"well how would you make Duke Nukem Forever?"

[xvbones]

It's (un)official. Duke Nukem Forever has failed to deliver. It seems they completely lost sight of what Duke is supposed to be which begs the question... what IS a Duke Nukem game supposed to be?

A lot like how Lucas betrayed his own vision, how about you - the fans - give your take on what a Duke Nukem game is supposed to be like?

Not a complete overview, but what kind of weapons should it have? Like aim-down-sights?

-What kind of game progression? (what might be described as a "plot")

-What characters? (Duke's Austrian father... about as clear reference as Sean Connery (Bond) as Indiana Joneses Dad)

-How should a Duke Nukem game in the 2010's approach women while still being a Duke Nukem game?

-Gameplay mechanics: how can the expectation of rebounding health work with how Duke shouldn't act cowardly like hiding in cover to regain health.

-How should it riff on popular culture and even to get a bit more "meta" why we are so interested in a 12 year old franchise that was riffing on cliche's that were a decade old when the first Duke game came out.

I wouldn't make DNF.

2k buying the game from 3D Realms was a fairly blatant cash-grab, as the title is so well-known, the game was basically guaranteed first-day sales. That's why they did that. Those of you who bought this game knew damn well it was going to be a massive disappointment and you bought it anyway. Like my roommate, who has been actually waiting for this, and was excited to spend his $60 on this blatant cash-grab, because he wanted to see how bad it would be.

If I had the money and resources to make DNF, I would, instead, make a completely different game.

If I was forced to make DNF, i would take the game to People Can Fly and let them re-make Painkiller with Duke skins over everything. It would be derivative shit, but it would at least be entertaining derivative shit.

If I was forced, with a pistol to my mother's face, to make DNF myself, I would strip the Duke world of all its pretension and remove the wholly unironic way the game seems to assume we all love the Dukey. Watching the game world slither up to Duke and literally fellate him and how amazingly awesomely wonderfully great he is was fucking embarrassing.

I would make Duke a broken-down relic whom the world has largely forgotten, a former hero that has fallen on harder times and is now coping with sheer irrelevance in a world that no longer needs him or cares about him.

I would start with a True Hollywood Story-styled montage showing his rapid decline into drug abuse, alcoholism and obesity, the messy divorces, the catastrophic lawsuits and arrests, the bankruptcy.

When we first start seeing the world through Duke's eyes, he is a lethargic mess of misremembered catchphrases and sexually-transmitted diseases. He and he alone would consider himself to be 'The King' and everyone else would see him as 'that fat, creepy guy down the block that often passes out stone drunk in the gutter in front of his dilapidated old house.'

Then the aliens invade and once again the spotlight is on Duke, he now must regain his old physique and skills in order to defend the planet from invasion and regain his fame and relevance. Only now he's a train wreck, he smells, nobody wants to talk to him, nobody wants to be near him, he leches all over everything with tits and he is the only hope of the world.

Wait. Why is Duke the only hope in the world? Who is this guy again? He's an over-the-top parody of heroes from action movies that are over 30 years old, he steals all his best lines (and then misquotes them), he has the sensibilities of a seven-year-old screaming the word 'Boobies!' at the top of his lungs and then giggling maniacally... what the hell does this guy have that makes him heroic?

Why did this game need to be made, again?

Oh, right. Blatant cash grab banking on a recognizable name and morbid curiosity. Almost forgot.

 

[Griphphin]

I would have gone as over the top as humanly possible. As huge as possible, man!
[HEADING=1]HUGE![/HEADING]

 

[gCrusher]

Well most of the stuff is beyond saving, so I'll concentrate on combat:
- after the first scene where they cut back to Duke playing the game he goes off to find the development team office and kicks some serious ass, then tells them how this shit is done

- EGO meter doesn't recharge when you're being a pussy but when you kill an enemy, or do extra nasty things (head shots, crotch shots, sploding barrels,...)
- an overboost bar at the end of the EGO meter, and once you fill EGO it starts to fill overboost and once you get that you go into a short burst of craziness(extra damage, extra speed, increased jumping,...)
- collectable upgrade coins dropped by enemies ad hidden in levels, that you then use to upgrade your weapons and yourself (add more weapon slots, up the damage, up your speed, ...)
- multi level boss fights
- bring back the all mighty boot!

