The first thing you do in "Duke Nukem Forever" is relieve yourself.
That's right. After 14 tortured years in development, after being endlessly revised and restarted by four studios, "Duke Nukem Forever" finally opens with a first-person view of a men's urinal being put to its intended purpose.
It rarely becomes more entertaining.
There is no easy way to put this: "Duke Nukem Forever" is shockingly, embarrassingly bad. Not ironic bad. Not campy bad. Not even fascinating bad. Just bad, as in unpleasant to play and watch. As in please save your money.
Over the dozen or so hours of the main campaign, I had fun for about 20 minutes. Only two spots -- a battle against a hulking alien atop the Hoover Dam and a fighting sequence in which normally inconsequential enemies loom terrifyingly large -- were enjoyably engaging. The rest of the time was a chore and a bore.
For the first hour or so, I honestly thought the whole thing was a big in-joke -- that the curtain would finally part and the real game would begin. I kept hoping the game would eventually say: "Ha ha, we know this was what you were expecting back in 1997. Now let us show you what we've really come up with." And then the game would start over with state-of-the-art graphics, finely honed pacing, exciting foes, witty writing -- in short, everything that is utterly absent.
That moment never arrived. As I trudged along, my hope gave way to despair and no small bit of bewildered resentment toward the endless cast that participated in this pathetic wreck of a project. And that's because, after all this time, that's what "Duke Nukem Forever" still resembles: an unfinished project, rather than what it should have been -- the pathbreaking sequel to one of the most beloved games of all time, 1996's "Duke Nukem 3D."
Back then, the idea of a first-person shooter on a console was beyond the pale and "Duke Nukem 3D" was a revelation. It was a time when the 1980s concept of the meathead action hero, à la Sylvester Stallone or Arnold Schwarzenegger, still had cultural relevance. And so the profanity-spewing, woman-objectifying, bodily function-mocking, alien-smashing character of the Duke was clever and subversive.
The saga of the new game's interminable development is far too long to recount. But one reason that disciplined, occasionally harsh project management is so important in successful game production is so the product doesn't look obsolete by the time it comes out.
"Duke Nukem Forever" looks obsolete. The textures and character models are almost uniformly bland and artificial. To modern eyes, the environments look plain and uninteresting.
But more important, "Forever" is obsolete in its play style, as well. Instant deathtraps are everywhere. Instead of being an all-out combat shooter, "Forever" delivers surprisingly little combat. Too much time is spent just figuring out which way to go next.
The story is blithely disturbing: Aliens have invaded Las Vegas, made off with women, including Duke's twin blonde girlfriends, and are raping and impregnating them. You have to defeat the menace. The puerile dialogue is not funny. It doesn't poke fun at itself. Duke never gets his long-overdue comeuppance. There is no intelligence or style. Just a barrage of genitalia jokes.
When Duke dreams that he's at a strip club, the player has to scour the club for a condom, a sex toy and a bag of microwave popcorn. You actually have to watch the popcorn pop. Then you head off to the Champagne Room for the least erotic virtual striptease possible.
It made me long for the urinal.
