Duke Nukem Forever

[Bucky]

Made Gamepsy's list of "The 25 Dumbest Moments in Gaming".

Very, very interesting reading


Never Bet on the Duke

Everyone's favorite snarling, dye-jobbed, testosterone-pumped action hero is late for the party. Actually, he's beyond late; he's missing in action. The police reports have long since been filed, investigated, given up on. His wife has had him declared legally dead and moved on with her life.

And yet still people are asking: Where's Duke Nukem?

After a successful move to the world of first-person shooters with 1996's Duke Nukem 3D, people were expecting big things from 3D Realms' musclebound protagonist. After all, Duke 3D had introduced unparalleled levels of interactivity into the genre. The maps were tightly designed, the gameplay enjoyable, and the storyline light and fun to take part in. When Duke Nukem Forever was announced, speculation ran high over what the Duke team could do in the world of polygons.


What I wonder is how many "Evil Dead 5" lines will be co-opted into Duke Forever? Seven years later, the history of the title reads like a roadmap through development hell. Before development even really got underway, five employees dramatically departed to form the company that would become Ritual (although 3DR will argue that only one member of Ritual did significant work on Duke 3D, and they were all working on Prey, not DNF). 3D Realms pays id Software roughly half a million dollars to license the Quake II engine. A year later, it dumps this technology unceremoniously and pays another half million dollars for the Unreal engine. Both technologies are now on their third revisions since the game was announced. 3D Realms imposes a media blackout, surfacing only occasionally to tease us with screens or movies that become quickly outdated as we wait, and wait, and wait.

Half-Life hadn't come out when DNF development was initiated. Now its sequel, to be released later this year after a by-no-means short five years, seems poised to reinvent first-person gaming. Again. And still no Duke. Where is our erstwhile Bruce Campbell ripoff? We're not sure, but we know that the seven-plus year route he's taking to get here can't possibly be all fun in the sun.



shaithis: The folks at 3D Realms are going to be happy we're printing this. They'll say that it's simply a testament to the character's popularity, and after all this time, that people are STILL so concerned with the next Duke Nukem title. They may well be right. But there's a line -- let's call it the "Daikatana Line" -- where the general public opinion goes from amused to frustrated. We've crossed that line, I think, and the only way to recover from it is for the game to deliver an absolutely unheralded and unparalleled gaming experience. It has to make Half-Life 2 look outdated.

Will it? Only 3DR really knows.



Fragmaster: Well, let's see here: the company is named 3DRealms, but it has yet to release a game that's actually 3D. It hasn't really released anything it was the primary developer on since 1996's DOS-tacular Duke Nukem 3D: Atomic Edition, since Shadow Warrior was mostly developed by outside people. Besides DNF, 3DRealms has had at least two internal projects (Prey and Bombshell) canceled. June 15th marks the fifth anniversary of the company announcing it was moving to the Unreal engine, and this is a game that has been in development so long that people forget the company actually released screenshots of the work it did with the ORIGINAL Quake engine. I did an interview with George Broussard when I was 17 and in high school, and I asked him about Duke Nukem Forever then. I'm 23 now.

Recently, George Broussard has said something to the effect of, "The release date is and always has been 'when it's done,' period." And that's just not true. If you read through George's hilarious old .plan updates (check out this one from April 1997), he says, "Our goal is to have it out in mid 1998," for instance. And even in the Unreal engine press release, he claims, "Duke Nukem Forever is a 1999 game."

The DNF project has some very serious management issues. I don't understand why so many of its employees (especially Mr. Broussard himself) waste time posting on message boards when they should be working on the damn game. Employee turnover is part of the problem, and I know for a fact that at least one employee still listed on 3DRealms' staff page as working on DNF has been working elsewhere for months now. It's ridiculous. Hopefully we'll be able to play this game in some form one day, but who knows? Betting on the Duke is getting ever more tenuous.



Sluggo: Duke Forever has become an easy target for jokes in past years, but I really believed that there was still a chance for the game to resurface and blow us all away. After all, Half-Life 2 was MIA for more than four years, and yet after one amazing presentation we're all dying to play it. Had Duke Forever shown up this year looking just as impressive, I think all would have been forgiven and we'd all be anxiously awaiting the game's release.

But with the upcoming releases of Half-Life 2 and Doom 3, I think that climb has just become much, much steeper for 3DRealms. Even if it pulls a rabbit out of its hat and produces a solid game, it'll also have to have made some major technical advances to keep up with the ids and Valves of the world.

The really disappointing thing about Duke Forever is how much has happened since the release of Duke 3D. The now-legendary Quake and Unreal series hadn't even been launched when the Duke 3D shareware first came out. The 3D hardware acceleration boom hadn't even begun yet! Is there any legitimate reason 3DRealms hasn't been able to develop a single game since Duke 3D? There may be, but it's hard to imagine.

[Sarafan Lord]

I'm sure Irs will have some sage comments regarding this kind of speculation.

[Bucky]

Originally posted by Bucky@Jun 11 2003, 03:13 PM
Recently, George Broussard has said something to the effect of, "The release date is and always has been 'when it's done,' period." And that's just not true. If you read through George's hilarious old .plan updates (check out this one from April 1997), he says, "Our goal is to have it out in mid 1998," for instance. And even in the Unreal engine press release, he claims, "Duke Nukem Forever is a 1999 game."

Actually, I should have just highlighted this part. This is some very interesting info. That and the fact that 3drealms hasn't developed a single game since the first DN, indicates to me that we will NEVER see DNF.

Too funny

[Sarafan Lord]

If DNF is cancelled, then 3DR is going down with it. They've spent too much money on that thing, and i doubt they have enough capital to start a new project, and lord knows, they'll have to look reeeeeeal hard to find a publisher dumb enough to bankroll them.

[Carnage]

hehe, I like this one, from Broussard's .plan: a Q&A about Duke Nukem Forever, listen here lol:

Originally posted by @4/27/97 - 10:49pm

Q: Why license the Quake engine and not use your own Prey engine?
A: It is simply a buisness decsion and a matter of timing for us. The
Prey engine is in good shape and the project is marching along, but we
are skipping a generation of tech with Prey and going 100% hardware
only. By the time Prey comes out, the market will be there. In the
meantime we wanted to make a new Duke Nukem game, and our goal is to
have it out in mid 1998. The obvious choice was Quake. It is
production code that is stable and out. id Software is 5 minutes away
and we have a good relationship with them. It seems like a slam dunk
decision.

http://www.quakefinger.com/plan.asp?userid=georgeb&id=212

[Irs2k3]

I think the comments From both sides were unprofessional, But lets remember that DNF is a self funded game so its secure with 3drealms, and this game will be done 'WID', Period. its just Always People tend to make too much out of these things so Stop looking for the negative in everything. It gets really, truly, old

[*DoInThIs4FuN*]

Originally posted by irs2k3@Jun 12 2003, 05:55 PM
Stop looking for the negative in everything. It gets really, truly, old

That might b true, but it never seizes 2 amaze me that a game originally scheduled 4 release in 1998, still hasn't been released yet. And plz give people some credit where credit is due, coz this is in fact the year of 2003...

5 stinkin years, I am not waitin a minute longer 4 this game 2 b released... :bucky!:

[Bucky]

Blasting a company for making a monumental mistake like this is fun. Stop taking it personal.

I don't consider you a part of 3dRealms, so these comments are not directed at you.

[kaotik]

nice read bucky

anyway, when is the video game world going to realize that this was all an elaborate hoax by 3dr.

[*DoInThIs4FuN*]

Oh excuse me irs, did I do sumtin wrong...?