The first reviews for Duke Nukem Forever are in, and they don’t make for very good reading. The lowest of the low so far include a 3/10 from Eurogamer – who labelled it as “depressing†– and 2/5 from Joystiq. The average Metacrtic score stands at just 54%.
Perhaps we should have seen this coming all along after, you know, the game slipped its release date for the umpteenth time. People put good faith in Gearbox turning the project around and although I’m sure they had good intentions a game this anticipated shouldn’t have never been released in this shape.
If you delay a bad game and make it good, nobody will remember that delay. A bad game is bad forever and in a situation like this nobody wins. Sure, 2K will make some money off it but poor games dent company’s reputations and leave a foul taste in people’s mouths.
What’s more, 2K knew full well that Duke Nukem Forever wasn’t up to scratch – review copies weren’t sent out to press in good time. In other words: they are quite happy to charge £40 for a product that they know will disappoint many. I’d imagine that come next week there will be dozens of pre-owned copies lining the shelves.
To quote a fellow Twitterer: “It should have stayed as the mythical joke of the industry, now it’s the very real joke of the industry.â€