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Duke Nukem Desperately Needs to Grow Up
You would think that after being well over a decade in the making this game would have plenty of time to grow up. Apparently, this is not the case. You see, I have a serious issue with Duke Nukem Forever. As a gamer, aspiring game designer and just a decent human being, this game disgusts me. Plenty of games try to push boundaries by showcasing gorgeous scenery, revolutionary stories or groundbreaking features to grab as many headlines on game news sites as they can. But when it comes to stupid, irrelevant features The Duke takes the cake. Instead of showing us interesting things that would make a gamer want to pick up and play the game, Forever shows us irreverent features that only shows how dated this game really is. Looking at the more recent headlines The Duke has become a 12 year-old jumping up and down, waving his arms and yelling “Hey! Remember me? I’m that game that’s been over a decade in the making! I let you throw feces and slap chicks, hey! HEY!”
Duke Nukem: Forever is a game that’s been well over a decade in development and has become synonymous with vaporware. Now that it might actually be coming out (I’ll believe it when I see it) the companies behind it feel the burning desire to get as much attention, bad or not, centered on this aging game. Apologies to anyone who’s still looking forward to it but here’s a spoiler: at this point Duke Nukem Forever will never live up to the hype. Instead it’s going to show you tits, gore, feces and foul language in equal amounts. It’s also going to try to be funny but from what I’ve seen of the game so far it will fail miserably in that department as well. I’ll admit I have little experience with The Duke seeing as I’ve only played Duke Nukem 3D and that was ages ago. Now, if you’re the type of gamer the industry has spent the last two decades desperately trying to keep some distance between, you probably won’t have any issues with this game.
However, if you find issue with slapping women’s bums to get them to shut up, throwing poo all over the place and sex for the sake of pleasing all the immature little boys out there, you might find reason in this quick tirade.
In the last year have you seen a single headline bearing the Duke’s name that wouldn’t be offensive to anyone because I sure as fuck haven’t. Instead all I see are how Duke Nukem Forever lets you see naked chicks, use poo as a weapon and slap distressed women with your friends. Quick tangent: does anyone else find spanking helpless women with their friends just the tiniest bit creepy?
While defending the ‘Capture the Babe’ multiplayer mode Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford tweeted about all the hullabaloo surrounding the shameless sexism in his game, saying “Get it right, folks! In the DNF MP game, “Capture the Babe”, Duke can give the girl a love smack on the booty – not face!” Are you kidding me? Either everyone at Gearbox have lost their damn minds or they must have an incredibly lenient sexual harassment policy.
For the unfamiliar, the “Capture the Babe” mode has you and some friends going over to an enemy’s base where you have to kidnap their woman and bring her back to your base (where I assume you’ll then proceed to share the spoils with a bunch of mouth-breathing strangers.) If she starts flailing around like the helpless woman she most definitely is, all you have to do is give her a quick slap on the ass to shut her up. Taking this a step further I predict if you make it to the base with her she’ll immediately be forced to cook and clean, because, everyone knows that’s all women are good for, right?
There’s even a petition that’s now well over 7,000 signatures strong, asking Gearbox to gain a little common sense. I’m all for lighthearted fun and humor since that’s been a staple of the Duke Nukem series but this isn’t that, this is childish and not the least bit funny. This is the type of behavior I would expect from a studio made up of a handful of 12 year-olds hiding in their parents’ basement, not from a top tier developer.
I said I would try my best to keep this rant short. Now, it really isn’t so I’ll resist the urge to delve into how revolutionary the feature that lets you pee in bullet wounds is and what’s wrong with showcasing one of the worst characters in the history of video games every time Gearbox promotes their game. The Duke is a terribly unfunny misogynistic pig that I have no desire to play as, but that’s just me. Hell, I could also go into what anyone could possibly find fun about picking a turd out of a toilet and flinging it around. Instead I’ll leave whether that’s something you’d like to do with your friends up to you.
Now I’d very much like to leave you with a brand new trailer showcasing the ‘babes’ of Duke Nukem Forever. This should successfully get all the horny teen boys excited for the game while also proving everything I just spent the last ten minutes (or however long it took you to read this, no one’s judging) ranting about.
‘Nuff said.
Let’s start with the good news. Lockbox looks far better than its misleading marketing materials suggest, a supernatural horror movie so darkly lit and color graded that you’ll have to squint your way through jump scares. It’s also anchored by reliable genre performers. That’s also about where the good news ends with this rote adaptation of Knifepoint Horror Podcast story “Winthrop.”
The empathetic Carla Gugino gives her all as Ellen, a saint of a woman with boundless patience who takes on life’s hard luck with a kind smile. After giving up her career as a fashion designer to become caretaker for a dying mother, she’s then forced to reinvent herself once more when her caretaker role ends. That catches us up to the events of Lockbox, where Ellen is asked to take in a cousin she hasn’t seen in quite some time who’s dealing with severe PTSD.
Just as Ellen finally establishes a real connection with Winthrop (Lou Taylor Pucci), it’s interrupted by the arrival of peculiar neighbor Vahna (Katharine Isabelle), who spells clear trouble. When Vahna shows up dead, it sets in motion a supernatural battle of possession.
Image Credit: Aura entertainment
Director Daniel Stamm (The Last Exorcism, Prey for the Devil) and screenwriter Justin Yoffe approach Lockbox in the broadest of brushstrokes, dooming it from the start with clunky storytelling and woefully underdeveloped themes of heady topics like PTSD. Winthrop is a character that comes loaded with emotional baggage and trauma that’s piled on throughout his tragic life, but much like its title, his interiority and history are treated like a tightly guarded secret meant to prolong the supernatural mystery.
The problem here, though, is that Lockbox is too sparse to sustain mystery at all, and it instead robs Winthrop of characterization. It winds up trapping the talented Pucci without anywhere to go, toggling between wounded animal and mentally disoriented.
From there, Lockbox bounds through plot developments without any sense of stakes or purpose, peppered by a smattering of haphazard paint-by-numbers jump scares. The only unwavering constant is Ellen’s resolute faith, and Stamm seems to leave it entirely to Gugino to guide confused audiences through this inconsequential story right up until its supernatural climax.
Image Credit: Aura entertainment
To give more credit, Lockbox at least injects an unconventional exorcism here; just don’t expect much in the way of explanation. When the film finally reveals the meaning behind its title, it dangles a fascinating carrot it has zero interest in delivering. More than a severe lack of fleshing out its characters beyond plot drivers or devices, this faith-based flick also seems terrified to offer any worldbuilding whatsoever.
Yoffe’s script stretches the short story beyond its means instead of fleshing it out, and Stamm fills out the gaps with cheap CGI scares and overwrought performances; Isabelle’s Vahna is beyond cartoonish in her villainy. It’s also pretty nonsensical, treating only Ellen’s faith with the utmost sincerity and largely squandering its typically reliable talent. So much so that the final imagery, pure sunkissed saccharine sentimentality, leaves you with the feeling that this horror movie might be better suited as an entry in Chicken Soup for the Soul.
Lockbox releases in select theaters on July 3, 2026.
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