Duke Nukem's Shitty 3rd Act and "Forever" Load Times

During the first half of Duke Nukem Forever, I was really excited to be playing the game and I wanted to devote a good deal of time to writing about the socio-political statements found in this new installment to the franchise.  All those desires ended when I reached the second half of the title when I realized there was no point in finishing. Unlike most of the reviewers, Duke Nukem Forever doesn't offend me in terms lack of political correctness or "not being cool anymore". The silly action game intended to be ironic offends me with its mediocre Act 3.

Duke Nukem Forever could have been a good game.  The title had some great ideas. And I have to say, the alien hive where all the women are getting impregnated was a great idea.  How did people forget the character was an ironic manifestation of a gun toting patriotic 80's action star fighting space aliens over whose right it is to objectify women?

Oh, I know why fans of the series forgot "The Duke" was a joke, they took this game seriously when they were kids!  See, the original game was appealing to the older nerd base that was playing PC games at the time and found this kind of satire funny.  Pre-teens, however, missed the joke and thought the game was "cool" or "edgy".

So now we've reached the era of, well today, and game reviewers are poo-pooing Duke's new escapade for offending their sensibilities when they are the same reviewers that promoted every beefcake FPS that took itself seriously to date; from games with racist undertones like Halo to, well games with racist undertones like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (more on this later).

It's what reviewers chose to get offended by and what they didn't that bothers me.  So, women choking on Duke Nukem's scrotem is A-OK and doesn't get a second look but aleins raping girls in their hive..... THAT'S offensive?  Oh I get it, those were American girls and, by god, if anyone's going to objectify them it better be an American man on steroids!  Whatever.

I don't see some material as offensive in Duke Nukem Forever, I see ALL the material as offensive.  But that's the point, Duke Nukem is an offensive character.  His name is fucking Duke Nukem for Christ's sake!  The game makes fun of all the nonsense that goes on in popular movies and video games, while at the same time kind of paying homage to the good parts of 80's action flicks; the campyness and the obsurdity are all there.

The game starts out with some great ideas.  The level design was fairly interesting, the color palette was vibrant, and there was a great deal of parody and homage to other shooters.  Things like Duke having trouble breathing when he runs and needing to hide behind cover when his Ego meter runs out did a great job of coloring the player's perspective of the character. 

With all that there was to like about Duke Nukem Forever early on, however, by the third act I couldn't really fall in love.  In the latter half, the game goes dirt brown in favor of "gritty realism" and the FPS becomes a total bore.  Gone are all the interesting environments and creative level design, replaced with modern muddy brown nonsense that is flooding the market of FPS's after the introduction of the HD consoles.  Bland color palates, and shitty environments make up the latter half of the game and Duke Nukem Forever ceases to be any fun.

You begin to realize the hard truth about Duke Nukem Forever.  While there were some people working on the project with good ideas for a new Duke Nukem game, by and large the project didn't come together and the producers spent most of their assets on trying to keep up with trends in the ever changing shooter genre.

There's nothing to see here and this is purely a cash in with unforgivable load times.

Extra Credits' Piss Poor Coverage of Race In Games

The Escapist : Extra Credits : Race in Games

I created this here blog thing as a new platform to talk about random crap.  How cathartic!   After creating it, however, I found there wasn't a great deal I felt like writing about, probably because I was busy with more pressing issues; like making a buck to feed myself!

So here we are now and I wanted to start by covering a topic that's been on my mind because I've been dealing with a lot of bullshit lately.  The topic is race and specifically race in games.

But before I get into this, I discovered that there are some guys that already tried to cover this topic on a show called Extra Credits. Overall, it's mostly a good show and it's doing a great deal to make gamers aware of how narrative, visual aesthetics, and hot button issues can push the boundaries of games and make them a better medium.

That said, here's my opinion of Extra Credits coverage of race in games.  What a shitty episode!  Seriously, the first thing they mention is that their artist, who's a woman, has a shoulder injury that will eventually affect her ability to draw if she doesn't get it fixed; but they STILL have her drawing the episode. What!?!?

Then, they jump into their coverage of race or race issues in games and the only game they can come up with that "pushes the boundaries" on race issues is L.A. Noire and its playable white character who both books a Jewish guy for killing an anti-semite right after World War II and stands by while a fellow cop beats up a woman. And these are somehow redeeming qualities!?!?!?

The entire episode sounded more like, "I relate to this character because I'm also uncomfortable with other races and women."  A white character that does things that suggest he might be racist and or sexist in a game is not revolutionary guys!  And don't say the main character was just following the law "regardless of context" when he booked that Jewish guy either, because that excuse was used in Nazi Germany too!

The episode above also suggest that race is just a small part of  who we are.  Yeah, if you're white!

This was terrible coverage.  We'll tackle this issue much better than they did on this blog over, probably, several articles. So stay tuned!