Duke Nukem Forever Updated Hands-On Preview - Multiplayer and Weapons
Duke Nukem Forever's competitive multiplayer will recall the glory days of old-school online deathmatch. Get the exclusive details here.
People have been waiting for Duke Nukem Forever for…a long time. The wait will finally be over this June when the game hits store shelves. While the single-player game will offer a substantial adventure with several new features, the multiplayer will, in many ways, pay tribute to the old-school, twitchy, sci-fi deathmatch games of yesteryear. The game will have four different multiplayer modes: Dukematch (free-for-all deathmatch), Team Dukematch (team-based deathmatch), Hail to the King (a king-of-the-hill mode with randomly spawning control points), and Capture the Babe (the game's highly talked-up take on capture the flag, which we'll get to later). We got our hands on the game's multiplayer and have much to report.
Our first go-round with multiplayer was in free-for-all Dukematch in a Wild West-themed map known as Morningwood. Even though the map's locale was an arid, outdoor setting with only a handful of buildings, the actual layout resembled the kind of tight, quick deathmatch maps that old-school Quake and Unreal Tournament players know and love. The map spawned various weapons in specific spawn points (empty spawn points were occupied by spinning nuclear trefoil icons that started off red, changed to yellow, and then changed to green before respawning new weapons). Lower-end weapons, such as shotguns, seemed to spawn on the outskirts of town, while the high-end stuff, like the rocket-propelled grenade launcher, ripper minigun, shrink ray, and the double-barreled missile launcher known as the devastator all spawned either within the derelict houses or on difficult-to-reach-but-easy-to-shoot catwalks above and around the buildings.
Interestingly, the shrink ray is one of the weapons on this map, and its slow-firing energy burst still shrinks its target to a humiliatingly small size (and makes your opponents vulnerable to being squashed by running up to your tiny foes, targeting them with the crosshair, and pressing the fire key again), but this map also had numerous gaps and holes leading into its buildings and through cover that could be navigated only by players who had been shrunk.
It took us all of 11--maybe 12--seconds to realize that Duke's default weapon, a shiny gold handgun with a nifty red laser sight, just didn't pack the punch of his old semiautomatic pistol. This meant that each time we died (and we admit, we got fragged quite a few times by the 2K Games staffers and testers in the session), we really had to get moving in search of better hardware. It took us a few moments (and several deaths) before we got a general sense of the map's layout (keep in mind that this was the first time we had played the game in multiplayer, as well as the first time we tried any of these maps), but soon, we were snatching up weapons and bunny hopping like mad while trying to snag as many kills as possible. We were only occasionally thwarted when someone would either pick up the golden Duke statue (which doubles your damage output with any weapon) or steroids (which makes you more resistant to damage and makes your melee attack--a punch, rather than the mighty foot of yore--deliver almost-always fatal damage). We also picked up a couple of pipe bomb kills by tossing the items like grenades; interestingly, these weapons now explode on contact if you can tag your target with a direct hit.
After playing through Dukematch, we jumped into Team Dukematch, which took place on a level called Hoover Damned. The map consisted of cordoned-off streets outside of a hydroelectric plant that had been infested with a gigantic, fleshy alien outgrowth above it. This map had a pretty linear design that seemed to encourage players to keep moving in groups from one end to the other, bookending their trek with jump pads that launched us up into the pulsating alien growth, where the RPG waited for us.
We found ourselves slowly but surely recalling some of our old deathmatching skills in this map, especially when we picked up one of the game's all-new weapons, the railgun. It worked just like the similarly named weapon from the Quake series, with an instant hit scan on its laserlike beam that works well under fire and even better if you have a moment to stop, perch somewhere safe, and use the zoom alternate-fire mode (pretty much all of Duke Nukem Forever's guns have a zoom or iron-sights alt-fire mode) to get a better shot. This map was also the first one we played that had a jetpack, which worked much like it did in Duke Nukem 3D, propelling you upward and letting you temporarily fly before it ran out of juice. It was also the first one we played with laser trip mines, which worked just like they did in the original game; you can set them up in a narrow corridor to be spanned with a laser sensor that will set off the mines with a bang if anyone tries to walk through.
297 comments
@THUGDRAFT All the kids complaining and trolls being idiots, all their parents work at FOX news; and as our Lord Duke says, "You're a true inspiration for birth control."
THIS...WILL...BE...AMAZINNNG! As the Sun rises over the horizon, there stands Duke Nukem holding his own copy of Duke Nukem Forever and epicly says "IT LEAVES ITS EARTHLY BONDS TO TOUCH THE FACE OF GOD!!!
Old school chaos. Just the way I like it. No 'tactics', no planning out. Just run into battle and nuke everything that moves.
@runarjenssen What could it possibly matter? You play the same way in either case. This isn't supposed to be a hyper realistic military shooter anyway.
