After 12 years and multiple changes in developers, Duke Nukem is finally ready to come home. At PAX East 2011, developers Gearbox and 2K Games gave attendees a taste of what to expect from Duke Nukem. It’s time to kick ass and chew bubble gum�..and I’m all out of gum.

The demo that I got to play was split into two parts. The first part of the demo starts off in classic Duke Nukem style: him taking a piss before the start of the mission. At first I thought it was a loading screen, but the on screen prompt proved otherwise. After spending a minute of taking a piss and being told by Duke to �Stop pissing around�, I joined up with some commandos in a briefing to take down a giant robotic mutant. After they were wiped out, it was time for Duke to step up and show them how it’s done.

Duke Nukem Forever has your typical shooter set up: Left trigger aim, Right trigger fire, Right bumper throw grenade, A to change weapons, X to pick up weapons and etc. What’s not typical about the game are the weapons, and that’s what separates Duke from the rest of the pack. The first level of the demo, Duke uses a rocket launcher type of weapon called the Devastator. The Devastator is a dual wield weapon with a clip of sixty rounds. These rockets deplete very quickly, which will trigger back up to drop more crates of ammo. Once Duke finishes off the monster and kicks its eye through the field goal, the camera pan back to reveal that it’s a video game all this time that Duke was playing. As the camera moves further back, we see him holding a custom Xbox 360 controller along with moans of pleasure coming from below him. Two girls pop up from below wiping off their mouths, one asking �Was it good Duke?� and the other one asking �What about the game, was it good too?� His response: �Yea, but after 12 fucking years it should be� This clearly shows that the game is self-aware and knows that it’s a game and doesn’t take its self seriously.

The second part of the demo took place in a rundown highway, with the first half of it having Duke driving a monster truck. Again the controls are the standard type; Right trigger to accelerate, Left trigger to stop/reverse and X to boost. It’s when he gets out of the truck where things pick up when a horde of mutant alien pigs show up. Different weapons were dropped for Duke to slaughter the alien threat: the classic rail gun, with its one hit kill makes an appearance; the Ripper is a fast shooting machine gun of death, cutting down pigs with one belt; the return of the Shrink Gun that shrinks down enemies, making them tiny enough for Duke to stomp on. After killing wave after wave of mutant alien pigs, the drop ship that has been loading them out starts to attack with machine gun fire and rockets. It was around this time that my time with the game was up and was lead to the exit.

Like I mentioned previously, the game is self-aware that it knows it’s a game, with Duke often breaking the fourth wall and talking to the player. The game is crude, violent, and gory and could cause a few people to look in disgust. Everything that made Duke Nukem the gaming icon we all know is in this game�.and I loved every bit of it. The line to the demo was pretty long for the game sometimes with a wait time of 2 to 3 hours. But to the fans, the wait was well worth it. Duke Nukem Forever drops (for real this time) May 3, 2011.

- Mike V.

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