I dug Mass Effect 2, and Dragon Age 2, and L.A. Noire, and The Witcher 2, and a whole host of other "Bad" games. So, honestly? I'm taking public opinion in gaming with a boulder of salt these days.

A whole lota people hate Minecraft and Portal. Freaks, though they may be.

OT: I've no doubt this game will sell average to okay on the day of release, then bomb hard and be hammered by reviews.

Not saying they didn't, but I was just trying to think of a game that most people tended to agree upon. There's is no game that absolutely nobody dislikes, then what the hell would be the point of subjectivity?

 

[Internet Kraken]

Well I didn't get to try the demo since I have not preordered the game nor own the GOTY Edition of Borderlands. I won regular Borderlands but evidently that isn't good enough. However I did watch a playthrough of it on youtube that pretty much summarizes my thoughts on it;


There's just nothing special about it to me. Just another shooter with regenerating health and weapon swap. Maybe that doesn't make it bad but I have no interest in that. I wasn't highly anticipating the game before but now whatever interest I had is completley gone.

The demo is a demo much like Beta is Beta, we can never be sure of the finished product from just playing a Demo/Beta.

No? I don't get this argument. A demo is supposed to give you a taste of the game. You're supposed to judge the final game on it. Very few games significantly differ in quality from their demo this close to release. Besides, all the problem with the game come from the main mechanics, mainly the weapon swapping and regenerating health. That's not going to go away outside of the demo. That is unless this is some elaborate troll and a real demo will be released in a few days featuring Duke gunning down an imposter Duke and returning to the glory of old school shoters.

 

[Shio]

Whatever. I liked it. I didn't expect it to be the second coming of gaming. I expected to blow shit up and have fun, and I did, and I'll never expect more of the Duke.

I feel like people are WAAAAAAAY too negative about games lately. When's the last time people (for the most part) unanimously agreed a game was good? Portal? Minecraft?

I dunno man. I dug Mass Effect 2, and Dragon Age 2, and L.A. Noire, and The Witcher 2, and a whole host of other "Bad" games. So, honestly? I'm taking public opinion in gaming with a boulder of salt these days.

A whole lota people hate Minecraft and Portal. Freaks, though they may be.

OT: I've no doubt this game will sell average to okay on the day of release, then bomb hard and be hammered by reviews.

Not saying they didn't, but I was just trying to think of a game that most people tended to agree upon. There's is no game that absolutely nobody dislikes, then what the hell would be the point of subjectivity?

Theoretically it is possible to create something that everyone likes, it would just be mind-blowing difficult to the point of near impossibility. Maybe future tech will make it easier as we can fit more on to media?

 

[MercurySteam]

Edit: missed the part about the pre-order, but the general release statement is still valid.

Yeah, demos usually become available on LIVE after the full game is released, but it may end up alienating more people than it appeals to. That's the issue with shitty demos and right now I bet a few people who bought Borderlands GotY Edition are thinking of steering clear of DNF.