Honestly if you intend to go oldschool then do it proper and then turn everything to 11

Can he bench-press a dead corpse, drop it and flex while looking at himself in a reflective surface?

If so, I agree.

 

[Von Strimmer]

The character of Duke should not change. However I reckon they should rip on other games so much more. The "power armour is for pussies" segment was one of the best lines in the game. I reckon Duke's purpose should be to pay out on all these new "emotive and serious and deep" characters. The Duke games could be a perfect parody of everything in the world today in both gaming and current world events. Also I like the gameplay as it was just refine it and update it more.

 

[Slycne]

I would have proposed a 180 degree turn from what they delivered. While the character of Duke was what made Duke 3D memorable, it was more importantly a fun and sometimes innovative game with some incidental Duke Nukem on the side. Duke Nukem Forever is instead first and foremost a game about Duke Nukem and it all but completely and utterly fails to deliver at being a fun game.

 

[xvbones]

Also I like the gameplay as it was just refine it and update it more.

So you're saying you liked the gameplay exactly as it is, you just want it to be different?

 

[Von Strimmer]

Also I like the gameplay as it was just refine it and update it more.

So you're saying you liked the gameplay exactly as it is, you just want it to be different?

This was a classic case of failing to think before I spoke... The gameplay could do with tweaks. Such as ego not regenerating unless you perform an execution on an enemy. A simple kill isn't enough it needs to be done over the top an in style. Otherwise Duke needs a medkit.

The two weapon system I think should be done more like Gears. You get 2 primary assault weapons a pistol and grenades. Only because I think that the 2 weapon thing makes it a little bit more challenging than just being able to pick any weapon you want and shoot.

The fluidity (if thats a word) of the game needs to be more like COD or Halo: Reach. Say what you want about the games they sell millions so they must be doing something right. Hell they just feel right.

Level design needs to be returned to the days of doom and Nukem 3D with secrets and alternate routes. Keep the stripper level though... That little bit of naughtiness was simple and amusing

And no quick time events. The duke kills straight up with skill. rocket to the face and it dies. Nothing more.

If I think of anything more I'll add it in but that and what I said before I think would be a winning Duke game. Not sure how it would work for others though.

 

[xvbones]

Also I like the gameplay as it was just refine it and update it more.

So you're saying you liked the gameplay exactly as it is, you just want it to be different?

This was a classic case of failing to think before I spoke... The gameplay could do with tweaks. Such as ego not regenerating unless you perform an execution on an enemy. A simple kill isn't enough it needs to be done over the top an in style. Otherwise Duke needs a medkit.

The two weapon system I think should be done more like Gears. You get 2 primary assault weapons a pistol and grenades. Only because I think that the 2 weapon thing makes it a little bit more challenging than just being able to pick any weapon you want and shoot.

The fluidity (if thats a word) of the game needs to be more like COD or Halo: Reach. Say what you want about the games they sell millions so they must be doing something right. Hell they just feel right.

Level design needs to be returned to the days of doom and Nukem 3D with secrets and alternate routes. Keep the stripper level though... That little bit of naughtiness was simple and amusing

And no quick time events. The duke kills straight up with skill. rocket to the face and it dies. Nothing more.

If I think of anything more I'll add it in but that and what I said before I think would be a winning Duke game. Not sure how it would work for others though.

Let's not discuss the area we clearly disagree on re: Duke himself and the treatment of women in the game.

