Duke Nukem Forever was just recently given a “Mature” rating by the ESRB, the very least shocking headline ever since the firing of Charlie Sheen. Here’s a few excerpts from the official ESRB rating overview that got Duke Nukem Forever its well-deserved “Mature” rating.
This is a first-person shooter wherein players take on the character of Duke Nukem, an action hero who must save Earth from invading aliens. Nothing huge so far – this could be a buttered up Halo for all we know. Yet keep reading and the overview begins to really feel more like a murderous nightmare than a genuine rating:
Aliens are often decapitated or dismembered when hit. Some sequences illustrate far more over-the-top cases of violence: aliens getting stabbed in the top of the head or impaled; a human soldier bursting into bloody gibs right after being tossed through propeller razor blades.
The team at Duke Nukem Forever has the mission of fulfilling a decade and a half of hype and expectations, but in doing so, it has to punch censors out of the way for its exceptional, graphic game play:
Players enter a strip club stage and see several nude dancers and receive lap dances. A couple of missions within this stage require players to retrieve adult sex toys and photographs of topless females. Two women seem to perform fellatio on the central character, Duke moans and leans up against the wall of a bathroom stall (furnished with a hole), it is implied that a sexual intercourse (not shown) happens.
Furnished with a hole offers a nice, descriptive touch, so does the excerpt in general. It is like the regulators decided to go from developing a ratings scheme to penning an adult book. This could have been the next couple of lines in my opinion (my version):
Duke caresses a female lady of the evening while sitting on a papered bathroom seat cover, holding her with sculpted biceps as well as steroid infused forearms, mimicking the act of love making. The woman gives in to every ounce of charm, machismo, and timber echoing from Duke’s resonant voice, as it is assumed, the two are engaged in baby-making.
Rated “R” for REALLY Romantic…
Here’s an excerpt right from the actual summary:
Bathroom sense of humor involves the capability to urinate in bathrooms or urinals and/or pick up feces from bathrooms as well as toss it against walls. Gamers could use both steroid pills and alcohol as power-ups; when beer is taken, the monitor temporarily blurs.
Way to kill the mood, guys…
I found the reference to the display screen blurring fascinating. They make use of the phrasing “power ups” in the previous sentence yet wouldn’t go so far as to say make use of “beer goggles” when pertaining to Duke drinking beer (probably as it is more of a “power down”). Simply couldn’t bring themselves to do it, I guess.
The language ‘f**k,’ ‘sh*t,’ ‘c*ck,’ and ‘a*shole’ show up in dialogues and on-screen text.
So, quite simply, there’s a significant amount of hip hop music in the game.
Check out the full summary of the “Mature” rating. You may discover something, probably not, yet at the very least it will keep you from counting down the time until Duke Nukem Forever’s official release.
The Jace Hall Show is an online reality show that covers video game news and personalities as well as interviews with film/tv/sports celebrities. It also has articles that features Duke Nukem Forever and Duke Nukem preview.
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