Random Madness: Deviated Septum

It’s not uncommon for two or even several games, and even games and movies to share sound effects.

One of the first times I came across this sort of thing was back in the 1990’s. It was Duke Nukem 3D, and one of the more infamous enemies in the game caught my attention – the pig cop. Literally mutated police officers of the LAPD (or LARD in-game), they looked quite comical in their stocky build, but you wouldn’t mess with them all the same. They packed shotguns that could rip you a new one with a single blast up close.

They also made grunting noises one would almost certainly expect from pigs. The most telling sound effect was when a pig cop actually sighted you and let out a roar that has since been proven to belong to a cougar or something similar. I know this from hearing the same sound when watching documentaries and the animal channels on DSTV.

How coincidental it was then to play Quake, released later the same year, and see (or more accurately, hear) that the same sound effect was used – this time when one of the ogres with a chainsaw and a grenade launcher saw you. He too grunted and made a noise that made it easy to tell when he was around.

So imagine the horror I experienced as a young boy when I lived at home with my eldest brother. He also grunted a lot and made noises that reminded me so much of these two videogame characters. Especially when he was in the shower – he would roar and clear his throat loudly. I even had dreams that I was living with one of those ogres from Quake. One of those dreams involved going into the kitchen and being confronted by this ogre who then chopped me up into pieces with his chainsaw and served my head up on a plate with peas and carrots. I’m sure I’ve written about that before in the Keen Dreams ® series though…

*goes off to check*

Nope, hasn’t been published as far as I can tell, but I could have sworn I wrote about it. Anyway.

In any case, I think I know the common problem that these characters all share. It’s a deviated septum. My brother has it and makes all these grunting and throat clearing noises to this day that are most annoying, to be honest. He refuses to have surgery to have it fixed. Luckily it’s rather easy to get rid of the irritating grunting and carrying on with the pig cop and the ogre – just blow them to bits with a rocket launcher.

This has been yet another instalment in the weird and wacky series known as Random Madness ®. It didn’t make sense to you, and it wasn’t supposed to either. If you read it and shook your head – that’s good. That was the ultimate goal.

Random Madness: Deviated Septum

2011: Full of Video Game Anniversaries

In the latest issue of NAG magazine, I had a rare read of Miktar’s column. In addition to being a columnist and overseas correspondent (East coast of the USA), he is also a former moderator on the NAG Online forum – although was shunted out of the job, probably because he was a massive troll, according to some. It was bad for business.

But he brought up an interesting conversation piece. 2011 is chock full of anniversaries relating to video games. Landmark, revolutionary titles that paved the way for all the games you play today.

Let’s have a look at those he listed:

30th Anniversary: Ultima, Castle Wolfenstein, Frogger, Ms. Pacman

25th Anniversary: The Legend of Zelda, Metroid, Castelvania

20th Anniversary: Street Fighter II, Sonic the Hedgehog, Civilization

15th Anniversary: Resident Evil, Pokémon, Diablo, Tomb Raider, Crash Bandicoot

10th Anniversary: Grand Theft Auto III, Halo, Devil May Cry

The ones I care about most here are probably Castle Wolfenstein (without it we wouldn’t have had Wolf 3D, RTCW, and every other game that followed in that series); Frogger (played it a hell of a lot as a child); Street Fighter II (hailed as one of the best fighting games of all time – the measuring stick to which all other fighters to this day are compared); Sonic the Hedgehog (come on…); Resident Evil (made survival horror the popular genre that it is – or was, anyway); Tomb Raider (without it, you probably wouldn’t have Uncharted, maybe even Assassin’s Creed either); Crash Bandicoot (played this a lot as a kid, too); Grand Theft Auto III (one of the best games ever).

But suspiciously there were a few left off the list at some point. I think most of the games he mentioned were released in November or December (I know because I looked them up). So there was some sort of trend he was adhering to.

I’d add in Duke Nukem 3D. It’s the last truly great game in that series, which even DNF failed to topple this year. Released at a time when people still used the term “Doom Clone”, it proved that it wasn’t just another rip-off title – it was THE rip-off title; the undisputed king of rip-offs, taking “inspiration” from several films and other games, as well as pop culture. But it had enough going for it to make it pound for pound the best FPS I’ve played to date, honestly.

Quake wasn’t brought up either. Major oversight there. Also released in 1996 like DN3D, it was the first fully 3D FPS, and debuted the Quake engine. Without this engine, we might not have had every other id Tech engine released to date, and probably every other id game released to date, either. Every Doom, Quake, and even Wolfenstein title to follow used a version of the id Tech engine. Many, many games from other developers to date have used id Tech engines as well. You wouldn’t even have Call of Duty, seeing as all CoD games to date have used snippets of id Tech code in the engines that power them.

Final Doom. All right, so it was a glorified double expansion pack for Doom II: Hell on Earth – but what expansion packs at that!

The Plutonia Experiment was particularly challenging. Created by the Casali brothers, it made Doom and Doom II seem like child’s play for the most part. TNT: Evilution wasn’t that spectacular, but it did see one of the most beloved guys at id get hired – and that man is Tim Willits, who still serves as creative director at id today. He started off as just a mapper, and fan of the original games.

If anything, Final Doom showed that fans could make a decent game, filled with challenging maps and maybe tad innovation that impressed developers so much that they hired them and put them on the payroll. This trend has continued to this day, with modders and mappers being picked from the modding community and given jobs. You often see this with companies such as Valve – Valve is predominantly made of former modders.

So anyway, 2011: what a year – for new games and old!

2011: Full of Video Game Anniversaries

Duke Nukem 3D: Reloaded Put on Hold

This month there’s been a sudden slowdown in progress on the project formerly known as “DN3D: Next-Gen”, that began its life a year ago or so. For you who might have forgotten, it’s a standalone game using Unreal Engine 3, which is supposed to give Duke Nukem Forever a run for its money, not only in the looks department, but gameplay-wise too, hopefully. We all know that DN3D is still a better game than DNF! And to top if off, it has official backing by Gearbox Software – the new owners of the DN IP.

But September brings some bad news, as just over the weekend it was revealed by the team in charge of the project -Interceptor Entertainment, headed by Fresch AKA Frederick Schreiber- that DN3D: Reloaded is being put on hold until further notice. Reasons why this is happening weren’t made entirely clear from looking at the blog post on the official website, or the Facebook wall, but from visiting the thread on the forums it seems as though this ambitious project -which was originally conceived by just one man- has run in to licence issues – big surprise. We all knew it was too good to be true.

