This evening I saw a small blurb noting that Duke Nukem Forever’s release date has been pushed back from April to June. If you think two months sounds like a long time to wait, you may not know that Duke Nukem Forever was originally slated to be released in 1997.
Let that sink in for a moment. In 1997, Bill Clinton was the president, and none of us had heard of Monica Lewinsky yet. 1997 was the year Timothy McVeigh’s was convicted for his part in the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Building. That year, Mike Tyson bit Evander Holyfield’s ear off in the ring, and Tiger Woods won his first Masters at the age of 21. None of us had heard of El Nino or Harry Potter yet. 1997 was the year we lost The Notorious B.I.G., Princess Diana, Mother Tereasa, John Denver, Michael Hutchence of INXS, Chris Farley, and all those Nike-wearing, Hale-Bopp-lovin’ cultists from the Heaven’s Gate. One person who did not see all of this coming was famed astrologer Jeane Dixon, who also died.
“God is in, his holy tem-ple …”
In 1997, Microsoft released Internet Explorer 4, and the Mars Pathfinder landed on Mars.
Not to belabor the point, but some of the highest grossing movies of 1997 included Titanic, Men in Black, Air Force One, Good Will Hunting, Face/Off, Batman and Robin, Con Air, The Fifth Element, Spawn, Starship Troopers, Austin Powers, and Speed 2. Some of the top songs of 1997 were Elton John’s “Candle In The Wind”, Puff Daddy’s “I’ll Be Missing You”, Jewel’s “Foolish Games” and “You Were Meant For Me”, Spice Girls “Wannabe”, and Hanson’s “MMMBop”. Some of the top albums were Radiohead’s “OK Computer”, The Notorious B.I.G.’s “Life After Death”, Shania Twain’s “Come On Over”, Cherry Poppin’ Daddies’ “Zoot Suit Riot”, and Chumbawumba’s “Tubthumper”.
If you had started walking five miles a day in 1997, by now (assuming you could walk on water) you could have circled the entire Earth. If you had started travelling 40 miles a day (less than two miles per hour), you could have made it to the Moon by now.
And you still wouldn’t have a copy of Duke Nukem Forever.
The Golden Age of First Person Shooters took place during the first half of the 1990s. In 1992, Wolfenstein 3D (the grandfather of all modern shooters) was released. In 1993 the world was introduced to Doom, and for five years we were flooded with games that looked and felt like Doom: Doom II, Spear of Destiny, Star Wars: Dark Forces, Rise of the Triad, and Duke Nukem. All of these games used 2D sprites to simulate a 3D environment. In 1996, Quake upped the ante by introducing 3D models. Other games, such as Half-Life, Tribes, Unreal Tournament and Counter-Strike followed suit, quickly making the older 2D models look old and antiquated. As a result, many 2D first-person shooters being developed were shelved. This included Duke Nukem Forever.
Doom 2.
In 1997, Wired Magazine wrote its first Vaporware Awards. “Vaporware” is defined as hardware or software that was announced, but never materialized. By the early 2000s, Duke Nukem Forever was regularly appearing on the list. In 2004, the joke got so old that Wired awarded the game the un-coveted Lifetime Achievement Award, just to get it off the list. That was in 2004, seven years ago.
Wired Magazine also began excluding the title because, despite being mentioned by developer 3D Realms from time to time, by all accounts the game appeared to be dead. In fact, the game’s development outlasted 3D Realms (formerly Apogee) itself, which closed its doors 2009 and sold the franchise to Gearbox Software. The title “Duke Nukem Forever” became synonymous with “vaporware”. (The Wikipedia entry for vaporware contains a picture of the game.)
Against all odds, development on Duke Nukem Forever has continued. Pre-rendered videos and clips of in-game footage have been strategically leaked over time. When development on the game began, the PlayStation 1 was just hitting its stride. Since then, the PlayStation 2 has come and gone and we’re currently halfway through the PlayStation 3’s life cycle. When Duke Nukem Forever was originally being developed, I was using a 486 at both home and work; I wouldn’t acquire my first Pentium, a 133 Mhz machine, for another year.
So here we are, in 2011, still reading about Duke Nukem Forever delays. Over the past 14 years gamers have been disappointed, frustrated, and entertained by the game’s frequent delays, but at this point I can’t believe anyone still cares. I certainly don’t. It reminds me of Guns ‘N Roses’ infamous Chinese Democracy, which took almost exactly the same amount of time (14 years) to create.
Unlike wine, fruit doesn’t get better with age. It rots.
1997 was a really terrible year.
Actually they never really STOPPED development on it. There are lots of reasons it took so long. They had started it in one older engine but after awhile that engine was so out of date that they had to scrap all that work and start from the beginning in a new engine.
After that whole mess they kind of shut off the outside world and I’m sure they probably changed engines again too, given how long it has been since the first switch.
I think the biggest contributed to the while thing was they had the clout back in the “good days” to say they would release it “when it’s done”. Now some people can work with no deadline (like id software) but others fall prey to human nature and keep going and going (Chinese democracy). 3d realms falls into the latter rather than the former.
There are still hardcore gamers like myself that care about it, and perhaps they can capture a whole new generation of gamers now that we have old gamers kids playing now.
You know, my son (a gamer like his old man) was born in 1997. After reading this blog entry I asked him if he knew who Duke Nukem was. He had no clue.
This got me to thinking: As an archetype, Duke himself strikes me as something of a major anachronism: The physical modeling of pre-flabby Schwarzenegger or Willis; the apparently dozens of equipment pouches on his person like he stepped out of a Rob Liefeld comic; a calculated substitution of credible personality in favor of an empty-something which marketing departments call “attitude”. In short, he embodies a good number of the things I hated the most about the 1990s.
I can’t see how this game can be released as anything but a self-deprecating parody and yet still be expected to make money.