Today we were lucky enough to get hands-on with Duke Nukem Forever, courtesy of Brisbane's Mana Bar. The gameplay period was slim, being the forthcoming DNF demo, comprised of two playable levels. They included included the football field shoot-out, as seen at Firstlook, as well as an American desert sequence which featured a 4x4 drive and some intense on-foot action at an enemy stronghold.

Mana Bar was near capacity, with a bouncer in Duke cosplay at the front door, DNF posters up the walls, and every screen in the gaming bar plastered with Duke Nukem Forever gameplay. And this was at midday. There's something about a room full of giddy fans, the sound of explosions and the echo of Duke's voice that builds anticipation for a launch like this so very well.

The thing I want to mention first is that interestingly, this might just be that rare instance where the console release is the port. I know there were a number of anxious forum members cringing about DNF's premiere presentation being on a console, but seeing a "press space to continue" notification after loading screens during the Duke Nukem Forever demo, on an Xbox 360, is about as clear an indicator as one can expect that the PC market won't be shafted with Duke's sequel.

Given our limited play, let's get straight down to the brass tacks. What we got to play through clearly wasn't ground-breaking technology. Don't expect DNF to be setting standards, but expect to the art direction to feel very suited to the Duke universe. Visually, the most impressive area of our play-through was the aforementioned battle on an American football field. The atmosphere, scale of opponent and intensity of battle make for an eye-widening snippet of play. This was led up to to with a well paced scripted sequence, building anticipation for the big fight.

The gameplay mechanic, again, doesn't appear to be pushing any boundaries. It's everything you have come to expect from run-and-gun shooter gameplay - but that's everything we wanted from Duke Nukem Forever. Of course, it's riddled with crude and violent amusements such as Duke's trademark American-corn, borderline-lame, inappropriate humour - both in voice and in action. Expect to be stomping on miniaturised enemies, ripping horns from their sockets, flipping the birdie and even kicking field goals with enemy heads.

What we saw, heard and experienced was Duke through-and-through, faithfully reincarnated. We can only expect that the rest of the game, said to be 3 times as long as Modern Warfare 2, is going to be just as boisterously amusing. Everyone at Mana seemed to be thoroughly enjoying their time with the game. If you're not expecting a revoltionary step forward for the industry, and are looking forward to Duke Nukem Forever for all of the things that made Duke Nukem 3D so entertaining, you probably will too. There's a good chance the long awaited follow-up to one of the most famous games of all time is going to deliver in spades, at least for a large majority of fans.

Stay tuned for our full review of the game, when it's made available to us.