Tom Hall, man Behind Rise of the Triad, Suffers Stroke

Tom Hall, known as the man and mind behind games like Commander Keen, and Rise of the Triad, along with others, suffered a stroke recently.  He’s currently in hospital undergoing rehabilitation.

I was surprised to see, while checking through the feeds of twitter accounts that I follow that contained a tweet where Tom admitted to having a stroke yesterday.

“Um, had a stroke. Yeah, I know right! The hospital food is decent though. (Excuse if I don't respond quickly though--lotsa tests.)”

“Thx for all the good thoughts. Start rehab tomorrow to fix strength/coordination in right hand/foot. Woo hoo! Rockin' the rehab! Oh yeeeah!”

“Thx for the love but don't send flowers! Hay fever! Send a card if you must. But facebook love is enough!”

“They took 20 vials of blood this morning. My arml went flat like apiece of paper. Lucky I had that inflation tube installed.”

George Broussard of 3DR Realms tweeted the following:

“Tom Hall, @tommune, had a stroke and is in hospital. Designed Keen, ROTT, Anachronox, more. id, 3dr, ion and king's isle. Wish him well.”

John Romero tweeted the following as well:

“@tommune had a stroke yesterday. He's in the hospital. Send him well wishes, please.”

George and Tom know each other quite well seeing Tom worked at Apogee Software back in the 90’s after leaving id Software supposedly after a disagreement with John Carmack over the creative direction Doom was taking.

Tom and John are friends who co-founded id Software along with John Carmack and Adrian Carmack.
Tom, in addition to being credited to working on ROTT and the Keen series, also worked at id Software on Wolf 3D, Spear of Destiny. After leaving Apogee after working on Duke Nukem II, ROTT, Terminal Velocity and Duke Nukem 3D, later on he worked on a little game called Deus Ex as well as Anachronox at Ion Storm with his friend John Romero.

He’s now at KingsIsle Entertainment.

Tom is also credited with naming the popular file format WAD, or "Where's All the Data?".
On a personal note, I wish Tom all the best. I’ve enjoyed playing his games over the years.
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Source: Twitter

Tom Hall, man Behind Rise of the Triad, Suffers Stroke

George Broussard Comments on 2010 “Official” DNF Trailer

He’s very cross

Another video clip of collected Duke Nukem Forever footage that was uploaded last year and came to our attention is purported by some to be “official”. This has created waves on the internet, and seems to have irked George Broussard of 3D Realms – the man behind the Duke.

“FYI gaming press. That "new" DNF trailer that's going around is not official. Someone used leaked footage from portfolio sites and cut their own trailer with official logos and it's fooling people. Not legit. Most of that voice in the trailer was done by whoever made the trailer. It's not Jon St. John.”

I’ve seen the trailer myself and I noticed right away. It’s not the Duke’s voice. And people are trying to fool others into thinking it’s official, even calling it an official release trailer. He also denied this when asked on Formspring:
  
“No. That second trailer is not official and is a low quality fan made trailer created out of some leaked footage a "fan" grabbed from a level designer portfolio site. The music and voice was all added by the video creator.”

So there you go. But I have to admit, besides the cr@ppy voice acting and sound, it was good seeing some new footage of the game. Some parts, like the one at the beginning with the gambling scene, reminded me of a scene from the E3 2001 where Duke was fiddling with a vending machine.

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Sources: Twitter - Formspring

George Broussard Comments on 2010 “Official” DNF Trailer

More Duke Nukem Forever Footage: Leaked Video

Duke Nukem Forever has made some what of another comeback when it comes to news this month. Firstly we all discovered lately that George Broussard was on Formspring answering questions and so on, but he’s reluctant to speak on DNF.

Then on Twitter, it was said that April 1st was supposed to be the day that DNF went to gold master, and began its road to an eventual release this year, if Take-Two hadn’t messed it all up.

Now something that’s been online since December 2009 which nobody had discovered until now, has surfaced. It’s yet another video clip showing off some leaked footage of DNF.

Some of this has been seen before, and the rest hasn’t.

Some have tried to pass this off as an official trailer, but George Broussard was asked on Formspring if it was, and he replied thusly:

“No. That second trailer is not official and is a low quality fan made trailer created out of some leaked footage a "fan" grabbed from a level designer portfolio site. The music and voice was all added by the video creator.”

