We as gamers must have at some point in our lives played games such as Sonic the hedgehog, or Super Mario. These are classic examples of 2D platforming games. Of corse like most genres of games they evolve over time. You then get such classics as the original Spyro the dragon and crash bandicoot, still platforming games but on a 3D plane.

As with all gaming genres there is always some great titles that get lost in the past, that are stuck with no sequels or are just left to fester in a corner. So I am here today to take you back in time and show you some great platforming games that time forgot….in my opinion of course.

Duke Nukem

Everyone knows Duke Nukem from his 3D first person perspective, but believe it or not Apogee software developed two side scrolling platform shooting games before Duke Nukem 3D was even released. Both these games were developed around 1992 and 1993 and told the story of Duke Nukem saving the world against the evil Doctor Proton. Set in the way off future of 1998, Duke Nukem II was the pinnacle of the side scrolling incarnation. Gameplay wise it was your usual side scrolling platform shooter, you had several weapons to choose from and several enemies to kill. Easy really, it’s quite interesting to see how saving the world has got a damn site more complicated game play wise since the early 90′s.

Quack Shot

This was a bit of a Dark Horse for me, back when I was playing my Sega Mega drive, I got bought this game for Christmas one year. I didn’t think much of it at all when I looked at the cover. But upon playing the game I found myself hooked to it. I could not believe that playing as Donald Duck and shooting Pete clones in the face with a plunger gun could make an awesome game, but it did. People may not agree with me that this was a great game but I really did like it, and the use of plungers to climb walls was a personal favorite gameplay element of mine. Story wise it’s your simple Disney affair, Donald is hunting treasure around the world and Pete is trying to stop him, simple story but really good gameplay.

Bubsy Bopcat

Yet another plat-forming game that had been swallowed by the test of time. It stared Bubsy, a bobcat, trying to save the world by collecting Yarn Balls and trying to foil the plans of the ‘Woolies’ an alien race that has stolen the worlds yarn ball supply. A completely random story line but hey that’s how some of the best video games became popular. Interesting to note that Bubsy was getting some huge hype before it was released, being dubbed the next Sonic The Hedge hog. But when the games came out, it didn’t get much critical acclaim. I personally spent hours on my Sega Megadrive playing this game. Really good level design, and Bubsy himself was hilarious.

Pandemonium

One of the first 3D platforming games I ever played on the PlayStation 1. Set in the land of Lyr, the game followed the story of Nikkie a sorceress and Fargus, a court jester who had a talking scepter called Sid. The game’s story follows Nikki and Fargus as they go to Lancelot Castle for wizard training, they come across an advanced spell book and Nikki accidentally summons a huge green monster called Yungo. The game then follows the pair as they try to defeat the monster and save the world.

The reason why this game sticks in my mind is probably due to the fact that it was the first 3D platformer I got my hands on, and you had more than one character to select. The levels were amazing to look at, very vibrant and well thought out, sure it’s going to look a little bit dated now, but if you do find the PS1 original, pick it up.

Croc: Legend Of The Gobbos

This game came out around the same time as original Spyro the Dragon. Spyro sadly took the lime light away from Croc. A crocodile raised by the Gobbos, a race of fury ball like creatures. Again another simple story line as the evil Baron Dante invades Gobbo Island and its up to Croc to save the Gobbos from extinction. I loved all the level design in this game, and unlike Pandemonium the game was set in the 3rd person, giving you a whole new perspective. It’s good to note here that this was released before Crash Bandicoot and of corse crash then took the lime light from all 3D 3rd person platformers of the time, Spyro seemed to go down hill after the first game.

So for me, Croc was the grand daddy and should be revived.

I think it is safe to say that Platformers have eveoled in game play some what, but it just all just boils down to one thing, Saving the world.

Garv

Duke Nukem has always been a firm favourite of mine, ever since I saw my dad first freeze a pig cop then kick it into a million pieces back on Duke Nukem 3D in 1996, I was hooked. The variation of levels and bosses coupled with Duke’s bad ass attitude really made the game for me and I would spend hours watching my dad play when it first came out. When I got a bit older, around ten or eleven, I then started playing Duke 3D myself; killing aliens, watching pixelated boobs on the screen and even trying my hand at a bit of level editing on the Duke 3D level editor – I didn’t think this game could get much better.

Unfortunately, as with all games, they do eventually age and get very old and so I moved on from Duke 3D, got a PlayStation and had my weird phase of really enjoying extreme sports and wrestling games but, that aside, my heart did crave another Duke Nukem game to come round the corner. Eventually, of course, Duke Nukem the Manhattan Project and Duke Nukem Land Of The Babes both came to the PlayStation and I was really excited for all of three seconds until I found out these were nothing like the first person shooter I fell in love with – Manhattan Project was a side scroller and Land Of The Babes was a third person shooter. Both of these games were pretty poor, in my opinion, and didn’t give me the Duke Nukem fix I needed.

Being the young video gamer I was, I didn’t actually know that Duke Nukem Forever had originally been announced a year after Duke 3D’s initial release. You have to let me off here as I was only nine years old and didn’t actually get internet savvy till I was around fifteen. Having said that, my dad did hear about the announcement of Duke Nukem Forever by word of mouth at work, and so we started to keep an eye out for any other news on Duke Nukem Forever.

The announcement of Duke Nukem Forever back in 1997 came barely a year after Duke 3D was released and came from Scott Miller and George Broussard who were co-owners of 3D Realms, the developers of Duke Nukem. Their “awesome” idea was to cash in with Duke Forever and shed out a whopping $500,000 licensing fee for the game to be built on id Software’s Quake II engine. Broussard thought that this would be a brilliant money saving idea, and would also save time on building an engine from scratch, thus giving 3D Realms a leg up in the creation of the sequel. Turns out that id didn’t actually give the engine rights to 3D Realms until November 1997, already delaying the previously announced mid 1998 release. It wasn’t until E3 in 1998 that the first video was shown of Duke Forever on the Quake II engine. Critics were generally impressed but Broussard on the other hand wasn’t, while Infogrames, the publishers of Duke Nukem, were happy for the development to continue forward.

The first duke nukem forever outing on the Quake II engine

After the Quake II engine was released, Epic Games released its Unreal Engine and got 3D Realms thinking, as they were struggling a lot with the Quake II engine. By “struggling”, I mean that they couldn’t even manage to make the Nevada desert look right and so one of the programmers at 3D Realms suggested they move Duke Forever to the Unreal Engine and, after a meeting or two, 3D Realms agreed that the change was a good idea, although it also meant scrapping a load of their work and wasting Broussard’s $500,000 investment. So in June 1998 the switch was announced and Broussard himself said that this wouldn’t severely delay the game, and that Duke Nukem Forever would be in the same stage as it was on the Quake II engine within six weeks. Broussard also stated that none of the features in the video shown at E3 would be lost. One of the 3D Realms programmers, on the other hand, stated that the whole game was going to go through a full reboot, making the E3 trailer pretty useless.

It was coming to the end of 1999 and the game had now missed quite a lot of release dates, whilst still needing a stupid amount of work to be done on it. It was still deemed unplayable and a load of the weapons still remained conceptual. Broussard was getting shot down time and time again by game critics and the future of Duke Forever looked bleak. Broussard himself then saw more complex games coming out and, as he did so, he rushed to 3D Realms stating that all these elements he had seen in all sorts of video games needed to be put into Duke Nukem Forever. Broussard then thought it would be a good idea to upgrade Duke Forever to the latest Unreal Engine, so that the game could have the Unreal Tournament style multi-player for Duke Forever. It was said that Broussard had no clue what he wanted the finished game to look like, and that he basically wanted to make the best video game in the world that had every single video game element imaginable. Personally speaking, by this time I was getting sick of all of this back and forth and decided to leave the Duke Nukem Forever idea aside and go on to play more PlayStation 2.

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E3 2001 came along and Broussard decided to showcase a new Duke Nukem Forever trailer. This was the first time Duke Forever had been seen publicly for three years now, thereby missing its mid 1998 release. The trailer, however, left pretty much the whole of E3 gobsmacked as this was a new level of FPS for the time and the graphics looked outstanding. Broussard and 3D Realms appeared to be very pleased with themselves but Broussard still had no idea exactly what he wanted as the finished product. While this was all going on, the publishers for Duke Forever, Infogrames, hit bad financial problems which mean they had to close their main offices in Texas, which were then absorbed into their parent publisher company, Take-Two Interactive.

In 2003, only eighteen people from 3D Realms were working on Duke Forever and 3D Realms employees stated that Miller and Broussard still had the 1995 games mentality that only small groups of people can work on video games without a huge budget. Miller and Broussard were personally funding the project meaning that 3D Realms didn’t have the added pressure of being badgered by the publishers which, by this time, were Take-Two Interactive. This is when the fuss from Take-Two came in to play. In 2003, Take-Two’s CEO announced that Duke Forever would not be out that year and that Take-Two themselves were going to cut $5.5 million from its earnings due to Duke Forever’s lengthy development time. Broussard shot back by telling Take-Two to literally STFU and that he and Miller were investing their own time and money into the project and that Take-Two had no right to say what they had in order to cover their own backs. Later that year the CEO of Take-Two had told him that the game would have to be finished by late 2004 or the beginning of 2005.

At E3 2005 there were rumors that Duke Forever would be making an appearance. These rumors were later quashed when the appearance was cancelled and later replaced by the game Prey. In a 2006 interview with Broussard, he stated that Duke Nukem Forever’s main elements had been finished, that the final game was just being pulled together and that it was being made more fun. Later that year Broussard showed some tech demos of the game such as vehicle sequences, a few test rooms and even an in game computer that sent e-mails. Take-Two, on the other hand, were trying to push this game out as it stood. They revealed that they had regenerated the Duke Nukem Forever deal and that 3D Realms would be receiving $4.25 million instead of $6 million on the release of the game, but that they would also get a $500,000 bonus if Duke Nukem Forever was released by December 31st 2006. Broussard being Broussard later said that the 3D Realms didn’t care for the bonus and that he would never ship a game early.

As you can well imagine, some of the 3D Realms staff were pretty tired of delays because, as Duke Forever was the only 3D game most of them had been working on, it didn’t leave much to say on their resumes. Between 2005 and mid 2006, between seven and ten employees working on the Duke Nukem Forever project had left 3D Realms and, although Broussard said that this wasn’t a huge blow to the game itself, Duke Nukem Forever was still another two years away from completion.

In January and May 2007, Broussard became infatuated with the thought of completing the game and bringing it to market, and so posted some ads for game developers with what he claimed were actual screen shots from Duke Nukem Forever. The 3D Realms Duke Nukem Forever team then doubled size within a short space of time and in December 2007 a teaser trailer for Duke Nukem Forever was released – the first trailer that had been released in six years. This of course got a lot of people, including myself, excited and even though Broussard was now saying that the game would be released when it was done he did mention the fact that a lot more media would be coming out for the game over the next few months. A video was released on American TV in 2008 on a talk show, which was filmed on a handy cam as the host of said talk show played through a level of Duke Forever. Broussard later claimed that it was an out of date build and it only had basic combat elements. Duke Forever didn’t go on to make an appearance at E3 2008 because Scott Miller thought the idea would be irrelevant.

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The game was finally nearing completion but the money was drying up and, by this point, both Miller and Broussard had put $20 million of their own money into this project, and asked Take-Two for $6 million to complete the game. According to both Scott Miller and George Broussard, Take-Two agreed but then claimed that they were only going to give them $2.5 million but eventually compromised by saying that they would give $2.5 million in advance and a further $2.5 million when the game was completed. Broussard rejected this offer and suspended all development on Duke Nukem Forever in May 2009.

In May 2009, 3D Realms laid off the Duke Nukem Forever team entirely due to lack of funding and Duke Nukem Forever looked dead and buried. Take-Two said that they still owned the publishing rights to the game but refused to fund it anymore and so, throughout May 2009, a load of Duke Nukem Forever footage and screen shots were released on the internet by former 3D Realms employees as their way of saying goodbye to Duke Forever. On May 14th 2009, Take-Two then filed a lawsuit against 3D Realms for not completing Duke Nukem Forever and claimed that Take-Two gave Infogrames $12 million for the game to be completed. 3D Realms, however, denied that they had received any money as it was between Infogrames and Take-Two only.

In December 2009 Scott Miller officially announced that they had ceased all development on Duke Nukem Forever and that they were looking for some outside development help to complete the game. On June of this year the lawsuit between Take-Two and 3D Realms took place and, according to the United States Patent and Trademark Office, 3D Realms still remains the sole owner of Duke Nukem. In August of 2010, rumours began circulating that Gearbox Software, the developers of Borderlands, were picking up where 3D Realms left off and that Duke Nukem Forever may actually be resurrected, with a demo as early as the fourth quarter of this year. This was a relatively strong rumor as Gearbox were working on another Duke Nukem title called Duke Begins, which was subsequently axed during the Take-Two lawsuits.

On the 3rd of September 2010, however, the unthinkable happened. At the Penny arcade expo (PAX) in Seattle it was unveiled that Gearbox Software has now officially put the finishing touches to the development of Duke Nukem Forever. The stone cold thirteen year wait is finally over and a publicly playable demo of the final build of Duke Nukem forever was available at their PAX booth. The game is pegged down for Q1 2011 release and Randy Pitchford, the president of Gearbox Software told a crowd of excited Duke fans at PAX that they couldn’t let Duke die. So, after all these years, it is finally here.

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Will it live up to the 13 year wait? I sure as hell hope so.

Garv

Being a die hard Duke Nukem 3D fan, it’s probably no surprise that I almost physically leapt at the opportunity to attend a Duke Nukem Forever (AKA DNF) question and answer session at BAFTA headquarters a couple of nights ago. Fellow writer Jokesound and I managed to squeeze ourselves into the sell-out event to get some hands on time with DNF, ask a couple of questions and meet CEO of Gearbox Software Randy Pitchford. So how did it go? Read on and find out.

We arrived at the event a little bit early in order to meet up with some fellow gamers and get some hands-on time with the game. After over fourteen years in the making, I couldn’t wait to step back into the hardcore, egotistical world of the Duke. Like myself, most of you Duke Nukem fans out there will probably have played through the demo and will know some of the storyline already, but for those of you who are not in the know, here are the basics.

The game picks up where Duke Nukem 3D left off with a classic boss fight; fifteen years ago we left Duke triumphant, having saved the world and all of its hot chicks from the alien leviathan that was the Cyloid boss. We now return to that epic battle, which has been re-imagined for a new generation. The reboot of this battle was nailed down to a T, with the new visual style and new gameplay elements adding to the classic Duke Nukem style of the late 90′s, making for a great reboot of a really classic boss fight.

So, with a Devastator rocket launcher in hand, I was once again pitted against the Cyloid. Old-school strafe and shoot tactics made for some nostalgic FPS gameplay, especially with a classic moment that took me back to the days of Duke Nukem 3D after I ran out of ammo and a sudden moment of panic set in after I realised I was completely vulnerable. After that happened, I knew that this was going to be a game that I was going to fall in love with. In short? Duke’s back baby, and I’m betting on him.

After the Cyloid battle, I found myself treated to some driving gameplay, something that was previously an alien concept to the Duke Nukem franchise, but luckily it acts a lot like what you’d expect, taking you out into the desert wilderness. After running over aliens I eventually ran out of Gas. It was then time to squash more pig cops, and at this point I was armed with the shrink ray, so squash was definitely the right word to use.

Despite my brief time with the game, I’ve really come to think that maybe the long awaited Duke Nukem Forever is going to live up to all the media hype, and I can’t wait until it finally reaches the shelves on June 10th this year (hopefully not in another fourteen years!).

After spending time with the Duke, we were ushered into Q&A session with Gearbox CEO, Randy Pitchford. To kick things off Randy gave us a brief insight into his back-story, explaining how he was always into game design, creating games in his spare time while he was studying law at uni. Packing in his law degree (and a part-time job as a magician) to pursue game design, he was offered 2 jobs; one was for Lucasarts designing a Star Wars game and another for Apogee Software (who later renamed themselves as 3D Realms). Thankfully, he took the job with Apogee and began working on Duke Nukem 3D. Hearing how Randy became involved in the creation of Duke 3D shed a lot of light on why Randy was the perfect choice to work on Duke Nukem Forever, to take over the franchise and to finally make DNF playable to the masses

Randy then went on to say that the gaming world needs Duke Nukem. He said, and I quote, “a world without Duke Nukem Sucks!”. Duke is a kick-ass icon in today’s increasingly politically correct society, and having DNF finally come out is something that the gaming world drastically needs. Randy went onto say that all heroes these days are ‘pussies’ who are too emotive and deep, whereas Duke is just to awesome for that, and he’s just the kind of guy who doesn’t give a shit about what he does just as long as he looks cool doing it.

He explained that shooters these days are just glorified reaction based games where you see someone and see who can pull the trigger the fastest. Games back in the 90′s like Duke Nukem 3D mixed the genres up more, combining adventure with puzzle and shooting to make a game that immerses the player.

Randy was then asked how he thought the press would react to DNF. He said that the game as a whole would be a challenge for gamers, considering the length of time it has been in development, but what DNF really needs is that piece of nostalgia that keeps Duke iconic, but mixed with new game elements.

It was then asked if Duke Nukem had a sidekick who or what would it be? Randy’s first reaction was to say that Duke doesn’t need a side kick, but he went on to say that the idea has been toyed, with but was soon chucked under a bus. He told us that the initial ideas for Duke’s sidekick involved a homosexual robot who inevitably sacrificed himself to save the world. C3PO and the Duke? Who’d have thought it! He also went onto say that the story of Duke’s origin hasn’t been touched on and it may be used in the future.

The games multiplayer element was briefly mentioned. The multiplayer has been in development since 2009 and Randy explained that the fun behind the Duke Nukem multiplayer is the fact that it can be tactical and varied with many different gadgets and weapons at the players disposal. He then explained that multiplayer in recent games isn’t inviting enough to new players, citing Call Of Duty as an example as the more you play the more skills you unlock and unstoppable you become. He didn’t want DNF to have this, so instead he briefly touched on the unlockable costume additions you can unlock to personalise your Duke, like extravagant hats and accessories.

Another question asked how long the credits were, and Randy answered that they are extremely long, but luckily there is a skip button. He was also asked if DNF will be a one-off, and he left us with the thought that this is a franchise he will definitely be keeping alive, so Duke Nukem Forever is just the beginning.

After my preview of the game and the Q&A session, I can safely say that Duke Nukem Forever is Duke at its finest. Any doubts about the game have been shot with a freeze ray and shattered by the mighty boot of the Duke.

If you would like to check out Jokesound’s coverage of the event, head over to Gaminglives.com and check it out, as it’ll be up there sometime soon.

Garv

I actually met Duke Nukem!

]]> http://www.plusxp.com/2011/05/dnf-qa/feed/ 0 http://www.plusxp.com/2011/03/hail-to-the-sexism-baby/ http://www.plusxp.com/2011/03/hail-to-the-sexism-baby/#comments Thu, 31 Mar 2011 01:00:09 +0000 PlusXP http://www.plusxp.com/?p=6656

Something that has become a bigger and more pressing issue in the world of games recently is the portrayal of women. After the “dickwolves” saga Penny-Arcade went through and some of my favoured sites like GJAIF harping on and on about similar issues, I found it increasingly difficult to keep silent on the issue. With the newest ‘controversy’ arising recently, I felt that even though I’m about as qualified to talk about this as I am to pilot a submarine, I can keep quiet no longer.

Duke Nukem Forever was recently revealed to have a “Capture the Babe” mode, which is nothing more than the standard capture the flag variant of multiplayer, but with a twist: Occasionally the ‘babe’ Duke is meant to capture will freak out, and can only be remedied by Duke giving her a slap to calm her down. Unsurprisingly, people are jumping up from all corners with their opinions and I’m no different in this regard, I must admit. You want to know what I think?

I think it’s a load of bollocks, and I’ll explain why after the jump.

SEXIST

For a start, I’m honestly starting to wonder if a lot of people who have major issue with what Duke Nukem Forever is doing are even aware of what the game is like, or if they’re just trying to find issue with it because they can. Duke Nukem is a man who is so macho he makes men in the UFC look like they’re in High School Musical, he spouts ridiculous one liners and is meant to be a parody of action heroes. Granted, he’s been gone for twelve years, but the memories of the things you could do in Duke Nukem 3D mean that a lot of the things that come up in Forever shouldn’t be a shock to anyone in the know. I didn’t even bat an eyelid when some journalists were taken to a strip club to see the game previewed; I knew from hearsay that 3D featured strippers and while it may not have been the most sensitive thing for them to do, it’s still something that fits Duke like a red tank-top. Footage of the beginning of Forever reveals Duke being serviced by twins while playing a video game of his exploits, and the whole plot centres around aliens getting rid of Earth’s women to the point Duke intervenes. You know what I did when I found out about having to slap women in ‘Capture the Babe’?

I laughed. I sat in the office next door to the studio before doing a radio show, called my friend over who was appearing on the show with me and made her read the news piece. We even talked about it on air a little. While some people are about to fire up their torches and pitchforks and call up Angry Mobs Inc., I will fully admit that I found it funny. Does that make me sexist? I’d argue that while it probably doesn’t show me in the best favour I can at least understand exactly why it’d happen in the game and appreciate exactly why it fits into the game. To me, it’s not something that stands out and it’s not something that should even stand out to anyone or be such a source of drama. Even though it being a pat on the bottom and not a slap around the chops that some people seem to think it is hasn’t stopped some people complaining and freaking out over it.

Duke readied his fists. This was going to be a long night.

Why are people getting so shocked that Duke Nukem Forever contains sexism and misogyny? That’s like getting shocked that you have to turn your console on before playing a game. I’d be more surprised if I discovered I had to press start to continue.

I know for a fact that women are a minority in gaming, and they’re made to feel like they are; whether through games that constantly feature gritty, gruff and macho protagonists, with female characters that seem to be constantly shoehorned in and written as an afterthought and the way that the worst of humanity act whenever a girl appears online in a video game. I’m constantly disappointed by the fact that women are made to feel like they’re not allowed to express themselves or talk during online games without being harassed, but short of finding a way to cull anyone who ends up on fatuglyorslutty.com I know I’m not in a position to change anything. It’s hard to do so; Ben Paddon of GJAIF is an active feminist and advocate of more women in the industry, and while I enjoy his site greatly, it was very difficult for him to make his comments on feminism and the treatment of women in the industry captivating enough and he ended up with a lot of negative backlash for trying to force the issue too much. It’s tough because a lot of people like to act bigger on the internet than they do in real life (myself included) and it only serves to exacerbate the issue. The ultimate problem I have is that while I support those who want to bring attention to these problems, I don’t always support how they try to do so.

Take the Penny-Arcade ‘Dickwolves’ saga. For those not in the know, in August 2010, Penny Arcade published a comic that involved a protagonist who refused to save a slave who is “raped to sleep every night by dickwolves” because he’d already saved enough slaves to finish the quest. What was something that was meant to poke fun at the whole inherent evil of those quests in games was something that ended up being a massive controversy that descended into two extreme sides; those who decided Penny-Arcade were ‘Rape-Apologists’ and those who defended PA to the point that they sent dissenters death threats and threatened to rape women who felt they had a legitimate grievance with the comic. What did anyone gain? As far as I can see it, all it did was show up how inherently stupid the controversy was that it became so extreme that it ended up becoming more sick and twisted than the comic itself.

A better example would be the incident that caused GJAIF to go on its feminist crusade. David Gaffe commented on Sony’s NGP after it was announced by comparing it to ‘pussy’. Some people, quite fairly took issue with that and he apologised. Jim Sterling, a man whose writing in the gaming world I am a big fan of claimed that the apology was unnecessary and as a result was trolled by a feminist to the point where he bit back. Suddenly, people were trying to get Jim fired and even Felicia Day commented on his response that the woman trolling was a “feminazi bitch” as they perceived him to be sexist and out of line. People sprang out of their seats to be the next in line to criticise him for being a sexist and making the gaming industry worse for women, and all of those people blindly ignored the fact that the troll who caused it was being incredibly homophobic. While I understand, and to some extent I’m pleased that so many people are willing to help make games a better place for women, in their blind fury to over-react and condemn perceived sexism they allowed homophobia to seem perfectly acceptable. It was a case of no steps forward, and tumbling down the staircase trying to walk backwards.

That’s not forgetting the fact that now people are allegedly taking issue with the fact that there are female protagonists in Gears of War 3, a series that was previously so manly that it ate lumberjacks and shat bulls. The issue wasn’t that the portrayal of women was offensive, but because they could be chainsawed like every other character and this was apparently sexist or something for encouraging violence to women? What? It’s essentially going “Well, we want women to be more equal in games, except in this case, in this case, in this case…”

Because sawing this gentle flower in half is the most sexist thing you can ever do....EVER!

Being selective in your arguments makes things worse. If you want women to be equal in games, then don’t let their gender mean they’re more or less deserving of violence in a game where violence is the soup du jour. Ben Walke of Gaminglives recently said to me that “Gender specifics have no place in-game design, characters should be thought of as neutral, they don’t eat, live or breath”, and I can’t think of a better way to summarise what I’m trying to say than that.

Randy Pitchford has gone on record to say that Duke Nukem Forever satirizes men and the way they treat women more than it in any way negatively portrays the ‘fairer sex’. He’s also encouraged feminists to use Duke Nukem Forever as a way to get their voices heard more clearly and help make games more equal. You’re more than free to do that, but the whole point that I’m trying to make is that if you’re trying to help makes games more equal, why use Duke as your primary argument, or an argument at all? Why not those games where the women are purposely scantily clad, where they’re literally there for the men to ogle over, where they’re such shockingly cliché stereotypes you can’t cope? There are far better ways to argue equality in games than to use a game and a character that is such a blatant parody and so purposely over the top that trying to take it even a little bit seriously is doing it wrong.

I know so many amazing writers and great people in the gaming industry who are women and who don’t have to keep constantly pointing that out to get any credibility; Guitargirl on this site (who as a matter of fact has written something on this subject in the past and can be accessed by clicking these here brackets), the writers on Gaminglives, the creators of TheAverageGamer and Death By Robots, the producer and other members of GinxTV and a bunch more people I could mention. Surely soon we can get to a point with the games we play as well where the gender of the person doesn’t matter, but the quality of their output does. We should care about game characters not because of the quality of their writing, voice acting and portrayal, not just because they might have tits.

The perfect battle attire; as modelled by Soul Calibur IV

I think I may have lost a bit of steam, and I fully recognise that maybe what I say doesn’t make a difference, but I’ll end with one last thing before the angry mob someone ordered seven paragraphs ago arrives to rip me apart:

While we have to do everything we can to help make gaming more available to every one of all races, sexualities and genders, there’s always going to be something that you disagree with and you’ll want to change. When you do that though, there’s one thing to keep in mind. If we take even the silliest and most ridiculous game and try to rip it apart for our cause, we’re forgetting why these things exist.

Never forget gaming is about fun.

Edward Price, AKA Jokesound.

So we’re approaching the end of the first month of 2011, and in the grand tradition of each year feeling identical to the last (what with months being a concept of time and all that) January still feels as cold and miserable as December 2010.
But that’s not really important, what’s important is what this year could bring us in the world of videogames. This could potentially be one of the more important years in gaming for a while. In 2011, could we see…

The End of the Gaming Drought?

The games come flooding back!

Every year there is a unique phenomenon where for several months, the release schedule dries up and we’re left parched from the beginning of the summer until the holiday season when developers decide to simultaneously release all their blockbusters and expect us to buy them all. However in the last couple of years a lot of games are being moved from the holiday season to the early months of the year after, which is also giving us more polished experiences as a result. Last year was a bit of a mess with the solution being to avoid the holiday squash by simply moving it to January until March instead. This year it’s been mostly avoided, with all the blockbuster games slowly trickling out across the year, so while the holiday rush will still be around (and when won’t it?) we should have to wait less time between each blockbuster game this time round.

Kinect for the Hardcore?

I think I actually heard the scoffs as I typed that. This one is a damn sight harder to argue as an idea, but think about it this way: Whenever new technology comes about, especially in gaming, the majority of the early stuff can be considered a tech-demo. Think about to the release of the DS and the early games that forced rudimentary understandings of touch screen gameplay on you. Think about the Wii. Kinect and Move are no different in that both are showcases of new technology which will start off lame and unrepresentative of their true power, then evolve slowly into unforgettable experiences only possible with that technology. However, Move already has hardcore games (though for the sake of argument forget that some are just previously released hardcore games with motion controls added) so out of the two, Kinect is the one most lacking in something that’ll really hook the hardcore gamer. I’d be incredibly surprised if at E3 Microsoft didn’t suddenly reveal a set of games that’ll be more essential playing for the hardcore than the casual gamer. After all, it’s not just about hooking the audience, it’s about keeping them in, and it’d be a possible death toll if Microsoft didn’t have their best people working on something already. I mean, button-less gameplay is something that seems alien and scary, but just like it took time for the DS and Wii to have their features used for good rather than evil, the same will be true for Kinect.

3D Gaming’s Fate Decided?

Another technology yet to prove itself is 3D in gaming, and while Sony have spent the last year telling everyone it’s totally worth splashing out ridiculous amounts of money on a 3DTV, glasses and relevant games, Nintendo are telling everyone to buy the no-glasses-needed 3DS. I get the feeling that no matter what happens companies will try and force 3D on everyone, but whether it proves to be a success in the short term or not will be decided by how the 3DS and 3D gaming on the PS3 fare, and whether it’s really an innovative new way to play games or another Virtual Boy in waiting.

iPhone Gaming Market to be deservedly recognised?

Despite not owning an iPhone or an iPod touch (I like buttons, okay?), even I can name several games that people owning the technology consider must haves. While it started building up last year, I think this year is going to be the year when many gaming sites start really embracing iPhone games in the same league as the other portable consoles. After all, Apple earned more money from the portable gaming market than Sony did, and there’s a reason Nintendo consider Apple their main rivals, not Sony. This year will hopefully see the world of iPhone games taken a lot more seriously in games, and this’ll also help give light to more indie developers and grant some more success to some truly innovative ideas.

The Year of the Indie?

In this case, I don’t mean the annoying bands that sound exactly the same or that annoying kind of indie, I mean the Independent Developers that sometimes come along with incredible ideas or the most amazing games. Take Super Meat Boy last year and the attention that started surrounding it, and it’s well deserved. It’s one of the greatest games of last year, and the attention it got is a good precedent for the future. This year could see more independent games that deserve it, like Super Meat Boy, get more attention and the limelight they deserve. That goes for the aforementioned iPhone market, too.

Shooters becoming fun again?

I’ve made it clear many times that I find a lot of current shooters very samey and all filled with the same faux-attempt at realism and cover-based shooting that while it gets the job done and can be fun, doesn’t hold much interest for me any more. Which is why I have done and continue to champion Bulletstorm as the game that is going to revitalise the way we shoot the living heck out of people in videogames. It’s ballistic, it’s bombastic, and it’s totally fucking nuts. Even if it isn’t the greatest thing ever, it’s going to change the way some future shooters are played and will bring the fun back.
Cementing that return of fun in shooting comes Duke Nukem Forever. We’ve waited thirteen long years for Duke to come along again and his ironically over the top macho mannerisms and propensity for one-liners have come full circle to the point where they’re now a refreshing image to see in the realm of shooters, and the game looks to do what Bulletstorm is trying to do – bring back silly dialogue, over the top and nonsensical stories and concentrate on the thing that matters most – killing things in the most silly and fun ways imaginable. Bank on those two games being big hitters, and if not, then may god have mercy on the shooter.

Out with the old, in with the old?

The music genre is on it’s way out. There’s no easy way to say it but the way the genre got milked meant that it soon became the old and is now in the latter stages of it’s lifespan. I hate to consider it because I’ve only recently gotten into it and I’m finding it to be a heck of a lot of fun, but the amount of Guitar Hero and Rock Band games that came out in the last few years borders on the obscene. Sadly, Guitar Hero’s not been doing well enough for itself and we’re seeing it slowly peter out, and Rock Band 3 should have been the swan song the genre deserved, but has sold poorly, unfortunately.
Couple that in with the Call of Duty franchise, which last year suffered a terrible blow when the majority of Infinity Ward walked out in circumstances we’ll not truly know until the long and expensive court trial where the money could go to making better games, arguably. Sure, Treyarch are holding onto the mantle now, but it’s hard to believe that Modern Warfare 3 won’t be anything other than a cash-in and a 6/10 game at best at the moment, and the way Activision are milking Call of Duty for all it’s worth while the money’s still good? I expect this year to be the last that the Call of Duty franchise hits it big.
To avoid ending on a sour note, though, we could see the revitalisation of several other franchises propping up in their stead. Duke Nukem’s back, and with that is it’s own franchise, for example. The success of Dead Space 2 could easily see the franchise hit back in the way EA hoped from the first. E3 alone will probably spawn the return of several franchises that have been absent for a few years, and we can always hope some of those will be games we’re dying waiting for. Personally, just give me Timesplitters 4 and I’ll be happy enough.

What about you fine people? It’s all well and good me making my predictions about the year ahead, but what do you think?

Besides, if 2011 doesn’t deliver, there’s always next year…

-Jokesound

A while back I did a full history of how Duke Nukem forever came about and its 13 year struggle to finally get a confirmed release date. Even though I was the ripe old age of 10 years old back in 1998 when Duke Nukem Forever (DNF) was first announced, I was pretty excited for a 10-year-old, mainly because I loved watching my Dad play the game and make levels with the level editor.

But now it has been confirmed that DNF will finally be coming out for PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 on May 3rd for America and May 6th in the UK and Europe this year and I can’t be more excited. I can hear the cries of ‘But Garv? Wouldn’t this just be a dated sequel as FPS games have come so far in 13 years?’ I say no it won’t, and here is why.

Ah Ha! Some Healthy Toilet Water!

The reason why I fell in love with FPS games in the first place was the simple fact you had a gun, and you could shoot anything that moved. Granted I was more of a watcher of FPS games back when I was 10, due to the fact I was plenty happy playing Sonic The Hedgehog. But hey, the very fact that you could shoot things in the face from a first person perspective was kinda cool. Now reading that back that may seem a little psychotic but there is something more immersive about the first person perspective that I really love. I could go on and on about how cool first person is but that would stray off the point somewhat.

