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Duke Nukem Forever Canned [and then not]

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Yeah, but at least I can say I saw Snakes on a Plane on a plane.

No-one ever spoke of it again. :hmph:

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The attached screencap epitomizes everything wrong with the video game industry to me.

#AlwaysBetOnDuke too many went too far with their reviews...we r reviewing who gets games next time and who doesn't based on today's venom

If the reviewer is literally saying: "This is the worst video game ever made, the studio that made it is a piece of shit that deserves to be shut down." then alright, but bad review scores are another thing. A bad review is not venom.

post-3150-13375603407188_thumb.jpg

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Oh my god, this game is so boring. I almost appreciate what it tried to do, in some places, but generally it's just a clusterfuck of stitched together bullshit that at no point comes together and becomes something more meaningful. No, it's 'kill this wave of dudes', 'solve this environmental/jumping puzzle' and 'here's another wave of dudes'. Yawn. I stopped caring.

Yeah. it's just like Half Life 2.

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This all reminds me of Snakes on a Plane. a weird meme with a loyal following and lots of grass-roots hype. A sub-cultural phenomenon. Then it came out and no-one ever spoke of it again.

Haha, that was an amazing phenomenon for sure.

Regarding Duke Nukem, I still feel compelled to play it considering its history but I'm not giving them any remotely on-release sales — I'll wait until it hits rock bottom prices, ideally pre-owned.

It sounds like the game is a ginormous pile of shit, completely lacking the excellent level design and gameplay that made its predecessor so great and instead choosing to focus on tasteless, depraved humour (rather than just using an edge of risqué like Duke 3D). To be honest I knew it was beyond repair when they were using trailers of throwing pieces of shit around, but these confirm everything I suspected:

http://www.destructoid.com/review-duke-nukem-forever-203658.phtml

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/reviews/2011/06/duke-nukem-forever-review-barely-playable-unfunny-and-rampantly-offensive.ars

I mean:

One level in particular takes place in an alien nest where Earth's women are being inseminated by giant penises. The women writhe and moan in a fairly humiliating fashion, and they regularly sob with no small amount of implied misery. In essence, the women look like they're getting raped. In fact, they are. That's the big joke of the level. The aliens are raping the women to create babies. Now, I'm a fan of offensive humor, but the "joke" in this level is so morbidly presented, so dark and downright unsettling, that I simply do not know if Gearbox intends for us to laugh or to throw up. I certainly found I was in danger of doing the latter over the former.

By the time Duke Nukem finally makes a "You're fucked," joke, which he makes in front of two girls who are about to die in the process of getting sexually assaulted, Duke does not come across as cool, witty or likable in the least. He comes across as a vile, callous, thoroughly detestable psychopath.

It's not impossible to make an alien rape joke amusing if you're clever enough, but the fact that nobody making this game actually bothered to try is what really concerns me. According to Gearbox, seeing women tortured was funny enough. According to common sense, it really, really wasn't.

Piss right off.

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If you watch the GiantBomb QL that bit is shown, I think that quote is a tad sensationalist. Don't get me wrong, it's damn gross and I felt extremely uncomfortable watching it, but it's not even the worst thing I saw in that Quick Look. The wall-breast slapping was more disturbing to me. So creepy. :barf:

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Oh yeah I immediately looked it up on YouTube, and while it's easier to imagine something far more graphic it's still pretty disturbing and exceedingly tasteless. The moaning and sobbing is truly horrible to listen to, and it's relentless. Also jokes about abortion, losing pregnancy weight, etc are just not funny.

Basically it's just not funny, but because you feel like it's meant to be it comes across as completely wrong.

I know Duke 3D had a fair bit of female objectifying, but in Duke Nukem Forever it's become downright weird — like the developers genuinely hate women or some shit. I don't like it.

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What’s hilarious is the original 2001 trailer still looks a thousand times better and more tasteful than what we’ve ended up with:

TDlB2P1leRM

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The

they put out this year managed to make me laugh in it's over the top ridiculousness, but I'm quite relieved at what's happening to DNF right now.

I always have a big problem with people excusing misogyny as "just a bit of fun", and Duke has caused people to do that over and over again for years. Basically: Fuck off, that bit of video game culture :tup:

It feels like a giant boil has been lanced. I feel bad for Gearbox as they're a lot better than this game, but I hope he can be laid to rest now.

