* FranchiseOriginalSin: Among the many other criticisms leveled at ''VideoGame/DukeNukemForever'', one of them was the treatment of Duke by [=NPCs=], who practically worship the ground he walks on. The games have always treated Duke like he was the coolest man alive ever since he first defeated Dr. Proton, and a significant chunk of his dialogue has been him bragging. The difference was that in the earlier games, his bragging was over-the-top enough to be endearing in its own way - keep in mind the intro to this game has him shilling his autobiography, which is [[RefugeInAudacity literally titled "Why I'm So Great"]]. It also helps that there wasn't as much room to emphasize any of this in the earlier games, as outside of ''very'' specific circumstances Duke was the only character who spoke at all, and the vast majority of the game consisted of [[EscapistCharacter the player proving Duke every bit as badass as he claims to be]]. By the time ''Forever'' came out, it's become standard to have bit characters with at least one or two unique lines of dialogue all over the place, and rather than letting Duke's coolness speak for itself right away the game opens with a lengthy segment where the player can only walk around and watch things happen, forcing you to put up with half an hour of Duke [[CharacterShilling being verbally fellated by five dozen NPCs]][[note]]not to mention ''literally'' fellated by the first two[[/note]] and then another ten minutes of everybody ignoring the aliens clearly preparing to open fire before the game finally gives you a gun and lets you shoot things.
* GoddamnedBats: Several:
** The small spider creatures that [[PersonalSpaceInvader latch onto Duke]] (some even fall from the ceiling) and drain his health until you shake them off. Three guesses at what inspired the Protozoid Slimers [[VideoGame/DukeNukem3D in the sequel]].
** The slug-like creatures that throw their eyeballs at you, then explode into a shower of eyeballs when you kill them.
** The ships that fly overhead and drop bombs with a rather huge blast radius; if you don't have anything besides the default weapon you're practically guaranteed to get hit (and even if you shoot the bomb as it's falling, it blows up anyway and the explosion will probably travel downwards far enough to still hit you).
** The panther-like creatures made of green slime.
** The small ships in the first level of episode 2 which don't appear until you're practically on top of them.
** The hopping one-eyed robots.
* ScrappyMechanic: Red boxes contain either health pickups or bombs, with ''far more'' of the latter than the former. For extra screw-you points, they're frequently placed right next to actual health pickups, which they'll promptly destroy if you don't scroll the pickup box off-screen so that the explosion doesn't affect it.