Duke Nukem 3D had the awesomeness of the FPS genre of the time, and it also had a bad ass attitude. With its tongue in cheek hardcore style, Duke Nukem 3D wasn’t anything like anyone had seen before really. Yes it was an FPS game but some who it managed to create its own sub genre at the same time. Whereas you would label Call Of Duty a war shooter, or Halo a Sci-Fi shooter, Duke Nukem was something else, it had a bit of Sci Fi, but also felt like it was set in the present time, it then had comedy, action, gore, the kitchen sink. It was something else. Other games like Serious Sam tried to rival that insane gameplay, but they were no match for Duke.

So to say that Duke Nukem Forever would be a dated sequel would be underestimating the potential this game has. Name me a game that has used Shrink Rays and Freeze Guns and has been successful. Name me a game where the lead protagonist has no compassion for anything and has such a big ego everyone else would look as inferior to him, but is somehow still a likeable guy. Also name me a game that has so much obscenity in it that it would probably give your granny a heart attack but then still leave you wanting more. Duke 3D had all these things and judging by the trailers and info, Duke Nukem Forever is knocking it up ten fold.

Duke Nukem has always been its own game, not a clone or anything. It also has what I like to call its own subgenre. For me this game is going to be insane and an FPS I have been waiting for years for.

The classic FPS style is back baby, and I will be kicking ass and chewing bubble gum. Until I run out.

Garv

When it comes down to it there is always one genre I swear by when gaming wise. That genre is the first person shooter! Some people like myself adore them and cannot get enough, others either can’t get on with them or think strange things like, shooting games require no skill and blah blah blah, eventually remarks like that sound like white noise to me.

My love for the genre started back around 1994. I would have been about 6 years old. Yeah at the age of 6 I was murdering Nazi’s and zombie’s a plenty! What game am I talking about? Wolfenstein 3D of course.

This game was created by, who I love to call, the gods of FPS gaming, Id, they created a game which by today’s standards is very simple. Point, shoot and walk along.

As well as killing you could collect treasure and watch your score go up. Wolfenstein was an innovation in gaming because it was the first game from a first person perspective. But, let’s be honest here, the sound effects are still to this day truly amazing. Just the sound of ‘Guten Tag!’ coming from the mouth of a huge blond German guy with two machine guns who goes by the name of Hanns still cracks me up. Did I also mention Robot Hitler? This game still is awesome!

Then things for the FPS genre evolved slightly. With id spewing out another FPS gem called Doom! Now Doom for me is the FPS that brings back the most memories. To be honest my Dad kicks butt on it and has done for lord knows how long. I used to spend days trying to kill him over a LAN game but still to this day it can’t be done really!

Anyway Doom is where Id took it all to the next level with more guns, better sounds and of course the all important enemies! Doom offered us the knuckle dusters, chainsaw, pistol, shotgun, machine gun, rocket launcher and BFG. Doom 2 offered us all those with the addition of the double barrel shotgun. But the big change was the amount of enemies and variety of them. I mean who would blame id, they had hell demons from Mars to muck around with, and what they came out with was awesome. The story line was pretty engrossing too, but the beauty of the game still lies in the simple point, shoot run away design.

Then there was a couple of years of me playing Doom 2. Until I came across something which was new, grimy, dirty, had an attitude so awesome you could not help nut smile and at one point had the main character literally ripping a space aliens head of and shitting down its neck.

I’m talking about Duke Nukem 3D. One of the best innovations in FPS gaming. It had a brilliant array of weapons for people to choose from, but not just your bog standard ballistics it also had shrink rays and freeze guns, which, to be honest I had hours of fun with. The squelching noises when you blew up an alien were fantastic and the ridiculousness of some of the ballistic weapons just made you want to cry tears of joy! To this day I still take much pleasure in killing a horde of Pig cops with a akimbo rocket launchers, which also fired like five rockets at a time. OWNAGE!

Duke himself was a great character. I have said this before in a previous article and I will say it again. If a guy has the attitude to say ‘this sucks’, or ‘damn’ after he has been blown to kingdom come he must be cool.

The mixture of enemies such as octo-brains and pig cops just to name a couple was great and the whole concept of aliens stealing women just to piss off a guy like duke, simple but damn effective.

Whilst the craziness of Duke 3D was happening on the side another FPS was grabbing my attention. Earlier I said id were the gods of FPS, so there is no wonder that I would not skimp out on the Quake phenomenon!

I could go on for several centuries talking about Quake but the one that really got me and I still mark as one of the best FPS games is Quake 2. To this day I think the game the graphics, the attention to detail were fantastic for its time and still held the great, kill everything in sight game play which I love. Quake was the next generation from Doom so it still had some of Dooms’ characteristics. It still had the BFG and the double barrel shot-gun, but it brought to the table one of the single best weapons in FPS gaming. The Nail Gun! Shredding enemies apart this was pretty much and unstoppable giant of a weapon. Get in the firing line of this beasty and you would not last three seconds!

After Duke and quake I was at a bit of a loss for new FPS games. I tried Unreal Tournament at my mates house. Blinking awesome game I must say! I ended up owning UT 2004.

But this was kind of the end of my PC FPS gaming, I now turned to consoles and it was my mate over the road who had Halo: Combat Evolved. For me this game had it all, vehicles, good variety of guns. Everything! This is what kicked off indeed my love for Xbox and my love for console FPS games. The whole Halo series I can play time and time again and not tire of it. At the moment this is the pinnacle of the FPS gaming genre to me.

OK, I can hear you now, your screaming at the screen shouting WHAT ABOUT CALL OF DUTY YOU NOOB!!!! or words to that effect. To me Call of Duty is good and I have played it but it’s just the whole war thing that gets to me. Zombies and monsters I can quite happily kill no problem. Zombie Nazi’s on Call Of Duty: World At War. Awesome can do that for hours, but for me I am not too comfortable playing it as it seems to real. For me FPS games have to be unreal and that’s where you get the most wacky and awesome ideas.

Garv!

Final note, Wow I was a pleasant games journalist back then….

We as gamers must have at some point in our lives played games such as Sonic the hedgehog, or Super Mario. These are classic examples of 2D platforming games. Of corse like most genres of games they evolve over time. You then get such classics as the original Spyro the dragon and crash bandicoot, still platforming games but on a 3D plane.

As with all gaming genres there is always some great titles that get lost in the past, that are stuck with no sequels or are just left to fester in a corner. So I am here today to take you back in time and show you some great platforming games that time forgot….in my opinion of course.

Duke Nukem

Everyone knows Duke Nukem from his 3D first person perspective, but believe it or not Apogee software developed two side scrolling platform shooting games before Duke Nukem 3D was even released. Both these games were developed around 1992 and 1993 and told the story of Duke Nukem saving the world against the evil Doctor Proton. Set in the way off future of 1998, Duke Nukem II was the pinnacle of the side scrolling incarnation. Gameplay wise it was your usual side scrolling platform shooter, you had several weapons to choose from and several enemies to kill. Easy really, it’s quite interesting to see how saving the world has got a damn site more complicated game play wise since the early 90′s.

