Was it worth the wait?

Monday 19th March

I'm going to shock you now.

I'm even going to go against public opinion in a brutal way, for which I expect to be vilified.

I may even be hounded by haters, hunted down in my hide for my opinions. The newspapers will publish unflattering pictures of me with calls for public lynchings. Small children will be told tales of me as nightmare fodder just before they go to bed.

None of this will be new, not since that thing I did back in '09, but you know I only did that to stir things up in the toddler community. Plus, the little bastard deserved it.

No, this time I can stand behind my convictions as I shout out my message to the world. Those few words which will bring pain to many, and shame to me and my family.

I didn't think Duke Nukem Forever was that bad.

There, I said it.

Alright, it's not worth waiting twelve to thirteen years for. What is? Let's face it, I've been wanting to sleep with Cindy Crawford since puberty, and though that was a difficult and embarrassing fifth birthday I'm still waiting for my shot with her. I'm not kidding myself that when I eventually do get to spend the night with her it may not shatter the world in two, but it will probably be worthwhile in some respect. I also have the fallback that if it's completely terrible I can sell the story for money. Along with the DVD.

Where was I?

Oh yes, Duke Nukem.

Let me put it this way, I was there for Duke Nukem 3D. I even purchased Duke Nukem 1 and 2. They were all right, nothing special but they were all right. I even bothered to pick up one of the further sequels, something about time travel. It registered not in the slightest in my brain except that the intro sequence had an excellent soundtrack by Stabbing Westward called 'The Thing I Hate'.

Seriously, it was awesome. Download it now.

I think my point was that through the past dozen years, while people are getting excited and worryingly messing up their underwear in the expectation of the Duke 4ever (see what they did there?) game, my attitude was one of definite Meh.

I learned a long time ago that games will never live up to your soiled underwear. Underwhelmed is always a safe place to be. I got shot down on some serious mistakes, LA Noire, Sonic Adventures, The Prince of Persia sequels, and almost every Batman game in history.

Yes, I've been stung. However, with low expectations it gives you the opportunity to find something, anything fun in a game to enjoy.

Duke Nukem Forever doesn't make it easy though, not in the beginning. The literal first thing that the game makes you do is take a piss. In all seriousness, you cannot start the game without pressing RT to whizz. Then you get the opportunity to go to a cubicle and pick up some poo. It's an achievement to do it, but there you go. Inside of the first five minutes of the game you're wandering around a locker room with poo iin your hands while big macho men tell you what a hero you are, Duke.

It takes long enough before you get to start attacking big bad alien nasties. In fact, you only get to destroy one Alien in what feels like half an hour of fannying about, ego surfing and pointless self-reference, and numerous references to boobs.

Nobody really minds the boobs.

You will have to grit your teeth and just move on past all this dross, and boobs, and eventually you will find the game.

It's not a bad game at all, when you find it. It's only got half a dozen guns, so you can actually make your mind up pretty easily which you like, and which you can rely on without endless confusions. There are puzzles in there that I've not seen before. I've seen puzzles in most games and I always like a decent puzzle that needs a bit of thought to overcome rather than just find lever, push lever, door opens.

It has driving sections, numerous of them, with a few different vehicles. Ones that take a second or so to get to grips with but then feel like real driving sections and not just a tacky insert halfway through the damn game with broken physics.

Yes, it has monsters, yes it has puerile humour, yes it is big and dumb and silly, but it never claimed to be otherwise. No, it's not going to win much in the way of awards, but really, it doesn't deserve the kicking you all have been giving it since it came out last year.

Come on, because of the kicking it's received it's now only a fiver wherever you buy your games from.

For that, it's worth it, and you could do A LOT worse.

Those people that don't agree with me? You should be ashamed of yourself, and your soiled underwear before you come after me.