Duke Nukem Forever Lives. Really.

In my first PAX report, I reported the announcement that Gearbox was finishing up the storied Duke Nukem Forever for 2K Games with a healthy level of skepticism. As older gamers know, it’s been 13 years since the game was first announced as being in development, and it’s had a very interesting history involving multiple game engines, a variety of screen shots and videos, and years of delays. Then, in 2009, we heard it was finally dead. But as you’d expect. you can’t kill Duke.

As we entered the demo room, Gearbox’s Randy Pitchford (who brought us the recent hit Borderlands) gave us the background on how Gearbox came to pick up the game, including the trivia tidbit that he’d actually worked at 3D Realms during the days of the original Duke game. Then he showed us a seriously awesome trailer full of the trademark Duke humor—urinals, strippers, triple-breasted space monsters, and F-bombs in the interstitials. (I’m pretty sure this game will garner just about all of the currently available ESRB warning descriptors.) Now, Randy and his team have an awesome history, and the video was impressive and funny as hell, but still, this is Duke Nukem Forever. Smoke and mirrors aren’t going to make me blog this!

Then, we walked into the back room. And right in front of me was a Duke Nukem 3D title screen. With an Xbox 360 controller in front of it. Could this be real?

I have played Duke Nukem Forever. An entire level. It is real. It exists. And 2K Games says they’ll be shipping it in 2011.

The short level I played started with Duke in bathroom. You do your thing, head out, have a couple of amusing interactions with a soldier, and then head out into the arena to fight a Big Bad Alien. The combat was smooth, fast-paced, and glitch-free, backing up Pitchford’s claim that the game is in the fine-tuning stages now. Blast the big guy, and then avoid his charges while you look for the telltale smoke flares from the ammo drops around the arena. And once he’s down, you can kick a field goal using one of the giblets. True Duke style. Despite is protracted development (or perhaps because of it), The game looked as good as this year’s state-of-the-art shooters.

Could Duke Nukem Forever really be coming 2011? Signs point to “yes.” And that’s a first. Watch Xbox.com for news as it develops!

Comments

• Anonymous
  September 05, 2010
  i know some1 on the pc of MW2 whos got the same name