Explosions, Babes, Humour. What more do you need?
After playing half-way through, I have to say, it’s a decent game. If you want a mindless, old school side scroller, in the vein of Contra, get this. It is funny. The graphics are really good. And it is really simple, in concept (if it moves shoot it) and gameplay (though you can change the difficulty settings).
Story: Duke isn’t about the story. He’s about the action. Ooh yah! Anyway, Duke’s mission is to save New York City from Mech Morphix and his minions. Hot chicks have bombs attached to them. Duke has to save them and the city. Nuff said.
Goals: DNMH doesn’t stretch the imagination in the goals department. Get from point A to B. In the middle you will have to find a coloured keycard and free the busty babes. It is all very simple stuff. Still, the designers were obviously conscious of the repetitiveness of these tasks, for even Duke gets angry with each additional card he has to find.
Humour: Where Duke gets his charm is the humour. His one-liners are priceless. “I go where I please, I please where I go.” Or, look at the signs in the background. For example, in Chinatown, the ad for King’s Noodle restaurant reads, “Until you’ve slurped the King’s noodle you haven’t tasted anything.”
Graphics: excellent. The building and character designs are crisp, clean and varied. Everything is drawn in such a way that it looks real and cartoony without being too much of either. The explosions are the best thing about the game though. Watching the pigs get blown into a thousand pieces gave me a sick satisfaction that should probably be analyzed by psychologists. But I can’t help it. It’s the explosions fault. They are big and comical, just plain fun to watch.
Level Design: DNMH is a 2D scroller that operates in a seemingly 3D world. Each level has a depth to it. When I first started playing the game I kept on trying to move forward and back, in and away from the front of the screen. I kept forgetting I could only move left or right.
The levels are very imaginative. In one level you are in a disco. The lights are flashing and people are dancing all around you. It is the coolest thing I have ever seen in a video game. The strobe lights flash so much I am surprised it hasn’t caused seizures.
Wish: My only wish is that this game was on a handheld. It would be great gaming on the go.
Closing comments: DNMH is a fun side-scroller. It can get a bit boring since you have to complete the same tasks in all the levels: kill baddies, collect keycards, save babes, collect nukes, and fight a boss at the end of each level. Though you do get lots of guns to keep the killing varied; you even get a bazooka, which is by far the coolest. The level designs are well done and keep the game from looking repetitive. I would suggest this game to anyone who can get it cheap, say below the 10-15 dollar mark. Like I said at the beginning, I only paid a paltry 4 dollars for it, so I have nothing to complain about. I am just happy that the game kept it that way.