Duke Nukem Forever

[Art Blade]

 :-() :-() :-() :-X

[Binnatics]

Good to hear that you finally got access to the world of Duke. You're gonna love it once you take some time for it.  :-X :)

[fragger]

I finally got around to Duke, and it's quite fun :-X Nothing super fancy, pretty much a straight-up no-frills shooter like they used to make years ago but with better graphics. Duke's in fine form with his usual cracks, some of them are pretty funny. The game is as un-PC as all get out, of course :-()

I had to go through the usual Steam performance to get the game installed: a five-minute install from disk followed by a two-hour game update from Steam - @#$%&

I just got through a sequence where a miniaturized Duke has to drive a radio-controlled car through a partially destroyed casino. When he speaks it sounds like someone who's just inhaled a hit of helium. Imagine Alvin the chipmunk saying things like "Let God sort 'em out" and you'll have the idea :-() It's a hoot when you drive the car at speed into an alien's leg and he hops around clutching his foot - hysterical 8)

It would be nice if Duke could pack more than two weapons at a time though. It's a nonsense game - why not go all the way and let him have his traditional portable arsenal?

Good fun, if not exactly cerebral or original - or politically correct >:D

[PZ]

I set Steam not to do automatic game updates, so I ma not be working with the latest patch, but at least I get to play immediately.

On the console, I notice that they message that comes up states that the game must be updated in order to continue.  Formerly I did as the message commanded, but one day I realized that I could simply cancel out of that operation and the game would w@&k fine.  This is just another example of someone trying to bluff the users into doing something.  Now, my SOP is to cancel out of any such updates because I am not willing to wait the long times for those to occur.  In fact, I have not known any update to fix anything in any of my games.  For instance, I never had any problem with the original vanilla version of FC2 - no problems of any kind.

[Binnatics]

Fragger, this update should have fixed the amount of weapons you can carry from 2 to 4 ????
I never experienced it myself, I already had done 3 playthroughs by the time they launched the update, but it promised so at least..... weird

Hope you enjoy it mate, If I promised to kill you last... I LIED!! >:D

[Dweller_Benthos]

Yeah, there's a setting buried in the options to allow 4 weapons, as long as you have the latest update.

I do remember that miniature drive through the casino, and running over that guy's foot.

[fragger]

Thanks guys, I'll look for that 4-weapon setting.

@PZ, I had previously set all my Steam games to not update automatically, but I forgot to do it with Duke until after the update had already started. However, I wasn't aware that you can cancel out of an update or I would have done so :D Thanks for that tip, I'm going to look into that as I have updates paused for Portal 2, Modern Warfare 2 and Half-Life Episodes 1 & 2 and as I like to revisit those games from time to time I'd like to skip those updates.

Those updates can be a pain in the derrière and like you said, they generally don't seem to do much of anything - generally. The last Half-Life 2 and Civilization V ones actually did make some positive change - improved graphics in both games and quite a lot of rules changes to CivV which actually made it a more playable game. But they take so freaking long to come down - via my sluggy net connection they do, anyway...

[PZ]

I hear you fragger - my Internet connection is not as slow as dialup, but almost as bad, and I pay a pretty penny for the luxury of not having to endure the dialup sequence when I want the Internet.

[Binnatics]

... a pain in the derrière ...

Is this twist given by the fact that you found out about the 5.5 female members around here?  :-D
By the way, I don't think they will visit this particular part of the site very often >:D

[Dweller_Benthos]

Is this twist given by the fact that you found out about the 5.5 female members around here?  :-D
By the way, I don't think they will visit this particular part of the site very often >:D

Rule #29 & 30, I'm afraid.
http://rulesoftheinternet.com/index.php?title=Main_Page

[Binnatics]

  :-X :-X

I just happened to read rule 66 ^-^

[fragger]

 

Is this twist given by the fact that you found out about the 5.5 female members around here?

Good point - Duke would never use a word like "derrière"...

"Nobody steals our chicks - and lives!"

[fragger]

So far this is not a bad game, but it's a bit much of a muchness at times. Run, blast, run, blast, and so on. It does look great though, and it has its funny moments. It can be a tough game, even on easy mode.

