Duke Nukem Forever

Not a guide really. More of a heads up.

DO NOT click start new campaign when going for this achievement. It resets all of your ego. Making it extremely difficult to complete.

This happened to me

Edit:
Now I've finished my Insane playthrough (collecting the ego again as I went) I'll try and share some things which helped me get through it.

Never use beer/steroids/holoduke unless you come to a section that you just cannot pass without it.

If you get a shrink ray, don't drop it unless you really have to, they can make certain things (flying miniboss guys/octabrains) so much easier.

A lot of the sections when you are on a rail are very difficult, (I'm looking at you Crash Course), here you need to learn the pattern of the enemies. When facing the seemingly endless fighters whilst stuck on a turret, you have to abuse the aim-assist function by 'pumping' the left trigger. It constantly will snap to the enemy you are aiming near. Be careful not to overheat though! (Video added below)

In some places, dying after reaching a checkpoint part way through a big battle can reset the weapon drops. When you first find the shrink ray on the roof and where you have to collect the barrels to move the crane down are two places where this helped me.

Conserve pipe bombs for fighting octabrains.

The shotgun and railgun are vital to getting past some points in the game, these were my most used weapons, although I carried the gold pistol through too on this playthrough.

Fighting the Queen was tough, staying on the left and bouncing pipe bombs off of the pad above, unload RPG on her, kill small creature and repeat until the octabrains start spawning. Switch to the right and abuse the pipe bomb ammo to kill the octabrains and a few more mags of RPG ammo (5 shots spawn in the far right corner as well). (Video added below)

Battlelord Dam fight - For his first health bar just run to the other end of the bridge and unload on him from distance, easy. His second health bar is more difficult, he rushes you now. Stay behind the truck in the back right corner of the highway. Then use your pipebombs and keep grabbing more from the ammo point behind you (this depends on getting the boss to stand in the right area), or jump and peek your head over the truck and shoot him with the RPG. You'll need to sprint across the other side of the dam between minigun attacks if you need ammo for this though, You can pretty much ignore the other enemies unless they start attacking you, if you leave them alone, they generally leave you alone. (Video added below)

When you fight the octabrains in the bay with the turret, (the first time you see the Octaking. Grab the railgun and fall back, then kill them from range. They will stop spawning eventually. When on the turret against Octaking, I kept getting killed by him, if you're going to die, jump off of the turret and run forward and right, you can hide behind the pipe to replenish health.

When I was fighting the Octaking I had a holoduke, I used it straight away and hammered him to take his health down enough to move on to the next stage. Dodging the wave attacks is easy in comparison to the first part. Be careful though, he often leads his shots. (A beer spawns in the corner by the hut). When you know that he is going into that final stage (pulling you towards him) make sure you have reloaded. As soon as his life bar BEGINS to fill back up start shooting him. Unload on him and reload as quick as possible. I've uploaded a video below, this shows how it's done with no holo duke or shrink ray. Having both of these items carried over from Fork Stop makes it even easier.

When you have to go down the ladder and rotate the platform and you get rushed by octabrains, I climbed back up the ladder and killed them from in the doorway at the end of the corridor, thank you rail gun.

Final Boss. A helpful tactic to ensure you have a ton off ammo is to keep killing the pig cops who spawn in the first stage and leave the ammo to build up on the floor. This only helps to get through the second phase more easily. Third phase, the most difficult part. Try and avoid fighting with the spawning enemies unless you have to. Focus your fire on the boss and start strafing. If you strafe to the left of the ammo box first, unloading on the boss, then strafe back to the box to get more ammo. Then strafe to the other side of the box this time, and back again to get ammo. Repeat this and you should be able to kill him in no time, just don't stay in the same area for too long. (Video added below)

Good luck!
If anyone is stuck on a particular part then just leave a comment/PM me. maybe we can make this the FAQ the loading screen tells us to go to

I figured out a very good strategy to use regarding general play through the levels on insane regarding the Freeze Gun.

