 Hail to the king, baby! Duke was frozen in carbonite for 12 years. Just kidding, but it has been 12 years since development on Duke Nukem Forever began. What took so long? A cornucopia of bathroom humor, hypersexualization, and horrible puzzles. This review is a long one (and for good reason), so read on! NOTE: A word of caution. This review contains some extremely explicit uncensored images. Parents, don't read this with your kids. Seriously.
1. Gameplay
So what has Duke managed to accomplish with twelve long, long years? Well, let’s start with the good. For the most part, I was entertained by this game. Aside from the occasional bug, this game played relatively smoothly. The first half of the game was filled with interesting content and an environment that felt both full and interactive. And the game was filled with one-liners and easter eggs for gamers and action-movie fans. This game manages to either take lines or make fun of everything from Halo and Gears of War to Commando and Predator. Duke is a cornucopia of one-liners, something that has made him famous for about two decades. That being said, the vast majority of this game is a trainwreck in one form or another. The first half of the game is so filled with sexual content of all forms that I would never be able to discuss its content outside of close friends (or people who have also played the game). From the time the introduction finishes to the end of a “dream sequence”, the game is decorated with boobs. Seriously, it’s almost impossible to find a view that doesn’t show female nudity in some form.  Here's a small taste of what's ahead. And that’s the mildest form of sexuality in the game. I seriously considered giving this game a sexuality rating higher than 10 but ended up letting some of the overflow go into the miscellaneous section of this review. I’ll sum it up in this way: This game should have been rated AO. The second half of the game felt like an entirely different (and much more boring) game. What ended up happening is that the original development team was disbanded (aka fired or quit) after making the first half of the game and a new development team was brought on to finish things up. Unfortunately, that second development team was given a rather short time to try and fill the gaps, and the different creative styles clearly showed. Where the first half of the game is made up of interesting environments and interactive content, the second half of the game fails to provide any even remotely interesting content. Most of the second half of the game is comprised of two different (very long) objectives. In the first, you have to drive a huge monster truck across the desert from Las Vegas to the Hoover Dam. You boost your truck over huge gaps and run over enemies in the process. The driving is fun, but the environment feels absurdly empty, and after about five minutes it felt very old. Add on the fact that your truck gets ten gallons to the mile and you’ll soon discover that every mile or so you’ll need to get out and look for gas. I’m not kidding, you have to find gas for your monster truck.  You try finding gas in the desert for under $5 a gallon. Saving the world doesn't exactly pay well! After you reach the dam and fight through a few dozen enemies, you’ll find out that you have to blow up the dam in order to stop the aliens from invading Earth. Only way to do that is to plant charges underwater. How does Duke hold his breath long enough to plant charges at the base of the Hoover Dam? Does he use scuba gear like in Duke Nukem 3D? Or has he just grown so awesome that he doesn’t need oxygen to live anymore? No, you have to find air bubbles.  Air bubbles? Yes, air bubbles. There are pockets of air bubbling up from grates in piping that Duke can use to breathe underwater. If someone manages to actually do this in real life I’ll give them a house. Seriously, the underwater sequence was one of the most illogical and inane sequences of any game I have ever played. It wasn’t necessarily difficult, it was just really, really dumb. I felt like it was insulting my intelligence to have me swim under water for at least 30 minutes without going up for air. Oh, and you have to fight a boss underwater too. Good luck with that.  You're going to need it. Overall this game wasn’t as bad as I was expecting but could have been a lot better. It’s definitely too (im)mature for most people (and all children).
The underwater section, as I mentioned before, wasn’t necessarily frustrating outright. But the boring nature of the level made it feel more like work than play. In fact, the whole second half of the game felt more like work than play. It’s not necessarily the same thing as “ frustration”, but it was bad enough that, had I not already invested so much time in finishing the game, I probably could have stopped playing and not had much of an issue. The game did lag my computer a bit at times, which isn’t normally a huge deal except for the fact that all of the bosses have to be killed with some sort of spacebar-based finishing move. In short, you have to mash the spacebar fast enough or else the boss will get back up and fight you for a bit more. It was extremely easy when it actually worked, but if my computer was lagging it wouldn’t always register that I was hitting the spacebar fast enough. When that happened I ended up trying to kill the same boss over and over again half a dozen times to no avail. At times I thought to myself “I could have killed ten of these bosses with the amount of ammunition I’ve wasted just trying and failing to kill one with the spacebar.” Not a good feeling. 2. Parental Notices
 I think I found Gennaro. If you damage an enemy enough without killing that enemy, sometimes the enemy will fall to its knees as if stunned. You can then choose to execute these stunned foes, which involves Duke either kicking or uppercutting the enemy into oblivion. Often times, the punch / kick is so strong that the enemy will simply explode into limbs and blood.  Chuck Norris says hello. Duke also has a couple of weapons that add on some somewhat graphic kills. For example, the Freeze Ray allows Duke to freeze most enemies, at which point he can execute them. The execution causes them to explode into a million tiny ice shards. Duke can also find a Shrink Ray that shrinks most enemies down to a more manageable size, allowing Duke to either shoot them with ease or, in most cases, step on them.  Mr. Freeze stole the idea. The “par for the course” is filled with blood and gore. Even the environments can include some extremely bloody remains of obvious violence.