Two guns was a stupid idea and regenerating health was a stupid idea. If they wanted to go retro, they should have gone full on retro and had Duke just get his damn ego back by, i dunno, finding mirrors to admire himself in and have those serve as healthpacks. Maybe he could carry like a special bag and fill it with beauty mirrors, where a full-face handmirror is a 50% heal and a little compact is like a 25% heal. He could carry his phone and his wallet in that little bag, maybe some ammunition. Also lipstick and mascara.

A much more stupid idea was forgetting to put any goddamned enemies in it.
I never liked DN 3D but that game was never boring, every single level was stuffed with monsters, monsters everywhere, plus neat weapons plus random little silly things you could do like flush a goddamned toilet.

I probably wouldn't have made an "over-the-top action game" have such frequent and incredibly long sections with absolutely zero action.

Tell me something, if the name on the box was not 'Duke Nukem' but was, instead, "FLASH GANGBUSTER and the INVASION OF THE CHICK-SNATCHERS" but everything else was exactly the same, would you feel the same about it?

Would you still feel as though your money was well-spent on this title? Would you say you've gotten your $60 of entertainment from Flash Gangbuster?

 

[Treblaine]

remove the wholly unironic way the game seems to assume we all love the Dukey.

I would disagree with you that this would make a better game on this fundamental point.

You seem to be making the game that you would not like to buy or even buy, but merely would like to have made because you don't even like the concept of Duke Nukem and want to destroy it.

Critically, is it not reasonable that a game called "Duke Nukem" the people who would buy that game might have a fondness for the character? Why would they want to see him washed up and out of his depth?

People who hate Elvis always cite the old fat washed out Elvis.

People who love Elvis always cite the young Elvis on the top of his game.

 

[xvbones]

remove the wholly unironic way the game seems to assume we all love the Dukey.

I would disagree with you that this would make a better game on this fundamental point.

You seem to be making the game that you would not like to buy or even buy, but merely would like to have made because you don't even like the concept of Duke Nukem and want to destroy it.

Critically, is it not reasonable that a game called "Duke Nukem" the people who would buy that game might have a fondness for the character? Why would they want to see him washed up and out of his depth?

Honestly, the impression I got from watching this game was that he was washed up and out of his depth.

Okay, so, let's take my hypothetical DNF out of the mire of abject cynicism and say he starts out down on his luck, once-beloved but largely irrelevant, the joke that he has literally been for almost a decade and a half during the dev cycle. Have the game acknowledge the high expectations and burgeoning schadenfreude waiting to see this game flop by showing Duke sort of worn down, once great and now just sort of forgotten and laughed at, and let him regain his glory from there.

Let him pull himself up from the gutter and back into the spotlight and regain the love of the masses, instead of just assuming it never went away and is completely universal.

As it stood, the game seems to delight in Duke wanking all over its face and to me, it was embarrassing to watch.


If you enjoyed this game, fine and more power to you. It's your opinion and you are entitled to it.
As I am entitled to mine.

 

[Treblaine]

The things that bugged me about the game were the recharging Ego meter

My idea for the Ego meter is to follow it to its logical conclusion:

Ego meter ONLY recharges when you kick the aliens' ass. Running or hiding is useless.

(1) COD: World at War's Co-op mode had a gameplay variant like this, but was probably too hard from how you could take so few hits and the red-mist "BLOODY SCREEN" persisted. I think it would work very well if Duke could take a lot more damage - say 1 to 2 rocket hits - but when he gets hit the only way to recover health is to kick some more ass. And of course, very little "bloody screen".

(2) To balance the game for sequential combat, if you go down to only 1-2EP (ego points) it will recharge to about 20% after about 60 seconds. So it's no good for cowering in battle, you have to nut up, shut up and blow them into the next dimension.

(3) To balance the game for boss fights, it is peppered with items that can give an instant "Ego Boost", I have no idea what these could be, probably booze or something. Heh heh, maybe spinach. I don't know, what is something you can have that just using is an instant confidence/ego boost?

