The unicorn that is Duke Nukem Forever is coming out freakishly soon, and with it more and more information about the game is being trickled out. One of the newest bits of info concerns the multiplayer offering of Duke Nukem Forever and its take on the traditional mechanic for Capture the Flag. Instead of having an inanimate, emotionless flag (because you know, that’s for squares), DNF will repleace the traditional piece of fabric with a slappable woman. Wait, what?
In the recent issue of the Official Xbox Magazine (via a snippet from PC Gamer) Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford revealed that his team didn’t want to “shock” people, but rather wanted the CTF mode to fit with the game’s plot element of aliens capturing Earth’s women to breed an army. Apparently the terrified woman can get a little unruly during the match, and players will need to calm her down with a five-finger reassurance.
OK, wait, what? I get that Duke is not the kind of guy who will be leading a women’s rights rally, but I think I draw the line at abusing women, even if it is in a video game. I was really uncomfortable in Grand Theft Auto 4 when the game forced Niko Bellic to abduct and beat up a girl, so I can’t imagine finding this sort of thing “fun”. Besides the obvious ploy of using this for controversy, what’s wrong with a normal flag?
This news moves Duke Nukem Forever firmly down to my “do not want” list. Call me a sissy if you’d like, but I think gaming has enough problems without adding “condoning abuse” to the rap sheet. What do you guys think? Are you as disgusted as I am? Do you care?
Update: According to Randy Pitchford’s Twitter, we should all calm down because the slap takes place on the butt instead of the face. I’m still of the opinion that this is a stupid idea, though.
Source – PC Gamer
This seems to be a bit over the top to me, seems like its just going to give more ammunition to the people that complain gamers are violent/rapists/sexists.
I’m with you on this Mitch, It’s been moved to a not buy for me now.
I’ve long been in the camp that Duke games are overrated, juvenile drivel.
I hate it when I’m proved right. At least in the juvenile case.
There was that game for PS3 where there was a Fat Princess that got a lot of crap too. To that I just say compare to this. Who cares if its a fat princess, at least you are not hitting a woman.
I agree, this is ridiculous. You may play a game where you are a convicted killer/rapist but that doenst make it alright to make a part of the game where you, in order to win, need to rape and/or kill a woman. Fits with theme, yes. Alright to do, NO.
Never played the first one, not much interest in the second
[quote comment=”15865″]There was that game for PS3 where there was a Fat Princess that got a lot of crap too. To that I just say compare to this. Who cares if its a fat princess, at least you are not hitting a woman.
I agree, this is ridiculous. You may play a game where you are a convicted killer/rapist but that doenst make it alright to make a part of the game where you, in order to win, need to rape and/or kill a woman. Fits with theme, yes. Alright to do, NO.
Never played the first one, not much interest in the second[/quote]
You don’t rape or kill women in DNF. And I’m impartial on the whole issue. Either way, I’ll probably be getting this game, and I don’t even want to play multiplayer anyway.
I do not hold games to any moral standards, and I find that this is really insignificant and to be expected from Duke Nukem games. I’m not in any high moral place where I can look at a game about punching aliens in the groin and getting strippers to take their tops off and say that it’s stupid that they’re going to make it so you can slap women in it, regardless of if it’s just an ass slap or an actual slap in the face. In Duke Nukem 3D if you killed a girl in the middle of a battle, Duke would shout things like “And she was cute, too!” or “I need to check my aim!” as if the fact that he just killed a girl wasn’t terribly important to him, but smacking the girls around in the sequel is going to shock and appall the audience?
Saying that this alone can bump a game down to the do-not-want list is infinitely more ridiculous than the idea of this game mode to me. Any headline that says “Duke Nukem has a sexist take on [x]” should really only be shocking to either people who have never heard of Duke Nukem or people on the Jack Thompson side of the video game content debate. Duke Nukem is as sexist and as juvenile as games get before hentai games, and since Duke Nukem 3D this has not faltered. When people want more Duke, this is what they want: the womanizing douchebag who can kick the eyeball right out of an alien overlord’s head in a football stadium and make a goal. He’s a guy who guzzles steroids and shits down the neck of an alien. He’s the guy who, in the middle of an alien invasion, started paying strippers to show him a little more flesh.
He’s been this way since 1995. The only thing that’s changing here is how much of the theme the audience will put up with before they start getting high and mighty about a video game that revolves around killing an entire alien invasion for kidnapping all of the hot girls on the planet. In the end, it’s a harmless bunch of pixels and nobody is actually getting hurt, and as Randy Pitchford said, it’s just an ass slap anyway. If that actually changes what anybody thought about this game up until now then they probably thought that this was going to be a much different game. This whole discussion is just too silly for me to comprehend.
We’re all used to the “strangely under-dressed-for-a-soldier” sexy seductive female characters in video games. I don’t think “spanking the flag” is any worse. It’s Duke Nukem, so I don’t care about it. At least Postal 2 was fun! XD
[quote comment=”15866″]You don’t rape or kill women in DNF. And I’m impartial on the whole issue. Either way, I’ll probably be getting this game, and I don’t even want to play multiplayer anyway.[/quote]
I wasnt saying you do in DNF. But to say you are doing something super risky to follow a theme isnt ALWAYS appropriate.
[quote comment=”15870″]We’re all used to the “strangely under-dressed-for-a-soldier” sexy seductive female characters in video games. I don’t think “spanking the flag” is any worse. It’s Duke Nukem, so I don’t care about it. At least Postal 2 was fun! XD[/quote]
We are all used to the female-who-is-tough-edgy-sexy-but-still-submissive-in-the-end because most game’s female characters ARE that way (at least a lot of them) The idea though that you are slapping them may be a bit much. While it can be looked at as a ‘who cares its a game’ kind of thing, having a game where you are nazis and you torture a jew who is the ‘flag’ would not sit well. Catch my drift?