@RiOrus: Actually, few/none of the weapons have iron sights. They just have a zoom-function like in the first Far Cry, which is kinda annoying if you ask me. What is Duke doing? Squinting his eyes? Moving his head down along the rifle?
This little thread has been funny. Lots of fanboys... no doubt about that. Hell, I'll admit it, I'm probably one of them. But this game, for various reasons, seems to have brought out a crap load of trolls and ignorant kids and/or dumb asses too... and of course everything in between. Anyway... Pretty appropriate for Duke, right? You either love 'em or you hate 'em. So be it. I'd just challenge people to give it a shot once it comes out instead of relying on what a review site tells you or what you think you know from a few videos or screenshots...
Nothing quite as surreal as watching/listening to a woman who looks and sounds like an adorable, dweeby librarian discuss the finer points of Duke Nukem Forever's multiplayer death matches.
I like how everyone is Duke, since nobody would ever want to play as anyone else cuz Duke is just too great.
just got an email from gearbox asking me to confirm my platform for the demo..... i think the demo will be open any day now!.
AHAHAHA im soooooo glad im not a duke nukem fanatic because it appears the graphics haven't improved since 1991! I should be able to run this little gem off the old 'Intel 386'! Unbelievable!!!!!!!!
is it just me or does the video look choppy in places? i'd think the rig they've got running the game isn't gonna be low spec... so guessing it must be the game rather than the computer's performance. Hoping it's just a poor stream capture of the video though :D
@THUGDRAFT Yeah i know, i maybe shouldn't be so judge-mental so early. Just i'm worried this game is going to be massive hype due to it being made for so long. And then turn out to be disappointing. I'm just saying that from what I've seen i honestly don't think it looks very good.
About time we got an fps like the old ones where it was about fun instead of it being all about grity realism but please dont have iron sight aiming and cover based shooting i want to run and gun with the tatics of a suicide bomber
"Hill of the King" .... sums up the multiplayer- same stuff, different title. I mean, SERIOUSLY?? REALLY? this is the multiplayer, a Unreal tournament rip off??? I was playing this in Uni, and they branding it unique??? I just played the Gears of War 3 BETA for the last 7 days I think they could do with play through too.
I like that they remade the first level from Duke Nukem 3D and it has new weapons in the game.
I just don't understand why the hell there's no ability to aim down the ironsights. And don't give me that crap about how the original didn't have it either. Duke 3D didn't have it because it was 19-fekkin-96. And if that's the case, then where is my Co-Op? The original had it. Why doesn't this one have it? I WANT MY DAMN COOP you lazy bastards!
looks just like quake with better graphics and all the players look the same... cant tell whether its gonna be fun or not
@edwards86 actually.. "Duke Burger" was in Duke3D.. which was released in 1996. True, it does look like the CS map in the photos, but the original map was mostly in and around a kitchen area
Let me guess, this game will get a highscore .. and you know what .. it dosn't deserve it at all, the guys that downrate me: stop fanboying.
@edwards86 Ah, yes. I guess that was the map I was thinking of. Anyway, yes, I'm saying the layout of a level is far more important than the theme, the latter of which is the part Duke copied, just like so many others. The difference here is that, considering the developers and the name "Duke Burger", it's probably an homage to the concept rather than a ripoff.
parrot_of_adun Turkeyburgers map from Team Fortress was the first (thats a fact: it was released in 1999).. Counter Strike and Team Fortress are both mods from Half Life. So de_rats spawned from turkeyburgers because pretty much the same community. Your saying people shrunken AND in a kitchen isnt similar??? And they even added burgers to the name!!!
@thereal-15-cent I don't believe de_rats was the first of it's kind. Besides, Duke Burger doesn't look similar at all. The only similarities would be that everyone's shrunk, and it's a kitchen-like space. Which, by the way, is something just about every PC online shooter has at this point (usually from community).
don't know about this. The speed is like Quake Arena -- too fast for a console shooter. Looked kind of silly, too.
I dont know what to say about this, at first I think WOW all those cool guns & what not but then I think of all the gore (to much) then the stupid costumes so I dont know what to say...
I'm an aggressive player, so I get killed 40+ times on CoD. I bet the CoD campers will camp at the weapon spawn sites in this, but this time... I'll be expecting it >:)
People please google image search de_rats. I love Duke Nukem but I kills me for them to take credit for Counter Strike maps. Duke Burger was done almost 10 yrs ago! It took them 10 yrs to recreate it! CMON MANNNNNN
It's nice to see a woman as a game developer in a hardcore game like this. I really enjoyed watching her interview about the game. I hope more women get into this. Go Melissa! :)
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Review Scores
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Game Info
- Release Date: Jun 14, 2011 (US)
- ESRB: MTitles rated M (Mature) have content that may be suitable for persons ages 17 and older.
- Release Date: Canceled (US)
- Release Date: Aug 18, 2011 (US)
- ESRB: MTitles rated M (Mature) have content that may be suitable for persons ages 17 and older.
Duke Nukem Forever Navigation
