Is Duke Nukem Still Relevant?

Is Duke Nukem Still Relevant?

Posted on Wednesday September 29, 2010, 13:49 by David Scarborough in Infinite Lives

If anything has fuelled the long dwindling flames of the Duke Nukem Forever debacle, it's the particularly pungent whiffs of sweaty nostalgia. One minute the sequel to the popular ‘90s franchise was in development; the next it had vanished into oblivion; then every so often a teasing glimpse would be released, before an ensuing silence spanning several years. Throughout this extensive anguish the feverish passion of the fans has refused to subside.

At the recent Penny Arcade Expo, gamers across the globe were finally presented with the confirmation that ol’ Duke would be bringing his bleached badass attitude back to gaming. Big guns, bigger aliens and an even bigger bravado were all present and correct in the displayed gameplay demo. With much relief, it looked like the King was truly back in business.

But, then again, who cares?

The hotbed of gaming controversy has moved on quite sizeably since Duke’s seminal outing, Duke Nukem 3D. Once, the idea of visiting a strip joint and being discourteous to the employees was enough to get tongues tittering on the playgrounds while raising the odd bit of media hullabaloo to boot. Now that type of activity would be a mere conservative excursion on the way to mowing down a metropolis of innocent bystanders.

Yet it wasn’t the controversial material that just made Duke into the ultimate gaming anti-hero for children of the ‘90s, but the humour, which appealed to the puerile sensibilities of the audience that games were failing to address at the time. We wanted excess gore, we wanted arbitrary nudity, and we wanted explicit language as often as possible. Duke delivered all of that in the only steroid-induced way he could.

It’ll be fourteen years since the series’ last ‘proper’ sequel by the time Duke Nukem Forever finally reaches shop shelves – a few console iterations barely count – and gaming has changed immensely since those days. You don’t have to look far to see the grunt machismo template of Duke within most other sci-fi shooters, full of those pulsating necks bigger than their protagonists’ heads.

Characters have grown more complex, not restricted to minimal bursts of crackling dialogue. Involving cinematics and multifaceted narratives have pushed the medium into a genuine platform of art – regardless of what Lord Ebert’s ferocious expressions proclaim. The comedy has evolved from just juvenile scattershot remarks, and audiences expect humour to be woven into a grander story, as a part of the character rather than just the character.

The Grand Theft Auto series is full of coarse explicit witticisms, but does so with a satirical eye on the American dream. Even self-referential humour has since been done in more accomplished ways, with both the uneven Matt Hazard series and the recent Scott Pilgrim game managing to triumph in their devoted homage.

Getting past the initial awe of the announcement, I fail to see what place Duke still has in gaming. At one time he presented a farcical epitome of America’s overblown patriotism, but today he seems to almost correlate with our time's top gaming heroes. It’s no longer the Greek God image of America he’s projecting, but almost the Geek God image that gaming endows.

I’m not suggesting that Duke needs to start taking lessons from GTA or any other more accomplished or nuanced titles, but instead focus on the themes with which it initially succeeded. Perhaps it should take a direct shot at the first-person shooter genre, making use of the sci-fi setting to lambast the league of futuristic shooters that have emerged in the last decade.

However he chooses to return, Duke isn’t the icon he once was, instead shuffling into the limelight like a single middle-aged uncle trying to desperately impress onlookers at a wedding reception. Gaming has changed, and it’s about time Duke did the same – career reinvention, anyone?