Quack Shot

This was a bit of a Dark Horse for me, back when I was playing my Sega Mega drive, I got bought this game for Christmas one year. I didn’t think much of it at all when I looked at the cover. But upon playing the game I found myself hooked to it. I could not believe that playing as Donald Duck and shooting Pete clones in the face with a plunger gun could make an awesome game, but it did. People may not agree with me that this was a great game but I really did like it, and the use of plungers to climb walls was a personal favorite gameplay element of mine. Story wise it’s your simple Disney affair, Donald is hunting treasure around the world and Pete is trying to stop him, simple story but really good gameplay.

Bubsy Bopcat

Yet another plat-forming game that had been swallowed by the test of time. It stared Bubsy, a bobcat, trying to save the world by collecting Yarn Balls and trying to foil the plans of the ‘Woolies’ an alien race that has stolen the worlds yarn ball supply. A completely random story line but hey that’s how some of the best video games became popular. Interesting to note that Bubsy was getting some huge hype before it was released, being dubbed the next Sonic The Hedge hog. But when the games came out, it didn’t get much critical acclaim. I personally spent hours on my Sega Megadrive playing this game. Really good level design, and Bubsy himself was hilarious.

Pandemonium

One of the first 3D platforming games I ever played on the PlayStation 1. Set in the land of Lyr, the game followed the story of Nikkie a sorceress and Fargus, a court jester who had a talking scepter called Sid. The game’s story follows Nikki and Fargus as they go to Lancelot Castle for wizard training, they come across an advanced spell book and Nikki accidentally summons a huge green monster called Yungo. The game then follows the pair as they try to defeat the monster and save the world.

The reason why this game sticks in my mind is probably due to the fact that it was the first 3D platformer I got my hands on, and you had more than one character to select. The levels were amazing to look at, very vibrant and well thought out, sure it’s going to look a little bit dated now, but if you do find the PS1 original, pick it up.

Croc: Legend Of The Gobbos

This game came out around the same time as original Spyro the Dragon. Spyro sadly took the lime light away from Croc. A crocodile raised by the Gobbos, a race of fury ball like creatures. Again another simple story line as the evil Baron Dante invades Gobbo Island and its up to Croc to save the Gobbos from extinction. I loved all the level design in this game, and unlike Pandemonium the game was set in the 3rd person, giving you a whole new perspective. It’s good to note here that this was released before Crash Bandicoot and of corse crash then took the lime light from all 3D 3rd person platformers of the time, Spyro seemed to go down hill after the first game.

So for me, Croc was the grand daddy and should be revived.

I think it is safe to say that Platformers have eveoled in game play some what, but it just all just boils down to one thing, Saving the world.

Garv

Duke Nukem has always been a firm favourite of mine, ever since I saw my dad first freeze a pig cop then kick it into a million pieces back on Duke Nukem 3D in 1996, I was hooked. The variation of levels and bosses coupled with Duke’s bad ass attitude really made the game for me and I would spend hours watching my dad play when it first came out. When I got a bit older, around ten or eleven, I then started playing Duke 3D myself; killing aliens, watching pixelated boobs on the screen and even trying my hand at a bit of level editing on the Duke 3D level editor – I didn’t think this game could get much better.

Unfortunately, as with all games, they do eventually age and get very old and so I moved on from Duke 3D, got a PlayStation and had my weird phase of really enjoying extreme sports and wrestling games but, that aside, my heart did crave another Duke Nukem game to come round the corner. Eventually, of course, Duke Nukem the Manhattan Project and Duke Nukem Land Of The Babes both came to the PlayStation and I was really excited for all of three seconds until I found out these were nothing like the first person shooter I fell in love with – Manhattan Project was a side scroller and Land Of The Babes was a third person shooter. Both of these games were pretty poor, in my opinion, and didn’t give me the Duke Nukem fix I needed.

Being the young video gamer I was, I didn’t actually know that Duke Nukem Forever had originally been announced a year after Duke 3D’s initial release. You have to let me off here as I was only nine years old and didn’t actually get internet savvy till I was around fifteen. Having said that, my dad did hear about the announcement of Duke Nukem Forever by word of mouth at work, and so we started to keep an eye out for any other news on Duke Nukem Forever.

The announcement of Duke Nukem Forever back in 1997 came barely a year after Duke 3D was released and came from Scott Miller and George Broussard who were co-owners of 3D Realms, the developers of Duke Nukem. Their “awesome” idea was to cash in with Duke Forever and shed out a whopping $500,000 licensing fee for the game to be built on id Software’s Quake II engine. Broussard thought that this would be a brilliant money saving idea, and would also save time on building an engine from scratch, thus giving 3D Realms a leg up in the creation of the sequel. Turns out that id didn’t actually give the engine rights to 3D Realms until November 1997, already delaying the previously announced mid 1998 release. It wasn’t until E3 in 1998 that the first video was shown of Duke Forever on the Quake II engine. Critics were generally impressed but Broussard on the other hand wasn’t, while Infogrames, the publishers of Duke Nukem, were happy for the development to continue forward.

The first duke nukem forever outing on the Quake II engine

After the Quake II engine was released, Epic Games released its Unreal Engine and got 3D Realms thinking, as they were struggling a lot with the Quake II engine. By “struggling”, I mean that they couldn’t even manage to make the Nevada desert look right and so one of the programmers at 3D Realms suggested they move Duke Forever to the Unreal Engine and, after a meeting or two, 3D Realms agreed that the change was a good idea, although it also meant scrapping a load of their work and wasting Broussard’s $500,000 investment. So in June 1998 the switch was announced and Broussard himself said that this wouldn’t severely delay the game, and that Duke Nukem Forever would be in the same stage as it was on the Quake II engine within six weeks. Broussard also stated that none of the features in the video shown at E3 would be lost. One of the 3D Realms programmers, on the other hand, stated that the whole game was going to go through a full reboot, making the E3 trailer pretty useless.

It was coming to the end of 1999 and the game had now missed quite a lot of release dates, whilst still needing a stupid amount of work to be done on it. It was still deemed unplayable and a load of the weapons still remained conceptual. Broussard was getting shot down time and time again by game critics and the future of Duke Forever looked bleak. Broussard himself then saw more complex games coming out and, as he did so, he rushed to 3D Realms stating that all these elements he had seen in all sorts of video games needed to be put into Duke Nukem Forever. Broussard then thought it would be a good idea to upgrade Duke Forever to the latest Unreal Engine, so that the game could have the Unreal Tournament style multi-player for Duke Forever. It was said that Broussard had no clue what he wanted the finished game to look like, and that he basically wanted to make the best video game in the world that had every single video game element imaginable. Personally speaking, by this time I was getting sick of all of this back and forth and decided to leave the Duke Nukem Forever idea aside and go on to play more PlayStation 2.

E3 2001 came along and Broussard decided to showcase a new Duke Nukem Forever trailer. This was the first time Duke Forever had been seen publicly for three years now, thereby missing its mid 1998 release. The trailer, however, left pretty much the whole of E3 gobsmacked as this was a new level of FPS for the time and the graphics looked outstanding. Broussard and 3D Realms appeared to be very pleased with themselves but Broussard still had no idea exactly what he wanted as the finished product. While this was all going on, the publishers for Duke Forever, Infogrames, hit bad financial problems which mean they had to close their main offices in Texas, which were then absorbed into their parent publisher company, Take-Two Interactive.

