After a stunning 13 years in development, Duke Nukem Forever was finally released for consoles and Windows systems in May, where it was received with nearly universal criticism for its slow load/respawn rates, sexist humor that hasn’t aged well, poor pacing, frustrating levels and surprisingly frequent deaths, prohibitive weapons limits and other issues. Demonstrating its own Nukem-esque stubborness, Aspyr Media is taking pre-orders for the Mac version, which is due in August.
In the game, Duke himself is a celebrity, having garnered fame from his last encounter with the Cycloid aliens. The aliens return, this time to exact revenge on Nukem and to capture women for mating purposes. The games updates the graphics and physics engines to modern standards, but retains the low-brow humor and macho action sequences that endeared the original adventures to a generation of first-person-shooter gamers.
The new game features in-game interactivity, including air hockey and basketball games among other leisure-time activities; new multiplayer modes that allow Duke to freeze and shatter, shrink or squash opponents and other new twists. Aspyr and its development partner 2K Games have not said if the Mac release will feature any updates or bug fixes to improve the original.
The game will require an Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4 GHz Mac or better running Mac OS X 10.6.7 or later, along with 2GB of RAM. Pre-ordering is available at $45, $5 off the post-release retail price of the game. Duke Nukem Forever is rated M for Mature.
