Vegas was OK, I didn't pay attention to the buses, more the blocky plants when you're mini Duke.
Sill, the enjoyment factor was there for me. I am a Duke fan and moreso, an old skool shooter fan as that's the era I grew up in and have the most memory of so I fit right at home with this kind of game and it seems a lot of others do too.
- Generally pleasing visuals
- Gags
- Titties
- Massive bosses
- Consistent pacing to the combat system, yes I know it only allows 2 weapons and even Duke jokes about wanting 3 guns at a time at one point but it's fine...
- References to other games and media throughout the game
It's all good.
I appreciate what you're saying. I wasn't a huge fan of the original, but played it a lot regardless and respect a lot of what it did.
A lot of it comes down to taste, but there's some stuff that is just *wrong* as far as I'm concerned. For example, the 'old skool shooter' vibe.
Now the enemies, and general setups lend themselves to this kind of feel. However, the often cramped environments, regenerating health (combined with large damage per enemy), two weapon limit (and small amounts of ammo per weapon) are all completely opposed to this style of play. These are clearly just things they slapped on to stay in line with modern shooters, without considering the implications of each of these mechanics.
The boss encounters, while visually impressive are mechanically dull. Here's how I beat every boss in the game:
Load up from infinite ammo crate,
circle around the boss holding down the fire button,
run out of ammo,
Load up from infinite ammo crate,
The fact there are so many of these weapons crates points to a massive plaster being placed over the game where there's supposed to be balance.
The gags and stuff are down to taste, I found them either outdated, stale, or borderline offensive. I tend to echo the comments in some reviews about the alien ship/impregnation sections, they are really quite distasteful, and this kind of attitude to women I just find disgusting. Compare and contrast this games handling of woman and 'low brow' humor with that of Bulletstorm for example. I'd really not want to meet anyone that wrote the dialogue/story for Duke.
The way I look at it, is this:
As someone who works in the industry, is this really how far we've come? If someone played this as their first ever game, we'd loose them forever. It's embarrassing, and we just don't need it anymore. This isn't about games needing to be 'serious' or plumbing the depths of what it is to be human. Bayonetta isn't serious, Serious Sam isn't serious, Bulletstorm isn't serious. But in comparison to this game they have style, clear direction (both in terms of art and design) and most importantly have depth to the gameplay.
I errr, didn't intend for this to turn into a big rant, and it's really not aimed at you Khaaan
