Duke Nukem Forever Demo Impressions

by Kyle Sondergaard

After nearly 14 years, Duke is back and he’s got balls of steel. Duke Nukem Forever is finally releasing on June 14th for PC, Xbox 360, and Playstation 3, and those faithful fans who pre-ordered the game or picked up a copy of Gearbox Software’s Borderlands Game of the Year Edition were given access to the demo yesterday. We played it. Spoiler: it’s awesome.

The demo opens up with Duke at a urinal draining his presumably large seamonster. This isn’t a cutscene – you’re in full control of the action. After he’s done pissing excellence, Duke makes his way over to a room with a dry-erase board where the Earth Defense Forces (No, not THAT Earth Defense Force) are going over their plans for Operation Cockblock to defeat the invading aliens. Duke, of course, decides their plan is total horsecrap and you are given the freedom to completely re-draw their plans on the dry-erase board. The controls for this can be a little challenging, but it’s not hard to make crude drawings of dicks, so rest assured, you’ll all do fine. Duke then proceeds to run unarmed through firefights going on in the halls, echoing the start of the Pillar of Autumn level in Halo: Combat Evolved. Upon reaching the end, you’re treated to a faithful recreation of the classic football field boss fight from Duke Nukem 3D.

After completing the boss fight, the camera pans back to reveal Duke sitting on his couch playing Duke Nukem Forever and being pleasured by a set of twins. After Duke cracks a joke about the length of time it took to develop the game, it skips ahead to a level where you drive Duke’s monster truck through a canyon and then battle through hordes of aliens to find some gas. This segment is the real meat and potatoes of the demo, as you get into several firefights, sample a good chunk of the weapons available in the game (which are all returning from Duke 3D), and learn how to interact with objects in Duke’s world.

Duke Nukem Forever doesn’t make any attempts to modernize the gameplay or add any of the bells and whistles we’re used to in this day and age. This is classic Duke Nukem as we would have played it in 1997. While this may be a turn-off to some prospective new players, it’s bound to please long-time fans of the series who have been waiting for well over a decade to kick ass and chew bubble gum. It was worth the wait, guys.