Too right. The Duke impression wasn’t too good. It certainly wasn’t Jon St. John, for sure. And the guns sounded pretty weak. But the video is entertaining nonetheless.

Duke Nukem Forever Leaked Footage

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Source: Shacknews

More Duke Nukem Forever Footage: Leaked Video

Another Developing Craze: Formspring

First it was social networking sites like Facebook. Then along came micro-blogging with Twitter. Now another developing craze seems to be coming along with something called Formspring – which I’ve seen popping up in the last week or so.

And all ready I’ve noticed two legends in the video game industry on there, answering questions. Because that’s what Formspring is about. Apparently it’s a social networking site that allows people to ask a person questions, and then they answer them. It’s like a big open interview.

Those two legends I mentioned are George Broussard of 3D Realms, whom some cite as the failure behind Duke Nukem Forever, and none other than John “The” Romero, formerly of id Software, Ion Storm, and now Slipgate Ironworks, and creator of Daikatana and other greats.

Examples of some questions for John:

Q:Of all your cars, which was your favorite?

Q:Are you and Tom Hall still friends?

Q:Steve Jobs or Bill Gates ?

Q:Do you play Quake Live?

And George:

Q:Why wasn't there a sequel to shadow warrior?

Q:What happened to LevelLord?

Q:What makes Duke such a badass? And what's your favorite Duke quote?

Q:Why don't you answer all the questions you get here?

And of course, as you can imagine, George will answer anything… that isn’t about Duke Nukem Forever.

So, if you have any questions for these guys or anyone else, then head over to Formspring. Likely some other well-known industry vets will crop up there sometime, or all ready are.

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formspring.me

Another Developing Craze: Formspring

George Broussard’s Interesting Duke-Inspired Tweets

Just an interesting thing I came across. for the past day or so, George Broussard of 3D Realms has been getting creative on Twitter with some Duke talk in his tweets.

“Duke Nukem 3D code for XBOX 360. CPT4Y-J823X-J68HH-RCWXW-PT7BY Hail to the King, baby...”

“Duke Nukem 3D code for XBOX 360. W34VY-CWKQ9-FJF9C-9HTXR-3K6FG What are you? Some bottom-feeding scum sucking algae eater?”

“Duke Nukem 3D code for XBOX 360. TFXFY-DQXJ6-TRWC8-Q3TQ6-DHRH3 Your code, your ass, what's the difference?”

“Duke Nukem 3D code for XBOX 360. K8CQY-YX74M-J3YGH-MW73T-2H3MM Ho-Ho-Ho. Freakin' Come Get Some...”

“Duke Nukem 3D code for XBOX 360. P2MMV-KQ8W9-KYWV8-9G7QJ-X6V7W Nobody steals my codes....and lives...”

These tweets are related to Duke Nukem 3D codes for Xbox 360 as you can tell, and even though I’m not completely sure what it all means, the tweets were kind of funny.

Here are the dukeisms or Duke talk quotes they’re based on, with wavs too:

“Hail to the king, baby!”

“What are you? Some bottom-feeding scum sucking algae eater?”

“Your face, your ass, what's the difference?”

“Come get some!”

“Nobody steals our chicks....and lives!”

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georgeb3dr

George Broussard’s Interesting Duke-Inspired Tweets

Duke Nukem Manhattan Project Possibly Coming to XBLA

This is being speculated as being the announcement that Scott Miller hinted to on his Facebook page, and George Broussard on Shacknews.

It was found on one Rebecca Heineman's, nickname burgerbecky, LinkedIn Profile page, as well as some archived forum, by Gamerbytes, and was also covered on duke4.net.

Duke Nukem Manhattan Project wasn't a bad game. I've played it a few times over the years, but not for a while now.

It hasn’t been officially confirmed, but it would be a pity if it is, seeing as everyone’s hopes were raised, thinking that it could be something to do with Duke Nukem Forever. All Scott Miller has said apparently, is that the announcement was Duke-related, but didn’t say any further.

I guess soon we’ll find out what the announcement is for sure and probably from Shacknews. 3DR seems to like hanging out there.

Duke Nukem Manhattan Project Possibly Coming to XBLA