(4) the more badass the weapon, the bigger the ego-boost. You think your Desert Eagle looks good? Get that sucker gold plated and your Ego meter goes up higher with use. Also the closer the better, hanging back like a pussy taking pot shots won't boost your ego like blasting them apart with a close range shotgun blast. Same for headshots, multi-kill and so on.

(5) But I think what would be most important to make the gameplay fun is the "Overcharge". Overcharge is when your ego meter is full yet you are still kicking ass, mowing down aliens left and right and they aren't landing a single hit on you. A single hit completely resets the meter. But if you get it maxed out, Beserk Mode:

The world slips into slow-motion high-contrast, yet you move with lickety speed. Every punch rips aliens apart, weapons have no recoil, you are invincible for this short time and you must use it well to kill them all because at the end you crash as your Ego falls.


Other ideas:
-Ego meter's total capacity increased by successfully wooing women, but don't screw up as your Ego meter is depleted somewhat if rejected.
-if you have to pay for sex, no ego boost. You didn't earn it.
-Ego boost from taunts and quips
-easy but small ego boost by shooting the corpses of dead aliens
-Ego DECIMATED by killing women or allowing them to be harmed
-Ego also boosted by bravado with guys, Bravado like this:
-Larger the ego meter the more you have to work to reach "overcharge"

 

[hazabaza1]

Take all the funding that had been used on it and give it to Atlus.
Now make Persona 5.

 

[Treblaine]

Honestly, the impression I got from watching this game was that he was washed up and out of his depth.

Okay, so, let's take my hypothetical DNF out of the mire of abject cynicism and say he starts out down on his luck, once-beloved but largely irrelevant, the joke that he has literally been for almost a decade and a half during the dev cycle. Have the game acknowledge the high expectations and burgeoning schadenfreude waiting to see this game flop by showing Duke sort of worn down, once great and now just sort of forgotten and laughed at, and let him regain his glory from there.

Let him pull himself up from the gutter and back into the spotlight and regain the love of the masses, instead of just assuming it never went away and is completely universal.

As it stood, the game seems to delight in Duke wanking all over its face and to me, it was embarrassing to watch.


If you enjoyed this game, fine and more power to you. It's your opinion and you are entitled to it.
As I am entitled to mine.

Well what about the POSITIVE aspects of Duke Nukem?

In this age of Twilight emo-fests, Hour-long introspections of hardened soldiers (MGS series), and overly melodramatic takes on gritty war stories (MW2's ridiculous Shepard "twist"), Isn't Duke more needed now than ever?

Where the market is dominated by arbitrary limitations and constraints wouldn't a no-holds-barred gun-fest be much more appreciated as an actual breath of fresh air? It wouldn't be played out, it would be for millions of gamers something they hadn't experienced before and only heard from older gamers reminiscing about the "good old days".

People are crying out for this sort of thing. The CoD developers take their games so seriously but online is played more like Hot Shots Part Deux.

They should have approached Duke Nukem less like Elvis in his deathbed, more like Austin Powers thawed from a by gone age.

It would be somewhat Ironic. Austin Powers was made in the 90's needing a man from the past to bring back the chutzpah we seems to have lost, now in the 2010's we need to do the same but drawing from the iconography of the 90's.


And I think that would be the central point, transposing a muscle-bound macho-man of the Early 1990's right into the 2010's. Take Austin Powers as the template and dial it up to 11 baby. You don't have to love the era to love the character.

I think it would work if most of the people hated Duke, pissed off at his attitude, but the way you make this character work is have him piss off the people WE don't like in this age?

Have the Emo twi-hards get pissy with him, have a Jack Thompson type get pissy with him best yet:

Westbro Baptist Church vs Duke Nukem

Or a thinly veiled pastiche of Westbro, like for example "Eastsis Extremist Church" praising and welcoming the alien invaders as some kind of divine punishment for lesbians or whatever. Duke can dispense the one liners and retribution we cannot, because we must stick to logical counter arguments. It's a complete fantasy but that doesn't mean it can't make for great game story.

