The "Real Fun" of video game is back
But have we forgotten the real reason behind video games?
In one word "FUN"
But as modern games becoming more serious than ever, I found it's getting harder to immerse myself into video games, like I used to be back in the 80~90's. I often contribute this to my age and mental state, because I have grown and learned so much since I was younger, I probably won't be able to serious enjoy gaming anymore.
But Duke Nukem Forever has changed that.
I found myself once again immersed into the world of duke again, I have played the atomic edition, but not the first one though, however everything is as good as I could hope it could be, the environment's interactivity is fun, and hilarious one-liner is also satisfying, especially in one instance, me and duke spoke the same line at my first play through (a line from team america...), which is another fun factor of duke, combing a lot of cliche from movies and popular culture, always brought a smile on my face when encountered.
Another fun factor of DNF is that there are many puzzles in the levels, I believe it's a good way to let players spent some more time in an environment, instead of like most modern shooters, people tends to focus on shooting anything that moves and move on.
I think it's not the graphics or gameplay, or any other things that most developer believes would make a good game, or how serious the story is and how detail the environment is, I believe the qualification of a good game, sometimes it's just about letting you do some silly things without restrain, and have fun.
Many people criticized the puzzles and interactivity of DNF as being "Unnecessary" or "Waste of time", I do not believe so, I think these are the things that makes a world alive, or you could say as "have a soul", you can see many of these attribute in games like "Half-life 2" or "Crysis 2", because in these world you can interact with different object, not just shooting the enemy, the world feels alive and you might want to come back and visit it again, but games like COD or many modern shooters, it's just an arcade ride, once you finish it and you move on, of course maybe some people would say you could try different difficulty, but I myself thinks it's kind of waste of time to play again when a game has only an dead world, I can still do that of course, but it would be less immersive, and time does not pass faster when I play it.
I think many game companies nowadays are becoming too focus on how to create a perfect product, sometime they become too serious themselves, and serious people creates serious product, and their games would serious, but sometimes they might need to let go a bit, and look back the golden age of singleplayer games, about the meaning of the word "FUN" in video games really means.
In conclusion, DNF have balanced the modern and the older game's attributes very well, although I don't like you can only carry 2 weapons at a time and the lack of portable health pack, still the game makes me feels immersive and entertained, and mostly...
I HAD FUN
I think that explains everything.