The Reigning King? First Imperssions of "Duke Nukem Forever."

14 years or so after Duke's third game, the smash hit Duke Nukem 3D came out on PC, his newest game is finally coming out in two weeks. Long belonging to the vaporware category of games, and going through several developers, especially after 3D Realms were fired by 2K, Gearbox takes over, attempting to make Duke Nukem Forever the epic shooter fans are expecting, nay, demanding. Hype after hype has been added, saying that Duke can and will do anything. People who reserved it or bought the Game of the Year edition of Borderlands got a first hand look this week as the demo was released. Thankfully, Sony decided to finally put PSN back up around the same time, too.

What can I say? That it's Duke 3D over again? Then, I'd be lying. The first part of the demo is the last boss of DN3D, but told differently. Duke starts the level by taking a piss. Upon roaming, he makes a plan to kill the Cycloid, then fights it. The next part (other than him getting head from two twins), he's driving a monster truck. And that's only scraping the surface of what can be done. Duke can write on boards, grab and throw poop ("What kind of a sick motherf***er grabs wet feces?!"), pull out the tusks of pigcops, and a lot more.

The aesthetic quality has changed to keep up with the times, but there are still hints of it being the same universe. The RPG launcher looks nearly the same, only more details, obviously, as he Duke 3D one. The Ripper returns, as well as the shrink ray, the only gun that looks drastically different. New weapons are added, though, such as the Rail Gun. What I find interesting is that you really do need to swap weapons for the game's full effect. It isn't like most shooters now where you can keep the same load-out level after level, due to the stats being pretty much the same.

The game is beautiful to look at. Duke gets covered in rain, and it looks pretty damn decent. The one complaint graphically I had is that the faces look a little too cartoonish and the women look the same. Granted... they were twins. Despite this, the detail on the monsters and weapons (as well as Duke) is phenomenal, and the backgrounds are a sight.

Finally, the game itself. I'm tossed up on this. I enjoyed playing, but other than what you can manipulate, it's nothing new. Bulletstorm could have had this problem, but they took care of it by rounding out the skill kill system. Duke's big draw is his name, the wait for this game, and being able to do things that don't really affect the game at all just to do them. Ultimately, it's a cherry on a shooter, much like gold trim would be on a Ferrari. It does nothing but look good, and make it look like it isn't a plain old Ferrari. At the same time, a lot of care was given to the game to make it a top notch shooter with bells and whistles. Duke is still Duke, and that's what we wanted. And the a fun game, which it is. If the system isn't broken, why fix it? Of course, this was only a demo, so who knows what the game will hold.

What it really comes down to is this: It's Duke Nukem. If you like that, then you'll love Duke Nukem Forever. Just don't expect it to revitalize the shooter genre with something like skill kills. At the same time, is the game expands on what the demo has shown (which it should, from what I've heard), it will be worth the money just to see Duke be the king again.