10 Massively Hyped Video Games That Were Instantly Forgotten
3. Duke Nukem Forever
The production cycle for Duke Nukem Forever was a wild one. Beginning development in 1997, the follow up to the widely successful Duke Nukem 3D took another FOURTEEN YEARS to hit shelves, finally releasing in 2011. With such a monumental amount of time afforded to its production and such a beloved character tied to the series, this surely had to be one of the greatest games of a generation, right? Oh no. Oh God, no.
Duke Nukem Forever’s gameplay was a generic first-person shooter experience, at a time when the market was already far oversaturated by first-person shooters. Then there was the writing. It’s unclear if Duke himself just hadn’t aged well, or if the writers were exclusively aged between 12 and 14. Crude, sexual commentary, toilet humour, embarrassing one-liners and Easter eggs designed to insult far superior games in the genre plagued this game’s 16 hour campaign.
Gone was the beloved parody action hero, replaced by an arrogant man-child that nobody wanted to get behind. There aren’t really any positive saving graces for Duke Nukem Forever. The game is trash and it was treated accordingly. This one definitely deserved the panning it received and couldn’t have been left behind quickly enough.