[ThePinkus]

Just a few impressions based off the first four levels. This is from the Xbox 360 version. There will also be some minor spoilers, but I won't try to ruin anything major (because the plot in DNF is important)

- It takes place right after the nuke falls on the Hoover Dam. Disregard the "Duke running for president" ending.
- The levels look a lot better. I don't know if its the lighting or better textures, but you can tell they were working with what they had (a horrid engine).
- Framerate gets pretty terrible at points, but this is more than likely an engine limitation. Again, this is the Xbox 360 version, it was already pretty bad.
- Levels are very short and still pretty linear so far.
- So far, the one liners have been stupid. Not even worthy of a smirk.
- Theres a new little tune for when you find a new ego boost item.
- Taking back what I said, certain parts of the campaign so far seem to be a lot better than the rest of DNF, while others fall in line with the regular ol' bland style. The lighting in certain areas make the engine look way better than it is.
- The action, so far atleast, has been mostly fighting small enemies, or no enemies at all. There was only one scene with regular enemies, but it looks like things are going to pickup in the next few levels.
- Based on some of the tips that display, the expander will one-shot octababies and any other tiny enemies (what weapon doesn't) and there also are hints that there will be in fighting. It said something to the effect of trying to get certain enemies to fight eachother.
- The story is still stupid and nonsensical.
- The game gives off a very Prey/Quake 4/Doom 3 vibe. All the linear corridors set in a metallic theme with all the nondescript computers and generators you could want.
- There is a turret sequence.
- Already at a puzzle and I'm completely stuck. Its a jumping puzzle, and I have no idea where to go. This is a good time to stop and sleep.
- Expander has up to 16 ammo and it takes about two shots to kill regular troopers. Protip: Shoot a trooper with it once, then melee them to gib them instantly. Conserves ammo.
- New weapon: Impregnader. Holds up to 30 ammo, and shoots the same slimy crap the Impregnaters hurl at you.
- The Battlelord in Command is not an actual NPC, but instead just a decoration. Atleast, there didn't seem to be a way to wake it up playing a warm-up.

Overall, if you didn't like DNF to begin with, I doubt this DLC will change your mind. If you wanted more out of it though, I also doubt you'll be letdown with it. Its not going to make you a believer out of Duke Nukem Forever, but it is definitely a step forward from 3/4 of the rest of the game.

[ThePinkus]

Ok, I take back everything I said. I just ran across the best joke that could possibly be in DNF. BUY DNF AND THIS DLC JUST FOR THE JOKE ALONE.
Not going to ruin it. You'll know what it is.

*Edit* Ok, the humor has DEFINITELY picked up. I've actually lol'd at some parts and found myself smiling at others. This is the kind of humor DNF needs. I'll put it this way: Having clones leads to some really great moments. Better than the holoduke, but similar.

[randir14]

(spoilers)


I just beat it and enjoyed it for the most part. It feels like more of the same though, even down to the moon rover sequence being a copy of the Mighty Foot where you run out of gas and have to retrieve more (in the moon rover's case a power cell). I was surprised Dr. Proton gets killed halfway through the DLC, I figured he would be the final boss. It was also disappointing that the levels were linear like in DNF. I only bought it for the single player and it was pretty short, took me about 3 hours to complete. Also, what happened to the karaoke? Jon St. John said he recorded Duke singing karaoke, but you cant use the microphone in the Burning Bush whore house. Oh and speaking of the Burning Bush, make sure to go out back and find a familiar creature...

[Mike Norvak]

THE TRAILER:

Spoiler

[Psyrgery]

randir14, on 13 December 2011 - 12:14 PM, said:

Oh and speaking of the Burning Bush, make sure to go out back and find a familiar creature...

I though he/they would be back when I saw it earlier in the film from Area51, but they didn't make it

[Ronin]

Finished on the pc, loved it, it worked nothing to be embarrassed about, Dukes no longer a psycopath hes Duke again. Miles better than original game (DNF). Took me about 5 hours taking my time.

