The Pregnator is an enemy in Duke Nukem Forever.
Description[]
The Pregnator is essentially a giant penis on legs, as it fornicates with females in the hive, impregnating them with Octababies. They are larger in size than the Octababies but smaller than most enemies. They will either spawn from various tunnels or other hidden areas on the map and can hatch from Pregnator Egg Pods scattered throughout the Hive and other alien infested levels (typically most eggs in a level will be empty, they spawn from a couple of them, at most).
They are one of two enemies (the other being Pig Cops) that can trigger a Quick Time Event by hopping on Duke and forcing the player to perform a Strength Tap to kill it.
Combat Analysis[]
Pregnators are fragile, but quite agile; they tend to leap around the room and latch onto Duke when close enough. If far enough away, they will attacking by throws blobs of a white, acidic substance that possibly has the function of sperm. This attack is innaccurate, but has a considerable splash radius, doing damage even if it looks like a clean miss. When performing this attack, they stay perfectly still, making them an easy target to pick off. If they are on the move, players should try to time their attacks for while they are on the ground. Their most dangerous attack is their grapple; they will leap right at Duke and attach themselves doing a considerable amount of damage per second. This can be used deliberately to save ammunition, but it can just as easily send the player back to the loading screen if they are not careful. Players will need to pull off a Strength Tap to remove and kill one.
Shotgun, Ripper, AT Laser, and AT Captain Laser are all effective in dealing with one. The M1911 Pistol does not do bonus headshot damage, but it has a decent enough base damge and is far more accurate at longer-ranges. Explosive weapons should not be used except at greater range, given it's agility.
Freeze Ray can freeze a Pregnator, but they cannot be executed; a melee or hit from another weapon will be needed to finish one off.
Pregnators will explode when hit by a single shot of the Expander. The Shrink Ray will shrink it down. This causes the Pregnator to quickly scurry away from Duke, trying to move to the opposite end of the room.
Sticking a Pregnator with a Laser Tripmine (DNF) will cause it to stay pefectly still for a bit. Eventually it will move, which triggers the mine and blows it up.
Destroying an egg with the Pregnator inside will kill the pregnator, too, before it can hatch; eggs have less health than Pregnators do (25, compared to 35).
Notes[]
- The Pregnator appears to be either a new form or a species similar to Protozoid Slimer, as in Duke Nukem 3D, it was Slimers and their Eggs that were placed near the captured women. An Area 51 science poster also featured proof that Slimers attached to the women. However, this may simply indicate that Slimers cover the women in alien biomass, while it's up to pregnators to use them for breeding. Most likely, still, that the Pregnators are relatively new creatures spawned by aliens' second Queen.
- On the off-chance a Pregnator encounters a shrunk Duke, they tend to (but not always) strafe around Duke, unsure what to do with him.
- During the level "Me, Myself, and I", the player can skip the Impregnader and deal with all the Pregnators in the room by letting them climb onto Duke, then ripping them off.
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