After you complete the game on normal or higher level, you unlock the "extra game setting menu". While the first 3 selectables are classed as cheats that will disable your achievements, you are able to use the others to your advantage. Obviously you want to firstly increase the head scale size to 150% which makes it easier to get more head shots. But also once you get to the level where you first get the chance to take the freeze gun, take it!

Here's what we do:

select from the extra game settings menu "Duke 3d Freeze Ray" it fires an individual Ice particle which has a much greater range than using it the standard way. Also you now have 200 shots, but the good thing about it is, when you get low, you can go back to the menu again and untick it which fills it back up to 200. It actually feels like a very good tactic as you get lots of Ego boosts from executions, never runs out of ammo, has real good range, bounces off of surfaces so you do not need to be accurate, has an extremely good fire rate if you keep tapping RT, feels more powerful than standard freeze gun use and allows you to carry a powerful second weapon.

I've completed every level after you pick it up using this tactic, it makes real light work of everything. Octabrains freeze, fall and shatter, rushing pigs or clustered areas are no problem as you'll always be replenishing your shield with each execute. even kept hold of it through the water levels as I knew it would be handy whilst escaping the flooding dam.

Ok first off as stated in the first solution, make sure you just start the first level using chapter select when playing on insane. This will allow you to keep your EGO, which you will need since it's the equivalent of your health bar.

For the most part, Insane is not too rough. HOWEVER there are a few tight spots. Starting at Crash Course is where the game really ramps its difficulty.

Take advantage of the aim assist feature. To make this effective, aim at the enemy and the press the left trigger as fast as you can while continuing to shoot. You will notice that the Aim Assist will continuously center the sights on the middle of the enemy.

This method proved highly effective on the crash course level when on the turret. Also proved very effective when on the turret fighting the first encounter of the octaking and his pain in the ass octababies are attacking you as well.

Once I developed this method I used it on more than just the turret sequences. It proved really well against charging enemies or enemies when they go into berserk mode.

Hardest Boss Fights on Insane.

Battle Lord DAM FIGHT:

As soon the BOSS climbs up and over the dam, RUN all the way to the furthest ammo crate. "Opposite side of the BOSS" Now from here you can shoot your rocket launcher, and refill your ammo as needed. Do this until he begins to get half way to your location. Now from the ammo crate, look to your RIGHT and you will see a Delivery Truck. From here you can hide behind it and shoot over the truck to hit the boss. When you’re out of ammo, SPRINT to the weapon cache, and sprint back to the Truck. Now continue this method until you have depleted his health for the first time.

Now before the boss gets back up and regains his health back, attempt to refill you ammo and get you butt, back behind the Delivery Truck. The same method as above applies here as well, HOWEVER he will be shooting a Machine Gun, and follows that attack up with these blue explosives that can injure you from the splash damage. So keep your cover on the truck as best as you can. When you hear him stop firing the Machine Gun, that’s your cue to begin shooting your rockets at him.

Peek in and out of cover maybe getting 2-3 rockets off at a time. And also grab your ammo when his machine gun stops.

This BOSS is actually really EASY even on INSANE, when following this method, or using a variation of it. Just be patient during the 2nd phase, since there is no checkpoint during this fight. And we all know how much the LOAD times suck in this game....

Octaking:

Tips: Before the octaking emerges from the ground
floor stock up on pipe bombs, there is a explosive cache next to the ammo crate. Also grab the beer can and sometimes the holoduke that spawn on the opposite side of the control panel "glassed in area" Once the fight starts your going to want to stay in this glass area the best you can. Throw one pipe bomb at a time out the door way. The octababies will grab it, make sure you detonate it before they throw it back. On Insane it usually takes three pipe bombs to kill one of these enemies. Four will come out initially. You will need to rush out many times to grab more pipe bombs, BE QUICK! Keep using this method until you have one octababy left. Leave that one alive, and now start using your devastator on the Boss. Soon more octababies will spawn. Recycle prior method. Once Octaking has half health he will stop spawning octababies, and start throwing objects at you. DO NOT stay in the glass area, he will destroy that and kill you instantly if your in there. Hopefully you haven’t wasted your beer yet. Drink up and strafe left and right to avoid his attack while punishing him with the devastator. Grab ammo when needed.

