Design Decisions in Duke Nukem Forever

I must say, I never really got into Duke Nukem 3D, and I haven't even touched the earlier games in the series. Yet, I understand the old-school shooters. Doom is one of my all-time favourite games, and I've spent countless hours playing it. I love the Quake series and appreciate many other similar games.

I never owned DN3D when it was new, though I have played bits of it, and watched many videos of gameplay, so I am familiar with the game and its style. I also recently bought it on Good Old Games to warm up for Duke Nukem Forever, and whilst I haven't played it enough to rate it or anything like that, I have been enjoying it thus far.

I believe DNF will have the charm and wits of its predecessor, and I will most likely enjoy that part of the game. The weapons I've seen thus far seem quite cool and the self-mocking humor is quite hilarious. There are, however, a couple of design decisions in the game that I really can't wrap my head around at all.

Regenerating health was popularized in modern games by Halo (although the first game just had regenerating shields), and has since then been the system used in almost all first and third person shooters. It works better or worse in different cases, but in most games it promotes cowardly (read: boring) play, by staying near cover so you can duck down if you're in danger and never die. It practically removes any rush you might get from being low on HP and not having a medkit at hand, and also removes most difficulty, allowing you to be immortal as long as you aren't on an open field and you have the duck-key nearby.

I admit, it's not always bad. In some games where you want a more cinematic experience, health packs might break the immersion and flow of gameplay, but these games are - strictly gameplay speaking - more boring and less rewarding due to the decreased skill requirement. Take Call of Duty for example. Black Ops, the latest installment in the series, can be pretty brutal on the hardest difficulty, but that's only because you die from approximately half a bullet hitting you. The game doesn't necessarily require more skill than on easier difficulties though - it simply requires more cowardly gameplay by sticking your head under cover more, until it's finally safe to move to the next piece of cover.

Take a game like Quake instead, for example. In that game you also die pretty damn easily on the hardest difficulty in that game unless you're careful, as the enemies can take quite big chunks of your health if they start landing attacks on you. Unlike Black Ops and most FPSes with regenerating health, however, you don't stay alive by ducking under some sort of cover. You survive by controlling your character properly and by knowing what to expect from each enemy you encounter. You dodge attacks by sidestepping and using speed, and if something bad happens, it's so much more rewarding to get away with a slim amount of health left, rather than ducking behind cover for a few seconds to continue taking pot shots. The active gameplay of many shooters without regenerating health is simply more fun than that of most shooters with regenerating health.

To all who have played Duke Nukem 3D, it's obvious that the game falls in the category of the more fun and rewarding fast paced shooters, which is why I was greatly surprised when I found out that Duke Nukem Forever would have a regenerating health system. Or Ego, as it's called in DNF. I must say that the Ego system made me smile, a clear example of the awesome style of the Duke Nukem games. And I don't think it would have made much sense picking up Ego-packs or Ego-kits to replenish your 100 ego.

That doesn't change that the regenerating health system seems to do more harm than good, though. While it's not as extreme as Call of Duty, according to gameplay videos of the demo that I've seen, Duke Nukem Forever's gameplay feels slower and more boring than Duke Nukem 3D. Running behind large rocks to wait for Duke's ego to fill up again doesn't really feel that fun.

This is one of the two main concerns with the design decisions in Duke Nukem Forever, which seems to be helplessly lost between the good old days and the new age of casual FPSes. It was said that DNF would cater to the old school fans, while still appealing to fans of modern shooters. For some reason, the message they seem to be delivering is that the only way fans of modern shooters will play a game is if it contains generic health regeneration and a maximum capacity of two weapons. Just to let them know: We don't just want to play Duke Nukem for the humor and awesome weapons - the actual gameplay is also important.

This brings me to my second issue, which is the two-weapon limit that I mentioned earlier. I generally don't find this as detrimental to gameplay as regenerating health. Having a limited amount of weapons you are able to carry works great in many games, especially those who have  a more strategic gameplay than just running and gunning. Games aiming for at least some realism feel natural to have a limited carrying capacity.

I'll use Call of Duty: Black Ops as an example this time as well. The game contains many weapons, but most are quite similar, just having different specs (e.g. damage, accuracy, rate of fire and so on). This is not a bad thing by necessity, as the game is aiming for a more realistic experience, and carrying around on 10 assault rifles, 7 SMGs, 3 shotguns, a rocket launcher and 4 pistols at the same time would feel pretty damn stupid and out of place in Black Ops.

Duke Nukem and most old shooters don't have this problem though. Quake for example has a shotgun, an upgraded version, a nailgun (works like a machine gun) and an upgraded version, a grenade launcher, a rocket launcher and the Thunderbolt (besides the basic melee weapon). As you can see, there aren't all that many different weapons, but more importantly, besides the upgraded versions of some weapons, none are really all that similar. Most of these old-school shooters contain similar weapons, plus one or more "special" weapons - in Quake's case it would be the Thunderbolt, and Duke Nukem 3D has among others the shrink ray.

Just like Duke Nukem 3D, Duke Nukem Forever has lots of awesome and unique weapons, and thanks to that doesn't need a limited carrying capacity. I think we also can agree that DNF isn't trying to be a realistic shooter, nor a particularly strategic one. But why does it then need to limit the max amount of weapons carried to just two?

I have no answer to that question. I can't think of a logical explanation as to why you aren't allowed to carry more weapons. One could say that managing and toggling between so many weapons is difficult, but that just isn't true. It worked for a decade, so why wouldn't it work now. I thought we were all about evolution, not devolution.

To make matters worse, many of the "special" weapons that have been confirmed to be usable in DNF are quite niche. If you pick up the shrink or freeze ray you will be limited to just one weapon capable of actual offense. Since many other weapons aren't really worth wasting on particular enemies, or at least not as effective as they can ideally be in the situation you might find yourself in, the limitations of just two weapons is even more crippling.

You probably won't be finding yourself with both the shrink ray and rail gun (sniper), as you don't have anything for actual close combat (besides stepping on shrunken enemies and your boots, but that isn't really adequate). You also probably won't find yourself carrying both a rocket launcher and the freeze ray, as rocket launcher ammunition tends to be too sparse to just freely use on small-fry enemies.

This detracts in much of the game's fun that you can get by experimenting with different weapons, and it also slows down the speed of the game (especially together with regenerating Ego) when you have to stop and think about what weapon to pick up and what to leave behind. Needless to say, it also nullifies some of the niche weapons quite a bit, because would you really want to risk having the shrink ray instead of a weapon that could actually be useful besides for having fun?

It won't surprise me the least if most players also happen to die unnecessarily from happening to have the wrong weapon combination at the wrong time at least once - something that detracts from fun and is just a stupid annoyance.  I sure wish I knew why the developers decided on these design elements, and one can only hope they release a commentator track where they explain their thought like some recent games have started doing. I would kill to have an answer.

With this mile long post coming to an end, I still am looking forward to Duke Nukem Forever. I will probably be quite disappointed, so I definitely won't be expecting GOTY-material here, but the things with Duke Nukem they haven't changed yet, like the humor, attitude and campy one-liners.

When the game is released and I have actually played through it, I will be writing a review, sharing my thoughts. I can't say when it will be up, though.

Edit: I hope they're just trolling us though.