[LkMax]

lol I'm still downloading it. If I wasn't using youtube all the time while I downloaded my games from the new Humble Bundle (excellent games) I would be already playing it.
Off topic: This bit.trip runner is surprisingly good

Ripemanewone, on 13 December 2011 - 02:15 PM, said:

Finished on the pc, loved it, it worked nothing to be embarrassed about, Dukes no longer a psycopath hes Duke again. Miles better than original game (DNF). Took me about 5 hours taking my time.

Glad to hear that. I mean, read that.

[rasmus thorup]

I just finished it in about 3 or 4 hours, maybe more. I think this was very well done. But i also thought the original game was very well done, this might be a bit better. But goddammit that driving into the final boss was bad made, probably the only thing.
And i lolled and balls balls balls.

[rasmus thorup]

randir14, on 13 December 2011 - 12:14 PM, said:

Oh and speaking of the Burning Bush, make sure to go out back and find a familiar creature...

What creatue are you talking about? I can't find anything?

[Micky C]

rasmus thorup, on 13 December 2011 - 05:25 PM, said:

What creatue are you talking about? I can't find anything?

Edit: spoiler:



The mule made an excellent cameo in a movie in Area 51.

[Ronin]

This is my impression after finishing it twice today. Spoilers everywhere. Bare in mind I played it on a powerful pc with 4 weapons, I imagine the console version is still butchered, being able to have shrinker, expander, shotgun and railgun at the same time is great.

+ Dukes Duke not Adam Sandler with 10 year old humour, this game was actually laugh out loud funny for me a good few times.

+ It makes the hatefull ending of DNF make sense (sort of).

+ Classy fan service, donkey, balls balls balls etc.

+ Oops (the doctor in the door) That had me laughing just thinking about it later, I was expecting some Half Life situation but then opps!

+ Very well paced game, not Frankinstiens monster stiched together by a blind epilectic on speed.

+ Bond movie atmosphere that really clicks with the Duke persona, hearing Proton give you stick while you are dismembering your way through the story realy works, it adds motivation that was lacking in the previous installment.

+ Focused story and Dylan as a great sidekick.

+ Duke responds vocally to things as opposed to being a dummy getting insulted by kids, presidents etc and saying nothing.

+ Crude vulgarity pulled back so its not embarrassing to play while your girlfriend is watching.

+ More action, DNF was at its best when in the heat of battle, thankfully this is more frequent, and the combat encounters are excellently designed.

+ Upgraded music, I liked the music in DNF but it was sometimes generic, now its all good.

+ The ambience on the moon is amazing, you can feel the vacuum.

+ The expander.

+ 4 weapons suits the game I can't imagine playing with 2 anymore but you need to knock it up to full inventory, why control the fun?

+ The graphics (art direction) is great in places, a big step up from before.

+ Dylan.

+ Throwing Dylan.

+ Complex level progression, the levels may be linear but less than most modern games and how you get from A to B is interesting, I was stumped on one or two occaisions, I like that.

+ I was dreading the air mechanic on the moon because I hated the "water" level but it was well done and not frustrating.

+ Dismembering aliens in low gravity = fun.

+ The twins not in it (except that car part which was kind of funny).

+ Dukes back.

+ Dlyan falling out of the shack with an std.

+ The fcuking moon, I nearly popped a horn when I looked out the window and it remined me of Darkside.

- I want more, this should have been DNF except longer.

All in all great job, I went in expecting nothing and was blown away as a result.

[Jeff]

Last boss was kind of tricky, at least for me.

[Duke_Forever]

@Ripemanewone

Nailed exactly what I was going to say. I hope they make more DLC like this.

[Micky C]

Jeff, on 13 December 2011 - 06:55 PM, said:

Last boss was kind of tricky, at least for me.

What's the finishing move for the final boss? She's lying on the ground, health bar flashing red, Duke says "time for some drive by dental surgery" so I drive the buggy into her mouth at full speed. The next thing I know I can't do anything, then a few moments later I die. I can't see what else I can do.

