Duke Nukem Forever “remaster” restores Gearbox FPS to original glory

pcgamesn.com:

Duke Nukem Forever, the infamous Gearbox and 3D Realms FPS which spent 13 years in development hell, has been enhanced and “remastered” via an ambitious new mod that aims to bring the distant cousin of Doom and Quake closer to the original style of a 90s shooter.

As previously reported, Duke Nukem Forever contained a variety of visual elements that were reduced or cut entirely before its 2011 launch, with modder Vinícius Medeiros attempting to restore the FPS to a form more faithful to the original plans of Gearbox and 3D Realms. With improved lighting and shadows, and more detailed skyboxes, Medeiros’ original work demonstrated how Duke Nukem Forever might have looked had it not been nerfed before release. Now, the computer scientist is overhauling Duke Nukem Forever’s gameplay to bring it closer to the “classic shooter” style for which the series was originally known.

“Duke Nukem Forever: Enhanced is a mod for the 2011 release of DNF that aims to improve the gameplay of the original game and make it play more like a classic shooter,” Medeiros writes. This means removing the game’s sprint function, but making general movement a lot faster. Jump height has been increased, and the game’s weapon arsenal has been rebalanced. There is no longer a limit on how many weapons Duke can carry, and the game’s driving sections now play out in first person. Quicksaves are available and a range of post-processing visual effects and improved shadow dynamics have also been introduced. “I appreciate the effort,” writes one user on Twitter, “but Duke Nukem Forever can’t be saved”. “Actually it can,” replies Medeiros.

If you want to see for yourself, you can download Duke Nukem Forever: Enhanced now from Mod DB. Modders have also recently