Beat on let's go difficulty (3 out of 4), which I regret doing because this game was incredibly difficult. The difficulty came from awkward clunky controls combined with cheap enemy placement, which often made it unlikely to get through a battle without taking damage. I died a few times right at the beginning of the 1st level as I struggled to figure out where the hell I was getting shot from and how to move and shoot properly. I went into the settings and changed the controls around: square for manual aiming, triangle for jump, the analog stick for walk and quick turn (which I never used). Also lowered game speed to slowest. The controls boggled my mind. X was both attack and interact with environment, which led to me accidentally killing a stripper, and the dumb mechanic of pressing circle to put your weapon away. It would have made more sense to put interact on circle and have an empty weapon state to select from the inventory screen. Or better yet, not require putting away your weapon to interact, climb and grab ledges. The basic moving around was frustrating. Duke would often get stuck on stuff and the sidestep was painfully slow and so wide that it made precision movement difficult. And then the stiff jumping/falling, the slamming his face against walls like a dumbass, and how the jump button did not always work. Sometimes input would continue after depressing the button, like if I moved to a drop then went into manual aim mode (which disabled movement), sometimes he would still walk forward while aiming, which of course made me fall down. Don't even get me started on that god awful manual aim. The turn sensitivity was so slow that if the enemies had a single brain cell they could circle strafe around Duke and shove their guns up his ass. Many of the times I died was because enemies were at a higher elevation and the auto aim failed to work. So by the time I figured out where they were, turned, and slowly moved my crosshair onto them, I had taken SECONDS worth of damage. This was a shooter. Bullets hurt. Most of my other deaths were from falling in the god damn lava, because some genius decided this game should have plenty of platforming. Oh and killing myself with explosives.
So I made it past the 1st level. The key to combat seemed to be being as cheap as possible. Strafe around while letting the auto aim do the work, but I still got hurt sometimes because most of the enemies were hitscanners. I also did a lot of peaking around corners in manual aim to shoot enemies in their arms. It was best to shoot enemies from ambush in the back while they were not looking. They often ran away and hid instead of being aggressive. The level became easy once I realized I could infinite heal from vending machines, which made the tiny bit of health you got for the 1st time pissing in each toilet kinda irrelevant. Still it was hilarious to piss in every stall one after the other just for healing. Level 2 took a few attempts as I was still getting the hang of the game. I ended up reading a walkthrough to find the secrets because I needed the extra resources, especially the rpg to take out those turrets. The next few levels I managed to beat without much trouble. Sometimes had to check the walkthrough because the levels were a bit convoluted. Way too long and convoluted to not have any kind of map. Most levels took me around 1 hour to beat, and I hated that there were limited continues instead of manual saving at any time. I also hated those god damn little dragons that zipped around too fast to even aim at. I could kill them with the gatling gun by spraying and praying but that took a lot of ammo. Pipe bombs were the most reliable way because of remote detonation. The best way was to ignore them if at all possible. The 1st medieval level was the only time I found a secret bonus level and got the laser gatling. Then the next level was the worst part of the game. I had already lost all my continues when I came upon the room that expected me to platform across pillars over lava. Nope, not doing it. Cheat for 99 continues, then cheat to get a full jetpack. I'm sure I could have beat this legit by using a walkthrough to get all the secrets and making sure to have enough jetpack to avoid the platforming. The later vertical platforming with pigcops high up was very obnoxious and I ended up cheating again to replenish health and jetpack. The 1st boss was simple but the dragon boss was fun. I did not know about hiding in the water so I strafed at long range sniping until he came close. Then I peaked around the corner and cheap shotgunned his wing. The final few levels were not bad. I did die in combat a few times but was being a bit more liberal knowing I had infinite continues. Also died to lava a few times, but the levels were definitely doable without needing those cheat continues. The final boss killed me a few times until I figured it out. The main thing was to hang back and shoot those explosive eggs. After that it was enough to strafe snipe then jump in a teleporter when he got close. I finished him off with pipe bombs at close range, chucking them around a pillar.
I found there was too much ammo for the most part, but not enough health and way too little armor. The secret powerups almost never came in handy because of short duration. Many times I didn't bother to backtrack to top up my health and ammo because I did not want to do the platforming again and was glad to get the hell out of the level. My most used weapons were the shotgun and pistol, depending on range. There was always plenty of ammo for the shotgun though the pistol got low a few times. The crossbow and buffalo rifle were pretty much the same as the pistol, only higher damage and slower rate of fire. Likewise the throwing knife and axe were kinda like the shotgun, and best suited for unaware enemies. The flamethrower had terrible range but could wreck multiple enemies faster than the shotgun. The energy gun had a bit better range and was kind of homing, making it great against those little flying head things. Did not work against the little dragons though. I never found the freeze gun. The gatling was the best gun for run and gunning, and quickly taking out multiple enemies at close to mid range. I should have used the rpg more often for enemies at decent range, but I saved it for bosses, turrets and robors. I saved my holy hand grenades for the little dragons and final boss, and used dynamite and pipe bombs to get some enemies that were around corners or below me. Despite how clunky this game was I could see myself playing again on the hardest difficulty while using the walkthrough to get every secret I missed.
Other than some annoying platforming, I was very impressed with the level design. There were a lot of visual and audio flavor touches and decorative objects, including different babes for each time period. They even put in male and piggirl strippers for 1 level each just to show how much the aliens messed up the world, which was a totally unnecessary touch. Having no girls to strip would have been bad enough! But the game controls and feels the opposite of a boomer shooter. The Duke was not meant to awkwardly move, jump, climb and bop his head off stuff. He is here to kick ass and not platform, but there is not nearly enough jetpack fuel.
7.0/10