Once you get his health down you will get a chekpoint, so the next part isnt difficult it just comes down to being quick enough. After getting the checkpoint the seemingly dead Octaking, will begin pulling the platform your on with his electricity. Simply shoot him with the devestator, grabing ammo when needed. If you dont do this quickly enough the Octaking will appear to blow up, however the explosion will kill you. So stay on your toes and be quick!

This boss on INSANE seriously SUCKS, but once you get the method down you should have an easier time with it.

Octaking Alternative Method:

If you can get to this fight with a beer can great. If so use it right when the boss emerges, and start shooting him with the devastator. Then refill your ammo as needed. If you’re quick you will still be Under the Influence from your beer! Now use the Holoduke that is in the corner, and grab the other beer as well. Throw down the holoduke and get the Boss past half health. Then drink your last beer, kill any octababies left, and finish the boss fight, dodging his slow projectile attacks. Also shooting projectiles will destroy them reducing your chance of being hit. Hope this method helps; since the first was giving some people trouble.

Final Boss:

Tips: Here will need to take down the Boss's health down three times. After each depletion you will need to rush him and press X and then SPAM the A button.

Ok so for starters your going to want to kill the pig cops, and snag a rocket launcher. Usually it will have 4 rounds in it. However if you kill the pig cops quick enough you can get 5 rounds. Also these enemies will occasionally drop pipe bombs.

Do your best to avoid the Boss attacks, while continuously punishing him with rockets. Every time you kill all pig cops on the screen a new drop ship comes and drops more enemies that you will have to kill to refill your rocket ammo.

Once getting the boss's health bar down once, the drop ships will continue to drop rocket wielding cop pigs. But they will also drop the flying enemies. IMPORTANT do not kill the one and only flying enemy that initially comes out of the drop ship. Leave him be. By doing so, the drop ships will continue to drop rocket wielding cop pigs, RATHER than the crazy armored enemies that shoot the three blue explosives at you. These are much harder to kill, and waste lots of your ammo.

If you don’t kill that initial flying enemy, you won’t have to deal with those bastards.

Ok now once you get his health down for the second time, shortly after the EDF's will drop a AMMO crate, with a devastator. Pick up the devastator and refill your ammo. You want to keep the rocket launcher as well as use the devastator. I always started blasting my 5 rockets at the boss, and then unleash the devastator on him. Also you can ignore all the flying enemies if you keep moving. All while strafing left and right, like in a big parabola like shape. Using this method you will need to refill your ammo at least 3 times, as long as you land ever shot fired. As soon as the boss goes down for the third and final time, rush him and press X like before and spam the hell out of A. If you’re not quick enough on this part he will "bitch slap you" as the game says. As soon as you’ve completed the A button sequence, his eye ball will roll to the ground, BE QUICK TO PRESS THE X button to "Piss in his Eye" After that you will get a checkpoint phewwwww finally, and then just press X to grab a hold of the guy in the aircraft. Boom game done, Cheevo unlocks at beginning of credit role.

Hope this helps, overall INSANE isn’t too bad, however there are many parts that will cause trouble, and lots of frustration. ESPECIALLY since when you die your load time will be in upwards of 45 seconds=LAME.

Enjoy...

The Textguide are very good and helpful. LAFTA and CrustyDirtDemon has a great work achieved and great Videos but only in SD.

I "transform" the Text into HD Audio and Video.

Text + Videoguide = Insane its so easy ;)

Example:.
Battlelord (Dam) and Oktaking, the 2 most "hardest" Boss on Insane for many People. Show the Video and you will laughter ;) Its so easy to beat this 2 Bosses.