If you don’t hold games to any moral standard, then where do you draw the line?
I don’t draw any lines when the subject matter is entirely computer generated and there are no real victims on screen. I’ve slaughtered innocent people in an airport in Modern Warfare 2, I set off a nuke in Fallout 3, I’ve abused animals and burned people alive while pissing on their still writhing bodies in Postal 2, and I exploited and murdered little girls in Bioshock. But none of that was real, so there really isn’t any moral issue I’m seeing. I wouldn’t even punch somebody that I really hate in real life, much less do anything that I do in video games in real life because the virtual world is just a bunch of micro on-and-off switches that make up a picture on the screen and sound in the speakers when I influence them with the input controls… series of protocols and functions, lines of code. As long as we’re talking fictional computer people, you can abuse them any way you want because you’re not actually abusing them, the image on the computer screen just looks like you are.
Of course, there’s still things that detest me that I wouldn’t want to see depicted in front of me while I play games, but a comically sexist guy pumped up on steroids slapping a girl’s ass and treating her like an object mostly for the sake of comedy doesn’t even come close to the threshold. I understand that some people might be absolutely appalled and disgusted and have nightmares from witnessing that kind of thing, I just find it really odd that people would actually change their opinion on the game based on something like this… one would have to have paid absolutely no attention to the promotional material or the franchise in general for this to come as a shock.
[quote comment=”15873″]I just find it really odd that people would actually change their opinion on the game based on something like this… one would have to have paid absolutely no attention to the promotional material or the franchise in general for this to come as a shock.[/quote]
You’re kind of making personal assumptions about people there, dude. Different strokes for different folks.
Personally, this just confirms the attitude I already had about the game, and keeps its status at “do not want”.
Yeah, my opinion of this game was already low, so this changes nothing, only confirms how I feel.
I am with you on most of your points, but I think I would draw the line at something like Rapeplay. Of course, until someone comes out with a Holocause game that has you playing as the Nazis. I would draw a new line, much bolder, in that case.
Somebody misread my article a little bit, methinks. I know exactly what Duke Nukem is about. I played the original Duke Nukem games back in the day, and I didn’t like them then.
I wasn’t exactly thrilled about this game, and this news just cemented my views. I never said that this made or broke my impression of the game, so that was one big assumption I could have done without.
Like Eddy said, different strokes for different folks. I tried really hard not to generalize in my article, so being painted with a broad brush kind of rubbed me the wrong way.
I’m not AS offended as Mitch, buy it only reinforces how little I care about it. In fairness, this does seem to suit DN’s character. That doesn’t make it RIGHT but it makes sense within the context of the game.
My friend says he’s getting this so I will decide what’s what when it comes out.
I also must agree with Anthony’s point about “where do you draw the (moral) line”.
And guys, feedest ye notte yon trolls. Duke Nukem doesn’t deserve to be treated as a respectable part of the game industry, so when this game draws ire for offending women (and men, too), don’t defend it. It’s making a big splash and going all out and it has the right to do that, but consequently it loses all validity as a constructive part of video gaming culture.
Duke Nukem is just another pea-brained shooter that relies on nostalgia and “shocking” content to make up for its short-comings. Play it if you really must, but I will say without hesitation that Duke Nukem is utterly retarded, so give appropriately scarce shit about it.
I never played the game or wanted to get it. Not on its content, I just wasnt interested. But I do feel that it gives it a bad rap to be doing what its doing. I heavily do not want to get bulletstorm based on the small part of the game that is juvenile dick jokes and gratuitous violence. Just a preference.
I guess I misread, because when you said that it “moves Duke Nukem Forever firmly down to [your] ‘do not want’ list” I assumed that meant that it wasn’t there to begin with, since grammatically that’s exactly what that statement means in every way. If you didn’t care for the game to begin with, I take no issue with you still not caring for the game because of this content, I was replying the implied hypocrisy that your post reeked of when I first misread it. I’m sorry that I immediately assumed you were some sort of misinformed ranter who would change his opinion on Duke Nukem based on something like this. I guess this makes ME the misinformed ranter… I will go into the corner now.
PS: after proofreading my comment just now it reeks of sarcasm that isn’t there. I’m not being sarcastic, I’m actually sincerely sorry that I misinterpreted you.
YOU GUYS DUK NUKEM IS TEARING US APART WITH HIS TERRIBLE QUACKING
[quote comment=”15888″]I guess I misread, because when you said that it “moves Duke Nukem Forever firmly down to [your] ‘do not want’ list” I assumed that meant that it wasn’t there to begin with, since grammatically that’s exactly what that statement means in every way. If you didn’t care for the game to begin with, I take no issue with you still not caring for the game because of this content, I was replying the implied hypocrisy that your post reeked of when I first misread it. I’m sorry that I immediately assumed you were some sort of misinformed ranter who would change his opinion on Duke Nukem based on something like this. I guess this makes ME the misinformed ranter… I will go into the corner now.
PS: after proofreading my comment just now it reeks of sarcasm that isn’t there. I’m not being sarcastic, I’m actually sincerely sorry that I misinterpreted you.[/quote]
Wow. Relax, guy. We’re all friends here.
Mitch, much like me, was never going to play this game, most likely. This news only validated that, I imagine.
I don’t give a crap about multiplayer, so Gearbox can do whatever the hell they want to CTF. As long as the single player campaign isn’t tainted so, I’ll still (maybe) be getting this.