Duke Nukem Forever

Another year and a half ago the phrase “I spent three hours in Duke Nukem Forever "Would sound no less wildly than" I just returned from the country of real hopes, where I drank tea with leprekons, ran through the rainbow and stroked unicorns ". Even after a wonderful last year's resurrection, new developers were in no hurry to share screenshots and videos, limiting themselves to demonstrations of biceps Duke on teaser-picture. Therefore, those who were not at a few presentations and closed shows had the full moral right to doubt that this game exists in general.

Nevertheless, today the appearance on our screens of a high blond in black boots looks more real than ever. Moreover, over the past years, Duke Nyukem has not changed at all. The only question that needs to be clarified is how much it will be in demand today.

Leaving Las Vegas

Understand the phenomenon Duke nukem is not difficult. We often compare mass-oriented products with hamburgers, but Duke is a Big-Mak from the world of hamburgers, a huge cutlet with a brand “Made in USA”. For showing the game 2K Games They chose ideal scenery-striptease bar in Las Vegas (a place called Deja VU on this occasion for a day was renamed the Duke Nyukem).

On the contrary, an institution with the meaningful name “The world's largest exhibition of sex toys”, in a hundred meters-a phallic skyscraper named after Donald Trump. A little further-Las Vvegas Stip Street, where stupefied tourists with traces of vacation on their face are wandered between endless casinos and restaurants. Screaming signs, a sea of ​​advertisements, stripped by the tasteless limousines of the street … Las Vegas-the embodiment of American ideas about chic and luxury. It was no accident that Hunter Thompson was looking (and did not https://lottomart-casino.co.uk/ find) a great American dream in this city: at the place where businessmen and managers come to spend hard money, you can draw a lot of interesting conclusions about the country, customs and the way of life of its inhabitants.

Duke Nukem is a phenomenon of the same kind, it is an interactive encyclopedia of American stereotypes. The main character is something like Kratos with the prevailing sexual biography. Its main lesson is to tear into pieces of huge ugly creatures, accompanying the process with cheat replicas. He devotes free time to self-love, fertilization of human females and a video game about himself (steak, packaging of beer cans and pickups in the frame do not appear, but the imagination somehow finishes them). Its main positive qualities are xenophobia, narcissism and toilet humor. They, strictly speaking, are the main and decisive advantages (as well as disadvantages) Duke Nukem Forever.

Open -top machine

If you remember, at the beginning of the two thousandth a game was a game called Postal 2. It was a common seemingly shooter, the most exciting feature of which was the opportunity to chop off the passerby with a shovel and to urinate on a corpse twitching in convulsions. Or put a cat in the ass of a shotgun. Or burn a gay club. The mechanic was elementary, the engine was a stone's throw from the landfill, there was no meaning in what was happening on the screen at all, but what is there, everyone spent the time well.

Duke Nukem Forever is approximately the same-adjusted that the main character is not a sociopath, but a cheerful patriot with a shotgun against the background of an American flag. On the one hand, the technical part balances on the verge of foul. Graphics (seeing the slightly distorted faces of journalists, the developers hastily assure that this is not final quality) is most accurately characterized by the favorite expression of the gambling layout: “Fu &%$, there is no anti -aliasing!" – by this, the problems, however, are not exhausted, do not let screenshots deceive yourself. The weapon sounds at best as the firecracker "May beetle", and the shootings look, to put it mildly, archaic.

Typically, Duke is pushed into an archetypal hall-s-cowls and a group of pumped boars-zastyniki is dropped on it from the ceiling. It is not difficult to predict a further program of action: the hero sterefits, bakes and releases one charge of fraction after another. The monsters awkwardly, as if apologizing, scatter into bloody scraps, and sometimes fall to their knees and freeze for a few seconds (it looks like for no reason they broke paralysis), kindly, giving you a chance to rush their heads with a boot blow. Oh yes, even from the shots, tiles from the walls are sometimes crumbling here, and the bosses at strictly defined moments collapse strictly defined pieces of scenery.

Perhaps the most original scene happened when Duke accidentally fell under the action of a reducing beam and was bought up, like Alice in Wonderland. Of course, of course, it was impossible to shoot from the aliens in this form, but the radio -controlled machine was very suitable nearby just a suitable size. On it, we jumped for a long time and selflessly on the springboard, went around the abysses and ran away from angry pigs. And after Dyuk grew back, we went along about the same route in the opposite direction and unscrewed some tusks.

Tape recorder for special music

On the other hand, Duke Nukem is by no means needed because of the shooting mechanics-it would be difficult to expect revelations from the game that its authors conceived in the last century and since then mostly engaged in changing the engines and drawing fake screenshots. No, the point here is by no means in the mechanics: Duke is remembered mainly due to the continuous stream of sloppy jokes, some small but funny vulgarities, which, like graffiti “Vasya-horse and sucker” on the fence, seem to be written in small print, but rush In the eyes.

For example, in the booth of the toilet of the casino besieged by the aliens, someone is focusing and, judging by the replicas, is very proud of this. The book written by Duke is called "Why I'm so cool". Defeated enemies, he throws contemptuous remarks like “You've Got Balls of Fail” (the joke is unequivocal, but the meaning is obvious to anyone who knows the expression about “steel eggs”), and the amount of health is added when the hero is amusing his ego: say, it looks like in mirror. In a random corner, the armor of the chief is found (“power armor – for sunsers!" – Duke grins mockingly), and in the picture gallery to them. D. Nyukema hang screenshots from the first, two -dimensional parts of the game.

It is these small details, the tricky wink of the authors and make all the show. These also include puzzles that dilute the same type of battles. For example, one day you will be asked using the same radio -controlled machine (only this time – not driving, but using a remote control), pour a power element for a reactor from a locked room. Or climb the balcony according to the four -meter statue of Duke: first you need to configure the position of its body and hands so that you can go through them.

* * *

We really hope that the developers have many similar scenes and sebaceous jokes – our final impressions of the game will largely depend on their quantity and quality. Because right now Duke Nukem Forever is Las Vegas for himself-there is nothing interesting for a bright facade of swearing ditties and Freudian jokes. In many scenes, even interactiveness, the proprietary feature of Duke Nukem 3D, is going somewhere: if in the initial scenes of the demo in each room it was possible to turn on or split, then in the episode with a trip on a toy machine you can only push the luggage trolley twice.

This, however, has not yet been talking about anything. Still, we have not seen so much the game itself-a significant part of the time from a three-hour session took bugs, sorties and other vicissitudes of the preview version, as well as regular breaks to discuss the next joke with colleagues. Answering the question asked at the beginning of the article: Duke is relevant today at least fifteen years ago. Primitive humor does not age, as evidenced by the unreasonable popularity of the television program "ANSHLEL". However, unlike the Angel, the creators of Duke Nukem Forever can really make us laugh. Do they have enough fantasies to do this throughout the whole game – it will become clear already in early May.