At one point in the ruins of Vegas I was stuck in a big kind of shell crater with a pillar of rock in the middle playing Ring Around The Rosy with this enormous boss who was armed with some huge, nasty weapons. There was nowhere to hide, I had to try and keep the rock pillar between us as much as possible and just expose myself long enough to get a target lock on him with my rocket launcher and let fly before getting out of his line of sight again. Fortunately there was an ammo resupply crate in there with me, so I could keep topping up my rocket supply, apparently ad infinitum. This bugger was huge, and I had to keep peppering him with rockets until I wore him down (his health meter appears on the HUD as well as your own). Once his health was down and he was on his knees I had to run in close until I could interact with him, in this case climbing up onto his back and ripping out one of his horns to seal his fate. This appears to be the standard boss defeat - knock their health down until they're vulnerable, then run in close and rip out a body part to finish the job. But then there's the fun part - you get to inflict a final humiliation of some sort on them (an interact prompt appears when you get in close again which actually says "Humiliate"). In the case of this big thing who was already kneeling in pain I was able to use his enormous testicle sac like one of those hanging punching bags you see at the gym (thookada-thookada-thookada) until he died falling on his side clutching his balls. Hysterical

The 4-weapon boost is a major help, and some of the weapons are cool. My fave so far is the Rail Gun. Duke's pistol is pretty effective if you can land a head shot on most of the standard bad guys, taking them down immediately, but as a lot of them move quickly it's not easy getting that headie in.

Fun game generally, though I can't see myself replaying it much as it's strictly a corridor affair and gets somewhat repetitive at times. I can't believe it took them all those years to produce it - there's not much indication of where all that time went. It's essentially the old Duke with flashier graphics and a little more interaction, entertaining as that interaction can be. For instance, there are a bunch of poker machines you can play in Duke's casino. Playing any one of them a few times initially will boost Duke's "Ego" (health capacity) but you can keep playing if you like just to see if you can win anything.

Right, time to kick some more a$$. Where's my bubble gum? Oh, right... I'm all out.

[Art Blade]

I liked that hysterical bit, too -- lol @ thookada-thookada-thookada 

[Binnatics]

Nice to read about someone new running through the blast :)
I think you'll enter the caves soon, which is a hard part. Once you're through that part,the fun starts again ^-^ Oh no, first you enter the burger shot as a small Duke, isn't it, Art? Or was that just in multiplayer ????
I remember that the boss fights are indeed quite difficult compared to the rest of the game. Then the humiliation thing is quite... ahhhhhhhh... satisfying >:D

[Art Blade]

it is both SP and MP that you get to play the mini Duke  :)

[Binnatics]

I remember now... don't you have to rescue one of the burgerbabes when the whole shop is filled with electrified water? :-()

[fragger]

I'm in those caves now, cool alien environment :-X A little reminiscent of the underground alien hive in Half-Life 2 Episode 2. There's some pretty yucky looking stuff in there...

I liked the part much earlier where you had use a turret on top of a skyscraper to shoot down a gigantic alien mothership while defending yourself against attacks by smaller fighter-type aircraft, that was tricky but fun :-X And quite spectacular when the mothership finally broke up and parts of it were falling on top of buildings and knocking them down - whoa 8)

[Binnatics]

Hey, Fragger, what happened to your Duke Playthrough? You're not telling me you left the poor dude in these slimy caves with nothing but fake titties to enjoy ??? ??? ???

[fragger]

 

He'll survive, he's the Duke >:D

Well... After getting this new hardware together I've kind of discovered FC2 all over again. I can now have so many more graphic options enabled or increased, and the frame rate is now so much higher, that it's almost like playing a whole new game. Poor old Duke has had to go and sit on the backburner for a while (and that's really gotta hurt...) Also I lost my saved games when my old hard drive died so I'll have to start all over again (which means Duke is no longer actually trapped in that slimy cave anymore, he's back to getting blowies from those two skanks in his apartment, so don't worry about him ;)).

But what's making me reluctant to get back to DNF is having to deal with Steam again. It took me hours to get the game happening the last time thanks to my sluggy net access speed and I'm kind of apprehensive about going through all that again, at least for a while yet. I did get CivV reinstalled with Steam and that was about as painful an experience as I thought it would be, and that was relatively quick and easy compared to what was involved getting DNF up and running.

But DNF should be cool to play on this new rig so I will get back to him once I'm ready to bite the bullet and take on Steam again. Steam was more painful to take on than the "Battle Lord" boss in DNF was, and I don't even get the satisfaction of using Steam's scrotum as a punching bag afterwards :(

[Binnatics]

Sh~*.. I misse on your rig upgrade. Gonna check out the goodies you installed ;) :-X

[fragger]

I'll jot them down here: Intel Core i7-2600 3.4GHz CPU, NVidia GT545 w/4GB RAM, 16GB RAM, Gigabyte m/board (not sure what type). Started off just getting a new HDD after the old one went belly-up, but then got carried away :-() New goodies enough to make a serious performance boost :-D

[Binnatics]

Sounds great! I think we have the same processor :-X

Not sure about the video card... what's the full name?

[fragger]

Actually, NVidia GeForce GT 545. If there's any more to the name, I don't know it.

[Binnatics]

 :-X Found it. Couldn't find it in the catalogue of my fav. hardware shop.  :)