/e

Add a Video for Crash Kurs Turretsection. The Tactics is from CrustyDirtDemon

Add a Video for 2 SHoot Energy Leech Guide, The Tactics is from x360.org

Add Enforcer :)

ok so this is just my two cents to help out on the queen b*tch boss fight, when the fight starts throw a pipe bomb onto the bounce pad and explode it when it goes behind her arm pads, then fire of 3 rockets, you dont need to wait for the aimer to turn red, if your cross hair is on her they should hit.

Now immediatly run to the left where the ammo crate is and crouch as close to cover as possible, whilst here the queen shouldn't be able to hit you and for the most part won't try, she will start spawning pregnators now, just wait for the egg to land and then fire one or two rockets at it, grab some ammo then look up at the bounce pad and throw another pipe bomb, as you throw it start moving out so you can see when to detonate it, then fire off 2 or 3 rockets, and immediatly run back to the ammo crate for cover.

Just keep repeating this, remembering to kill the pregnators when they come. Also when you get down to 2 or 1 pipe bomb use that to daze the queen and use that time to also pick up more from the stash on the right.

When she gets down to about a 3rd of her health she will start spawning octabrains and will stop hiding behind her arms, and should stop spawning pregnators.

Run straight over to the right hand side now and stick to the wall to block you from the queen, throw pipe bombs at the octabrain and detonate them as it try catches it, 3 of these should be enough, once its dead run towards the ammo crate firing rockets at the queen, fill up on ammo, then run back to the right hand side ready for the the next octabrain.

Just keep repeating this and you should do it in just a few trys.

Hope this helps a few people, sorry if its a bit lenghty, first solution post.

Huge tip for Octaking! Use Invincibility cheat. See below.
(this might also work with other bosses/difficult levels, haven't tried it yet)

1. When you reach the begining of the Boss fight and the game is saved, exit to main menu
2. Enable Invincibility Cheat from Main Menu NOT Pause menu, you have to quit the game
3. Reload the save by selecting "Continue the Campaign"
4. Defeat him on the first phase in anyway you wish
5. When he entered the suicide phase and the game saved, exit to main menu
6. Now the game automatically turned the cheat off ( no need to turning it off ) reload the checkpoint
7. You should be on second phase, kill him for good ( cheats have been turned off no need to check)
8. Finish the level

Source: http://www.playstationtrophies.org/forum/duke-nukem-forever/...

I have tried it and just finished all levels on Insane, got the achievement.

All of the above solutions are great, and I used them for the most part, however, this is a very frustrating difficulty with terrible load times. Therefore, I wanted to spend as little time as possible on this. After browsing the PlayStation forum tagged below, I learned of a way to get through most of the game by tricking the game into letting you use invincibility. It's worked for me so far, and I'll post updates as I progress.

The main strategy is to move through the game using the chapter select, obviously on Damn, I'm Good. Play through the level as normal, until you get to a place where you are having trouble, or die, then follow below:

1. Quit to the main menu
2. Activate Invincible, on the cheat menu. (Instagib and Infinite Ammo also work)
3. Continue campaign
4. Play to the next checkpoint
5. When you see the Duke Nukem saving icon in the bottom right corner of the screen, pause and quit to the main menu
6. Select continue campaign (this automatically turns off any cheats)
7. Continue as normal

NEVER TURN ON CHEATS IN THE IN GAME MENU, ALWAYS USE THE MAIN MENU

If you have trouble in consecutive sections, you can use the above trick as many times in a row as you want, just make sure that when it saves the first section, back out then come back in with no cheats, then back out to turn them on again. Tedious, yes, but faster than dying 20 times in a row.

There are some tricky parts or how to go between sections on multi part levels that I'll detail below.