You don't have to love Duke Nukem to appreciate how this anachronism can be a satisfying (if impossible) solution to modern problems.

He is an Anti-hero, he defeats our enemies by doing what we feel we cannot do ourselves.

That's what Duke is supposed to be, what he could have been. Missed opportunity.

I think the problem was they weren't just making Duke Nukem after a decade as gone by, they tried to adapt a game that had begun development over a decade ago.

I think if they had just scrapped DNF in 2008 and just started again (like they did for Team Fortress 2 late in development) with something more along how the anachronism of Duke can be a solution in this modern world, that would work.

Ever read a Saxton Hale comic?

That's how Duke Nukem could work

 

[SoranMBane]

Well, gameplay-wise, I'd keep the franchise closer to what it was like in the '90s and get rid of the regen health and two weapon limit, but that's not the most significant thing I'd change. Basically, to make the game work as a true parody of American pop culture, I'd have to completely retool the character, or, rather, retool the way the world around Duke reacts to him. Duke Nukem is not cool; he's the lamest sort of relic from a bygone age that you can imagine, and yet the people in his world treat him with exactly the kind of respect he doesn't deserve. They take him seriously when they, like the player, should be seeing how ridiculous he is and reacting to his negative behavior accordingly, and that just won't do.

The first step would probably be to either nerf the scope of the threat facing humanity or make the other people in Duke's world more capable of facing that threat, making his "bravado" pointless. He'd still have plenty of awesome-tastic fights to wade through, make no mistake, but he wouldn't accomplish any ends that the other people in his world couldn't have accomplished more efficiently. The second step would be to make him a joke in the eyes of everyone else. When he uses a bad one-liner, have someone nearby call him out on it. When he hits on a girl, simply have them reject him as the creep he really his (possibly with pepper spray). Hell, even have the aliens laughing at his idiocy even as he mows them down with over-the-top weapons. The result would simply be a funnier, and maybe even somewhat sympathetic character.

 

[Korak the Mad]

At this point, encase it in glass, put it in a lead box, bury it under tons of concrete for Millenia.

Or just shoot it into the sun.

Basically, it's not worth making now.

I wouldn't put it in a lead box, I'd put it in a vat of molten lead, then I would send it into the void between dimensions.

That or if I could go back in time I would put a stop to its creation and destroy any proof it ever existed.

 

[xvbones]

Honestly, the impression I got from watching this game was that he was washed up and out of his depth.

Okay, so, let's take my hypothetical DNF out of the mire of abject cynicism and say he starts out down on his luck, once-beloved but largely irrelevant, the joke that he has literally been for almost a decade and a half during the dev cycle. Have the game acknowledge the high expectations and burgeoning schadenfreude waiting to see this game flop by showing Duke sort of worn down, once great and now just sort of forgotten and laughed at, and let him regain his glory from there.

Let him pull himself up from the gutter and back into the spotlight and regain the love of the masses, instead of just assuming it never went away and is completely universal.

As it stood, the game seems to delight in Duke wanking all over its face and to me, it was embarrassing to watch.


If you enjoyed this game, fine and more power to you. It's your opinion and you are entitled to it.
As I am entitled to mine.

Well what about the POSITIVE aspects of Duke Nukem?

In this age of Twilight emo-fests, Hour-long introspections of hardened soldiers (MGS series), and overly melodramatic takes on gritty war stories (MW2's ridiculous Shepard "twist"), Isn't Duke more needed now than ever?

Where the market is dominated by arbitrary limitations and constraints wouldn't a no-holds-barred gun-fest be much more appreciated as an actual breath of fresh air? It wouldn't be played out, it would be for millions of gamers something they hadn't experienced before and only heard from older gamers reminiscing about the "good old days".

