duke-nukem-forever posts

The weekend is getting closer and we have far too many PC games to play. It's time to pace ourselves before we become part of our PC office chair.

• Steam has automatic updates for Arcadia, Booster Trooper, Dogfighter, and Lead and Gold.
• Left 4 Dead 2 is repeating the Last Gnome on Earth gameplay mutation this week.
• You can now check out a free streaming video of the GDC 2011 Doom post mortem panel taped earlier this month.
• Why is Duke Nukem Forever now being released overseas a few days before it comes to the US? 2k Games says blame retailers.
• You can now buy official Minecraft t-shirts. How cute.
• Ubisoft is hiring for someone to write a Assassin's Creed encyclopedia.

Duke Nukem Forever is still coming, after 14 years of development. But it's apparently not coming on May 3 anymore. In a new trailer (which you can see after the jump) Gearbox Software's Randy Pitchford is pretty much blindsided with the reveal that the long awaited first person shooter is now due for release on June 14 in the US (with a June 10 release date in other parts of the world).

While no reason was given for the delay we actually think this is a good thing since Duke Nukem Forever was originally being released in a very crowded month of May for new game releases, especially for first person shooters (both Brink and F.E.A.R. 3 are also due out that month). The new June date will be relatively free of new game releases.

While the revival of Duke Nukem Forever has mostly concentrated on the single player campaign, the long awaited first person shooter will also have multiplayer modes. The official Xbox Magazine has the first details about multiplayer for DNF (supplied by developer Piranha Games) and the fan site Duke4.net has posted up some (most likely illegal) scans of the magazine's story.

Much like the recent Call of Duty and Battlefield games, multiplayer matches in Duke Nukem Forever will allow players to have persistent stats and leveling up of their player characters. Unfortunately the player cap for the Xbox port is 8 players (it might be bigger for the PC version)
Multiplayer will include access to the jetpack which won't be in the single player campaign. There's all the old favorite weapons from Duke Nukem 3D including the HoloDuke which adds one neat feature; while using HoloDuke your character is now cloaked.

There will be 10 maps at launch and four modes: Dukematch, Team Dukematch, Hail to the King (basically King of the Hill mode) and our favorite Capture the Babe. Yes, it's CTF with the flag turned into a lady who can sometimes freak out while your player character is holding her. The maps will include a revival of Duke Nukem 3D's Duke Burger level, except that the players appear to be miniatures running around in a giant world. A multiplayer demo is planned for release before the game ships in early May.

Duke Nukem Forever is a game that's been in development for over 14 years. Yes, it's been that long since its original developer 3D Realms started working on the first person shooter that will finally be finished and released to the world on May 3 by Gearbox Software and publisher 2K Games.

Naturally there's been a lot of people who have contributed to the game at one time or another during the past 14 years. So Gearbox Software has launched a web site that will allow anyone who believes he or she has had something to do with the game to submit their name to a special web site. There are several different listing available from working on the game itself to being a prominate community member or fan or even a member of the press.

The site also has a survey asking the person how much their truly contributed to the game's development. If your contribution is deemed worthy enough, Gearbox and 2K Games may put your name in Duke Nukem Forever's credit when it's released.

After a slow week things are picking up on the news front. We wonder what will be revealed tomorrow?

• Steam owners can now pre-order the PC version of the Crysis 2 Limited Edition.
• Garry's Mod now supports the character models of Half-Life 1. Cool stuff.
• A new beta update for Warhammer 40,000 Dawn of War II Retribution has been released.
• Warren Spector, who helped create the original System Shock and the Deus Ex games, is writing a monthly Duck Tales comic book. This is not a joke.
• A live action fan video has been released that combines a zombie outbreak with, of all things, Minecraft.
• Listen to Duke Nukem do what he does best; one liners.

The PC port of Duke Nukem Forever is the latest game to officially announce its support for Steamworks. Valve's game development tools will be a part of the long awaited first person shooter when the game is released on May 3, according to message board posts on both the Gearbox Software and 2K Games message boards.

That means that the PC version will require a Steam account and that Duke Nukem Forever will also like have other Steamworks features like matchmaking. achievements, automatic patch updates. Steam Cloud game save support and more. It also likely means that the PC demo for the game will also be released via Steam.

Duke Nukem Forever fans will be able to get their hands on some pre-order bonsues if they put down their money early for the upcoming and long awaited first person shooter. Developer Gearbox Software announced that GameStop and Wal-Mart stores will offer different pre-order bonuses for people who buy the game before its release on May 3.

GameStop pre-orders game some extra downloadable content for the game including a EGO boost, a t-shirt pack and (our favorite) a 'Big Head" mode. Wal-Mart pre-order buyers of the game will be able to get a real world Duke Nukem Forever trucker-style cap to wear proudly while they shop at their local store.

The annual Toy Fair is happening right now in New York City and for the 2011 edition action figure companies are breaking out plans to release new figures based on current and upcoming games. NECA always has a ton of game-related action figures coming down the pike and Figures.com has a gallery full of what the company is showing off at Toy Fair this year.

As you can see one of the upcoming NECA figures is a highly detailed Duke Nukem that's slated for release in April just before Duke Nukem Forever comes out in May. It also showed off some upcoming figures from its BioShock line and announced that in 2012 it would be releasing figures based on the next game in the series BioShock Infinite.

Over at Kotaku they have posted up a video showing off some current and upcoming collectible statues from Gaming Heads, who have previously released statues based on Valve's games. Upcoming products in the video include a Smoker Infected from the Left 4 Dead series and a Portal 2 turret. Gaming Heads is also working on more Valve-based statues including a Gordon Freeman statue from Half-Life 2 that we suspect will sell out quickly.

[Picture credit: Figures.com]

Duke Nukem Forever is finally just a few months away from release and now the development team at Gearbox Software is showing off the near final version of the long awaited first person shooter to the press. In this new video we get to see some gameplay from the latest adventure from Duke along with interview footage of Steve Gibson, formerly the head of the Shacknews web site and now the VP at Gearbox.

Gibson points out that the 2001 trailer that was released for Duke Nukem Forever had a list of people who worked on the game while it was at 3D Realms. Now nearly all of them work at Gearbox. That and other factors really make the game a labor of love for the developer to complete. The final product will be presented to everyone to judge on May 3.

Download the Duke Nukem Forever Steve Gibson Interview Video at Big Download

First person shooter fans have become used to playing through short single player campaigns in the last decade or so but that won't be the case for Duke Nukem Forever. The long awaited and long-in-development game will have an average play time of about 16 to 18 hours, according to what Randy Pitchford, the head of the game's developer Gearbox Software, stated in the most recent episode of Spike's GTTV TV series. He added, " "It's like three or four Call of Dutys, right?"

In this week's press event, members of the media along with a few lucky fans only got to play the first six levels of the game. But will the final version of the game be consistently good with all of that single player gameplay? Pitchford says simply, "The game will speak for itself. I love it." We will find out if we love all that gameplay when Duke Nukem Forever comes out on May 3.