An Obligatory Duke Nukem Forever Post

I feel as though we can’t really claim to be a gaming blog until we’ve mentioned the undeniable King of Vaporware, Duke Nukem Forever.  Wired has an article posted on their site about the fail to end all fails over at 3D Realms.  Having known fairly little about the fabled Duke game — just enough to poke fun at it, and really, why else is it worth knowing about? — I found the article pretty interesting, though I’m not sure someone who had followed the “development” more closely will find anything new here.

I unfortunately can’t help but think that the interviewed employees (most of whom remain nameless due as much to their ongoing lawsuit with Take-Two as maintaining what little dignity they may have left I’m sure) sound sort of like brainwashed zealots; most of them spew praise for Apogee and 3D Realms co-founder George Broussard, claiming he was a visionary for “realizing where games were going and taking it to the next level.”  Uh-huh.  So maybe he knew gaming in general was in a state of decline and took that to the next level by not actually releasing anything?  That’s about the only way I could even begin to view this quote with anything other than a burning desire to kick the speaker in the balls.

If we are to believe Wired’s article — and I see no reason we shouldn’t since it was compiled mostly from firsthand accounts — it seems like the “genius” of Mr. Broussard didn’t involve any vision at all past about 1994.  Rather, every time he decreed that changes be made to DNF, it was because he saw something another developer was doing — or had already done — and demanded it be included in his game.  Real innovative, wouldn’t you say?

Duke Nukem Forever is scheduled for release in Q4 1998.