[justLMAO]

As you know it ran in sub-720p resolution with no AA, took forever to load despite the levels being hacked to pieces, was blurry as fuck and STILL dropped frames/tore all over the place. Why exactly was the performance so bad? Other 360 games like Gears of War ran better and looked better.

[Phredreeke]

GoW ran on the Unreal 3 engine, it was optimised by Epic for the console,

DNF used the Unreal 1 engine with bits and pieces from the Unreal 2 engine dropped in. I would assume Piranha Games focused on the PS3 version given that the PS3 had a reputation for its poor multiplatform ports.

[Jimmy]

Because they didn't give a shit.

[Kerr Avon]

I don't remember it running badly on the 360 (aside from the loading times, I mean), but then I still play N64 and PSX games, so I really don't notice bad performance unless it's REALLY bad. I don't recall any bug either, or slowdowns, though I might have missed them.

What I do remember, even though I only played through the game once, is being very surprised at both how boring the game was, and how a game that was written by largely the same people who wrote the very innovative Duke Nukem 3D could have made something as generic and creatively bankrupt as DNF.

[MusicallyInspired]

The biggest thing I remember was really bad (slow) texture pop-in. I do recall framerate complaints, though. It definitely didn't run as nice as on the PC.

I was most disappointed with the desert mine section. I was expecting this sprawling underground mine section a la HL2:Ep2 and it only ended up being a tiny little cave.

[justLMAO]

Kerr Avon, on 23 August 2019 - 05:48 AM, said:

I don't remember it running badly on the 360 (aside from the loading times, I mean), but then I still play N64 and PSX games, so I really don't notice bad performance unless it's REALLY bad. I don't recall any bug either, or slowdowns, though I might have missed them.

What I do remember, even though I only played through the game once, is being very surprised at both how boring the game was, and how a game that was written by largely the same people who wrote the very innovative Duke Nukem 3D could have made something as generic and creatively bankrupt as DNF.

I played the PC version myself, but watched a Let's Play of the 360 version and the screen tearing, crap texture resolution and extreme blur filter was awful. The port was garbage. Some gaming website played it with a framecounter and it drops to the 20's constantly. It just cannot maintain a consistent 30fps for some reason. Marketing this as a triple-A game (and selling it to people for $100 in the case of the Balls of Steel Edition) bordered on criminal and epitomizes sociopathic business practices.

[Jimmy]

Kerr Avon, on 23 August 2019 - 05:48 AM, said:

What I do remember, even though I only played through the game once, is being very surprised at both how boring the game was, and how a game that was written by largely the same people who wrote the very innovative Duke Nukem 3D could have made something as generic and creatively bankrupt as DNF.

This isn't true though. Maybe for earlier versions of DNF you could say this, but the version that was released was comprised mostly of over a decade of made over and over again set pieces with no real story. They had ideas for pieces of a game they wanted to make. After Triptych took the helm these set pieces were put together with a story written by two women who had never written anything before. It feels broken, disjointed and on the nose because it literally is

[OpenMaw]

HorseDongSub69, on 24 August 2019 - 09:35 AM, said:

They had ideas for pieces of a game they wanted to make. After Triptych took the helm these set pieces were put together with a story written by two women who had never written anything before. It feels broken, disjointed and on the nose because it literally is

Not entirely true, actually.

They had a spreadsheet with the general story beats present before 3D Realms closed down. That was basically the "Finally, finally we're on track." That was back when Bombshell was still in the game. After 3D Realms shuttered and Triptych was formed they basically took that spreadsheet and cut out huge sections. The Area 51 stuff with the Duke Clones and Proton was shrunk down a bit and made into the DLC, the other sections were rearranged, mostly truncated and then stretched out with some extra turret sections, and sold as the main campaign.

The game would have been at least more coherent had the story and character beats between Bombshell and Duke been maintained, and they wouldn't have been forced to pad out other parts of the campaign.

For example when you read the section with the Monster Truck and the way it's mapped out, gives the impression of a more opened ended section where you could traverse the environment in a few ways, instead of the straight linear trip it is in the final game.

[necroslut]

It always confounded me that 2K apparently decided to only ship the 360 version out to reviewers, rather than the arguably superior PC version. It's like they didn't even realize how bad it was.

Quote

They had a spreadsheet with the general story beats present before 3D Realms closed down.

They had a general outline, but it doesn't appear they had much of a detailed script, or any actual dialogue or such.
And yes, ripping out Bombshell made so much of the plot make zero sense. I have this completely unrealistic hope that if GBX releases some "Director's cut" of DNF they'll replace Dillon (who's the single worst thing about DNF hands down) with Bombshell.