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- T
- Deep Silver
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- Deep Silver
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- Deep Silver
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- Deep Silver
Duke Nukem: Critical Mass
DS
Released On: Jun 6, 2011
29
3.5
All Platforms
PSP
tbd
DS
Based on 12 Critic Reviews
29
Metascore
Generally Unfavorable
Based on 12 Critic Reviews
29
0% Positive
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
0% Mixed
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
100% Negative
12 Reviews
12 Reviews
Metascore
Generally Unfavorable
Based on 12 Critic Reviews
29
0% Positive
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
0% Mixed
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
100% Negative
12 Reviews
12 Reviews
Like booting up a mediocre run-and-gunner from the mid-Nineties. [Issue#109, p.114]
Duke Nukem: Critical Mass is a terrible game. Forget it, wait for the big return.
User Score
Generally Unfavorable
Based on 30 User Ratings
3.5
20% Positive
6 Ratings
6 Ratings
20% Mixed
6 Ratings
6 Ratings
60% Negative
18 Ratings
18 Ratings
User Score
Generally Unfavorable
Based on 30 User Ratings
3.5
20% Positive
6 Ratings
6 Ratings
20% Mixed
6 Ratings
6 Ratings
60% Negative
18 Ratings
18 Ratings
This is a forgettable game. It is short, boring, easy and has no ambition. The game should have stayed in limbo instead of taking advantage of the renewed appeal of Duke.
Despite good intentions and admirable attempts to mix up its gameplay, Critical Mass is a real mess that fails on nearly every level.
Shoddily made, uglier than Ugly McUglyson and an incredibly frustrating game. [June 2011, p.102]
Simply one of the ugliest games for DS and for this generation of consoles.
Ugly, hard to handle and definitely not fun to play, Duke Nukem: Critical Mass probably is the worst thing a video game has to offer.
Extremely mediocre 2D platformer with far too many flaws. Ugly graphics, blind jumps, off-screen enemies and a particularly poor sniping mode blight a game that reminded me of Demolition Man on the 16 BIT consoles...except worse.
Report
DS
Ask someone what the worst Duke Nukem game is and odds are they'll tell you it's Forever. That's because they haven't played this one. Released just a few days prior, Critical Mass actually has a very similar backstory in that it too spent some time in development hell. It's evident that Apogee Software and developer Frontline Studios had big plans for the title; intending for it to be the start of its own trilogy and even having a more impressive PSP counterpart in development that you can find footage of online. The only thing that ever ended up seeing the light of day though was this shoddy DS version.
Gameplay-wise it's a lot like Manhattan Project, which itself was a throwback to the first two Duke Nukem games on MS-DOS. So it's another action-platformer in the series where you blast your way through aliens in a 2D side-scrolling format. It's competent enough, but level design is often haphazard with side paths that weirdly enough sometimes don't lead to anything. Plus, the most effective way to avoid cheap deaths is to simply run forward while holding down the fire button, killing enemies before they appear onscreen. That way you don't have to fight off attacks from two directions at once when the stages decide to spawn in foes behind you. That's not really much fun. The devs tried to prevent things from getting too monotonous by including over the shoulder third-person shooting and first-person sniping segments, among others. These sequences get overused however, and the controls are usually awful so their novelty wears off pretty quick.
A surprising amount of effort went into the storytelling aspect of all this. The cutscenes may look like pixelated garbage (and Duke somehow has the worst, least detailed character model in the game), but the voice work is undeniably high-quality with the titular hero himself even uttering more than just simple one liners. It kind of ends up being for naught though as the plot basically ends up going nowhere due to the abrupt cliffhanger ending that will never see a resolution, but I was still left fairly impressed. Also impressive is the amount of raunchy content they were able to slip in on Nintendo hardware. The franchise is well-known for its more adult oriented elements, and while this tame compared to most of its predecessors, there's more T'n'A here than you would expect.
Overall, it has some creative and compelling ideas, but the lackluster execution really holds Critical Mass back. I could see myself revisiting it as a guilty pleasure to find the last of the collectibles or if I was on need of some mindless entertainment on a long trip or something. Yet, that doesn't change the fact that unless you're a hardcore Duke fan looking to complete your collection, this isn't worth seeking out.
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DS
Critical Mass? More like critical ass! **** all way around. Stiff controls, simple and uninspired gameplay even for a DS shooter, graphics look like super dumb down version of Manhattan Project and it’s very short. Even Duke Nukem forever is better than this garbage.
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DS
This game would be better on PS3 or Xbox 360 but the DS made it horrible and look like something from Thundercats game. DS games are terrible but DNCM is the worst Duke Nukem created
Report
DS
Summary Duke Nukem Critical Mass is the first installment of the Duke Trilogy. Duke is back in action and better than ever on your handheld.
Rated T
for Teen
Platforms:
- PSP
- DS
Initial Release Date: Jun 6, 2011
Developer:
- Apogee Software, Ltd.
Publisher: Deep Silver
Genres:
