Duke Nukem Forever resurfaces ...

Cafe Society
1

In what is sure to be an announcement regarded with endless mockery, 3D Realms has finally released a teaser video showing the current state of affairs with The Greatest Vaporware Of All Time (aka Duke Nukem Forever). There’s nothing I can say about this game that hasn’t already been said over the last ten years, but as far as the video goes, color me unimpressed. It looks like a fan-made Doom 3 mod. The only thing I liked was the model of the “brainsquid”, which isn’t even colored yet. Of course, I shouldn’t judge because the game is clearly far from finished … but when wasn’t that the case?

2

“I’m looking for some alien toilet to park my bricks”? Did I hear that right? That’s their idea of “attitude” ?

3

I think 3d realms only talks about it once a year just so it does not slip from vaporware lists. If they don’t say something about it is slips from vaporware to an old canceled project that nobody gives a damn about.

4

Well, they got the name right…

5

While I’m sure we’ll get a new Duke Nukem game right after we get cold fusion, I would still prefer a new 3D platformer than a new FPS. I enjoyed the old ID 2D platformers and didn’t like Duke Nukem 3D.

6

I agree, asterion. I loved that Duke Nukem: Manhattan Project game. I’d be happy if they just stuck to something like that. That was Duke to the core, and probably a lot easier to produce.

7

Have they broken the ten year mark yet? I remember that the major 3D Realms guy, Scott someone, played on my EQ server. This is back when EQ 1 was the only mmog worth playing and bellbottoms and dinosaurs roamed the earth wearing giant lapels. I remember his guild being bummed because he had to go on hiatus to, and I shit you not:

“Finish up DNF.”

Aha. Whoa, just whoa.

8

Does anyone know these guys? Seriously, tell them to get on the ball.
They have important work to do.

9

In April, it was 10 years.

10

Ten years?! Bring me the head of John Romero!

11

Anyone have a link to everything that’s happened since production of this game first began?

All I got to say is…wow. Just wow. In an industry where taking the time to make the game friggin’ run properly is considered way too long, the idea of one game…one lousy stinkin’ game…in development for over a damn decade now (with no end in sight) is just mind-blowing.

What the hell is going on here? Don’t these guys know the cardinal rule of problematic projects…if perfecting it is going to take way too long, just throw together what you got, put it out, and make what you can off of it? Look at all the slapdash, halfway-realized, horrible flaw-filled PS2 games…Robin Hood: Defender of the Crown, King of Route 66, the first Max Payne, Mad Maestro, Frequency/Amplitude, Bloody Roar 3, Auto Modellista, Blitz: The League, and on, and on. As far as I can tell, it hasn’t hurt the console’s reputation too much.

Look, there’s a place in electronic gaming for middling, second-tier potboilers. It’s clear that DNF isn’t going to be the game of the decade, or even the game of the month. So can they just lower the bar a bit and make it a game?

12

…Unless it’ll be the first game that’ll make me shit myself and bust in my pants simultaneously.

That’s worth it.

13

Why yes, yes I do. Here’s an expurgated list courtesy of duke.a-13.net …

Relases From Other Popular Game Series:

  • Over 75 games based on the MegaMan universe, and 12 games featuring MegaMan universe character cameos.
  • Over 50 games based on the Star Wars universe.
  • Mario has appeared in 58 different video games.
  • Every MMO and expansion with the exception of Meridian 59.
  • Every Dance Dance Revolution and Bemani rhythm game
  • Every Pokemon game released outside of Japan.
  • Every Unreal, Unreal Tournament, and every game that has used any of the Unreal engines.
  • Quake 2, 3, 4, and countless games that have used their engines.
  • Every Tony Hawk and extreme sport spin-off game.
  • Daikatana began development 10 days before Duke Nukem Forever. Unfortunately, no one was made John Romero’s bitch when it hit retail shelves on May 23rd, 2000.
  • 3DRealms and Remedy bring Max Payne and its sequel from concepts to finished games, porting both to Xbox and PS2.
  • Valve released both Half-Life 1 and 2, with several expansion packs and countless mods for each.
  • Every version of Counter-Strike and Counter-Strike Source was developed.
  • Every Thief game.
  • Black Isle was formed, released seven titles and was shut down.
  • The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind and IV: Oblivion, and the entire Baldur’s Gate series.
  • Wizards of the Coast has printed six Core Sets, 30 Expansion Sets of Magic: The Gathering. If someone bought one of every single card printed since DNF was announced, now they would have a collection of approximately 101,742 cards.
  • Every installment of Metal Gear Solid released to date, as well as Ghost Babel (MGS for the Gameboy) and the Metal Gear Acid series for PSP. And it is likely that the apparent conclusion of Solid Snake’s legacy, “Guns of the Patriots,” will come out before DNF.
  • A garage full of programmers in Croatia (Croteam) developed the engine and created the game Serious Sam. Since then, there have been multiple sequels and console ports, all off a fraction of the money 3D Realms has blown on DNF’s development.
  • Every 3D Prince of Persia game.
  • Aside from Wolfenstein 3D, every single First Person Shooter based during World War II, including the entire Medal of Honor series.
  • While DNF has been in production, Blizzard Entertainment (another studio famous for delays) has released four full games: Starcraft, Diablo 2, Warcraft 3, and World of Warcraft, with expansions for three (four with Burning Crusade).
  • Bioware released Neverwinter Nights with two expansions, Star Wars: Nights of the Old Republic, and Jade Empire. All games are deep, lengthy RPGs that demand multiple playthroughs.

Video Game Systems:

  • Microsoft XBOX

  • Microsoft XBOX 360

  • Nintendo GameCube

  • Nintendo Gameboy Color

  • Gameboy Advance

  • Gameboy Advance SP

  • Gameboy Micro

  • Nintendo DS

  • Nintendo DS Lite

  • Sega Dreamcast

  • Sony PSone

  • Sony Playstation 2

  • Sony Slim Playstation 2

  • Sony PSP

  • Over 4,500 games were released for the above video game systems in the United States.

  • Over 350,000,000 consoles and handhelds were sold worldwide.

Fun Facts

Computers & Internet:

  • In 1997, the fastest consumer internet connection was a 33.6 kbps modem.
  • When DNF was announced, the fastest processor available to consumers was a 233Mhz Pentium. Since then, the clock speed of consumer processors has increased over 16 times (32 times counting dual cores), and the fabrication process has decreased from 250nm to 65nm.
  • In October 2001, Apple announced the iPod and Slashdot dismissed it as an immediate failure. Since then, there have been 5 generations of iPods, as well as the iPod Mini, iPod Shuffle, and iPod Nano with 42 million iPods sold worldwide as of 1/06.
  • Steve Jobs was still running NeXT when Duke Nukem Forever was announced.
  • Every P2P file-sharing program, including Napster, was developed.
  • In April 1997, Google, eBay, and the term “weblog” still didn’t exist.
  • Linux gained at least 10 times the popularity it had while its kernel tripled in size.
  • Mac OS switched to UNIX and became the most highly regarded general purpose operating system on the market among the computing press.
  • Microsoft released five consumer-oriented versions of Windows.
  • Netscape Navigator 4 was released, Microsoft Internet Explorer destroyed it. Netscape 6 was released on an entirely different rendering platform, Netscape dies, Mozilla foundation rises. Open-source Mozilla browsers became popular and forced Microsoft to start working on a new version of Internet Explorer.
  • Valve releases Steam and sets a new standard in digital software distribution.
  • MySpace has gone from beta to the largest social-networking site in the world (and the fourth most popular English language website).

Disasters:

  • There have been 125 tropical cyclones, 73 hurricanes in the Atlantic, 52 typhoons in the Pacific.
  • There have been over 20 death-toll producing tornado outbreaks in the United States.
  • Over 50 major earthquakes have shaken the world, and have shortened the Earth day by 2.68 microseconds.

Economy:

  • Adjusted to the inflation, the average price of gas in the United States has doubled.
  • The Euro was introduced as a new European currency.
  • Enron has filed for bankruptcy and folded. Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling have been arrested on fraud charges and subsequently indicted and convicted. In addition, they will most likely be sentenced before Forever is released.

Movies that were filmed, released in theatres, and have made it to DVD:

  • All three Star Wars prequels.
  • The entire LOTR trilogy, with extended editions.
  • Every Pixar movie aside from Toy Story.
  • Four James Bond films.
  • Every movie, animation, and video game from The Matrix series.
  • Every Marvel comics movie released.
  • Each predictable twist ending of every movie by M. Night Shyamalan.

