[Mr. Tibbs]

PC Gamer have just posted a DNF review.

http://www.pcgamer.c...forever-review/

[themaniacboy]

Mr. Tibbs, on 10 June 2011 - 02:00 AM, said:

PC Gamer have just posted a DNF review.

http://www.pcgamer.c...forever-review/

Woow, i am very suprised by the score.
Nice indeed.

Didn't read much though, still waiting for my copy of the BoSe that i am receiving today.

[Micky C]

That's a nice and unbiased review. Didn't contain any real spoilers either

[Sinisterambo]

Yeah ^^. Just updating DNF now. See you on the other side!

[Madmaxwell]

that is a lot more reassuring than anything gearbox has said or done since the demo xD

[Mr_Blastman]

Ugh. I can't read the page. What's it say? What's the score? What's the synopsis?

[DavoX]

SCore: 80. Only because it's not Crysis.

[Mr.Deviance]

Mr_Blastman, on 10 June 2011 - 07:16 AM, said:

Ugh. I can't read the page. What's it say? What's the score? What's the synopsis?

The score is 80 if you can actually believe that...

[Mad Max RW]

They also said Dragon Age 2 was the RPG of the decade...

[The Albino Ape]

80% That is pretty good.

[NightFright]

I didn't wanna open a new thread for another review, so for comparison, I am posting here the DNF review/test of GameStar, a German game mag. They are known for pretty critical tests without prejudices and by simply looking at "what's there", ignoring any background or hype bonus. This leads them to a rather sobering score of 68%.

Quote

GameStar Verdict:
"Like no other game, DNF earns the title 'Old School': Compared to its predecessor, hardly anything changed regarding gameplay, and also the visuals are far from being up-to-date. Therefore, what's remarkable about this game is basically that it got finished at all. It's quite as if a peg-legger were to absolve a professional marathon: It's a great achievement which deserves respect - but everyone should be aware of the fact no gold medals are to be earned for this outside of the Paralympics."

I will just translate the final rating score list for you, so you see how the score happened to be. They didn't rate MP yet, so this goes for SP only:

Quote

VISUALS: 6/10
+ adequate lighting
- jerky animations
- NPCs are "recycled"/re-used
- blurry textures
- terrible DOF/film grain effects

SOUND: 8/10
+ rocking soundtrack
+ classic (English) Duke voice with iconic sayings
+ good German voice actors...
- ...which have "inherited defects" (refers to the fact that Duke's German voice actor is the same as for Bruce Willis in German movie versions)
- average audio positioning

BALANCE: 8/10
+ 4 difficulty levels
+ nice EGO energy system
+ built-in cheats
+ no lack of ammo

ATMOSPHERE: 8/10
+ legendary hero
+ nice Duke superstar scenario
+ straightforward shooting
+ countless hidden gags
- humor getting lost with German translation or becomes offensive (e.g. translation for "You're fucked")
- artificially stretched (to achieve more playtime)

HANDLING: 7/10
+ catchy shooter controls
+ chapters selectable via menu
- no free saving
- only one save slot
- only two weapons at the same time

CONTENTS: 7/10
+ interesting achievements
+ cool stuff to unlock like old trailers
+ reasonable playtime
- hardly any replay value

LEVEL DESIGN: 6/10
+ partially destructible environments
+ nice shrinking passages
- too tidy, sterile scenes
- invisible level borders

AI: 6/10
+ enemies shooting accurately and partially even into player movement...
- ...but still lack tactics
- pig cops run towards player blindly

WEAPONS & EXTRAS: 7/10
+ cool weapons (Shrinker, Freezer)
+ extras (HoloDuke, Steroids)
- small arsenal
- hardly any new equipment
- "Crazy Chicken"-like gun turret shootouts

STORY: 5/10

Spoiler

+ cool "game within game" intro
- disappointing open ending
- no remarkable sidekicks
- no cutscenes

My own opinion:
So far, I have played like 5 hours, having reached "The Hive" right now. What I can say is that
> the DOF effect is indeed annoying and I would like to be able to turn it off without also deactivating all the other effects - from WITHIN THE GAME, not with some memory hack. A patch should give the option to toggle this effect separately.
> the lack of quicksaves is an embarrassment for a PC title. At least, the checkpoints are often placed fairly and don't make you fire your keyboard into the corner.
> audio could be better, especially for 5.1 systems. Sometimes I wonder if the rear speakers are used at all.
> the visuals look outdated in general, but we know it would be like that for a long time already. And this game can't be just about the visuals, and it doesn't intend to compete with modern titles like "Crysis", anyway.
> the limitation to two weapons is somewhat frustrating, but you can get used to it.
> boosting EGO by doing stuff ingame is cool and motivating, also the achievements are great and give a good reason to play again.
> I don't care about the German voice acting since I am playing the English version.
> I like the mini games, e.g. the flipper (even though it seems to be pretty hard to achieve a 1.000.000 score) or the slot machines.
> it's great to have Duke back, not having changed a bit.