The last status update seems to indicate that the team was “around 90% finished with the multiplayer version” and was “in the final phase of the game, slowly starting the Beta phase”. In August they even took the game to Gearbox Software, and have had a “big media package, in-game trailer, and a Behind the Scenes documentary ready for some time but it’s not available for public viewing yet. But if what they say is anything to go by, it’s gonna be good if we ever get to see it, anyway.

It looks like the Duke Nukem curse was passed on from DNF, and is still alive and well.

Duke Nukem 3D: Reloaded Put on Hold

Thrifty Thursday - WGRealms 2: Siege Breaker

William Gee is known among other things for creating some pretty good maps for Duke Nukem 3D. Within the community he’d be placed up there with the likes of Pascal Rouad, hailed for his innovative Roch series in the past – and he is hands down one of the greatest DN3D mappers ever.

I’ve played several maps by both these authors, and the praise is well-deserved in most cases.

But William Gee is also known for something else, and that is WGRealms. Admittedly, I’ve heard of the first WGRealms before, but I haven’t played it yet (although I hear it’s included in the latest release – more on this just now). So when I heard that version 1.2 of WGRealms 2 had been released this month, and more importantly that it was free, I checked it out and downloaded it.

Here I was thinking that this was just yet another collection of maps for Duke Nukem 3D – but I had been warned though: 95% of the content from DN3D had been replaced, or so the help file said. This was not just some mod, or a map pack after all; this was a total conversion.

I fired it up and played through the first bit of the game. It took me a while to figure out just what the hell was going on, but when I did – once I started to get the hang of it all – I was convinced that I was playing likely one of the greatest games I’ve had the fortune to have on my hard drive.

Why I like it so much is because it combines all of my favourite elements from the best shooters from the 90’s, and maybe even early 2000’s, when FPS titles were just gory, run-and-gun, all out action – minus the soppy cutscenes, guest appearances by D-list actors, and the focus on “realism” and graphics; I loved this period of history, and still do.

There’s strong and pretty obvious hints of titles such as Doom, Heretic, Hexen, and Quake, as well as Duke Nukem 3D; maybe even a dash of Quake II, Unreal, and perhaps Clive Barker’s Undying and Serious Sam. Whether I’m completely right I don't know, but when I sense something inspired a project like this, I’m usually right.

You’re going to see enemies and weapons from these games, but perhaps with a slight makeover in some cases. Powerups and such like the famous quad damage from the Quake universe make an appearance. And the titular hero from DN3D is there too, spewing his one-liners and so on, bringing the coolness factor to this otherwise red hot concoction. This is pretty much the 5% of DN3D that is left. And indeed I noticed that some of these weapons were even incorporated into the likes of DukePlus, an all ready spectacular mod for DN3D.

But the thing is that WGRealms 2 isn’t just an FPS. It also has some RPG elements in there too, borrowed from the likes of Diablo. It’s like one big stew of gaming goodness, and I can’t help but just feel that its main aim is to bring back something old, but put a twist on it; altering the recipe and being adventurous so that it’s immensely enjoyable once again.

You have loot that’s dropped when you off enemies, and the POW abilities, which you can configure during the game on the fly, so that when it’s fully charged, you can execute any number of fantastic combinations that will put a world of hurt on your foes.

And if all this isn’t enough, there’s also an unlockable character in the game too. If you’ve grown tired of playing as Duke (and why the hell would you be?), then you can start up one of the added chapters of the game that’s been included since the release from last year. Jedrik is the man’s name and an entirely different style of play is unleashed once you have him to control. The entire arsenal is chucked out and replaced, and you can wield swords, hammers and a shield.

And this I have just but gleamed from said help file mentioned earlier. I’m still on my first playthrough at the moment. There’s another thing that can be said about this game: it’s very lengthy, and bloody challenging. It truly is a testament to the shooters of yesteryear, then.

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Official WGR2 website

WGR2 at Mod DB

Dan G's WGR2 page at Fissile Materials

Discussion thread at Duke4.net

Thrifty Thursday - WGRealms 2: Siege Breaker

Keen Dreams: Duke Nukem Forever

 

It actually happened. Last night, for the first time ever, I dreamt about Duke Nukem Forever.

And it was probably one of the best dreams I’d had in recent memory – not just because it was about DNF, but because it was one of the most emotion-fuelled ones I think I’ve ever had.

It started with me playing DNF, and walking around some building, which felt like some sort of top secret facility, or lab (it could have been the IMF: Impossible Mission Facility, from Duke Nukem 3D). And as you can imagine, there I was, picking things up, throwing them around; enjoying the interactivity that is said to be in the game.

As I made my way down the storeys of the building, I was talking to people, and one of these individuals sounded like Isaac Kleiner from Half-Life 2. “They’ve really gone all out on this!” I thought to myself, as I even caught myself shedding a tear or two every now and again. I was finally, actually playing the game of my dreams (no pun intended).

Then I reached a point where I had to get down on my belly and crawl under some part of the structure, all the while being careful to avoid shooting myself with my duel M1911s. That’s right, DUEL, as in TWO Golden Colts. I think this made it in there after playing a lot of Duke 3D with the DukePlus mod.

As I was crawling (and feeling that this was a scene straight out of Metal Gear Solid), and nearly getting Duke’s huge body stuck under the floorboards, the action picked up. Through an opening ahead, I saw a van ram some kid right up against the wall in an alley. Then I heard voices, like they were questioning the kid’s friend, whose name happened to be Christian. For every question he hesitated on, the van rammed the other guy against the wall again (might have been Yatta). Maybe they wanted to desperately know what playing DNF was like.

Then the dream skipped ahead for a bit. I must have exited the game for some ludicrous reason, and there I was, reading an issue of some gaming magazine down by the pool. It looked like it might have been NAG due to the familiar reviews and scoring system. I skipped all the way down to the bottom and read the last paragraph, while simultaneously, my other eye caught the final score and pros and cons down at the bottom of the page.

