CGS-Reviews-Duke Express

Duke Express

by Romeobk

(503) views since Oct 2018

Released: 2018-10-10
Mode: SP
Difficulty Settings: Yes
Featuring: 1.4+, EDuke32
Sound/music: No
New Art: No
New Cons: No
Score: 92

Review by Forge on 30 October 2018

A small section of a Lunar base and the interior of the Planet Express ship from Futurama.

The map has a very immersive atmosphere with articulate detailing, ambient sounds, and some nice texture combinations. It could have used some stronger shading and more effects, but with a large amount of resources going towards construction and detailing, it might not have been feasible.
The Lunar space port is very clean, like a hermetically sealed space base, and decorated out as a futuristic airport. A large bank of view-ports gives a neat exterior view of the Planet Express ship in its docking station.
The interior of the ship is clean where you'd expect it, like on the bridge and in Captain Leela's quarters, but a pigsty in Fry and Bender's bunk room. Other areas are metallic, industrial, and functional.
As the player explores they get to enjoy a lot of Easter eggs and familiar locations if they ever watched the show with any frequency.
Game play is a maze. The ship has many decks and several ladders. At first a lot of it is inaccessible except for the main hallways on each level, so you must find the reactor room and turn the power on. This opens doors and now the game of hide and seek begins. Start searching through the ship, checking each door until you find the open ones. Explore each room until you find an obscure switch behind a panel; this allows access to a crawl-space between the decks.
Don't accidentally go the wrong way or walk too fast, you might pass up the access panel. Reach the medical room at the end of the shaft and get a key. Solve the 6 button puzzle for some supplies. Go back to the key locked door, go into another shaft and get another key. Solve an eight button puzzle, then find the obscure door somewhere on the ship that allows access to the bridge. Unlock the escape pod and your done.
The layout can be confusing until you get used to it. The excessive button puzzles are annoying. A lot of the rooms and corridors are pretty cramped, so it makes navigating around difficult at times. At least the map is balanced, and there's a generous amount of healing items to make up for getting stuck on some piece of architecture while aliens are shooting you full of holes.
More fun than a shiny metal ass.

Overall I'd give it a 92