FoxZero.net

Before I even get into this I want to state my sources up. There is just a ton of speculation out there and I want people to know where I am coming from. I used duke4.com as a start, but this article in particular was my main source. Granted there is still some speculation in this article and an angle, however a lot of former 3D Realms staff members were interviewed and if you read carefully you will see the facts clearly.

I have been playing Duke Nukem 3D since about a year after it came out. It still is in my opinion one of the most immersive shooters around and it utilized the technology of its time to its fullest potential. I still play it to this day. From what I have gathered George Broussard (co-owner of 3D Realms) wanted to top everything the original had achieved. It seems instead he has burned the project and his company out with his own ambition.

Most opinions out there seem all too harsh or optimistic. I can say that I stand somewhere in the middle. Take Two’s lawsuit appeared to me at first as understandable, but after some additional research it looks more and more like Take Two is trying to bleed out 3DR and make an IP grab. I still however think 3DR should pay back the advances that were given to them. It is not unexpected though for Take Two or any company to exploit the legal system for monetary gain. So in other words, I do not have any disdain for either side concerning the lawsuit, but I would very much like to see 3DR come out on top.

A common rant I have heard is that the 3DR internal development team has spent the last twelve years jerking off. Well apparently in the mid-2000s a new director came onboard and found himself spending five hours playing through what had already been made at that point in time. That sure is a hell of a lot more than a collection of tech demos; that is also a lot content for a project that had already been restarted several times. So I am convinced that we were never given fake gameplay footage or screen shots. I also believe that the game is real beyond a display of technical wizardry.

But what about the development itself? Well clearly Broussard did a lot of things wrong in my opinion. His obsession with having the most technically advanced game around is probably what did the most damage. When he switched over to the Quake 2 engine he should have stayed right there and stuck to the early 1998 release date. Sure this is the same year Half-Life came out, which was pretty advanced, but that does not mean it still would have been a superior game overall. The Quake 2 engine was still pretty advanced and had a hell of a potential to exploit. Hell, the Build engine (the Duke Nukem 3D engine) still had a lot of potential! Look at Blood, which came out the same year as Quake 2. Yes it was criticized for using sprites for bad guys, but it was also praised for overall excellent gameplay.

Broussard commented that the Unreal engine was more suited for the outdoor environments he wanted to do, was that delay justified? No, no, no, he saw the outdoor levels in Unreal and wanted them. He should have saved those ideas for the second sequel he wanted to do. I can see clearly how things spiraled out of control from there. It is like he is treating the game as more of a work of art than a product, but there is one major issue with that logic, he is/was making a product. And as the years went by other revolutionary shooters were coming out: Halo, Doom 3, Far Cry, Half-Life 2, Crysis, Kill Zone 2, etc. To top it off their sequels were coming out too. Duke Nukem Forever is a great case proving that sometimes being first matters, and in this case it really does matter!

With all of these new shooters coming out I start to wonder, what could DNF possibly offer over the overflowing genre? Well for starters the faceless protagonist trend needs to be broken yet again. Not to mention I would really like an immersive environment where my character could remind himself that he is there. And lastly seem realistic strippers would not be a bad touch. When it comes down to it, they just need to do everything the first game did. Broussard needs to sit down and realize that there has not quite been an equivalent to the original Duke Nukem 3D made yet. Bring that recipe onto the shelves and it has the potential to blow away all of the cookie cutter shooters these days. Instead Broussard was so focused on what everyone else was doing that he forgot what made his own game so great.

To top it off he underestimated his own fans. We are not asking for the most revolutionary shooter ever made, we are asking for another Duke Nukem game. I personally do not give a flying fuck about the latest graphics. Can they improve the immersion and overall experience? Absolutely, but rarely are they detrimental to the gameplay. Broussard also never seemed sure of what he wanted to do with the game, so how was he ever going to exploit the technology for gameplay purposes? Yeah this game looks pretty, but what the fuck do you do in it? The early footage of the game still looks impressive, like an action movie you can experience. It seems like at any point you could have told the team to knuckle down and wrap the game up within a year, and still have one hell of a finale product. He did not need the fucking Unreal 3 engine to do what we have seen Duke do in Forever.

Should Duke Nukem Forever still be finished and released? I will tell you this, if I see a copy of DNF on the shelf at local game store five years from now I will immediately grab it without thinking and purchase it. Even if it says, “this is the biggest piece of shit ever spewed out by the gaming industry” in bold letters right on the cover. That does not answer the question does it? Do I want to answer that question? Here is the thing, if the game does come out, it will sell. Either from pure fanboyism or morbid curiosity people will line up to get this game. Despite all of the humiliation 3DR and Duke has received so far, there is no doubt in my mind it will still be a hot ticket. This is precisely why Take Two is trying to acquire the source code and IP. That still does not answer the question.

My finale thoughts? There is no reason why this game should not have come out ten years ago and at the same time I cannot fathom a valid reason why it still should not come out. DNF has become as much apart of gaming culture as its predecessor. We still want the damn game. That fact alone shows how much it has become apart of us, but at the same time if it never comes out most of us will not care. Usually I am crushed when a highly anticipated game gets canceled, for example StarCraft Ghost still saddens me, but not DNF. I have formed the most peculiar relationship with the game. It triggers all these weird emotions within me that I just want it be either released or cancelled so I can finally get over it!