There was a big round, solid score of 80. Not bad, but not as great as some might have wanted. And when I looked to see what the pros and cons were, I noticed something rather ironic under “plus”. It was one word: “pretty”. And this is after so many people have criticised the game for not being graphically up to snuff. I could only chuckle at that. Under “minus”, there was nothing; just a blank space. Once again, I found this kind of hard to believe, as critics who have played the game and previewed it have had a lot of nasty stuff to say about it – particularly the Xbox 360 version of the game, with persistent framerate issues and the like.

I think this was likely the reason I dreamt about DNF last night, after going through all my RSS feeds, picking up on the latest chicken scratch, and sh!t-talking on DNF. Whether the game does suck or not, I know that I’m going to get it and play it. I have to, since it’s really the only game that I’ve ever truly wanted for half my life (Half-Life? Get it?).

Keen Dreams: Duke Nukem Forever

Apocalypse Then: Duke Nukem 3D

15 years of Duke Nukem 3D

On this in gaming, one of the greatest games ever made (in my opinion) was released: Duke Nukem 3D.

Developed and published by 3D Realms (one of the biggest and most respected companies during the 80’s and 90s and perhaps all time), and first released in early 1996, the game went on to become one of the most successful and enduring first-person shooters of all time, with people still buying and playing it today. A very committed and talented community keeps it alive and kicking, with projects like the EDuke32 source port (with the polymer renderer), the HRP, and Duke Plus in ongoing development. And with the sequel, DNF, just around the corner, this has only gotten stronger, with other projects like Duke Nukem 3D: Reloaded in the works, which is essentially a modern remake of the game – which was green lighted by Gearbox.

But when the game was released a decade and a half ago, they said it was on top of its game – technologically advanced. Hardly just another Doom clone, as the term was back then, it had some brilliant level design, courtesy of one of the greatest in the business, Richard “The Levelord” Gray, as well as some awesome music, by talented and respected video game musicians, Lee Jackson and Bobby Prince, who had also worked on previous Apogee games too.

And not to mention that DN3D no doubt had in my mind, the first “real” character in a game. No more silent, faceless protagonists like other FPSs of its time, Duke was and still is an egotistical, misogynistic, one-liner spouting jerk – but we all loved him just the same, and he is considered one of the “coolest” game characters ever conceived. Several characters, such as Serious Sam, and most recently the protagonist from Epic Games’ Bulletstorm, are strongly influenced by the King himself. Maybe these should be called Duke Clones!

I could go on and on about how great the game was and still is today, but I’ve all ready done that so many times. Like you might have guessed: I’m a huge Duke fan. And if you’re reading this, maybe you are too.

I also have a surprise up for the anniversary of Duke Nukem 3D. It’s an article which covers the evolution of the Duke Nukem character throughout the last twenty years. That’s right: Duke Nukem 1 was released in 1991, so also don’t forget about its anniversary in July! Check out the article here.

                           Happy 15th Birthday, Duke Nukem 3D!

Apocalypse Then: Duke Nukem 3D

Theory: Blood may have had more Influence than you Thought

     

These three seemingly very different games might have more in common than once thought

To many, Duke Nukem 3D was the most popular build engine game ever made, even though there were several others out there from the mid to late 90’s. Blood was one of these build engine cousins of the Duke, and for the most part probably wasn’t played by as many people. It did establish what one would refer to as a cult following though.

I was one of those types who only got around to dabbling in the rest of the build “big four” years after they were released. Not that it wasn’t fun playing catch-up. I love the era of sprites in games from the 90’s, when it was then cutting-edge technology, or at least dated but still awesome towards the later half of the decade.

But I was playing through Blood again recently, a couple of years since my first playthrough, and I came to some rather shocking conclusions. Blood may have been more influential on later games than even I thought.

Two games come to mind when I play through the game. First off, there’s another forgotten title from that decade named Nocturne. I’ve played both, and I see some mighty large similarities between the two. In both, you have a sinister protagonist clad in a trench coat and hat, armed to the teeth, who hunts demons, zombies, and the like. Let’s also not forget the train level (third mission of the first episode) in Blood, and how a similar mission took place in Nocturne (first section of the second chapter).

Both games at one point also featured delving deep into crypts and the underground as well, and both took place in Western themed universes, at about the same time (Blood’s 1928 versus Nocturne’s 1928 – 1935).

The second game I think of when I play Blood is System Shock II. Granted, the two don’t have a lot in common. Blood is a bare bones, all out FPS, while System Shock II is a classic hybrid title, featuring FPS and RPG gameplay. But one level in Blood certainly did remind me SS2, which came out more than two years later – and that was the “inside the body” level. You remember in System Shock II you had the creepy level called “Body of the Many”, which took place in a disgusting setting which looked like the stomach or digestive tract of a huge creature?

Blood did that. Blood had a level near the end of the fourth episode, called “In The Flesh”, which also saw Caleb enter inside what looked to be the same sort of environment. There were also bodies of water, except not toxic like in SS2, as well as teeth, but not as lethal as SS2, but not any less scary.

Yeah, Blood may well have taken inspiration from other games and even movies, but I think that in Blood’s case, it possibly inspired at least the two above-mentioned games too. I mean when you think back, Blood was one of the first games to have alternate fire modes with weapons, much like Marathon and Dark Forces before it.

Not many people would have played games like Nocturne or even Blood, and so probably won’t care much about all this, but still… I guess the point is that there’s always a game that did it first before it became cool and people gushed about it.

Theory: Blood may have had more Influence than you Thought

Duke Nukem: NextGen Project Renamed, Details

The project going on over at the Gearbox forums that I posted about a while ago is getting stronger. Fresch, the man in charge, has assembled a team to work on this game which was called Duke Nukem: NextGen for a little while.

People were worried that he wouldn’t get permission to make the game, which will use Unreal Engine 3, and will be built from scratch, basically. But the guys at GBX have granted them a non-commercial licence to go ahead and do it. Big surprise to most of us, surely, considering the stink that Activision made regarding The Silver Lining.

But now the project has a new name. It’s called Duke Nukem 3D: Reloaded, or DNR for short. And the team working on it has a name too – Interceptor Entertainment. Add to this that there’s now a Facebook page, a Twitter account, and a website for the game with forums, as well as future plans for a ModDB account as well. Any self-respecting project has one.

And they reportedly even have the producer behind Killzone 3 backing this game! This is becoming huge all ready.

But, not everybody is that impressed. There are critics obviously that fall into different camps.

