Duke vs. North Carolina: Blue Devils turn tide with smaller lineup to get win

Duke vs. North Carolina: Blue Devils go small, come up big

7 Reasons Why Duke-UNC Is, For Serious, The Best Rivalry In Sports

Dick Vitale is not one of them.

Image by Streeter Lecka / Getty Images

A lot of rivalries get called the best in sports, but Duke versus North Carolina — whose latest chapter kicks off tonight at 9 on ESPN — is the best, and it's not even close. Last week ESPN conducted a "best rivalry" poll during SportsCenter; Duke-UNC finished third with 21% of the vote, ahead of Bruins-Canadiens (10%) and Celtics-Lakers (18%) but behind Ohio State-Michigan (24%) and Yankees-Red Sox (27%).

All that poll revealed was that 79% of voters are misguided dummies who don't understand Duke-UNC.

What makes a rivalry great is not any number of iconic moments or big shots, or even the presence of legendary players — every rivalry has those, including Duke-UNC. What makes Duke-UNC the best rivalry in the world are these seven reasons.

1. Proximity.

You've probably heard of "Tobacco Road" and imagined a lush stretch of land upon which four prominent North Carolina universities sit amid fields of tobacco. That may have once been true, but since Wake Forest and North Carolina State (until recently) are relatively irrelevant, "Tobacco Road" more accurately refers to the stretch of North Carolina route 15-501 that spans the eight or nine miles between the city of Durham and the town of Chapel Hill.

It's hard to overstate how closely intertwined the lives of Durham and Chapel Hill residents are. Many people live in Durham and work in Chapel Hill, or vice versa. Some Duke and UNC students attend morning classes at one university, hop a bus and arrive in time for an afternoon class at the other. UNC and Duke people date each other, and sometimes they even get married and create hybrid rivalry children. You can't drive anywhere within the Triangle or even visit a supermarket or restaurant without being reminded of the rivalry by bumper stickers or wall murals. Whereas Ohio State and Michigan fans, or Yankees and Red Sox fans, typically live in pockets of solidarity separated by state boundaries, Duke and UNC people live and mingle amongst each other each and every day, which creates a sort of tangible daily tension lacking in just about every other rivalry. Duke-UNC forces itself upon North Carolinians 365 days a year whether they like sports or not.

---

View Entire List ›

Duke Nukem Forever

The saying goes, “Better late than never.” I wish this was the case for Duke Nukem Forever. Unfortunately, stale gameplay and clumsy mechanics make me wish Forever was left as an idea, rather than made into an actual game. I wanted to like it. I really did. I tried to overlook its shortcomings and enjoy a story and character that brought me back to my childhood.
As far as character is concerned, nothing has changed. Duke is still the same testosterone-raging, foul-mouthed booby-slapper that he was in the 90s. He is a gun-toting badass who treats women as objects, mocks our society, and gets off on squashing aliens. The humor in the game is great. It brought me back to my adolescent days, when I got a rush out of doing things in the game that I wasn’t supposed to do in real life—-like looking at dirty magazines. Boy, did pixelated women ever look so good.

You’d think that after 12 years in the making, the women would look a little better. OK, so the game may have been an idea for 10 of those years, and the other two were development, but the point is that a game for consoles like Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 should look somewhat better than Duke Nukem Forever does. I thought blocky graphics and choppy movements were gone with the original Xbox. I would think the “King” would get the pleasure of a graphical overhaul, but maybe they purposely left us with these graphics for a nostalgia’s sake.
I wouldn’t be so hard on the graphics if the gameplay made up for it. The simple fact is that the gameplay is stale. There is nothing quite as adrenaline-pumping as running into a room full of aliens, guns blazing, and blasting the hell out of anything in sight. It was fun in the first Duke Nukem. It was fun for the first couple of levels in Duke Nukem Forever. Then it got repetitive. I can only get so much enjoyment out of shotgunning an alien and giving it the finger afterwards. Maybe today’s shooters have spoiled me into wanting more out of a game, and maybe the hype of Duke Nukem Forever made me expect more out of the game’s action. But there wasn’t more. All you do is run in and shoot up the place, often dying in the process because of “cheap” deaths. When I say “cheap” deaths, I don’t mean any time I die I’m labeling it as cheap. I admit, some of the deaths were results of careless play on my behalf, but when I am shrunken and nowhere near an enemy yet still die when he stomps his foot on the ground, I consider that a “cheap,” poorly programmed death.

Normally, I don’t complain about dying in a video game. I enjoy the challenge. However, when it takes five minutes to reload the level, it gets a little frustrating. No, I am not exaggerating. Each load screen takes about four to five minutes, and it happens quite frequently.
Duke Nukem takes gameplay elements from the very FPS games that it mocks. It has a regenerative health bar, called ego, and the constraint of only holding 2 weapons at once. Honestly, who can only carry two weapons these days? Especially when the hero is someone as badass as Duke. Duke’s levels are fairly straightforward—-linear maps filled with charging humanoid pigs and jetpack-wearing aliens. Some of the weapons are fun, as you can find shrink rays and freeze guns or use your blunt fists to pulverize enemies. After blasting your way around a level, you occasionally encounter some small puzzles. Although small and simplistic in nature, some of them can be quite difficult to figure out and can lead to frustration. The majority of them involve finding which crate to jump on next. Once you complete the acts in each chapter, you come face-to-face with a boss of some sort. These boss fights usually require patience, as you are forced to repetitively fire rockets at it until its health depletes.

The ideas behind some of Duke’s elements are there. It could’ve been fun shrinking into miniature size and driving miniature trucks around a room. However, its clumsy handling leaves you wanting more. “Jump on this crate and climb this ladder ... Jump on the hamburger buns to avoid being burned.” The puzzles are so dull that they are annoying. What should have been considered fun breaks in action sequences seem more like hindrances that only piss you off when you die because you can’t make the jump required to reach the next platform. Have fun waiting another five minutes to reload the level.  But hey, what is five minutes of waiting when we’ve waited 12 years for this game?
I enjoy the Duke character. I love flicking off aliens and cursing them out as I blow their heads off. I love chugging beer and cracking skulls with my fists. I love getting virtual lap dances in strip clubs and admiring myself in the mirror. The story, as hokey as it is, is still entertaining and filled with crude humor. I just don’t love anything else about the game. The graphics are dated, and the gameplay is pedestrian at best. I found myself begging for the game to end, playing it only for the sake of beating it rather than enjoying it. It seemed like a chore instead of a game. If you enjoy repetitive levels and corny one-liners, then you will find enjoyment in this game. The game will definitely bring you back to the 90s, but I wish it would have left 90s gameplay and graphics.