I agree.. I really wonder what they've been doing for all that time..
Well, my theory is that they started out wanting to make the game the best thing out at the time, but the problem was that they were so anal retentive about making everything about it perfect that by the time they got anywhere close to release, the final product was no longer state of the art. They could have easily released the game to much fanfare back in 2001 when they had an almost completed version and while it wouldn't have been bleeding edge, it would have been a great game and long-awaited considering that it would have been five years since the last installment. Unfortunately, I think they pulled a Howard Hughes level of obsessive compulsive disorder and repeated that whole "
rebuild it from the ground up" move a few too many times, each time running into the "What we used as the framework isn't the industry standard anymore" problem they encountered the first time around. Couple that with the fact that they were working on other games at the time and the fact that 3d Realms is essentially 20-30 people, and therefore ill-equipped to crank out games at a Capcom or Konami-esque pace.
I'm all for taking your time making a good product. We've all seen what happens when you rush production of something, (SEE: XBOX 360, Ford Pinto AKA the BBQ that seats four, virtually every movie tie-in game ever), but there comes a point where you have to recognize that you will never make
The Perfect Game. How many great works of art would we not have if every artist almost completed a work, decided it wasn't perfect, and destroyed it and started over? There will always be
something you could tweak a little bit more, but eventually, you're tweaking things that only
you notice. At that point, you're probably also wearing Kleenex boxes for shoes and peeing in jars.
I'm pretty sure after about the second time they decided to start from scratch, well after any Duke fanfare had died down to a low simmer, their hearts just weren't in it anymore. How passionate would
you be about a job where your boss destroyed your work in front of you at the end of every day? I think the only person who still thought that game would see the light of day right up to the bitter end
was George Broussard, and the rest of the 3D Realms staff humored the "crazy old man" because he was a steady paycheck.
Never mind the fact that the development of this game appears to be aging backwards like Benjamin Button.
1998: Near completed beta version of
Duke Nukem: Forever debuts at E3, with a projected release date of late 1998. This is effectively the tail end of the opportunity to cash in on the previous game's fanfare. Nonetheless, development seems to be on track and things are looking good.
2001: Near completed rebuilt beta version of
Duke Nukem: Forever debuts at E3 after extensive delays from its 1998 projected release date.
2004: Extensive trailer of footage from rebuilt version of
Duke Nukem: Forever debuts at E3 after extensive delays from its 2001 projected release date.
2007: Teaser trailer of Duke Nukem lifting some weights and blowing cigar smoke in the face of his fans. (How Appropriate, since 3D Realms has basically done the same thing to the fans since 1996! I suspect that the cloud of cigar smoke Duke disappears into was meant to be a subtle commentary on the fate of the game and eventually the company; up in smoke.)
2009: 3D Realms disbands.
2015: A man named George Broussard doodles a gun-toting, crewcut man in
Wayfarers on a cocktail napkin while drowning his sorrows in some dive bar somewhere. He decides to start his own game company, with the character he just created as the star of its flagship series.
I imagine that the only way we're ever going to play
Duke Nukem: Forever is if we invent some sort of
Sliders technology that will allow us to travel to a parallel dimension where we can pick it up in a two-pack with
Starcraft: Ghost,
Max Payne 3, or
Tex Murphy 5.
Dear Fans,
F--- YOU!!!
Love,
George BroussardOh, well, at least there's still those third-person console-only
Duke Nukem games they made a few years back. Those are better than nothing. Some of them are actually pretty entertaining.
EDIT:I agree.. I really wonder what they've been doing for all that time..
Well, I know what
Duke's been up to this whole time!