There are those who feel it would be better to wait for Duke Nukem Forever to come out, whenever that is (they say 2011.. sometime before Christmas), and just make a mod which would recreate the levels from DN3D, with most of the content, like guns and textures and so on, all ready created. The name for this was suggested to be a resurrection of the name Duke Nukem 3D Forever.

There was even a poll on the GBX forums which asked for people to vote for what they’d prefer: a game created from scratch (like DNR), or a mod for DNF. Some even want both, the greedy hogs.

Then the boys heading up or supporting the High Resolution Pack project for EDuke32 – a source port for DN3D – say that they don’t like the look of the game, and think it’s ugly, and it doesn’t look like DN3D. Jealousy, anyone?

I’ve been a fan of the Duke Nukem franchise for nigh on 20 years, and I have no ill feelings towards this project. It’s just a matter of whether the team can stick with it and produce the goods. Yeah, it’ll be harder to generate all the content themselves, but the effort will pay off in the long run. This could well be a step towards a career in game development for some on the team – others who are working on the game all ready are professional game developers, apparently.

As for a release date on the game – you know what I’m going to say here, but I’ll say it anyway: “When it’s Done.”

Source: Gearbox Forums

Duke Nukem: NextGen Project Renamed, Details

Weapon Carrying Limit to be in Duke Nukem Forever

Just the other day there was an interview over on Duke4.net that was carried out by one of the community members. He interviewed Randy Pitchford, the CEO of Gearbox Software.

One of the questions posed to Randy was whether or not there would be any weapon carrying restrictions in Duke Nukem Forever:

“Well we are making this game with the vision of Allen Blum and George Broussard.  Their vision was that you could only have 2 weapons. This choice has been made because most players choose their favorite weapons and use only those weapons the most.  And if you need a particular weapon to defeat a boss, that weapon will be available in that area.”

So this is quite a change from previous Duke Nukem titles such as Duke Nukem Manhattan Project and Duke Nukem 3D before it. You no longer have the entire arsenal at your fingertips. Gone are the days of the old school 90’s shooters where you could somehow manage to slug all that heavy equipment around with you. In a sense, DNF is going for more realism – which sounds a little ironic I must admit.

        The ripper will likely be one of the “favourite” weapons that people wish to carry.

In fact it’s going to more like Duke Nukem II in a way. In that game you could only carry one weapon type at a time, until the ammo ran out, and you reverted to your standard weapon. Except the limitations in DNF won’t be that strict, thank goodness.

So basically you’ll have a primary weapon and secondary weapon, much like most first person shooters out there today. From the screens and trailers I’ve seen of the game, much of the weaponry from the first game will make it back. There’s a pistol, a shotgun, the ripper machinegun, the devastator double rocket launchers. You’ll just have to pick which ones you like best and use those.

I don’t yet know whether they’ll let you have ANY 2 weapons that you want, or if one of them has to be a pistol – because that would suck. If you can carry an RPG and a Devastator, then that sounds fair good.

At one stage, DNF used a weapons selection system similar to Max Payne and Half-Life.

It also hasn’t been mentioned whether this applies to the pipe bomb as well. I reckon that just like other standard FPS games these days, Duke will have his two guns of choice, and then carry pipebombs as well, instead of the more standard grenade. I’m sure all the other equipment like NV goggles and steroids will remain unchanged, and you can carry one of each, likely – just like DN3D.

In the end, I think it might actually be a better idea to give players a choice. They either have the full arsenal, or say on a harder difficulty or if an option is checked, they will then be limited, like Randy says.

Weapon Carrying Limit to be in Duke Nukem Forever

Jon St. John AKA Duke Nukem Text Editor Sounds

The other day I posted about something to do with a remake of Duke Nukem 3D as a mod using the Unreal Engine 3. I went back to that same thread over at the official Duke Nukem forums on GearBoxSoftware.com. Needless to say the topic was still going strong.

But it was on the last page that I saw something interesting. Somebody posted a link to this website and said that there were some recordings of somebody doing Duke Nukem’s voice.

So I went over to the site, only to see that the place was entirely void of content – except for an mp3 playing in the background. So I took Orbit, which is a program that is quite adept at capturing flash and media playing on a site, and downloaded the file. While I did this, I was listening to the phrases being said as the clip played. I’ve heard people try and do Duke Nukem’s voice before. Some have come close, and others have been pretty piss poor. This was Duke Nukem’s voice. This was the Jon St. John.

Having downloaded the file to my HD, I listened to the entire clip, which ran for about just over 3 and a half minutes. Jon was obviously reading the text that appears on the menu trees on a text editor. Open up any one, like Microsoft Word or something and you’ll see what I mean. It was actually pretty funny. Weird, but quite hilarious.

The guys over at the GBX forums were debating on this bit of off-topic wonder; some betting that it was Duke’s voice, whilst others were doubtful.

Like I said: I’ve played enough friggin’ Duke Nukem 3D and Manhattan Project to KNOW that is Jon. But I wanted to know how this site was found. So I did what anybody would do. I Googled it. The phrase was something like “Jon St. John Text Editor”. One of the first hits that cropped up was Jon’s wiki page. Upon going to it, lo and behold: under “external links”, there was a link pointing to that very same site, saying that it was Jon reading some menu trees for a program.

I was curious as to what the program was and who hired Jon. I gathered from the phrases in the audio recording that it was for a program called Text Edit.

I mean, in the end, Jon is a voice actor among other things (musician, former radio DJ), and has worked on other games - most notably Half-Life: Opposing Force. He is essentially for hire. At one stage I actually remember Jon offering to do voice work for something like $1 per word. He said he would even do Duke’s voice and people could dub it in to Left 4 Dead, replacing Zoey’s voice, or some weird sh1t.

If that was his going rate, then by my calculations, including conjunctions, it would have added up to about $159 just for this job. I should get in to the voice acting business…

However, I was reading, again over at GBX forums, and some poster said this:

“Get a personalized, custom recording of Duke for your voicemail, ringtone, answering machine, whatever! You write the script, and Duke will say anything you want. Your message(s) must be no more than 30 seconds total, and for private use only. Available file formats include: WAV, MP3, and AIFF. The price is just 50 bucks and payable via Pay Pal. So what are you waiting for...Christmas? Come Get Some!”

