Duke Nukem Forever gets mixed reviews - Inquirer (blog)

THE KING has finally arrived after a 15 year wait of tense anticipation only to meet with range of reactions, mixed reviews and varied scores.

Duke Nukem Forever has been out for three days but the reviews aren't glowing. Eurogamer gave the latest in the alien crazed shooter series a miserable 3 out of 10 and said, "Your time and money would be better spent reliving his iconic past than bearing witness to this gruesomely mangled resurrection."

The Guardian said, "If this was 15 years in the making, it makes you wonder what they did for the other 14 years and 10 months," and gave it an equally bad score of 2 out of 5.

Some other review scores included a 2 out of 5 from gaming web site joystiq, bit-tech gave it a more average 50 out of 100 whilst PCGamer looked more kindly on the king with a score of 80 out of 100.

There is even a thread on the gaming network Steam's forum entitled, "The king is dead". One user gives their opinion, "It is a mediocre shooter and only achieves its sales with its title." Some users were defending it, though, and one said, "Call me crazy, but I don't care about what critics say, I liked the game and nobody is going to change my opinion."

Another Steam user has started a thread named, "A thread for people who like the game?!" At the time of writing there is no response to their call for admirers of the game.

Whether or not the bad reviews and scores will affect the success of the game is another question. We think it depends on how you define success. What we can say is that it has already topped the gaming charts at chart-track.co.uk.

According the gaming chart web site the Xbox 360 has most of the format share for the Duke with 56 per cent, ahead of PS3 with 30 per cent and PC with 14 per cent.

We think that gamers will go out and buy the game anyway, even if just because of its history. We think it's bound to do well in terms of sales but if the reviews are correct about the poor game play then maybe it's one of those games that will go in the cupboard and be forgotten. µ