On the Difficulties of Perception
No. This is not a post of anger and "bang-bang"; it's just an attempt to understand what Duke Nukem Forever will represent, the release of which is coming up very soon. Firstly, I don't quite understand why Gearbox decided to resurrect old Duke. Twelve years is an extremely serious time. And if Blizzard managed with their Starcraft 2, with Forever, one can only wonder: do we need such an "old-school" shooter in 2011? Who will be playing this?
Players can generally be divided into three groups:
Fathers, who in their time were addicted (or inebriated) and completed the 3D Nukem several times, learning the signature phrases of the king of shooters and trying to emulate their cult hero. Now, these are probably healthy guys around their 30s, who, even if they haven't stopped playing games, have surely changed their genre preferences. You have probably already played the demo of Duke Nukem Forever, so let's be honest – the gameplay in Forever is extremely dull (this is, of course, if judged solely by the demo). It's unlikely that an adult would force themselves to play such a simplistic shooter, even despite the cult status of the protagonist.
The youth, so to speak. These are the gamers who mostly demand technological sophistication from games. And moderately engaging gameplay. The visual part in the new Duke Nukem, as you know, is terribly outdated. Can our school kids play such a game? Maybe it would be easier for them to fire up the leaders of the genre and the market: Bulletstorm, Crysis 2, and others? The other thing is that I'm not entirely sure about what kind of gameplay these "school kids" prefer. Well, at least in comparison to the engaging nature of Bulletstorm, Duke from 2011 is quite lacking.
Average type players who didn't catch the legendary Duke at the peak of his glory but still understand what kind of personality he is. On one hand, they realize that Duke Nukem is a cult, he's just an awesome guy, and it's epic. On the other hand, an hour of gameplay in Forever Demo is misleading: is this the game that took 12 years to create? The humor seems great, the character is vibrant, but playing feels forced. Old-school, you say? Well, who needs such old-school...
In the end, it turns out that Duke Nukem Forever is a game very difficult to perceive. About how to play it properly, I hope you will explain to me in the comments :)
And yes: I really hope that the gameplay of the demo is only 5% of the overall excitement of the full version.
P.S.: at first, to be honest, I wanted to post this on my personal blog, but then I changed my mind. Fewer people will read it.