Welcome Back Duke?

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GameRankings and Metacritic gave the Xbox 360 version a 49.81% and 49/100, the PC version 47.74% and 54/100, and the PlayStation 3 version 51.18% and 53/100 -- results that are considered to be dismal at best, but the ranking system does not quantify what specifically was behind the low scores within the serious fan base, revealing only that gamers as a whole saw problems with the game's awkward controls on consoles, its sloppy shooting mechanics, and overall aging and dated design.

In the simplest terms the game failed to live up to the games it was following -- and as the spiritual and literal successor to that series, it badly needed to. It lacked the exploration and excitement that made the previous games in the series so popular and fun, and it included so much platforming content that it did not feel like a Duke Nukem game -- remember that the series was always noted and lauded for its shooter-centric approach to play.

Despite the effort that was made by the developer to embrace the style of the original games, they left out so much -- no plentiful weapon selection, slow game progress, and slow pace -- but it was their failure to update the script with respect to the movie action-hero quotes that really sealed the deal, making The Duke appear way out of touch and old. The decade old one-liners were largely lost upon a gamer audience that had never seen any of those movies, and the cultural values of the second decade of the 21st Century no longer embraces misogyny and sexism as fitting subjects for game humor -- we've moved past that it seems.

At one point in the game The Duke finds himself confronted by many of the captured female humans, who have been impregnated by the aliens -- and as he moves through the tunnels you are expected to execute them while he cracks jokes -- actions that are so far removed from the character of Duke Nukem as to suggest that the Duke we thought we knew was really someone else; a psychopath.

A Public Meltdown

Disappointment with how the game was being reviewed -- and how the reviewers were treating it in their own disappointment -- caused the owner of the PR firm that promoted the game for 2k -- Jim Redner of the Redner Group -- to publicly melt down, issuing a Tweet to the effect that the reviewers that were harshing on The Duke should not expect to receive any review copies for upcoming games in the future. It was one of the only times that a PR ever issued a public declaration of blackballing, which is a punishment that almost always simply happens without warning or acknowledgment.

Redner apologized for the threat the following day in an email sent to pretty much every games journalist in the world -- and having retracted the threat with a very simple explanation, he also revealed that 2K Games had severed all connection with The Redner Group, which was no longer representing its games.

The reaction by 2K was not really a surprise -- but the overall negative reviews and the haters piling on top of it was. Because in the final analysis, in spite of the dated dialogue and the ancient game play mechanics, Duke Nukem Forever is not a bad game. Not a great game, no, but actually a pretty good one. Especially when you consider that it is an homage to a style of gaming that really has ceased to exist -- and that may be part of the problem.