People are crying out for this sort of thing. The CoD developers take their games so seriously but online is played more like Hot Shots Part Deux.

They should have approached Duke Nukem less like Elvis in his deathbed, more like Austin Powers thawed from a by gone age.

It would be somewhat Ironic. Austin Powers was made in the 90's needing a man from the past to bring back the chutzpah we seems to have lost, now in the 2010's we need to do the same but drawing from the iconography of the 90's.


And I think that would be the central point, transposing a muscle-bound macho-man of the Early 1990's right into the 2010's. Take Austin Powers as the template and dial it up to 11 baby. You don't have to love the era to love the character.

I think it would work if most of the people hated Duke, pissed off at his attitude, but the way you make this character work is have him piss off the people WE don't like in this age?

Have the Emo twi-hards get pissy with him, have a Jack Thompson type get pissy with him best yet:

Westbro Baptist Church vs Duke Nukem

Or a thinly veiled pastiche of Westbro, like for example "Eastsis Extremist Church" praising and welcoming the alien invaders as some kind of divine punishment for lesbians or whatever. Duke can dispense the one liners and retribution we cannot, because we must stick to logical counter arguments. It's a complete fantasy but that doesn't mean it can't make for great game story.

You don't have to love Duke Nukem to appreciate how this anachronism can be a satisfying (if impossible) solution to modern problems.

He is an Anti-hero, he defeats our enemies by doing what we feel we cannot do ourselves.

That's what Duke is supposed to be, what he could have been. Missed opportunity.

I think the problem was they weren't just making Duke Nukem after a decade as gone by, they tried to adapt a game that had begun development over a decade ago.

I think if they had just scrapped DNF in 2008 and just started again (like they did for Team Fortress 2 late in development) with something more along how the anachronism of Duke can be a solution in this modern world, that would work.

Ever read a Saxton Hale comic?

That's how Duke Nukem could work

Mmm.

You do make very valid points. In my first post, I did say I'd have given this game to People Can Fly and let them make it fun.

Because of the actual product, my opinion of Duke is pretty low, but, had the game been done by (badly missed) Clover, if they did it in like a Godhand sort of way, where it is over-the-top by dint of actually being over-the-top instead of an archaic version of 'radical' that was stored in cryostasis by a candy manufacturer from the early 1990s, yeah, you are right, this could have worked without giving Duke a beer gut and STDs.

 

[Treblaine]

The gameplay could do with tweaks. Such as ego not regenerating unless you perform an execution on an enemy.

- EGO meter doesn't recharge when you're being a pussy but when you kill an enemy, or do extra nasty things (head shots, crotch shots, sploding barrels,...)
- an overboost bar at the end of the EGO meter, and once you fill EGO it starts to fill overboost and once you get that you go into a short burst of craziness(extra damage, extra speed, increased jumping,...)

Hmm, seem I've been Ninja'd

Actually, I'm quite surprised. Everyone who has anything to say about the Ego meter says it is bad, and all of those who have any suggestions to improve it say it should be recharged by inflicting damage to the enemy in some way.

I mean, isn't that kinda the way Ego works?

Which begs the question if this is so obvious, how the hell did Gearbox/3D-realms miss this?

People-can-Fly did a similar kind of idea - though abstracted - with their seminal shooter Painkiller (only £5.99 on Steam). The ONLY way to recover health was to kill enemies to collect their souls, collect a certain amount you go into Beserk mode. I really liked this, it added a new tension to combat but needed a few tweaks that make the souls more satisfying to collect.

Shame that once People-can-fly got bought up by Epic games they just implemented the same old boring generic rebounding-health style HP.

That's twice this has happened: old school developer with relatively unique health system, bought out by big publisher caves in and uses off-the-shelf rebounding health.

If it happens a third time, I'm fucking calling it. These big publishers are FORCING developers to conform to generic game mechanics protect sales.