Duke Nukem PR firm publicly threaten to 'blacklist' journalists who gave poor reviews

[Joseph]

Eurogamer's review had some factual errors. It "proved" the game lacks any new ideas by saying there are no new weapons or enemies and criticised the platforming because Duke has an "invisible body", when it actually has full body awareness...

That reminds me, a review in a news paper I read had the complaint that the game was full of non-playable characters. Make of that what you will.

[Unaco]

I've had a few different thoughts as to why people are quite clearly going over the top with the negative reviews (I'm aware it's not a brilliant game), one of them is that people feel somewhat more grown up and matured if they bash this relic from the past and it gives them a chance to feel like they're in a new age of video games.

Or, it could be because it's a puerile, immature, infantile mess of a game, and reviewers are just being honest. Or, it could be that because the game tries to be larger than life, over the top and that, the reviews have to attempt to match that largesse. Or, it could just be that the reviewers haven't gone OTT with their negativity and the game actually deserves to be torn to shreds.

[SirKicksalot]

I don't get it why 2K sent Xbox 360 review copies. That version is a disaster. 30 seconds loading times after each death?!

Or maybe it's all just a PR stunt. Gearbox was developing Duke Begins in 2009, maybe now they'll resume work on it. They also cut a lot of content from DNF, including the playable female sidekick.

[Joseph]

Or, it could be because it's a puerile, immature, infantile mess of a game, and reviewers are just being honest. Or, it could be that because the game tries to be larger than life, over the top and that, the reviews have to attempt to match that largesse. Or, it could just be that the reviewers haven't gone OTT with their negativity and the game actually deserves to be torn to shreds.

I just felt that the reviews themselves were equally silly and immature in their negativity about the game. Sure the game had a bit of a legacy to live up to but people already had the general opinion that it wasn't going to be any good all these reviews just seem a little pointless in how much stock they put in themselves.

[deano2099]

people already had the general opinion that it wasn't going to be any good

Well there's another reason then. I think people had the general opinion that it was going to be passable. That it turned out to be a very flawed game almost then necessitated a certain harshness in reviews, to make that clear. To make it obvious that it wasn't just bad, but it was worse than was expected.

[BobsLawnService]

It is, <a href=http://www.incgamers.com/Reviews/1193/duke-nukem-forever-review>by all accounts</a>, a terrible game. Terrible games should expect to get colorfully terrible reviews.

Best one I remember was of Extreme Paintbrawl, in Computer Games Strategy Plus. This is not unique to DNF. This is not new. This is not "unprofessional", unless you really expect bland, robotic neutrality in a review.

Oddly enough just about everyone I've spoken to who has actually been playing the game on PC has been saying it is a fun but flawed game - hardly the train wreck most professional reviewers have been painting it as.

[deano2099]

You have to work really bloody hard these days to screw up an FPS to the point where it ceases to be fun.

Ask those people to name a worse FPS that they've played in the last 5 years, and then I think you get a better idea of where it fits. The days of games literally being released as unplayable messes is mostly over now.

[Berlin]

Jesus, I've done a review of this thing, gave 4/10 and now I'm browsing through 240 angry comments of pimpled teenagers who think that Duke's THE KING and I'm biased. Need beer.