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What’s hilarious is the original 2001 trailer still looks a thousand times better and more tasteful than what we’ve ended up with

Totally agree. I was actually thinking this while playing. Looks better in some places too. I feel so sorry for the people who wasted TEN years of their life on this.

Yeah. it's just like Half Life 2.

Just like Half Life 2. :grin:

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The
they put out this year managed to make me laugh in it's over the top ridiculousness, but I'm quite relieved at what's happening to DNF right now.

I always have a big problem with people excusing misogyny as "just a bit of fun", and Duke has caused people to do that over and over again for years. Basically: Fuck off, that bit of video game culture :tup:

It feels like a giant boil has been lanced. I feel bad for Gearbox as they're a lot better than this game, but I hope he can be laid to rest now.

I think one problem is that one of the goals of the project was to recreate the feel of Duke Nukem 3D (even as another was to create the best modern-age FPS out there - you can't say George Broussard doesn't think big). But part of the feel of DN3D relied on gaming being a minority pursuit almost exclusively pursued by young men, and also was kind of saved by the technical limitations of the time.

Case in point - the naked women stuck in biomechanical ooze and begging to be killed in DN3D were a bit iffy anyway (although the Aliens pastiche was very clear). But in DNF, the evolution of the engine and the space for sound files means that you've got a level where

(relatively) realistically drawn and animated near-naked women are crying, retching and lamenting the facts of their having been forcibly impregnated by aliens - multiple lines, overlaid sounds. It's really pretty hellish. And then when you shoot them, they don't necessarily explode cartoonishly, the way they did in DN3D - they could just slump down, dead and naked.

I don't think any of those things -

rape, body horror, nudity, unwanted pregnancy, mercy-killing helpless people

- are things that should automatically be off-limits in games. I think they could all be done well. But in a balls-out crude comedy where you've just climbed through a giant alien rectum, complete with exploding piles, I think it's a very difficult balance to strike, and probably one you're better off not trying to strike.

The whole Holsom Twins thing is odd on a bunch of levels. I wrote up the launch party, which was very well-managed but sort of put a lampshade on some of the things that are odd about the game... selflink here, if anyone's interested, because it's quite long and ramblomatic.

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Just like Half Life 2.

FUN FACT: Jon St. John is not working with Valve on a DotA game. He is now the voice of Gordon Freeman.

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FUN FACT: Jon St. John is not working with Valve on a DotA game. He is now the voice of Gordon Freeman.

It's time to kick ass and steal lines... Because I'm all out of lines.

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you can't say George Broussard doesn't think big

If you compare to the stuff that was shown in the various trailers to what the released DNF was you'll see that a shit load of stuff was scrapped from the released game. And considering gearbox announced a DLC with 15 SP maps only adds to that assumption.

So, George probably was thinking way too big for the rather small team they had. No wonder development kept slipping.

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It's bizarre. Where did all the man-hours go?

I mean I can see that the code side of things would have to start over with every engine change. But the writing? The level design? How can the level design be so awful when some levels have had years to be fine tuned? Their whole workflow must have been appalling.

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I just assumed DNF production was just an investment scam anyway, to look for any logic in their methods beyond that would just be silly.

It kept them in business to dick around all day sort of kind of, but mostly, pretending to make a game.

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It'd be so cool to see some kind of interactive documentary on this thing. Would be cool to see the history and where the game was at at certain points in time and to be able to play parts of that. :D

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I just assumed DNF production was just an investment scam anyway, to look for any logic in their methods beyond that would just be silly.

a scam to screw oneself over?

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They stayed in business for over a decade and employees got paid, I'm not sure who got screwed over there, except the publisher.

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You know that Duke3D made 3D Realms filthy rich and that they had no need of a publisher for funding for a long, long time, right? They would've been scamming themselves. :D

The attached screencap epitomizes everything wrong with the video game industry to me.

If the reviewer is literally saying: "This is the worst video game ever made, the studio that made it is a piece of shit that deserves to be shut down." then alright, but bad review scores are another thing. A bad review is not venom.

I saw this today. :D

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It's bizarre. Where did all the man-hours go?

I mean I can see that the code side of things would have to start over with every engine change. But the writing? The level design? How can the level design be so awful when some levels have had years to be fine tuned? Their whole workflow must have been appalling.