[Jimmy]

I guess I need to hook up the debit card with $10 or so, so I can nick this off Steam.

[Serge]

Just finished the campaign. I liked it. The new enemies are great, the humor is inspired.

Some comments:

There is at least one area that was obviously made before the release of DNF (we saw it in a leaked screenshot).
This is funny to see how the new flipper is poor compared to the old one. I guess the old team dedicated to this an unreasonable amount of time.

Minor spoiler (already revealed by a screenshot):

Spoiler

Dylan is one of the very good idea of this DLC. Apparently, they're using him to somehow replace Bombshell. That was already the case in the initial release in some parts

Huge Spoiler (don't look if you haven't finished the DLC yet) :

Spoiler

the final boss looks like the old alien queen concept: http://www.dukenukem...nQueen03_sm.jpg

[Ronin]

Micky C, on 13 December 2011 - 07:31 PM, said:

What's the finishing move for the final boss? She's lying on the ground, health bar flashing red, Duke says "time for some drive by dental surgery" so I drive the buggy into her mouth at full speed. The next thing I know I can't do anything, then a few moments later I die. I can't see what else I can do.

Drive into her mouth normally then boost her teeth in, it worked for me twice no problem.

[Jeff]

For me I was fighting her and I had to find this opening I guess that might have been her mouth. The boss reset, so I had to start over a few times.

[ThePinkus]

I really liked the underwater sequence. There was a giant.... erm. Tampon.

It seemed like a lot of the bad toilet humor Duke had in DNF is now said by Dylan. It made Duke look a lot better when compared to the trash talking Dylan.

[Micky C]

Ok these are my thoughts on the DLC, I've tried not to repeat anything said above as best as I can. There might be what some people consider spoilers, however I personally don't believe I'll be ruining anyone's gameplay experience. But still, read at your own peril.

• I timed my playthrough, and it took me 3 and a half hours, and would probably take most people at least 3.
• It's not always clear where to go, which was something of a good thing. The levels felt very slightly less linear (although overall it was definitely linear). The puzzles were more original and more Duke-like (whatever that means).
• There were a few new quicktime events, but those were actually pretty cool and fun, and the turret sequence was actually pretty fun as well. It didn't feel like a filler like it was in the original game.
• There were some gameplay mechanics redone from the original game. I.e shrunk toy car sequence, titty-city like fetch quest, moon buggy in low gravity a la Might Foot. But they have all been done much better.
• The narcissism such as posters and things have been dialled down significantly. There might have been a few references here and there but no new brands bearing his name or anything.
• Boss fights felt like proper complex boss fights and not just a big thing which you need to sink some rockets into then do a quicktime event on.
• The storyline, at least while it involved Dr. Proton (80% of the DLC), was interesting and engaging, and it was great to see the aliens clash against the Doctor's forces.
• Lighting was definitely better, and some of the new content looks good, but a lot of it still looks the same from the game; including a few blurry, pixelated textures which are a real eyesore. The game definitely looks like an idtech 4 engine game, even more so than the original campaign.
• The impregador is the cheapest looking and most useless gun ever. It serves no purpose at all except for being 'a new gun'. The only good thing about it is that the ammo regenerates, but given the amount of weapons lying about, and the ammo crates, that doesn't really add anything.
• It feels a lot more coherent. A lot of sections in the original game weren't fun because you'd rather be doing something else, most likely because those sections were originally intended for something else. But in this DLC, it feels everything was used in what it was intended for, which makes for a better experience.

So in summery, tonically at least, this game is a lot closer to what DNF should have been. Expanded inventory on PC definitely helps that. It could have used a bit more action, but it was a bit better than the main game in that regard. Although I probably won't play it again for a while, it is most definitely worth one or two playthroughs, and most definitely worth the price tag. Get it now! (If you lower your expectations to think of it as regular DNF, you might have a lot of fun!)

