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Destructoid: "Duke Nukem in Bulletstorm: Full Clip Edition is a Big Failure"

NeoRaider

NeoRaider

Member
The worst offender is just the lack of care taken with integrating Duke into the regular game. While all of Grayson's lines are redubbed, the lip syncing on Duke's character model is not. In the opening scenes, you'll see Duke muttering a few choice words with his lips then continuing to move like some awful Hollywood dub job. They don't even bother to change the animations, having Duke move his arms and point to things without mentioning them.

All of the characters from Bulletstorm have their dialog remain untouched, so Ishi and Trishka will still refer to Duke as Grayson. While this might be initially funny (with Duke asking, ”Who the hell is Grayson?"), it becomes a big problem later down the line. Like I said, Duke has a huge ego, so he would never stand for not being addressed by his actual name.

Then there is just the general delivery that Jon St. John (Duke's longtime voice actor) brings to the table. This has to be the sloppiest I've ever heard Duke sound. Even my sister, who has a huge fondness of Duke from the ‘90s, was baffled that this didn't really sound like The King. I know Mr. St. John has aged, but I've met the man in person and he can still deliver the old lines. I think he just truly didn't care or felt disrespected that Gearbox wasn't doing something else with the character.

Really, why was Duke even placed into Bulletstorm? I think that can be answered quite easily: pre-order culture. Gearbox doesn't give a crap about what happens with Duke Nukem. This company shut down a fan-made free remake of Duke Nukem 3D seemingly because it would have upstaged their lazy port of the game from last year. No, they just wanted some incentive to get people blindly dropping money on their recently acquired intellectual property.

Pre-order culture has become a massive problem in mainstream triple-A gaming. We see sometimes significant content being gated off for people who don't take leaps of faith before a title is even released. This has led to tremendous flops like Deus Ex having an "augment your pre-order" campaign or retailers getting exclusive content for specific games to incentivize people to shop at their outlet.
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Then again, this is the same company that lied to our faces about Aliens: Colonial Marines and continues to exhibit shady business practices. Why did I expect anything more from them? I'm mostly just disappointed that his happened to two things I actually like. Despite Duke Nukem Forever being a flaming trash pile, I'll never forget my time with 3D and how creative its level design is.
Duke Nukem is goofy and crass, sure, but that doesn't mean he can't work in a modern space. Duke just can't work under the care of Gearbox because they don't care about anything but the bottom line. For that matter, because of launching Full Clip Edition at $50, I'm almost certain Gearbox has washed their hands of anything to do with a sequel. Maybe I'm underestimating the cost required to rebuild a game for newer consoles, but releasing this for $30 would have given it the shot in the arm that the original never had.

So what does this mean for Duke Nukem's Bulletstorm Tour? I'm sad to say this, but I feel it's a total failure. It might be worth a chuckle or two, but this easily should have been a feature included in the remaster and not some extra DLC. If you didn't pre-order Full Clip Edition, then don't even bother dealing with this. Duke is dead on arrival for his tour and that is a shame.
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Also they are selling version of the game with DN for 5€/$ more, compared to the standard edition, which doesn't include DN.

More: https://www.destructoid.com/duke-nukem-s-bulletstorm-tour-is-a-big-failure-430284.phtml
 
S

SocksAndShoes

Banned
The Giantbomb quicklook covered this and it looks sloppy and rushed. They don't alter any of the cutscenes either, so Duke is constantly repeating the line "The name's Duke!" after every time someone calls him Gray.
 
C

Cyryus

Member
That actually pretty funny, the only reason I am even interest in playing BulletStorm was BECAUSE they replaced the main character with Duke. I found it pretty funny, its a mindless fun shooter and who does that better then Duke?!
 
NeoRaider

NeoRaider

Member
SocksAndShoes said:
The Giantbomb quicklook covered this and it looks sloppy and rushed. They don't alter any of the cutscenes either, so Duke is constantly repeating the line "The name's Duke!" after every time someone calls him Gray.
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OMG. XD
They also mentioned this. Sounds so bad.
 