As the introduction level finishes, the game pans back from a TV screen. Duke was playing Duke Nukem Forever on the screen and these two blonde twins are giving him a blowjob just below the view of the camera. But the sounds of sucking and coughing can be heard before one pops her head up and asks how the game was.  And we're only five minutes into the game. Duke’s penthouse is filled with artwork of various sorts. Some of them are pictures of almost nude women (definitely topless).  Does this really count as art? Duke also has tons of gold statues of various sizes of naked, large-breasted women.  [See Previous Question] After the aliens begin attacking, Duke has to crawl through some ventilation shafts. If the player takes a correct turn, he’ll stumble upon two naked women in a room. One is pleasuring herself in the dark while the other one videotapes.  Doesn't anyone notice the alien invasion force? When Duke is first shrunken down to a miniature version, he has to get in a little RC car and drive his way around a Las Vegas casino. In one section he has to take a jump up and over a fountain. In the fountain is a statue of a naked woman who has been knocked over, putting her butt straight into the air. Duke has to take his RC car and jump up and onto her butt in order to continue forward.  This is just like that scene from that James Bond movie! When shrunken, Duke is able to look up the skirts of the twin girls.  Slightly creepy if you ask me. Just as Duke finishes fighting a wave of alien enemies, the twin girls want to blow off some steam by making out together (don’t ask me why, it doesn’t really seem like the appropriate place and time). Either way, just before they actually kiss more aliens come out and kidnap them.  Um, ladies, the aliens aren't done here. Can that wait? When Duke makes his way down into the Hive, he has to open doors that are designed to look like anuses. He has to tickle the door in order to get it to open.  I wanted to just shoot it, but the game wouldn't let me. In the Hive, Duke finds dozens of imprisoned naked women. And I don’t mean partially naked, I mean fully naked. The only reason you can’t see “lower body parts” is because the stuff used to keep the women in place covers that part. Barely. But all of the women have large, uncovered breasts.  Why do aliens hate clothes? Eventually Duke finds the twins imprisoned in the Hive. After apologizing to Duke and saying they just did “it” once with the aliens, their stomachs expand until they explode into a shower of guts and baby aliens.  Surprise! It's a brain-squid! Much of the architecture in the Hive is designed to look like sexual body parts.  Is now the right time for an anatomy lesson? After the twins’ death, many of the women will begin to meet the same fate.  How about a discussion about euthanasia? Duke has to fight the alien queen, who is gigantic, ugly, and has three large uncovered breasts.  Does this mean she's a mammal? After killing the alien queen, Duke passes out and enters a dream sequence. The sequence has him in a strip club. He is told by one of the strippers to find her a condom, a vibrator, and some popcorn. If he does, she’ll show him a “good time”.  How do those things stick on? In the strip club, one of the male bathroom stalls has a “glory hole”. You can use the glory hole and the woman behind it will give Duke a blowjob.  I wouldn't stick anything in there, that's for sure. Duke can pay a stripper to play with herself onstage for him.  Strippers never look that clean. Pornographic magazines can be found and opened at various points in game.  You should be able to roll it up and use it as a weapon. At least then it'd have a purpose. The “good time” the stripper eventually shows Duke is a private topless lap dance.  No, that's okay. Really, I'll just show myself the way out. Late in the game, Duke will find alien walls that are covered in large alien breasts. Duke can slap the breasts and milk will pour out.  I'd slap it... with fire. In multiplayer, Duke can enter his penthouse. The player will start with one girl (who’s wearing a slutty French Maid costume) unlocked. If the player manages to level up other things will unlock (including other girls).  One, one prostitute. One of the multiplayer game modes is known was Capture the Babe. It’s basically like capture the flag except the flag is one of the two twins. Occasionally she’s “squirm” by putting her hand in front of your face as you run. In order to stop her, you have to spank her.  Blocking my vision is the only way to keep me from kidnapping you? Why not take some karate lessons or something. I have over 500 megabytes of pictures (aka pornography) that I took from this game alone. There’s so much that I didn’t / couldn’t include in this section. But hopefully this gave you a small taste of what this game’s sexuality is like.