Some person over at the GBX forums also said that he “so wants Jon to do the voice for his GPS now.”

Sources:

GBX Forums
Jon St. John menu trees recording
Jon's Wikipedia page

Jon St. John AKA Duke Nukem Text Editor Sounds

Duke Nukem 3D Remake Using Unreal Engine 3 In Early Stages

There’s an interesting mod that I read about on Bluesnews the other day. Someone over at the new Gearbox Duke Nukem forums (which are now the official ones instead of over at 3D Realms), has undertaken a project to create an unofficial remake Duke Nukem 3D, using Unreal Engine 3 technology – the engine of choice nowadays for most mods.

It’s been said that it basically uses the same core features as seen in Duke Nukem Forever.

There are several screenshots up showing off the work done so far by one guy. And apparently he’s all ready contacted the likes of Scott Miller of 3D Realms to secure permission to carry on with the project. Scott says he would like to see the work done so far and so would George Broussard.

                    A screenshot of early work on the project, with comparison.

The man behind this project, known as Fresch, previously worked on a Daikatana remake, which was abandoned due to lack of interest, despite some fanfare from none other than John Romero. Then a SiN remake, which was cancelled after a Cease and Desist was issued – not to the guy working on it directly, but to the ModDB people, who subsequently deleted the mod’s pages.

There are of course worries over whether the mod will allowed to carry on in development. Seeing as Scott says he’s interested and hasn’t outright denied permission, that’s a start. Upon contacting Gearbox reps, they said that even though they have the rights to the Duke Nukem IP (acquired from 3DR last year), and are working on Duke Nukem Forever, and possibly Duke Begins, they do not have any say based on earlier Duke Nukem titles - such as DN3D, DN 2, and the original Duke Nukem.

But in an update, Scott did get back to Fresch, and said that it would have to go through Take-Two, the former publisher of DNF. That’s the publisher that caused 3DR all the legal woes in the past. This has aroused some debate seeing as 2K now owns the publishing rights to DNF, and had nothing to do with Duke Nukem 3D. But if it is true, then hopes of getting a green light for a remake of “Red Light District” are slim.

Still, like most of the pessimistic posters on the forums say: these projects are very rarely followed through until completion, and there’s not much one guy can do, although the maker claims he will assemble a team if given the go ahead from 3DR or whoever has the final say.

The screens do look amazing though. And if you thought that the Polymer renderer for EDuke32 and the HRP looked shiny, then you’ll have to wear sunglasses, just like the Dukester, when taking a look at these.

Sources:

http://www.bluesnews.com/s/114567/duke-3d-mod
http://gbxforums.gearboxsoftware.com/showthread.php?t=111335

Duke Nukem 3D Remake Using Unreal Engine 3 In Early Stages

Duke Nukem Forever Shown at PAX, Coming out Next Year

I said at one point a few months ago that I would stop doing news posts on this blog. But I can’t help it. I’m forced to make an exception here. Everyone’s talking about it now.

We all knew the saga behind Duke Nukem Forever, and quite frankly if you want to know the history behind it, you can just look it up on this blog where I’ve gone over it time and time again, or visit the page on wikipedia. I’m sick of having to read the long “drawn out drama” that most websites post every time there’s news on DNF. Right from it’s creation until now. And most of them get it wrong anyway, with some “journos” saying that it originally used the build engine, and that 3D Realms is defunct.

The main story here is that for some time now, it’s been rumoured that Gearbox Software, developer of Borderlands, has been working on Duke Nukem Forever. People just dismissed it as a myth though.

The thing is, these rumours continued and the other day, George Broussard tweeted something that alluded to a past interview he had concerning DNF. It was a picture of pigs flying. The significance? Years ago in that interview, George himself said that DNF would be out “when pigs fly”.

And just yesterday at Penny Arcade Expo, or PAX 2010 for short, after much speculation, it was confirmed at the event that Duke Nukem Forever, a game in development hell for just about 13 years or so, is actually coming out.

In fact some claimed it was finished and it’s just in the polishing stage right now. There was even a playable demo of it at the PAX booth. There’s all ready some photos over at Kotaku that show the typical humour and interactivity we’d expect from a Duke Nukem title. There’s pics of Duke with steroids and taking a piss in the loo, as well as drawing something on a whiteboard.

Places few games venture.

The Wall Street Journal reported that the game’s development was so far, that it would be coming out this year! This was said to be false though, and a more realistic release date of 2011 sometime was given by Randy Pitchford of Gearbox Software.

WSJ did get it right however that DNF has been in development at the company since late last year – which confirms the rumours. If you think it’s odd that Gearbox would work on a DN title, just take a moment to read this.

Randy Pitchford worked on Duke Nukem 3D, and was employed at 3D Realms years before he went and founded the company we know as Gearbox and worked on Opposing Force and other titles since then. Gearbox was also revealed to be working on Duke Begins, another title in the series.

Now that all the court case nonsense that carried on between 3D Realms (Apogee Software) and Take-Two is over (it ended in a settlement this year), work can resume on these projects without having to keep it sort of secret all the time. The publishing rights for DNF and the Duke Nukem IP are said to now belong to 2K.

Randy says that basically 3D Realms did the groundwork on DNF but it fell apart. Gearbox apparently came in and put the pieces back together. People at PAX were apparently shocked that DNF looked as good as it did. But I know from having watched all these leaked demo reels and video footage as well as screenshots that were mostly leaked within the last year, and the design documents too, that the game was actually more complete than people originally thought.

And with a possible demo for us on the horizon, and a release next year, we may actually get to play this game in our lifetime. For those of us, including me, who stuck with DNF through thick and thin – we’re the ones smiling now. The haters who always put the game down will be eating their words shortly, hopefully.

Gearbox has a good reputation as a developer and they tend to actually release their titles.

One thing’s for sure though. 3D Realms, as legendary as it is, should never develop their own games ever again – especially not if George is still in charge. And seeing as it’s a much smaller studio after the DNF team was let go last year, it looks like it will stay this way for some time.

By the way, everything DNF has now been moved over to DukeNukemForever.com, with the official forums now being moved to GearboxSoftware.com.

