Duke Nukem Whenever

The 'upcoming' latest installment in the Duke Nukem franchise is, at this point, so far past the point of being merely 'delayed' that the joke I used up there, yes, just up there, stopped being original almost a decade ago. It then languished in obsolescence until it became ironic for a time, before once more becoming tedious and fading to a faint whisper in the memories of jaded gamers everywhere.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha.

3D Realms have recently released two miniscule, insignificant screenshots of what is apparently a game still, after all these years, in active development, which throws the old 'Duke Nukem Sometime/Never/Whatever' quip into some kind of super-advanced post-sarcasm bordering on looping around and becoming totally genuine.

These are the screenshots:


And there you have it, folks. Five years of radio silence and this is what we get. An electric... tentacle... tree... thing, and a Duke with a neck so intensely lit that it looks like a vagina. Yippee.

Of course, in all fairness, these are just small leaked samples of an unfinished game engine, so it's not fair to judge the finished game on them. But that's just the point. After this long, I don't care. I don't care what the screenshots look like. I just want a finished game that I CAN judge. I'm tempted to give up again straight away. Assume nothing will ever come of the project and forget this ever happened. But... I like Duke Nukem. I never even played the first 3D iteration, but the original side-scroller was the first game I ever played, and the underrated 2D revival, The Manhattan Project was great fun.

Hail to the stopgap king, baby.

I want to play Duke Nukem Forever. Just for a bit. Just to see if it's any good. That's all I've ever asked for. I want the balls-to-the-wall, brainless-yet-thoroughly-inventive slice of ridiculous action nonsense that we were promised so very, very long ago. And I'm not alone. I'm sure there are many others in the same boat, nursing this faint ember of a longing long past. We've sat through the mild disappointment of Doom 3, Quake 4 and Prey. Of the old guard, only Duke remains unreleased, still flush with the promise of unstoppable alien carnage. That is, if it ever comes out.

3D Realms have saddled themselves with this inescapable build-up. At this point, to avoid being slammed three feet into the ground by the games journalists of the world, Duke Forever is going to have to be good. Like, really good. I'm talking Half-Life 2 levels of atmosphere with Crackdown levels of fun. A tall order, but that's what 3D Realms have let themselves in for.

So, 3D Realms, consider this fair warning: you can't possibly delay this game so long that we'll just forget how long it took you to release it. If it sucks, it sucks after five/ten/fifteen years of refinement. Remember Daikatana, guys? Remember what happened to John Romero?

"I had to sell off my hair! My glorious, glorious hair!"

Is that what you want?

It's been a while, I know. There were falsehoods spread about release dates. Things were said. Feelings were hurt. But let's call the whole thing off. We'll start from the ground up - deliver us a satisfying, sustained videogame experience that lives up to this trailer, and we'll forgive and forget.



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'Beat' Nick has, at this point, had PLENTY of time to play with himself.