Duke Nukem Forever - Better Off Buried?

“Duke Nukem Forever” is a game forever delayed. It wouldn’t be redundant to reiterate the fact that the game had been perpetually postponed ever since its inception in the late 90s. Given the amount of time 3D Realms had spent working on the title, the “Forever” moniker became the butt of many a joke within the games industry. Eventually, the game was cancelled, and everyone assumed that that would be the end of Duke. The news that Gearbox Studios would be taking over its development from 3D Realms came as a pleasant surprise when they showed off a playable version of the game at the Penny Arcade Expo in 2010.  

Fair enough. It’s been 13 years and every fan of the original “Duke Nukem 3D” is understandably excited about what Gearbox has in store. But I have my reservations. I enjoyed the original “Duke Nukem” games, right down to the first platformer that bore the name. Even so, no amount of nostalgia can change the fact that “Duke Nukem 3D” has aged very poorly in terms of content. Don’t get me wrong--I’m not calling the graphics bad or the map design sub-par. The game was comparable to the other first person shooters of the day. Instead, I refer to Duke Nukem’s inherent sexism.  

To my twelve-year old self, none of this was a big deal. Giving pixelated girls money to bare their assets was little more than an easter egg and nothing that really fleshed out Duke as a character. “Duke Nukem 3D” was a product of simpler times and needless to say, it was hard to take poorly drawn sprites very seriously. 

In an adult context, however, it’s hard not to feel infantilized by the game’s content. It is a statement I will qualify by saying that as a man, I’m expected to like what the game has to offer--a childish empowerment fantasy and dominance over the female gender. While I could just as easily “assert my masculinity” (to put it plainly) and celebrate the game for what it is, this sort of backwards mentality isn’t one I’m terribly comfortable embracing. I know I’m not alone in this.  

The fact that the new Duke reiterates this sort of content and manages somehow to lower the bar even further by having Duke receive head from two female characters at the start of the game just shows how out of touch the game’s developers are to gamers beyond their very limited target audience. It’s funny. If you’re twelve.  

Like many of the game’s gags, the scene is directed towards adolescent males. There’s an extended urinal scene where Duke’s manhood is obscured by pixellation. Perhaps, like the pixellation of Duke’s unseen penis, what we glimpse is merely the illusion of masculinity and not its actuality.  

Later, a scene in which the two aforementioned females are abducted by aliens prompts Duke to utter his dismay at how only the "attractive women" were being kidnapped, leaving it open for the player to ask why more unattractive females weren’t abducted, or even what the criteria are for such a judgment. It’s no surprise that Duke is only spurred into action when he’s deprived of the objects of sexual conquest--attractive young women.  

To further the theme of Duke’s prominent masculinity, the game’s box art features Duke standing in front of the viewer, looking down from a dominant position with his crotch angled towards the viewer’s face. A visibly female hand (with painted fingernails) reaches around to massage Duke’s crotch. Like the female reaching up to him, you (the viewer) are quite presumably in a submissive position to Duke. In other words, he just made you his bitch.  

Personally, I’m not even worried that Duke might imprint his personality on a new generation of gamers or even encourage people who unironically appreciate the game’s misogyny to feel empowered. What angers me is how I’m told that Duke is a game I need to enjoy or else I lack a sense of humor, or that I’m unable to appreciate games that are "just fun” and dislike Duke for offering a less than thoughtful experience. It angers me that “Duke Nukem Forever” is being touted as a parody of itself.  

A parody of sexism that celebrates sexism isn't much of a parody. 

For what it’s worth, “Duke Nukem Forever” might be a decent shooter. It would be too harsh for me to discount Gearbox’s prior work on the stellar “Borderlands”. But nostalgia alone isn’t enough for “Duke Nukem Forever”--no matter how “decent” a shooter it happens to be, to compete in a market that’s about to be flooded with the likes of highly innovative shooters like “Deus Ex: Human Revolution”, “Homefront”, “Breach”, “Crysis 2”, “Portal 2”, “Brink” and “Bulletstorm”.  

It’s difficult to see how “Duke Nukem Forever”--a game that at best resembles something that should’ve been released in 2006--is going to compete with the likes of those other titles. Perhaps the game would’ve been better off buried in the annals of videogame mythology.

Duke Nukem Forever Videos

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Duke Nukem Forever Screenshots

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