Pop Culture:

  • Britney Spears’ entire musical career as a pop star has taken place during Duke Nukem Forever’s development.
  • Theater box office totals since the announcement are over $2.62 billion.
  • Colin Farrell’s entire movie career has also taken place during the same development.
  • The concept of Bullet Time has been developed, pioneered, and completely run in to the ground.
  • Cellular Phones ownership has become commonplace, whereas in 1997 they were viewed as luxurious expenditures.
  • The entire cult following the Family Guy! Family Guy has debuted on FOX, has been cancelled, entered syndication, has been released on DVD, redebuted on FOX, and seen the release of a feature film.
  • Six Harry Potter Books have been released, and four films produced.
  • Stephen King has written 16 novels.
  • The first episode of South Park was first aired on August 13, 1997, the same year in which DNF was announced. The show is now in the second half of its tenth season, with ‘Tsst’ being the 146 episode shown.
  • King of the Hill first aired on January 12 of the same year, around the same time prototype work was being done in the Quake Engine for DNF. It recently finished its tenth season, with 201 episodes.
  • The episode count of ‘The Simpsons’ has more then doubled since DNFs announcement. Season 8, episode 23 was the 176th episode, and aired on May fourth, 1997. The 352nd episode aired on May 1st, 2005.
  • Thirteenth seasons of Survivor.
  • The ending of Star Trek shows Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and the beginning and ending of Enterprise, plus the films First Contact, Insurrection and Nemesis.
  • Joss Whedon showed us that he truly is our master with every Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, and Firefly episode. (Oh, and the movie Serenity.)

Science & Technology:

  • The Voyager 1 spacecraft has traveled 8.8 billion miles from Earth.
  • The two Mars rovers, Spirit and Opportunity were proposed, authorized, announced, designed, launched and successfully landed upon Mars where they have been exploring the surface for over 2.5 years.
  • NASA’s Deep Impact program also went full circle.
  • The International Space Station was assembled and has been orbiting Earth for over 8 years.
  • NASA has launched 30 manned space shuttle missions, Russia has launched 17.
  • The Airbus A380 “Super Jumbo” plane was designed, built, tested, and delivered to airlines.
  • Tier One developed, built, tested, and launched SpaceShipOne, winning the Ansari X-Prize for being the first non-government organization to launch a reusable manned spacecraft into space twice within two weeks.
  • In 1997, there were only 50 million US cell phone subscribers in the United States. Today there are more than 200 million, which amounts to over 60% of the population of the USA.
  • The U.S.S. Ronald Reagan (the largest nuclear-powered aircraft carrier in the world) was in contract, built, launched, commissioned, and began active duty.
  • Costa Concordia, the biggest Italian cruise liner was designed, built and delivered by the Fincantieri shipyards, in Italy.
  • The Space Shuttle Columbia burnt up during re-entry, the entire Space Shuttle program went through a safety overhaul, and the Shuttle returned to flight.

United States Politics:

  • The Identity of Deep Throat has been revealed.
  • 40 new members have been elected to the Senate.
  • The national debt has increased by over 3 trillion dollars.
  • The national minimum wage remained $5.15.
  • Bill Clinton finished his presidential term, George W. Bush was elected and re-elected.

World Events:

  • 4 nations have acquired nuclear weapons technology.
  • 19 wars have begun.
  • 5 wars have ended.
  • Approximately 509,373,306 people have died and 661,373,082 have been born.
  • There have been 7 total solar eclipses and 8 total lunar eclipses.
  • The United Kingdom handed sovereignty of Hong Kong to the People’s Republic of China.

Things that have taken less time than Duke Nukem Forever’s Development:

Pop Culture:

  • The Beatles formed, released every single one of their albums and broke up. During this time they also toured the world several times.
  • Led Zeppelin released 7 albums, 9 singles, and toured around the world, crossing international borders 27 times (not counting mainland Europe.)

Science & Technology:

  • The Wright brothers designed and flew the first airplane.
  • The theory of General Relativity.
  • The United States’ entire program to send a man on the moon, from Kennedy’s challenge to the landing.

Wars:

  • The American War for Independence
  • The United States Civil War
  • World War I
  • World War II and the entire Manhattan Project.
  • The United State’s involvement in the Vietnam War.

Credits:
Thanks to wntd for the kickin’ CSS. Thanks to CaptainPsyko, BonzoESC, n1ck, Fish, MrBrainsample, Skroob, stabby, Josh Taylor, v0idnull, wildfalkon, Joachim Blum, and anyone else I’m missing who chipped in facts for the updated list. Also, thanks to Wikipedia nerds who spent so much time listing weird things like every game Mario is in.

14

Does anyone else think the story of the making of DNF could someday make an interesting documentary?

15

If they’re serious, they picked a horrible-ass voice actor for Duke. Sounds like a mildly annoyed game show host.

16

Actually, I thought he sounded quite a bit (if not identical) to the Duke voice in previous games. But what a stoopid line.

17

No, he doesn’t have the same grittiness to his voice.

There’s little of note to the clip, the scene after you beat the boss from DN3D on the football pitch is funnier.

18

May still be the same actor, but ten years older means he’s lost the nuances. Plus it’s a clearer audio compression.

19

A combination of cheap booze and high-voltage can do that.

Just sayin.

-Joe

20

Too bad there’s already a movie called The Neverending Story.