Well I just finished Forever and in short, I think that it was a ton of fun. However, it is plagued with numerous shortcomings. I had to watch a video review in order to remember the reasons why everyone hated this game so much and it also occurred to me that the game has probably been heavily patched since it came out. As it stands today with the version that I played, it was very enjoyable and it felt like a foreshadowing of the greatness that was to come with the new Wolfenstein and Doom 4.
One of the biggest issues that I had was a complaint that I remember from when the game was first released, that being the two weapon limit. This has been patched to allow up to four weapons now but I stuck with the two weapon limit to experience the game as it was initially intended. I also strongly disliked the regenerating health. It's such a terrible mechanic that really doesn't belong in an FPS, especially one that has been around for this long. There were loading screens every 3 feet although they weren't too long, and I put my PC together before the game was released. Nevertheless, I was getting incredibly sick of them towards the end of the game. Above all else, I hated how pornographic this game was. It was a shock to me seeing the adult content in 3D as Duke II was such an innocent game but even 3D wasn't this tasteless. Between wall boobs, statues with 5 inch long nipples, nudie mags, incestuous twins, and so forth, I thought that it was really juvenile and it added nothing of value to the game.
There were many other problems but there were also a ton of great features. The pacing and action were extremely well done. It starts off with a recreation of a great fight from Duke 3D. That's a hell of a great way to kick off a game if you ask me. Most of the boss fights were pretty good and they were perfectly spaced out with just the right amount of content in between the fights. They also managed to make some of the regular encounters feel like boss fights, such as
I could add a lot more but I don't want to write a novel and bore everyone to death. The bottom line is that Duke Forever is pretty damn solid, at least the modern version that I played. It still has many problems but it doesn't deserve anywhere near the amount of criticism that it gets. Removing the console was a huge middle finger to the players but I guess that's Gearbox for you. Duke 3D is still the king but I will definitely be revisiting Forever pretty regularly going forward.