 No, it doesn't. Then the game has you learn how to take steroids. In Duke Nukem Forever, steroids come in a big white bottle and he chomps them down like candy (literally).  Remember kids, take your vitamins. Duke can also buy (but not smoke) cigarettes. Towards the end of the game I also managed to find a cigar and have Duke smoke it in first person as well.  NOW I'm ready to kill things! Other than that, there are numerous bars that Duke will encounter along his path. Each bar is stocked full of different kinds of alcohol. This alcohol can’t be consumed, but it’s clearly present.
 Always bet on Duke. The only upside (or downside, depending on how you view it) is that Duke seems to have unlimited money. You can lose 100 rounds at the slot machines and still not affect the game in any way. 3. Other Factors
Although, to be fair, compared to the content of the game, I’m not sure how someone could make things any more (im)mature.
There’s one enemy called the “Pig Cop”. It’s literally a member of the Earth Defense Force that has been mutated into a giant rampaging warthog. You end up fighting these mutated versions of law enforcement throughout the entire game. So yeah, you’re killing cops, but they’re giant mutated angry warthog versions of cops.  This little piggy went to market.
 Maybe they're just well behaved to contrast against the nature of the single player.
 Caution: Bridge Out There’s one section where Duke must get into an old mine cart and ride it like a roller coaster while running over enemies.  Honk Honk! There’s one scene where Duke bungee jumps off the top of the Hoover Dam (Goldeneye style). The cord is just long enough so that it stops him right before he hits the bottom.  Measure twice, jump once. I’d also consider the entire underwater section to qualify as “extreme sports”. I consider it something like “extreme scuba diving”.  Even Duke has an O2 meter.
As I mentioned before, the premise of the game is that aliens have come to Earth to steal all of the women and impregnate them to make more aliens. Kidnapping is step one in that process. Rape / Impregnation Step two of the process is to rape and impregnate the women. The birth part is a violent, bloody process. The woman’s stomach expands as something tries to force its way out until the woman explodes into blood and guts and the aliens burst forward to try and kill Duke. It’s a bit like the Alien movies, but more sexual than scary. Underage Sexuality Duke’s two twin play things are clearly dressed up like slutty school girls. They’re supposed to be made to mock Mary Kate and Ashley Olson. Either way, they’re designed to look on the more illegal side of 18, and the school girl outfits don’t help. “Inadvisable Behavior” There’s at least one occasion where Duke can pick up a piece of poop from a toilet and throw it around. It creates large poop splatters on the walls and floors.  Who even came up with including this? Duke is also able to pick up rats and squish them in his bare hand. They’re not friendly, clean lab rats either. They’re gross sewer rats that like to eat dead bodies.  This is how the Black Plague infected Europe. Extreme Chauvinism As I’ve explained before, Duke Nukem is supposed to be an extreme stereotype of every bad 80’s action movie hero ever made. As a result, his huge muscles and absurd attitude get him all of the ladies. Literally. There isn’t a woman on earth that wouldn’t throw themselves at Duke’s feet and lick his shoes (or so the game implies). He’s also allowed to use them as he wishes and get rid of them as he wishes. Basically, he rules the world, and the women are his toys. Language The extremely mature language in this game almost gets absurd at points. Aside from all of the “shit”s and “fuck”s thrown around like candy (one dude drops f-bombs every three words), there’s a lot of other mature words included that I hardly ever hear anywhere. Pussy is used commonly (almost always as an opinion of a person or thing). Cock, dick, and balls are also used sporadically. There was also one instance of the slang term “chubby” being used, as well as many references to masturbation and other sex terms. Innuendo Now, normally I’d never include innuendo in a review (since it’s mostly up to the player to understand what is being implied), but in this case it’s hard to avoid it. Towards the beginning of the game, Duke is shrunken down to the size of an action figure. He comes upon a mom and her young son. The son remarks that Duke is so tiny, to which the mom says something to the effect of “I know just where I’d stick him”. I think she meant in her pocket. Or in a lightsocket. There’s no way that the tone of her voice would imply that she wanted to use Duke as a masturbation device. I’m joking, she definitely was implying that she’d use Duke’s shrunken form to get off. There are also various advertisements and company names strewn about the game that imply sexuality.  Maybe Planters should consider this for a slogan?  I didn't know people still used hoes.
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