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).

Happy 17th Birthday Keen!

As if DOOM wasn't old enough to make me feel my age now it's Commander Keen's birthday and I'm REALLY feelin' it. Today I'll just do a combo birthday announcement for the 1st and 2nd Keen trilogies (1-3 and 4-6) since Keen 4-6 was released on December 15th, 1991 and will be 16 years old. They're like big, old babies! LOL.

If you'd like to remember Keen or if you've never heard of it, check out some of these sites:

Keen History

Official Keen Site

Another Official Keen Site

Commander Keen fan site

Wikipedia entry

Back when Keen was released it was a sensation because no one had played a smooth Mario-style game on a PC before. I have a big box full of the letters from parents who wrote in ordering the game along with lots of praise - at that point we felt we were on the right track. And it all started with this little fella!

Happy 14th Birthday, DOOM!

It's that time of year again; time to raise a toast to the venerable DOOM. Blue's News has a nice comment about DOOM. Also, check out DoomWorld for the official site celebration.

I don't really have anything new to say except that working on DOOM was still one of the true highlights of my gaming career. Until you actually work on something as tremendous and magical as DOOM you have no idea what that feeling is like. We totally knew we were making something really special and beyond our previous games which in themselves were groundbreaking as well (Commander Keen; Wolfenstein 3D). I was fortunate enough to experience all that with my friends at id and it was truly awesome.