To sum it up, I can only partially agree with the GameStar criticism, especially regarding the DOF stuff, saving system and limitation of weapon slots. Regardless, I have had a great time so far and am looking forward to the rest of the campaign. After having gotten all achievements, Gearbox is welcome to give us more, as long as we are talking about DLCs which are really worth their money, i.e. a fair amount of new levels, weapons etc. If they were to fix some of the annoyments (at least taking care of the ugly DOF effect is a must IMHO), it'd make the whole thing even nicer. As a fan, I can say for sure my personal score for this game will be much higher than 68%

[necroslut]

The checkpoint-based saving is really no worse than in Bulletstorm or any other recent FPS. The checkpoints even seem to be placed closer together than common.

[NightFright]

necroslut, on 10 June 2011 - 01:07 PM, said:

The checkpoint-based saving is really no worse than in Bulletstorm or any other recent FPS. The checkpoints even seem to be placed closer together than common.

Yeah well, it's fair enough to admit that so far, I didn't really need quicksaving at all. The levels are not that big, and checkpoints before difficult situations happen for sure. The only thing that can be frustrating is if you have to do a boss battle again from the beginning if you die shortly before the end. It's a title that does not deny it was also made for consoles. One way or the other, it's not the first game for the PC to do that, and I will be able to accept it.

[DavoX]

Nightfright please take the last part as a spoiler please....the story part.

[NightFright]

Errr yeah, sorry about that. Done. ^^ Well, while we are at it, criticizing the story in the mag article also was not so appropriate since no Duke game ever really had a plot worth making a movie of. You just need a reason to kick more alien asses, and that's what you get. I can live with that, and when I know there is an option for more, I certainly won't say no.

[themaniacboy]

NightFright, on 10 June 2011 - 12:52 PM, said:

I didn't wanna open a new thread for another review, so for comparison, I am posting here the DNF review/test of GameStar, a German game mag. They are known for pretty critical tests without prejudices and by simply looking at "what's there", ignoring any background or hype bonus. This leads them to a rather sobering score of 68%.


I will just translate the final rating score list for you, so you see how the score happened to be. They didn't rate MP yet, so this goes for SP only:


My own opinion:
So far, I have played like 5 hours, having reached "The Hive" right now. What I can say is that
> the DOF effect is indeed annoying and I would like to be able to turn it off without also deactivating all the other effects - from WITHIN THE GAME, not with some memory hack. A patch should give the option to toggle this effect separately.
> the lack of quicksaves is an embarrassment for a PC title. At least, the checkpoints are often placed fairly and don't make you fire your keyboard into the corner.
> audio could be better, especially for 5.1 systems. Sometimes I wonder if the rear speakers are used at all.
> the visuals look outdated in general, but we know it would be like that for a long time already. And this game can't be just about the visuals, and it doesn't intend to compete with modern titles like "Crysis", anyway.
> the limitation to two weapons is somewhat frustrating, but you can get used to it.
> boosting EGO by doing stuff ingame is cool and motivating, also the achievements are great and give a good reason to play again.
> I don't care about the German voice acting since I am playing the English version.
> I like the mini games, e.g. the flipper (even though it seems to be pretty hard to achieve a 1.000.000 score) or the slot machines.
> it's great to have Duke back, not having changed a bit.

To sum it up, I can only partially agree with the GameStar criticism, especially regarding the DOF stuff, saving system and limitation of weapon slots. Regardless, I have had a great time so far and am looking forward to the rest of the campaign. After having gotten all achievements, Gearbox is welcome to give us more, as long as we are talking about DLCs which are really worth their money, i.e. a fair amount of new levels, weapons etc. If they were to fix some of the annoyments (at least taking care of the ugly DOF effect is a must IMHO), it'd make the whole thing even nicer. As a fan, I can say for sure my personal score for this game will be much higher than 68%

I do agree with you on the 5.1 system problem, but i only noticed it in the beginning, when the helicopters were flying by.
I had no problems with it after that.