Why the hype for Duke Nukem?

[Shihan2]

Let me first state that I didn't own a copy of Duke Nukem when I was a kid. I haven't seen much of the series, since I only saw about two minutes of it as a friends place before getting bored and doing something else. I grew up with games much farther on the fringe, so I don't really understand the appeal it has with so many people.
Let's assume that the people who REALLY enjoy this series were ten when the first game was released and 14-15 when 3D was released. By now, those individuals are now about to enter their 30's. Don't you have more pressing issues to worry about than resurrecting an old series from your childhood? I have a friend who's thirty and enjoyed the series back when Forever was still an uncertainty, and he's much more interested in his daughter learning to speak.
But what really confuses me is why everyone continues to rant on and on about the demo and how disappointing it is. After all this time, and let's not forget the original developers no longer being apart of the process, did anyone really think this would be anything other than an attempt to wring money out of nostalgic gamers?
Since I've never had much interest in the series, due to the fact in my eyes the "humor" is bland at best, I'm asking some of the other Escapists what their take on the matter is. I'm open to the argument that realism can and should be axed if it gets in the way of a game that isn't trying to be serious, and I understand humor is subject to perception. One thing I ask is to please give the Yahtzee arguments a break and argue about the merits of the Nukem series instead of blaming a game released five years after the end of Nukem.

 

[Scabadus]

Why the hype? A combination of nostalgia and the anticipation of a 14 year development cycle.

If you ask me what the best game ever is, a lot of the time I'll say Ocarina of Time, which is completely false but I've got good memories of it. What I skim over are the poor (by today's standards) graphics, long travel times, rediculous difficulty of getting the damn bunny hood and the fucking owl! (What's that? Water Temple? I had the official walkthrough, haha.)

So yes, to many people Duke Nukem 3D is the best game of all time. You've also got to remember that CoD is made in a year (it's actually not) so what could the devs do with 14?! (They actually didn't, long story but shockingly it hasn't actually been in constant development and impreovement all that time. I know, right?!)

Add to that that DNF is advertised as (or at least perceived as) a 'good old days' shooter with lots of guns, limited health and colours apart from brown. Or at least it was, until the demo came out with 2 weapon slots, regenerating health and a colour spectrum ranging from 'mud' to 'raw, untempered sewage.'

That's what I hear anyway, I have no interest and didn't play the demo. Which leads me onto my last point: I so called it!

 

[Frotality]

uh...its been 14 fucking years?! its like a reunion tour; it probably wont be very good compared to their prime, but simply seeing a band back together after so many years is enough to get people REALLY excited about it.

...and do you really expect people to make threads about their toddlers first words on a gaming forum? of course people are going to sound overly excited about games here, its the gaming forum! games are all we talk about here!

 

[Shihan2]

Yeah, I get that. My point being, that at near 30 one would think people would be paying attention to real life rather than a game that a developer made the mistake of showing to near rabid fans who've had blue balls for 14 years. I say that because no 15-16 year old kids are likely going to be really into a series that was in it's prime when they hadn't even started school yet. For instance, I love an old game called MDK. it's a third person shooter that made no attempt to be serious; like lazing a target so your pet dog could fly in an airstrike and beating the end boss by feeding him enough so he literally explodes. I'd love to see a modern take on it but I'm not losing sleep over it, and I didn't fantasize about burning the dev's house down when the less than impressive sequel was released. I get that finding threads about DNF in a gaming forum shouldn't be surprising, just merely wondering why everyone is disappointed that the gaming Holy Grail turned out to be just a Grail shaped beacon outside a sewage center.

 

[SL33TBL1ND]

This [http://duke.a-13.net/] is probably why.

 

[Pedro The Hutt]

To be fair, a good deal of the most rabid Duke defenders I've seen out there were just toddlers when DN3D launched. Which I guess makes them the right age now to enjoy a game like DNF. =p Maybe their dads kept telling them how awesome DN3D was and how awesome it would be if/when DNF came out.