-Mothership Battle - Wait until the game saves as a drop ship picks up some enemies, then do steps 1-3 above. After the short "4 hours later" cut-scene, it should save. Quit to the main menu and click continue campaign.
-The Lady Killer Part 2 - Following the steps outlined above, I used the trick for the section after you are brought back to regular size, as well as a couple rooms along the way. The last room of this section has a checkpoint before it loads part 3, so feel free to use the trick if you get stuck anywhere in here.
-The Lady Killer Part 3 - Relatively easy, however the only hard part is the last fight after you climb the statue and go through the duct work. there is no checkpoint after the fight before the level ends so I think the only way to do this is legit.
-Vegas In Ruins - There's a hard part that takes up two checkpoints: when you first go into the pit with the Battlelord, and when you actually fight the Battlelord. Use invincibility if you need to, as there is a checkpoint right after killing the Battelord
-The Duke Dome Part 1 - The main part I used it on was in the construction trailer where you turn the power on. There is a lull in the action (before the pig cops flip the trailer) where it saves. There is no checkpoint between this and part 2. The trick is after you open the fence and walk forward a couple steps, the screen will fade to black. While it's doing this, press pause and you'll notice that it is saving. Go to the cheat options from the pause menu and turn it off, then unpause, and it will continue to part 2.
-Queen Bitch - After you kill her, it goes into a cutscene. Once it starts fading out, press pause and there should be a save icon. Quit out and you shouldn't even have to load it back up. If you look at Chapter Select, it should be done.
-Crash Course - Once you get on the machine gun, it saves. Do the above steps. The save point is as you leave the machine gun. Back out, and continue campaign like normal.
-Duke Burger Part 3 - The rooftop battle is hard. I used cheats in every section. Remember to turn them off at every checkpoint, go back into the game, and then quit out to turn them back on. After you get in the dropship at the end, keep your finger on the pause button. When the screen is fading, and the save icon comes up, pause and quit out. Boom. You don't even have to go back into the game, as it's already complete.
-Dam Top - I've heard this is a really hard one to get the trick done on, so I beat it legit using LAFTAs solution on this page. However, when I rappelled down to the base of the dam, and went into the door and down the stairs, I saw a save point, so I'm almost certain the trick will work here. It's a very short level so if it doesn't work, you didn't waste much time, and the Battlelord fight is actually very easy.
-The Forkstop Part 1 - Turn on cheats for the Ocktaking fight, just turn it off after the fight via the pause menu, as the checkpoint loads Part 2.
-The Forkstop Part 2 - The last fight is hard, so turn it on. There's no checkpoint between this and the end of the level. When in the elevator at the end, when it starts to save, quit the game. On the Chapter Select, it should now be complete.
-Generator Room - On the Octaking fight, after you kill him the first time, quit and turn off the cheats. Then the second part is very easy.
Final Boss:
It should save after talking to the president, and him getting killed. Do the above steps. After you get the health bar down the 3rd time and kill the boss, it should save again. This is your cue to back out and continue campaign

Guide that helped me.
https://www.playstationtrophies.org/forum/duke-nukem-forever...

****NOT REALLY A GUIDE JUST HELP WITH A BOSS****

So after a few hours of pulling my hair out fighting the octaking, i decided to look up how to defeat him some other way. I then stumbled upon a glitch for insane mode. I only used this on the octaking since he was the hardest boss for me. So heres what i did.

1. Load up Generator room on Damn, I'm Good
2. Play up until you see the loading icon before the fight begins then quit to the main menu
3. From there turn on Invincibility in the cheat menu
4. Resume game and kill him however you like
5. Once he starts pulling you towards him you will see another save icon. Quit here again.
6. The cheat will be disabled as soon as you start (feel free to check)
7. Kill the bastard again
8. Finish the level
9. Profit!!!!

Now i havent tried this on any other boss but there was a forum post on PS3trophies with people confirming it working on other bosses

http://www.playstationtrophies.org/forum/duke-nukem-forever/...

Theres the link if you want to check it out. Now i hope this will save others the frustration of the bosses on insane!