Fan Mod Attempts to Do The Impossible – Make Duke Nukem Forever Actually Decent(ish)!

Duke Nukem Forever will likely go down in history as one of the worst examples of game development ever. – To say its creation was troubled would be a colossally huge understatement. Constant delays, 3 to 4 mid-creation engine switches, total redesigns, you name it, if you were to look in the dictionary for the definition of ‘development hell’, Duke Nukem Forever would probably be there!

When it did finally arrive in 2011, however, was it any good? Well, based on the above, what do you think?… – Now, no, for what it’s worth, I don’t actually buy into the tempting hyperbole that Duke Nukem Forever was a terrible game. It was just outdated on release and entirely failed to capture the overall ethos of the brand. It was, in a nutshell, a sub-par and woefully disappointing mediocrity.

Following a new mod created by user ‘vini1264’, however, it would appear that they’re attempting to do the impossible. Namely, to make Duke Nukem Forever an actually passable, if not decent, experience!

Duke Nukem Forever – Modded into a Passable State?

Originally released last month, the mod has since been newly updated to a 1.1 version which fixed a number of moderate bugs the initial version had. – So, what does the mod actually do? Well, overall, in terms of the game itself, very little is different on the surface. What this mod does instead is to improve on the overall clunkiness of the original vanilla release.

I’ve tried it myself and I can confirm that movement feels more fluid (and faster) with swimming and jumping mechanics also improved for a better gameplay experience. In addition, you’re no longer limited to the number of weapons you can carry making it feel more like the original 1996 classic. A number of camera improvements have also been made which include forcing a first-person mode for the driving parts (which makes actually controlling the vehicle/s significantly easier than before!).

Capping all this off with some general improvements to shading and more technical elements of the game and when successfully modded Duke Nukem Forever is… Well, it’s still pretty crap, but it at least feels more like a fun and fluid shooter which the original was undoubtedly not!

If you do, therefore, want to check it out, you can visit its official website (on ModDB) via the link here!

What do you think? – Let us know in the comments!