AP Dukefan94, on 13 April 2017 - 04:51 PM, said:
1) The Birth Episode was pretty badass. Duke's character felt the same as it previously was, they just expanded on it and succeeded. If this was the case that led to DNF, then spin-off games personas should have been way worse/different than either The Birth or DNF.
While the character itself was the same, the tone of many of the levels was slightly different to that of the original 3 episodes. Take the first level for example, the whole thing is a pretty obvious parody of Mission Impossible. Sure, if the subsequent games had stayed at this level of parody, and kept it in small doses, then it would have been fine. However come to DNF and one of the DLC's is actually called the "parody pack".
Also have a look at the whole sex side of it. There was XXX Stacy, a pretty poor level overall but had you go through a porn shoot. Not to mention Babe Land. It was a decent level but had a parody feel about it. You couldn't imagine a level like that in the original episodes.
While there were certainly sexual references, it was almost entirely contained to that one strip club in one level. The rest of the game was pretty serious, other than the occasional girl in a secret area (not counting the pod babes which is a fairly serious matter). Likewise, most of the references to movies and things like Luke Skywalker, Doomguy, Indiana Jones were in secret areas, NOT shoved in your face unavoidably (you can't get around the "doomed space marine" in Bulletstorm for example).
Like I said if everything had kept at the level of the Birth it would have been fine, however it was certainly the first crack in the floodgates.
HulkNukem, on 13 April 2017 - 06:42 PM, said:
I kinda want what Croteam did with Serious Sam and have a couple indie developers make several Duke games all in different genres.
There are two main differences between Duke and Serious Sam. Firstly, Serious Sam
started off as an indie game, so having some small extra indie game goes with the territory. Secondly, Serious Sam is viewed much more positively in the public eye, and can get away with having some potentially low quality indie games.
If the same thing happened to Duke, then it could very well contribute to a dilution of the franchise as people view it as 'yet more trash spat out by the Duke franchise'. Sure, if the indie games were high quality, like Manhattan Project or better, then it'd be fine. Otherwise, producing indie games for the sake of it would be a negative thing.