In the slapdash, cobbled-together finished product, we can see, as if archeologists digging through a decade-and-change of digital entertainment strata, a few of the FPS genre’s greatest heights, and dozens of its cast-off, unsuccessful experiments.Įvery game has these pitfalls, but what’s important is that the developers of Doom, Half-Life and (to a lesser extent) Halo were smart enough to learn from their mistakes. It didn’t even matter if what was stolen was good. As we all know it stumbled into a bottomless pit of perpetual iteration, stealing wholesale from every major shooter to hit shelves during those 14 long years. The old trailers indicate as much.īut of course, DNF didn’t stay that way for long. I’m almost sure that very early in its life DNF was just that: a gutsy but predictable jump into the 3D world of triangles and textures, with maybe a few new ideas, just like most of the industry was doing circa 1997. I have little doubt that even after 14 agonizing years of development hell, if DNF had been a faithful yet audacious return to form-a late 90’s era 3D polygonal update in the vein of Ocarina of Time, Metal Gear Solid and System Shock 2-the fans still would’ve welcomed it with open, forgiving arms. I’m not trying to get up on my high horse here, but I always try to be constructive with my criticism, and I think that’s exactly what Duke Nukem needs now.ĭNF didn’t need to be a paradigm-shifting masterpiece to be good or even loved by the loyal fans. That kind of thing is no doubt cathartic, but I also think it misses the point, and it’s definitely counter-productive. It’s as if they were mercilessly kicking the arrogant playground asshole while he was down, after enduring 14-plus years of his bragging.

Those reviews rightly called DNF on all of its serious problems, but most of them took an almost childish rip and tear approach. I’m not going to spend dozens of paragraphs excoriating DNF-you can get that in the many hyperbole-laden reviews scattered across the web.

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