According to the article Wired did when it looked like it was stone dead in May 2009, the way the workflow went was that a developer or level designer would be assigned a task, start work, then pull other people in if they got good feedback from lower-level management over the course of about until it was advanced enough to go to higher-level management, at which point the whole thing was shot down and they had to go back and start from scratch. That may or may not be accurate, but it might explain why Gearbox might have inherited whatever hadn't yet been canned at the moment the lights went off... the rumour at the time was that it was near to gold in May 2009, but I think that with the benefit of hindsight that probably wasn't the case.

So, what ElMuerte said, basically. The perfect is not only the enemy of the good but might actually shank the good in the exercise yard.

The upside is that DNF is probably to some extent critic-proof - a lot of people will buy it out of curiosity, or because the marketing appeals to them, and when it drops in price even more people will buy it out of curiosity.

And Gearbox now have the license, and when things settle down can credibly say "we did the best we could with this impossible job - making a game that was true to the spirit of a 90s shareware game, but also had the mechanics of a AAA FPS, and that would justify over a decade of waiting, on a schedule that let let us save the IP and the careers of the Triptych developers. Psychologically, we all - developers, reviewers and players - needed to get past Duke Nukem Forever, and we think that once the furor has died down a lot of people will see more of the good in the game and maybe rethink their position. But hang onto your hats - Duke Nukem 5 is going to be where the real new age of Duke Nukem begins. Coming Holiday 2013."

Obviously, they'll have Claptrap say it and it will be swearier, but that's probably what I'd do, anyway.

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It's bizarre. Where did all the man-hours go?

I mean I can see that the code side of things would have to start over with every engine change. But the writing? The level design? How can the level design be so awful when some levels have had years to be fine tuned? Their whole workflow must have been appalling.

According to the article Wired did when it looked like it was stone dead in 2009, the way the workflow went was that a task would be assigned and continue with feedback from lower-level management over the course of about until it was advanced enough to go to higher-level management, at which point the whole thing was shot down and they had to go back and start from scratch. That may or may not be accurate, but it might explain why Gearbox might have inherited whatever hadn't yet been scratched at the moment the lights went off... the rumour at the time was that it was near to gold in May 2009, but I think that with the benefit of hindsight that possibly wasn't the case.

So, what ElMuerte said, basically. The perfect is not only the enemy of the good but might actually shank the good in the exercise yard.

The upside is that DNF is probably to some extent critic-proof - a lot of people will buy it out of curiosity, or because the marketing appeals to them, and when it drops in price even more people will buy it out of curiosity.

And Gearbox now have the license, and when things settle down can credibly say "we did the best we could with this impossible job - making a game that was true to the spirit of a 90s shareware game, but also had the mechanics of a AAA FPS, and that would justify over a decade of waiting, on a schedule that let let us save the IP and the careers of the Triptych developers. Psychologically, we all - developers, reviewers and players - needed to get past Duke Nukem Forever, and we think that once the furor has died down a lot of people will see more of the good in the game and maybe rethink their position. But hang onto your hats - Duke Nukem 5 is going to be where the real new age of Duke Nukem begins. Coming Holiday 2013."

Obviously, they could have Claptrap say it and swear more, but that's probably what I'd do, anyway.

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Wot Denial said.

There was nobody to scam. Take2 had a minimal investment in DNF, less than $10 million. The whole thing was self-funded by 3D Realms, off their profits from Apogee, then Duke3D, then from producing the Max Payne games (and the movie, I'm guessing). It seems insane, but DNF was almost-entirely self-funded.

What annoys me about the general commentary around DNF is the whole "how did 14 years amount to this?" The answer is: it wasn't 14 years. I'm guessing 12 of those years amounted to scrapped assets. Realistically, the final build of DNF has only been in development for 2-4 years.

Rephrasing the question as: "how did 2-4 years of self-funded development amount to this?" is a *very* interesting question, though. The general consensus is that George Broussard was a perfectionist to a fault, as Denial said above. However, how did he maintain that same workflow for FOURTEEN YEARS without going, "hmmm, maybe this isn't the best development strategy" is a mystery to us all.

And yeah, I think the Duke Nukem franchise will *really* start with the next game. I think Gearbox released DNF to give us a sense of closure. What Gearbox come up with next, will really be make-or-break for the franchise.

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The upside is that DNF is probably to some extent critic-proof - a lot of people will buy it out of curiosity, or because the marketing appeals to them, and when it drops in price even more people will buy it out of curiosity.

Upside?

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