 

[Morgan Howe]

hes like the james bond for ballsy americans
whats not to love

 

[Stavros Dimou]

Let me first state that I didn't own a copy of Duke Nukem when I was a kid. I haven't seen much of the series, since I only saw about two minutes of it as a friends place before getting bored and doing something else. I grew up with games much farther on the fringe, so I don't really understand the appeal it has with so many people.
Let's assume that the people who REALLY enjoy this series were ten when the first game was released and 14-15 when 3D was released. By now, those individuals are now about to enter their 30's. Don't you have more pressing issues to worry about than resurrecting an old series from your childhood? I have a friend who's thirty and enjoyed the series back when Forever was still an uncertainty, and he's much more interested in his daughter learning to speak.
But what really confuses me is why everyone continues to rant on and on about the demo and how disappointing it is. After all this time, and let's not forget the original developers no longer being apart of the process, did anyone really think this would be anything other than an attempt to wring money out of nostalgic gamers?
Since I've never had much interest in the series, due to the fact in my eyes the "humor" is bland at best, I'm asking some of the other Escapists what their take on the matter is. I'm open to the argument that realism can and should be axed if it gets in the way of a game that isn't trying to be serious, and I understand humor is subject to perception. One thing I ask is to please give the Yahtzee arguments a break and argue about the merits of the Nukem series instead of blaming a game released five years after the end of Nukem.

I am one of those old Duke fans you talk about.
So I'm gonna tell you how I felt.

First of all,let's speak a little about Duke Nukem 3d.

DN3D came out in 1996, and it was a very innovative game for its time,and I dare to say much more realistic than other fpss.
For the first time in the history of fpss you could actually shoot windows and they would broke.
You could refill your health by drinking water from a sink.
You could do numerous things you couldn't do in other games,and that made the game's world too much believe able compared to other games.
Except that,Duke voice made him look more real than other protagonists of a game,because he responded to what was happening around him.
Duke Nukem 3d brought a brand new experience that was too immersive and made you feel like you are actually in the action of things.
It was a post apocalyptic game where Duke returned to Earth after a space trip and found out that major earthquakes destroyed whole cities,other cities where flooded by Cataclysmic floods,aliens had killed or kidnapped the majority of the population leaving back ghost cities,etc..
The main thing was fight for survival in a post apocalyptic Earth infested with aliens.
Jokes where a very small part of the game,and they where too secondary.


Now,after DN3D was done 3D Realms said that they where going to make a sequel for it and that it would be better.
They said that the new game in the series would make another revolution in the game industry.
They said that the game will feel so real and will be so immersive,that it will have never before seen levels of interactivity,and blah blah blah..
Then they said that their goal was to MAKE THE BEST GAME OF ALL TIME that people will remember FOREVER.
They promised us the BEST GAME OF ALL TIME,and they made us wait for it..
Graphics played a HUGE role in Duke no matter what some people say nowdays..
The fact is that the game was almost ready to ship 2 times,and the last moment the studio decided to throw all their work in the trash bin to re-start working on the game because new graphics engines had come out 2 to 4 months before the game would go "gold".
The game was supposed to also have integrated the latest,state of the art technology and graphics.
It was supposed to be one of the most realistic games coming out where you could do almost anything you can in the real world,everything would be destructible,everything would be interactive,physics would be like in reality,and you could do with Duke almost what you can do yourself in real world.
Their motto was "The game will be out WHEN IT'S DONE" meaning that they won't release a rushed game because they where targeting for perfection.

 

[Radoh]

Fourteen years of waiting and countless jokes is why the hype.

 

[DazZ.]

I'm 21, I grew up playing Duke Nukem. Am I young enough (in your opinion) to get excited over it more so than my friends first drunken words?

 

[Wondermint13]

Why?

..Cus it's Duke Nukem

 

[Tsukuyomi]

It is most assuredly a trip down memory lane for most of us. I'll agree that far. But, thinking on it, maybe it's just this way for me, but....

In a sense, the term "Hail to the King" means more than just Duke. It refers to the player. In so many games today, what are we cast as? Survivors? Soldiers? Civilians forced to fight? Often, at least story-wise, we're put into a weaker spot. Often we rise to become lord of what we survey. There's nothing particularly wrong with that, but with the concept being so prevalent, games that, despite whatever gameplay or actual story may tell us, makes us FEEL like we're large and in charge from the start seem to captivate us and entertain us a bit more than usual.