Sources:

http://twitter.com/georgeb3dr/status/22750844938 [George Broussard on Twitter]

Duke Nukem Forever Complete? [Bluesnews]

Duke Nukem Forever Arrives On PC, Xbox 360, PS3 in 2011 [3D Realms]

The Duke Nukem Forever PAX Demo: A Not-For-Kids Photo Gallery [Gallery] [Kotaku]

Duke Nukem Forever Shown at PAX, Coming out Next Year

Video Game Urban Legends: Duke Nukem 3D’s Secret Cheat Code

You know, I like conspiracy theories, mysteries, and secrets. They’re fascinating.

I bought the new NAG magazine recently, and saw that GameTrailers have come out with a new series that explores these urban myths, and seeks to prove them fact or fiction by testing them out. It’s called Pop Fiction, and it’s quite thorough, and I actually want to see more of it. The show’s inspiration obviously comes from The MythBusters, when I look at the format.

The one about whether Reptile was in every original and perhaps every Mortal Kombat game in existence was one that captivated me, seeing as he’s likely one of my favourite characters in the franchise, next to the other ninjas like Scorpion, and my childhood idol – Sub-Zero. He was cool.

I also came across something interesting on Digg the other day, and it was a list of the Most Widely Believed Video Game Urban Legends. It’s like urban legends and so on, but relating to video games obviously.

There were only a few that I actually had heard about. And only a few of those were games I’d actually played.

Anyhow, on this list, I added a comment which explained one of the most memorable urban legends in video games, from my childhood. It went as follows (edited a bit):

When I was young and still in school, a friend (now ex-friend and bitter enemy) told me of a secret cheat in Duke Nukem 3D. He’d heard of it through a friend of his who claimed to have made it work. This cheat was known as DNLIPSTICK.

Practically all cheats entered in Duke Nukem 3D began with “DN”, which no doubt stands for “Duke Nukem”.

What the cheat allowed you to do was this:

When you’re in the Red Light District [E1L2] area’s strip club, and you enter the cheat correctly, Duke will allegedly be able to screw one of the strippers there, who so eagerly bare their assets when handed cash. Why not go all the way with the “cashman”?

In the past I tried and tried to make this cheat to work, but to no avail. My friend told me to try entering the code in different ways, and in different combinations, with some in capital letters and others not. But with no console back then, it made it difficult to see how you were typing it. It’s hard enough to just type a cheat normally and activate it.

So my opinion of this urban legend, if I have to be thorough about it is that it’s very likely fiction. Duke Nukem 3D was controversial enough back in the day without this sort of “interactivity” going on in it. This code is also not mentioned anywhere on lists of codes for the game, and due to my personal past experience with trying to get it to work, it doesn’t.

Plus, I’ve also talked to a bunch of forumites over at Duke4.net, and even though one might have heard of a similar rumour, they hadn’t seen or heard of DNLIPSTICK – the cheat code which is associated with it. Hell, if you google “Duke Nukem 3D DNLIPSTICK”, you’ll only get a few hits on a page – and they’re all from me, including this one.

The one reply pointed me to his website where I saw this and shook my head:

“To get the naked girl ending you have to beat the game 10 times in a row on the hardest setting while only using kick and you also have to not kill any lizards. If you do this you will get a movie with the lady from the strip club on level 2 show off her whole body and **** duke nukem!”

This guy also heard it from a friend at school. Go figure. They lie.

And to top it off I even contacted George Broussard of 3D Realms via Formspring. He said he’d never even heard of it. Okay, so he didn’t respond, but that’s life, huh?

Myth Busted.

Video Game Urban Legends: Duke Nukem 3D’s Secret Cheat Code

Paul the Octopus May be Hiding a Secret [Random Madness]

To many, Paul is known to be a common octopus which hatched in 2008 in Weymouth, Dorset, UK, and now resides at Sea Life Centre in Oberhausen, Germany. He’s become famous for his accurate predictions of soccer match results. This has led to him being called a psychic octopus.

There have been may theories as to how he picked the winning teams during the Euro 2008 and the 2010 World Cup. Some even say that it’s not the same creature, and that the real Paul died.

But little do they know. The truth is that Paul has been hiding a deep dark secret.
Paul is a psychic cephalopod, but rather than a common octopus, he is actually better known as an Octabrain.

Octabrains were discovered years ago, back in the mid 90’s. They often inhabit water or areas near water, although they have the ability to travel from these places and onto land, as they can levitate above the ground. They are referred to as triclopses, which means they have three eyes, and also possess some wicked sharp teeth, as well as tusks or sharp mandibles. They have little need for their tentacles, but still they remain.

 
               
Images of an Octabrain, first sighted in the mid 90’s.

They have the ability, in addition to biting their prey, to attack with psychokinesis – hurling orbs of harmful energy at their victims, which serve to stun or even kill. This likely came about because of the large size of their brains. They might have evolved from another species, or may possibly be extraterrestrial.
Contrary to opinions which say that Paul will die soon, Octabrains have a longer natural lifespan than mere common octopuses, unless they happen to be blown up by a rocket propelled grenade, which would effectively mean their premature demise.

Paul has retired from his divination duties and now seeks retirement. There has been talk by some that he should experience what it’s like to be out in the ocean once before he passes away, seeing as he’s been in captivity since day one. Others warn that it would be dangerous for this very reason that he be released.
They’re right.



Images of a more mature, bigger version of an Octabrain, first sighted in 2007.

If Paul is released, it could mean catastrophic death for many, as Octabrains’ favourite food is human flesh – not mussels, like some would have you believe. He’s also nowhere near fully grown, as Octabrains can reach enormous sizes, as was seen in sightings in recent years – as big if not bigger than say, a giant squid.
It would be the biggest mistake they could ever make if he’s released. For goodness sake, if you read this, spread the word, and KEEP PAUL IN CAPTIVITY.

At least if he continues to grow while in his tank, and develops sentience, and more powerful abilities like psychokinesis, he may more likely be subdued and eliminated, and less likely to join up and plot world domination with all the other Octabrains that were flushed down the toilet and are now lurking in the sewers.

Paul the Octopus May be Hiding a Secret [Random Madness]

The Sims 3 Experiment: One House, Eight of the Biggest Gaming Icons Ever

I’ve played The Sims 3. There, I said it. Guess what else? I still have The Sims 3 on my computer – it’s been there for nearly a whole year.

I recently got back into it, and decided to do something which I dabbled in a while back. That was to create a family, although not related, of the biggest names in gaming, and put them in one house.

As of writing this I all ready have seven.