In 2003, only eighteen people from 3D Realms were working on Duke Forever and 3D Realms employees stated that Miller and Broussard still had the 1995 games mentality that only small groups of people can work on video games without a huge budget. Miller and Broussard were personally funding the project meaning that 3D Realms didn’t have the added pressure of being badgered by the publishers which, by this time, were Take-Two Interactive. This is when the fuss from Take-Two came in to play. In 2003, Take-Two’s CEO announced that Duke Forever would not be out that year and that Take-Two themselves were going to cut $5.5 million from its earnings due to Duke Forever’s lengthy development time. Broussard shot back by telling Take-Two to literally STFU and that he and Miller were investing their own time and money into the project and that Take-Two had no right to say what they had in order to cover their own backs. Later that year the CEO of Take-Two had told him that the game would have to be finished by late 2004 or the beginning of 2005.

At E3 2005 there were rumors that Duke Forever would be making an appearance. These rumors were later quashed when the appearance was cancelled and later replaced by the game Prey. In a 2006 interview with Broussard, he stated that Duke Nukem Forever’s main elements had been finished, that the final game was just being pulled together and that it was being made more fun. Later that year Broussard showed some tech demos of the game such as vehicle sequences, a few test rooms and even an in game computer that sent e-mails. Take-Two, on the other hand, were trying to push this game out as it stood. They revealed that they had regenerated the Duke Nukem Forever deal and that 3D Realms would be receiving $4.25 million instead of $6 million on the release of the game, but that they would also get a $500,000 bonus if Duke Nukem Forever was released by December 31st 2006. Broussard being Broussard later said that the 3D Realms didn’t care for the bonus and that he would never ship a game early.

As you can well imagine, some of the 3D Realms staff were pretty tired of delays because, as Duke Forever was the only 3D game most of them had been working on, it didn’t leave much to say on their resumes. Between 2005 and mid 2006, between seven and ten employees working on the Duke Nukem Forever project had left 3D Realms and, although Broussard said that this wasn’t a huge blow to the game itself, Duke Nukem Forever was still another two years away from completion.

In January and May 2007, Broussard became infatuated with the thought of completing the game and bringing it to market, and so posted some ads for game developers with what he claimed were actual screen shots from Duke Nukem Forever. The 3D Realms Duke Nukem Forever team then doubled size within a short space of time and in December 2007 a teaser trailer for Duke Nukem Forever was released – the first trailer that had been released in six years. This of course got a lot of people, including myself, excited and even though Broussard was now saying that the game would be released when it was done he did mention the fact that a lot more media would be coming out for the game over the next few months. A video was released on American TV in 2008 on a talk show, which was filmed on a handy cam as the host of said talk show played through a level of Duke Forever. Broussard later claimed that it was an out of date build and it only had basic combat elements. Duke Forever didn’t go on to make an appearance at E3 2008 because Scott Miller thought the idea would be irrelevant.

The game was finally nearing completion but the money was drying up and, by this point, both Miller and Broussard had put $20 million of their own money into this project, and asked Take-Two for $6 million to complete the game. According to both Scott Miller and George Broussard, Take-Two agreed but then claimed that they were only going to give them $2.5 million but eventually compromised by saying that they would give $2.5 million in advance and a further $2.5 million when the game was completed. Broussard rejected this offer and suspended all development on Duke Nukem Forever in May 2009.

In May 2009, 3D Realms laid off the Duke Nukem Forever team entirely due to lack of funding and Duke Nukem Forever looked dead and buried. Take-Two said that they still owned the publishing rights to the game but refused to fund it anymore and so, throughout May 2009, a load of Duke Nukem Forever footage and screen shots were released on the internet by former 3D Realms employees as their way of saying goodbye to Duke Forever. On May 14th 2009, Take-Two then filed a lawsuit against 3D Realms for not completing Duke Nukem Forever and claimed that Take-Two gave Infogrames $12 million for the game to be completed. 3D Realms, however, denied that they had received any money as it was between Infogrames and Take-Two only.

In December 2009 Scott Miller officially announced that they had ceased all development on Duke Nukem Forever and that they were looking for some outside development help to complete the game. On June of this year the lawsuit between Take-Two and 3D Realms took place and, according to the United States Patent and Trademark Office, 3D Realms still remains the sole owner of Duke Nukem. In August of 2010, rumours began circulating that Gearbox Software, the developers of Borderlands, were picking up where 3D Realms left off and that Duke Nukem Forever may actually be resurrected, with a demo as early as the fourth quarter of this year. This was a relatively strong rumor as Gearbox were working on another Duke Nukem title called Duke Begins, which was subsequently axed during the Take-Two lawsuits.

On the 3rd of September 2010, however, the unthinkable happened. At the Penny arcade expo (PAX) in Seattle it was unveiled that Gearbox Software has now officially put the finishing touches to the development of Duke Nukem Forever. The stone cold thirteen year wait is finally over and a publicly playable demo of the final build of Duke Nukem forever was available at their PAX booth. The game is pegged down for Q1 2011 release and Randy Pitchford, the president of Gearbox Software told a crowd of excited Duke fans at PAX that they couldn’t let Duke die. So, after all these years, it is finally here.

Will it live up to the 13 year wait? I sure as hell hope so.

Garv

But sometime mid-last year you probably gave up hope, with the news that 3D Realms had bitten the dust and that Duke Nukem forever was pretty much buried in the ground forever you probably reluctantly returned back to playing Duke Nukem 3D for the twenty thousandth time and every now and again looking at this trailer and thinking what could have been.

Well if none of you out there haven’t, I certainly have. I love Duke Nukem, and Duke Nukem 3D has to be one of the best FPS shooters ever made. But to have to wait 13 years for the next FPS installment and then have that very idea taken away from you as the game developers go out of business feels like you have been kicked in the stomach by a rather angry goat.

But as I was scanning IGN.com and Kotaku this morning, a glint of hope has emerged from the libs of both sites. Duke Nukem forever looks like it will finally be finished, and it will finally come out for all keen FPS gamers to play.

Both sites have mentioned that Boarderlands creators Gearbox have taken the half developed game and are planning to put the finishing touches onto it. As 3D realms was sued by the publisher Take-Two May last year for breaching contract with Duke Nukem Forever and then subsequently going bust, the game has been left in an undeveloped pile. So Gearbox have picked up the pieces according to Kotaku and are finalising it.

Of course both Take-Two and Gearbox are remaining tight-lipped about the whole situation, but hell this looks promising. Why? Well this is because Gearbox went ahead and tried to develop a brand new Duke Nukem game called Duke Begins but then were later spotted trying to make the game and taken to court. So we are rest assured that Gearbox really do have a vested interest in the Duke Nukem franchise, making this very strong rumour even stronger.

So when will the official information come to light from both developer and publisher? We are going to be looking at September’s PAX for more info on the game, it has also been said that the demo for Duke Nukem forever could come out as early as this year.

I would be lying if i said i wasn’t just a little bit excited. I am hoping to god that Duke Nukem Forever will be released. So with my fingers crossed, I will be giving you more news as I hear it.

Garv.