Duke Nukem, regardless of his bleach-blonde buzz cut, planet-crushing biceps and quaint 1950's view of womankind, is really rather intelligent.
Or at least his games are. Duke Nukem 3D was a milestone for first-person shooters - an ultra-interactive evolution of the genre that doesn't always get the recognition it deserves. Part of the reason for this is that a little game called Half-Life came along a couple of years later and snaffled a stack of credit for doing some similar stuff in a more refined manner.
But in a weird way, the infamous 13-year wait has been good to Duke Nukem Forever. The natural development of Duke 3D's groundbreakingly detailed environmental design means DNF might not have stood out at any other time.
In an era flooded with realistic, linear FPS games, Duke Nukem Forever's delirious '90s-style excesses of design and personality are a breath of fresh air.
You'll inhale it every time you circle-strafe around a rampaging humanoid pig, unloading shotgun shells point-blank into his porky head. You'll feel it on your face as you hurtle around a gaudy Las Vegas casino in a toy truck following an unfortunate run-in with an alien shrink ray.
Duke Nukem Forever isn't concerned with gritty narrative or dramatic worthiness. Its only consideration when hurling crazy new idea after crazy new idea at you is: "Is this fun?" And on the strength of its first couple of hours, we can't help but feel that its judgement is right on the money.
There's a wonderfully insane genius to DNF's early stages, and in very little time at all you'll get an idea of just why 3D Realms never got around to finishing it. There's an almost ostentatious feel to its level design at times, with bonkers action movie set-pieces, smart environmental puzzles and borderline-insane interactive detail sitting side-by-side throughout.
Where some games will send you up a ladder to reach a higher level, DNF will charge you with rearranging a cityscape museum diorama to build a staircase, before hopping up the extended arms of a statue of its hero. Where some will send you through an air vent to reach a vital object in a locked room, Duke will put a radio-controlled car in there and let you control it to push your quarry out through a ground-level letterbox.
And that's to say nothing of the incidental ways you can pass the time. Sometimes rewarding success with a health bar boost, sometimes just for fun, DNF is packed with so many extra-curricular distractions it almost feels like an RPG at times.
You can shoot pool. You can check your voicemail. You can play a fully-featured pinball sim in Duke's gym, throw baskets, or seek out weights for a heavy workout.
Like its hero, Duke Nukem Forever is big, silly, and almost out of control. As such, it couldn't feel more right.