One is none other than Duke Nukem. Duke has been around for nearly the past two decades, and has had quite a few games under his belt- one of which was no doubt Duke Nukem 3D, his most successful  game to date, which still sells to this day. Duke is currently pursuing the Law Enforcement career in the house, with hoped of becoming a super hero.

The next one is Doom Guy, otherwise known as John “Reaper” Grimm, if you’ve ever watched the atrocious movie based on the series of games. Doom Guy entered the gaming market after Duke Nukem, in 1993 [Duke Nukem was in 1991], and starred in a series of games that revolutionised gaming for years to come, as well as establishing first-person shooters as the popular genre it is today. Currently Doom Guy is in the Military career, hoping to become an astronaut.

Who’s next? Lara Croft. You couldn’t have a house filled with gaming icons without the Tomb Raider. Lara was probably the first real female character that you took control of in game, and had three big hits in the series – the first three games – before hitting a stumbling block, which was most of the entire series for the next several years. But, she came back in Tomb Raider Legend, and has since seen another two great additions to the long running series. Lara is currently pursuing a career in journalism [couldn’t get any adventure clubs or something, although they are probably present in one of the expansions, which I don’t have… yet].

The fourth one should be a give away by now, seeing as this in order of when they actually hit the gaming world. Yes, it’s the G-man. No, not that G-man, but Gordon Freeman from Half-Life. Gordon has never spoken in any of his games, and lacks that personality and attitude [although borrowed] of Duke Nukem. Still, he was the main protagonist in a series which saw FPS titles become more than mindless killing sprees, but added a little logic and puzzle solving in to the mix as well, along with characters that you actually game a damn about… instead of killing everyone. Clad in his usual science laboratory get up, he no doubt works at the science laboratory in the town.

The fifth one came just after Gordon Freeman in Half-Life, and that would be Garrett from Thief. Okay, so this guy is likely the underdog of the entire bunch. He’s been in three or four titles over the past dozen or so years [four if you count Thief Gold, five if you count Thief II Gold, which didn’t actually ever see the light of day], and is set to star in a true sequel in the series soon, Thief IV… or THI4F… or is it ThIVes? Anyway, Garret and the Thief series brought about a new genre in gaming, and that was the first person sneaker. Thief probably wasn’t the first game to do this, as Metal Gear had some of that sneaking stuff in it too, but Thief helped popularise it, and many games to this day, especially Splinter Cell and the likes, owe their gratitude to the series. No doubt, Garrett is in the Criminal career path, and likes to steal, or “mooch” off of other Sims.

The sixth one? There was a hint in the above paragraph. It’s Snake. Snake? Snake?! SNAAAKKKEE! Yes, Solid Snake from Metal Gear fame, with probably one of his best titles in Metal Gear Solid, of 1999. Solid carried on the appeal of the stealthy approach in games, sort of like Thief, but in a modern, militaristic universe. He has had numerous games since then over the past decade, some of which he didn’t even really star in, in a sense. Like Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater, or MGS 3 for short, which saw Naked Snake take the main role. Snake is also in the military career, and also has natural cooking and gardening abilities, which he picked up from his dad, Naked Snake, or Big Boss.

Number 7 would be a character who also cropped up in the 90’s: SHODAN. She’s appeared in two games in the System Shock series, namely System Shock and the sequel, System Shock 2. She’s been voted as one of the best villains to appear in a game, and one of the greatest all-round characters too. She even has the greyish-blue skin, complete with blue and green hair just like in the games and has an evil personality comparable to the real rogue AI.

In the game, Shodan is climbing up the rungs of the political career, seeing as she eventually wants to become the leader of the free world, or the neighbourhood at the very least. And she’s going to make people suffer and have fun while she’s doing it too.

Who will be number eight? Who do you think? Maybe we should have a vote, and you can leave your thoughts in the comments. So many choices, and you can only have eight in a household unfortunately. I guess I’ll be starting new houses with other characters who didn’t make this list.

Candidates who are on my list to make the eighth member of the household include: Agent 47 from Hitman, B.J. Blazkowicz from Wolfenstein, and some others.

The Sims 3 Experiment: One House, Eight of the Biggest Gaming Icons Ever

If you had to Play One Game in Your life, What Would it be?

This was a question that was posed on the The Verge a while back before it went on this whole two month hiatus nonsense. If you had to play one game in your entire life, what would it be? That means ONE game, and that was the only game you ever got to play for some reason. Maybe you just weren’t that into gaming, or you died a premature death. Just use you imagination.

It’s a tough choice, but in my personal opinion, it would be Duke Nukem 3D. Why? Out of all the games I could choose, why DN3D?

Think about it: it was arguably one of the greatest shooters of the 90’s. It was technologically advanced for its time, and had interactivity that rivalled games to come for years – maybe even to this day.

Duke was also the first real character in a game, especially as far as FPSs go, that had any sort of personality as well. It wasn’t the first game to have vocals and that sort of thing, but Duke was the first I remember that actually talked and made comments and so on. And they were bad@ss ones too, even if they were copied from movies and other places.

                   Oh yeah – there were the strippers too. Weapon raised, indeed.

Yeah, some people hate the game or the character for those very reasons [like Bruce Campbell]: because it copied movies and games and so on. But I’ll admit that I probably hadn’t even seen most of those movies back then. I was young, and to me it was pretty original, ironically.

I’ve said before, and I’m not ashamed to say it either, that Duke was one of my childhood icons, alongside Stone Cold Steve Austin, and Arnold Schwarzenegger (favourite wrestler and actor respectively), as well as others. Everyone had a favourite actor, and I would say Duke is one of my favourite video game characters of all time.

                             DN3D on EDuke32, with the HRP and Polymer

But you look at the game today, and you see it has one of the most dedicated fan communities out there. You see how they’ve made it look so much better with all the source port wizardry, and the High resolution textures, as well as numerous mods and maps that have been made for it. You just can’t help but be amazed.

I still play the game to this day – it’s just one of those games that I feel has had incredible longevity, even if it’s been given a makeover and a facelift. Playing with all those add-ons makes up for the sorry lack of a sequel [apart from Manhattan Project] – and we all know the story about what happened to Duke Nukem Forever.

There are numerous others that would have made the top ten list, but the one and only game that I could have played would probably have to be Duke Nukem 3D. Hail to the King, baby.