If the next Duke game was something like this, but with a full inventory of weapons, and non-linear levels (baring the last point, at least levels that feel non-linear, which this does slightly better, and graphics that match other new games) I'd definitely be happy buying it soon after release. If it had those, plus some more action, and co-op, I'd call it a perfect Duke game. The DLC is definitely better enough that I'm interested to see what Gearbox will do with Duke from scratch (considering most of the fun was lost because of limitations in save games, weapons, paths in levels, mod tools, and that some of these couldn't be changed from Gearbox's end by the time they got it, there's always a chance that these limitations can be removed if the next game starts from scratch.) I choose to be optimistic.

Also, were the levels completely from scratch like they said?



I'll give them the benefit of the doubt on this one. This is the only match between the leaked photos and the DLC, but there are a few small differences if you look carefully.

[Yatta]

Just beat the DLC, here's my two cents (in line with what most people are saying). There might be some minor spoilers.

- Better art design
- Better humor
- Better flow/pacing
- Dylan (sidekick NPC) is full of character!
- It's great to finally have a space level in DNF!
- Interesting boss fights, though the timing with Proton was abrupt and unexpected.
- Not a fan of what's been done with the expander weapon, but I love the Impregnader. It reminds me of the green goo gun from Unreal Tournament.
- Disappointed I couldn't do more at the brothel. Also it was strange/annoying how many times the same two prostitute models were used throughout that level (sometimes even within mere feet of one another!).
- Levels did feel like Doom 3 (metallic corridors) at times, but there's plenty of outdoors stuff to make up for it.

All in all, I was satisfied and I wish they'd do more DLCs that focus on singleplayer. This was a quality release!

[Jeff]

They need to add those new guns to the regular game instead of just the DLC.

[ThePinkus]

Basically, to sum up how everyone feels:

The DLC as a whole is better than DNF.

I don't think its a coincidence its that way because the guys were being funded and also had a clear goal in sight, instead of a frankenstein game where whatever they had made was strung together with duct tape; low textured badly rendered duct tape.

Oh, and Me, Myself, and I is the best level in DNF period.

[Jeff]

I got a bit confused with the carousel level, but I finally found out where to go after about 5 attempts of riding around it.

[ThePinkus]

Same here. The way to go once you reach the first platform is poorly showcased; there is nothing but red lighted doors around you and the only areas lit are on the carousel, but those are just traps if you jump on them. The way to go was through a doorway in a dark hallway. Once I finally found it, I wished they would've made a way to guide the player over to that spot instead of hiding it.

[Mr.Deviance]

I can't fucking believe this.
Here I come back home from a short vacation and I find a new DNF campaign that actually looks much better than the original one after everything seemed dead and abandoned and this one even reminds me of DN3D in a lot of ways.
Interesting this world is!

[Jeff]

I heard Triptych software made this DLC in about 4 months. That's pretty good.

I just finished the DLC for a second time. Record speed too. Original was around 4 hours, I started at 2 AM and finished at 4:30 AM.

[rasmus thorup]

Do anybody think that at the start when you get into the elevator into the big cave, was a rapture inspiration from bioshock? And i was really surprised that i got to fight proton at that time, in a good way. In some games you walk around in hollow pathways, level after level, boss after boss, to finally be able to kick the annoying final villains ass. This time i got surprised that i could already kick his ass, and then the game continues on! The final boss was a little boring, and it felt like there should have been one more boss and some more space levels. Jokes were really funny in this DLC. Duke was more calm and therefore the fewer jokes that came, were more funny. It also made him look more badass, like in duke3d.

[Ronin]

ThePinkus, on 13 December 2011 - 10:27 PM, said:

I really liked the underwater sequence. There was a giant.... erm. Tampon.

It seemed like a lot of the bad toilet humor Duke had in DNF is now said by Dylan. It made Duke look a lot better when compared to the trash talking Dylan.

Jam-Rag. @ rasmus thorup, your avatar is really annoying, especially when you double post.

[Mikko]

The moon part was a useless gimmick. They could have cut it along with the 30 extra minutes it added. Other than that, this was a pretty good DLC.