S

SocksAndShoes

Banned
Cyryus said:
That actually pretty funny, the only reason I am even interest in playing BulletStorm was BECAUSE they replaced the main character with Duke. I found it pretty funny, its a mindless fun shooter and who does that better then Duke?!
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It's not even done in a funny way though, It's literally just Duke replacing the main character and saying 2 or 3 lines you recognize.
 
F

FHIZ

Member
SocksAndShoes said:
The Giantbomb quicklook covered this and it looks sloppy and rushed. They don't alter any of the cutscenes either, so Duke is constantly repeating the line "The name's Duke!" after every time someone calls him Gray.
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Yep. Was coming here to say this. If anyone is interested, they played around with Duke in the last half of their quicklook. It seems lame as shit. Actually, Duke Nukem in 2017 seems lame as shit in general.
 
G

Gator86

Member
Anything not Borderlands that Gearbox touches turns to shit. If B3 isn't out in the near term and fucking amazing they may as well just shut that place down.
 
G

Gestault

Member
For that matter, because of launching Full Clip Edition at $50, I'm almost certain Gearbox has washed their hands of anything to do with a sequel.
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What's worse is I think it's technically at $60 MSRP on consoles.
 
K

killroy87

Member
The biggest fuck you is restriction it to PDLC if you didn't pre-order.

That's a massive set of cajones, treating content like that as premium on an already expensive remaster of an old game.
 
M

MUnited83

For you.
I find it hilarious that not only they dare to charge fuckin 50$ for barely any improvements on a game several years old that has been cheap as fuck, they also dare to sell the shitty Duke Nukem addon for 5$ more. Like, fuck, at the very least include that by default.
 
tkscz

tkscz

Member
If you're not going to have fun with using someone as over the top as Duke in a game as over the top as BulletStorm, then don't do it.
 
H

Hero_of_the_Day

Member
BernardoOne said:
I find it hilarious that not only they dare to charge fuckin 50$ for barely any improvements on a game several years old that has been cheap as fuck, they also dare to sell the shitty Duke Nukem addon for 5$ more. Like, fuck, at the very least include that by default.
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Blew my mind when I heard Duke was paid DLC. Fucking hilarious. And yeah, from the videos I've seen of this, it's half-assed shit.
 
M

Mask

Member
Here in the UK, Bulletstorm is like £50 with the Duke add-on, but it's £44.99 without, and the Duke add-on is £4... Literally tricking people out of an extra pound.
 
J

Jonneh3003

Banned
He's just there to add value, I don't expect them to call all old voice actors in just to add Duke specific lines, afterall this isn't a Duke Nukem remake of Bulletstorm, just a quirky extra.

That being said I'm still not convinced it's worth what they're charging.
 
B

badcrumble

Member
Why would you want to besmirch a pretty excellent game like Bulletstorm with embarrassing '90s trash like Duke Nukem anyway?
 
P

phantasmic_glaive

Member
BernardoOne said:
I find it hilarious that not only they dare to charge fuckin 50$ for barely any improvements on a game several years old that has been cheap as fuck, they also dare to sell the shitty Duke Nukem addon for 5$ more. Like, fuck, at the very least include that by default.
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Yup. They would've caught me slipping if it was $40.. but after this I probably won't bother at all.
 
Z

zewone

Member
Gearbox is not long for this world.

I see them shutting down in the next few years unless there is some major reform.

You can't keep treating your customers like idiots and expect us to keep patronizing your products.
 
F

Fisty

Member
Looks like Gearbox finally delivered a good game with Duke in it

latest
 
H

HardRojo

Member
I think, at $30 with Duke included, this game would have been at impulse buy territory for many. At $50-$60 though? They even had the balls of steel to put Duke as a pre-order bonus, rather than an addition regardless of time of purchase.
 
D

Decider

Member
How was 3D World Tour "lazy"? It was a good port.

SG-17 said:
Why does anyone still care about Duke Nukem? Talk about a relic of a bygone age.
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I enjoyed 3D and Forever, that's why. There are still interesting things that could be done with the character, instead of retreading old ground.
 
F

flaxknuckles

Member
zewone said:
Gearbox is not long for this world.

I see them shutting down in the next few years unless there is some major reform.

You can't keep treating your customers like idiots and expect us to keep patronizing your products.
Click to expand...

Borderlands 3 might save them if the gaming community still gives a crap about it with Destiny around.
 
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