The Grand Theft Auto series is a wonderful example. It's just fun to loll about in and do whatever you please. Perhaps it's just me, but sometimes you can't just buck that feeling when you laugh at the puny policemen barreling down towards you in their cars before you blow said cars to smithereens with the ordinance of your choice. It's YOUR world and YOU do as you please. Sure, it's egotistical, but we all have egos. and it's fun to indulge them once in awhile.

While Duke may not be sandbox, and he may not be all we were promised, the feeling, the Aesthetic, may prove to make up for that. Here we're not some faceless soldier. We're not going baby-steps through ranks or prestige. We're Duke. We're king of the bloody universe from the moment we push that 'New Game' button. and noone else is going to tell us different.

Sure, it's ridiculous. Sure, it's a flimsy, ego-driven reason. But you can't deny that it's somewhat therapeutic, and it's just a breath of fresh air. Maybe not a total lungful, but anything is better than choking in the smog at this point I suppose.

 

[Gralian]

Yeah, I get that. My point being, that at near 30 one would think people would be paying attention to real life rather than a game that a developer made the mistake of showing to near rabid fans who've had blue balls for 14 years. I say that because no 15-16 year old kids are likely going to be really into a series that was in it's prime when they hadn't even started school yet. For instance, I love an old game called MDK. it's a third person shooter that made no attempt to be serious; like lazing a target so your pet dog could fly in an airstrike and beating the end boss by feeding him enough so he literally explodes. I'd love to see a modern take on it but I'm not losing sleep over it, and I didn't fantasize about burning the dev's house down when the less than impressive sequel was released. I get that finding threads about DNF in a gaming forum shouldn't be surprising, just merely wondering why everyone is disappointed that the gaming Holy Grail turned out to be just a Grail shaped beacon outside a sewage center.

Okay, firstly, you're assuming people have a tonne of real world obligations at 30. You're also assuming their lives are so filled to the brim with said obligations that they can't bare to tear themselves away from them for the pursuit of something more trivial. Just because you are an adult, doesn't mean you are suddenly devoid of entertainment. You don't have to give up that show you like or stop watching sports on saturdays or no longer be allowed to play video games. Because honestly, if that were the case, i'd rather drive off a cliff right now and be done with it.

As for why so many people are excited for the Duke Nukem Forever game itself, people have said it before. It's been in a (according to Duke in the demo) 12 year development cycle. Every single time a release date approached, 3D Realms pushed it back, saying that it was going to be this incredible amazing holy grail of perfection. As Stavros above me said, they said "It'll be out when it's done." Duke Nukem Forever became the butt of many jokes, as people became increasingly convinced it would never be released. It almost became memetic in a way; becoming synonymous with everything else that people thought was green lighted but ended up fading into obscurity. The fact it's now being released means it also has to live up to those 12 year promises, which is a bigger bite than Gearbox can really chew at the moment, but it's their fault for bailing out 3D Realms. Now people are just waiting in anticipation to either praise it as the "Second Coming" or scorn it for the over-hyped commercial ball of "lulz" that it is and has become.

As for the game itself, again, people above me have said that they had hoped it would be a return to days past when health wasn't regenerating, when you had more weapons than keys on a janitor's keyring, and action on the screen that was so crash-bang-wallop and busy that it was a glorious blur of bullets, explosions, lasers and blood. Unfortunately, this is not the case. It's now a brown cover based shooter with one or two enemies on screen that have perfect aim. Regenerating health, and the two weapon system. This is why people are disappointed but still hopeful the final product will somehow pull a miracle and be good despite its modern day contrivances.

