It's been a while since I've had to set one of these up so you'll have to excuse the generalisations, lol. Last night I started this up thinking I'd give it a quick look over having picked it up primarily due to the shortness of Duke. I'd played the previous game Guerilla and found that to be a solid open world game that was mainly brought down by the repetitiveness of it's missions and locations, for some reason though this hadn't grabbed me in the trailers by comparison.
I'm working through the PS3 version of the game but I haven't heard of any major differences between the different versions (someone else might be able to shed light on those though it looks like few on here have picked this up). Perhaps most intriguing about the game is the shift in genre, THQ has mentioned a few times that they see the series as being able to straddle different genres though this seems to mainly lead to something of an identity crisis. Based on what I've seen the intention seemed to be to marry the work done in Guerilla with the more structured narrative approach of the first two games.
So far (though no expert on this) the game seems to be running around 60fps and plays incredibly smoothly and responsively. The weapons feel like you're in control of them and weighty whilst also packing a punch and there's around 12 of them ranging from plasma rifles to mine throwers and a magnet gun. The third person view can be a bit awkward at times and many of the environments are corridor based meaning despite being over the shoulder the camera can find it difficult to squeeze in a space with you. What this does mean though is that you are always in the heart of the storm when it comes to the destructable environments.
This is where the issues start to arise as whilst the destruction works the same as in Guerilla you are also gifted with a device that lets you rebuild any structures in seconds meaning seeing enemies take out walkways and buildings you're in has no consequence. This feature is selective as well, you can be blasting through door after door until you reach one which is no different from the others but can't be destroyed because the developers want you to face off with enemies first. Any who found Duke's enemy waves off putting won't find help here as there are only a handful of types on offer and they are thrown at you in wave after wave, at times it can be somewhat relentless and if you stray from the area too far you'll be presented with a countdown to return to the battle despite there being no narrative reason as to why this happens meaning you have to stick it out till it's over. The game is essentially a run and gunner which is highlighted in the sections when you control an XO suit or a walking battle tank (the only vehicles in this) which barely differ from the on foot action.
Visually the game is a mixed bag, there's some lovely lighting on display at times which coupled with the framerate makes it feel quite slick, on the flip side of things it features some of the lowest resolution textures I've seen in a long while. Audio wise there's not too much music and nothing remarkable to comment on beyond the lead voice artist who us giving his best Nolan North impression throughout.
Overall, it's good fun, I haven't been bored for a second of it. However there's very little to it meaning it's the definition of a game you'd consider if it appeared cheap in a sale (likely soon). I'm 3hrs 30m into it according to the stats page and I'm over 60% through the game meaning you're likely looking at a full play through time of 5hrs 30m roughly. Hopefully, THQ will see fit to return to the ground work they did for Guerilla when time comes for Red Faction 5.
I'm working through the PS3 version of the game but I haven't heard of any major differences between the different versions (someone else might be able to shed light on those though it looks like few on here have picked this up). Perhaps most intriguing about the game is the shift in genre, THQ has mentioned a few times that they see the series as being able to straddle different genres though this seems to mainly lead to something of an identity crisis. Based on what I've seen the intention seemed to be to marry the work done in Guerilla with the more structured narrative approach of the first two games.
So far (though no expert on this) the game seems to be running around 60fps and plays incredibly smoothly and responsively. The weapons feel like you're in control of them and weighty whilst also packing a punch and there's around 12 of them ranging from plasma rifles to mine throwers and a magnet gun. The third person view can be a bit awkward at times and many of the environments are corridor based meaning despite being over the shoulder the camera can find it difficult to squeeze in a space with you. What this does mean though is that you are always in the heart of the storm when it comes to the destructable environments.
This is where the issues start to arise as whilst the destruction works the same as in Guerilla you are also gifted with a device that lets you rebuild any structures in seconds meaning seeing enemies take out walkways and buildings you're in has no consequence. This feature is selective as well, you can be blasting through door after door until you reach one which is no different from the others but can't be destroyed because the developers want you to face off with enemies first. Any who found Duke's enemy waves off putting won't find help here as there are only a handful of types on offer and they are thrown at you in wave after wave, at times it can be somewhat relentless and if you stray from the area too far you'll be presented with a countdown to return to the battle despite there being no narrative reason as to why this happens meaning you have to stick it out till it's over. The game is essentially a run and gunner which is highlighted in the sections when you control an XO suit or a walking battle tank (the only vehicles in this) which barely differ from the on foot action.
Visually the game is a mixed bag, there's some lovely lighting on display at times which coupled with the framerate makes it feel quite slick, on the flip side of things it features some of the lowest resolution textures I've seen in a long while. Audio wise there's not too much music and nothing remarkable to comment on beyond the lead voice artist who us giving his best Nolan North impression throughout.
Overall, it's good fun, I haven't been bored for a second of it. However there's very little to it meaning it's the definition of a game you'd consider if it appeared cheap in a sale (likely soon). I'm 3hrs 30m into it according to the stats page and I'm over 60% through the game meaning you're likely looking at a full play through time of 5hrs 30m roughly. Hopefully, THQ will see fit to return to the ground work they did for Guerilla when time comes for Red Faction 5.
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