Duke Nukem Forever Screenshot!!!

We all knew the day would come - the eventual release of Duke Nukem Forever. Well, the release date has not been set but to placate those anticipating a Christmas launch (ain't happening) the team at 3DRealms has finally released a DNF screenshot of The Duke hisself!

And tomorrow at noon, Texas time, they will be releasing the first teaser trailer for the game!!!

I, for one, cannot wait for the Duke to rise again. It's been a looooong time but it's better to be late and super great than punctual and barely functional.

UPDATE: The teaser is out and I love it! (right-click, save as) The Duke is back and I'm going to like it no matter what.

My own observations and thoughts from the teaser:

(1) Love the Terminator hammering going on while the scenes fly by. Ominously badass.

(2) The redone Duke theme song sounds a little overworked for me. Heavier power chords like the original would sound harder if run through a Pantera-style GSP (Dimebag's sound ruled).

(3) Totally love the American flag at the end - Duke is All-American FTW!

(4) I love the quote at the end, "I'm looking for some alien toilet to park my bricks, who's first?" The reason is because it portends more sophisticated one-liners than you'd expect. I loved D3D's lines immensely but seeing a slight evolution in style was very nice.

(5) The tech is great, the graphics (textures, anims, etc.) are great. If the gameplay holds true to the original in that there's intense FPS fighting and tons of interactivity with the environment then I'm predicting huge success. One huge reason Half-Life 2 did so well was that they stuck with their incredible formula from HL1 and it continues to work.

My thought is that the very interactive nature of D3D's environment was one of the defining elements of Duke's IP and that continuing to include that kind of interactivity with the environment will further cement Duke's IP and heighten the probability of DNF's success. That and the over-the-top Duke attitude and humor make for one of the most engaging character-driven FPS's to come along in.....oh, about 12 years (come February 2008).