As for why people love the Duke himself. It's because he is an icon of 90's pop culture, something of both a symbol of "cool" and "uncool". People love Duke because he is so unapologetically macho and ridiculous, that it in turn makes him as cool as he portrays himself. We all want to be Duke, no matter how civil and progressive we might be, there's always going to be an appeal to be this "alpha male" he's portraying. On the flipside, he's a complete parody of 90's action heroes like Arnold Schwarzeneggar and Bruce Willis, which in turn makes him a parody of himself and thus endearing to the audience. He's an icon of complete obnoxiousness, something that is absent from today's protagonists, and whether he's a product of a bygone era struggling to be relevant or not, people still love him for it and hope he doesn't vanish from the gaming culture forever. After all, there's still a place for two dimensional caricatures. Not everyone was totally deep experiences with fully fleshed out three dimensional characters that grow and develop over time; sometimes they just want to whip out a larger than life gun and say "I'm an equal opportunity ass-kicker!" before proceeding to murder everything in sight. Simplicity has its pleasures. It's just like why you might choose to watch South Park instead of your favourite drama or soap opera one night. Sometimes, you just want something crass and not make your brain think.

Stavros mentioned how Duke 3D revolutionised the FPS genre back when it was released so i won't repeat it here. However, i will add that don't forget until Duke no FPS protagonists had any personality. They never spoke and we knew nothing about the doom space marine or the soldier you play as in Wolfenstein. Duke was the first character to have a voice and a personality. This is another way in which he revolutionised the FPS, despite being such a seemingly simple character. It's the fact he had any characterisation period in a time when there was none.

Lastly, I'd like to point out i'm 20 and i grew up with Duke on the N64, both with Duke Nukem 64 (a port of 3D) and Duke Nukem Zero Hour as well as Land of the Babes on the PS1. So, naturally, i hold a special place in my heart for the blonde haired buffoon. Sure i have my studies and priorities to keep me busy, but that doesn't mean i can't still have fun and be excited about other things.

 

[Danceofmasks]

Meh.

I don't expect DNF to be a great game.

The only games worth waiting >10 years for are made by Blizzard.
Even Valve isn't on that level.

 

[Chemical Alia]

I'm not going to comment on DNF at all, but as a gamer in the age group you're talking about (going on 29), it sounds ridiculous to me when you suggest that we in our adult lives can't get excited about and anticipate nostalgic games. I don't have quite as much free time for games as I did when I was a teenager, but with no family and disposable income, there's plenty of room for gaming and a career. I was delighted when I heard a new King's Quest game is being made, for much the same reason.

By that logic, maybe you should be focusing on your algebra homework.

 

[Wolfram23]

Yeah, I get that. My point being, that at near 30 one would think people would be paying attention to real life rather than a game that a developer made the mistake of showing to near rabid fans who've had blue balls for 14 years. I say that because no 15-16 year old kids are likely going to be really into a series that was in it's prime when they hadn't even started school yet. For instance, I love an old game called MDK. it's a third person shooter that made no attempt to be serious; like lazing a target so your pet dog could fly in an airstrike and beating the end boss by feeding him enough so he literally explodes. I'd love to see a modern take on it but I'm not losing sleep over it, and I didn't fantasize about burning the dev's house down when the less than impressive sequel was released. I get that finding threads about DNF in a gaming forum shouldn't be surprising, just merely wondering why everyone is disappointed that the gaming Holy Grail turned out to be just a Grail shaped beacon outside a sewage center.

I hope you're trolling... you don't think a 30 year old has time to game? And on top of that, for some wierd reason, you think it's the 30 year olds who are foaming at the mouth for this?

Dude... no. We all have our hobbies that occupy our free time. If gaming is one of them, so be it. And it's most definitely NOT the older people who are "hyping" the game. It's the devs pushing a lot of media attention and a lot of younger people who did NOT play Duke 3D (at least not near it's release). But, a game with lots of tits and sex jokes and guns and violence? What's not to love (from a 15 year old's perspective)? Of COURSE they're going to be interested! After all that was around the age I was when first playing Duke 3D and it was HILARIOUS to my immature little mind.

As for us older folks, yeah there's definitely nostalgia of playing of the first FPS games of my life and certainly one of the most over the top and fun. Add to that a 14 year development cycle and you bet I'm interested in what they've done. But I don't get hyped for games anymore, not since I was a teenager.