So, now’s your chance. If there was one game that you could have played in your entire life, what would it have been?

If you had to Play One Game in Your life, What Would it be?

My Time as a Video Game Character: Duke Nukem

This time it was once again in the 90’s when I was in school and at the time, Duke Nukem was my hero. Seriously. Others has Superman, Batman, or Spiderman – I had Duke friggin’ Nukem.

The one year I was invited to a birthday party which was hosted in the school’s assembly hall with the headmaster’s permission, probably.

It was kind of awkward that day seeing as I had friend over at my house, and he wasn’t invited to the party, yet I was.

Anyhow. Dressing up as Duke Nukem is pretty easy, and I think at the time I hadn’t even heard of, let alone played Duke Nukem 3D – only the first two games. And so I put on some blue jeans, and a red shirt with the sleeves rolled up over my shoulders, and even had the metal bicep rings, or whatever you call them, although they were made of some flimsy material, and kept falling down my arms all the time.

I even had the gun. It was this machinegun which looked similar to the one from Wolf 3D, and made a clacking noise when you pulled the trigger. The only thing I didn’t have was the sunglasses. Duke Nukem didn’t have those until Duke 3D in any case.

I was driven down to the school and went inside to the hall where I met up with some other friends of mine who actually were invited. One of them was dressed up as one of his favourite wrestlers – Henry “H.O.G.” Godwinn. He had the chains wrapped around his shoulder and everything.

We naturally got in to a wrestling match right there and then. It was Duke Nukem versus Henry Godwinn – and the son of a b*tch nearly broke my thumb. He dropped right down on my hand and thumb, and I had the most intense pain, which lingered for years afterwards.

Granted, I wasn’t as tough as old Duke, but I didn’t cry anyway.

My Time as a Video Game Character: Duke Nukem

Duke Nukem: Manhattan Project Arriving on XBLA Soon

Duke Nukem: Manhattan Project recently celebrated its eighth birthday last week – not that anyone really noticed.

Up until now the game was only ever released on the PC, but that’s set to change as Microsoft has officially announced, after months and months of speculation and hints, that the game will be arriving on Xbox Live Arcade soon. No date or price has been given, but it will likely be soon.

The original Manhattan Project for Windows was released back in 2002. It was a kind of spin-off title, not in the main universe of Duke Nukem games, developed by Sunstorm Interactive, which has since gone out of business. It was still good fun though, as you controlled the Dukester in a side-scrolling 3D adventure spanning several environments, in what was essentially a tribute to the first two Duke Nukem games from the 90’s, before Duke Nukem 3D.

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Sources:

http://www.xbox.com/
Duke Nukem: Manhattan Project Confirmed for XBLA [Shacknews]

Duke Nukem: Manhattan Project Arriving on XBLA Soon

Good Old Games, or GOG.com, Gets new Classics, Blood Flowing Soon

Good Old Games recently added Atari classics, Outcast and Master of Orion 1 & 2 to their catalogue. They’re all available for $5.99 each.

But what caught my eye more than those two was that Blood might be debuting on the site soon. Blood is one of the big four build engine games from the 90’s. The others were of course Duke Nukem 3D, Shadow Warrior, and Redneck Rampage.

Blood, in my opinion, is the 2nd best build game ever. Duke Nukem 3D is first, with RR third, and SW last. There were of course other build games, some of which I’ve played, but I digress.

Blood is a cult classic, which I still have on my PC and play from time to time. The game was followed by a less successful sequel, and for a long time people campaigned for the release of the Blood source code, said to be held by Atari. Instead people have had to resort to making Blood mods for other games like Quake or Doom, namely Transfusion and ZDoom, using source ports for those games.

By the way, there’s a list on the website where you can vote for a game that you’d like to see added to the list of games all ready on the site. The last time I checked, System Shock 2 was high up among those “most wanted”.Yep, it’s still there in the lead, with Planescape: Torment in 2nd, and the original System Shock in 3rd.

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Sources:

GOG.com

GOG Gets Outcast, Master of Orion 1 & 2; Blood Coming Soon [Shacknews]

Good Old Games, or GOG.com, Gets new Classics, Blood Flowing Soon

Keen Dreams: Finger Bang You

The Keen Dreams series is all about video games in dreams, or video games and dreams, or dreams in video games. You get the picture.

I’ve noticed something that is a recurring element in all my dreams involving violence of some sort. I always shoot with my hand. You remember when you were a kid, and you would run around shouting “Phew, Phew!” and “Bang, you’re dead!” while holding your hand in the shape of a pistol with your finger extended, sometimes simulating the squeeze of the trigger?

That’s exactly what I mean. And it frustrates me, even during the dream. I’m like, where the hell is my gun? Why the hell am I shooting with my finger? Damn it, man!
Sometimes it’s even worse when the baddies in my dreams have guns of some sort, and here I am with my finger, shouting “Bang!”, “Kapow!”, and so on, while they have a big rifle. It’s very emasculating and makes you feel so very small.

It’s even worse when your squad all have guns, and they’re like “Take point!”, while sniggering to themselves. Very funny. Just wait until I get a gun and blow your head off for that! But I eventually have to settle for poking him in the eye.

But maybe it’s a representation of what it’s like in video games, if you think about it. When I sit there on my PC, playing Duke Nukem 3D [yes, I still play that game, and yes I still play PC games], I’m using my finger on the mouse to shoot the gun in-game.

I have held a real gun several times, though. Years ago my dad had a .22 target pistol, which was a rare one, seeing as it was a nine shot revolver instead of an eight or ten, which were more common. That got stolen. Then there was the big Webley& Scott .45 revolver, an antique heirloom, nearly one hundred years old, which he ended up handing in to the police at the pig sty. That pissed me off no end.
I even have several air rifles, and paint ball guns, and some model shotguns and pistols. Hell, I’ve still got some plastic pistols modelled on a Colt 1911 .45 hanging around.

And yet, my mind chooses to place me in a dangerous situation, surrounded by mean men with big guns, and I have my bloody finger.

You know what? I think it was because I watched that movie Race to Witch Mountain recently, and some guy was always in some situation where he would be saying “Gun? a Gun please.” But even that guy got a gun in the end.

Isn’t it ironic? Don’t you think?

/\\/ |\|\

Keen Dreams: Finger Bang You