Today we live in a mangina sjw femi nazi sissy snowflake millennial useless society , its sooo easy to make a great Duke Nukem game devouring all the previously mentioned useless humans
The crazo thing is, if they hadn't fallen into the feature creep, they could of made a duke game every two years or so and kept up with the tides of change, and by now have something good to go back to.
I never liked John Carmack, (personally I think he was always an overrated drama queen,) but he had the guts to force out company partners if they became a liability, and Broussard was the very definition of a liability. (Hell, Carmack fired John Romero, the guy who HIRED HIM IN THE FIRST PLACE so even partners can be fired.) Miller should have given him an ultimatum, release the game AS IS during the Quake engine build, or take a buy out and GTFO. After the Unreal fiasco, it was clear that Broussard had no interest whatsoever in finishing the game, just dicking around with other people's money, (including Scott's.) George kept claiming "we don't want drama", yet he courted it every chance he got. He was everything that was wrong with 90s gaming and Miller deserves to be unemployed for not stopping the fart huffing.
I still to this day find myself wishing that the timeline where Yahtzee Croshaw wrote the full script for DNF was the one that actually came to pass. We truly live in the darkest timeline.
"Duke is the straight man in a much more insane world." you hit the nail on the god damn head. I loved Duke's quips, even in this game. Duke is supposed to be bombastic, the loud, action hero who says all the cheesey lines, who fires all the guns and gets all the women, but it only works if HE is the one who's clearly the odd one out. Everything around Duke is supposed to be normal ,save for the occasional easter egg and reference, and guess what, a lot of the references are in his lines, not right in the screen. Many of the little references in the Dream sequence do this better; the eternally spinning top, REDRUM written in the bathroom, because it's a dream, some things are SUPPOSED to be weird, but it's also not the 30 people AROUND duke pointing the fucking thing out. It's supposed to be the basic folks with body armor fighting a bloody tooth and nail battle with the aliens, and then suddenly, here is duke in a tank top and jeans with a gun in each hand spouting one liners and mopping up an army by himself. You know, like an action movie. Gearbox is just gonna misuse duke because they don't understand what made him great. Sure, jon st john will not be out of work, but honestly, only the most obsessed and starved people will be getting the things he's been shoehorned in.
I really want to see a modernized Duke game. By modernized, I mean take the piss out of popular game and movie tropes. Have a section where you are fighting through the sound stage of a superhero movie recently taken over by Aliens. Have him kvetch and moan about having to deal with a modern military situation with medals to be awarded by the general when the squabble is done. Have a section of the game with "random" weapon drops that aren't worth it (Literally have the default weapons labeled as "Better than stuff lying on the ground,") and random level ups that don't do much other than push enemies back and refill your health. Hell, have a level completely based off of one of the first Duke3D games and have him constantly complain about how Producers always going too far when it comes to getting the feel of the games. Duke should be closer to Deadpool for the game delivered.
And ending each level with the satisfying smash of the nuclear sign he always used to do in Duke 3D and our lives would be complete! Like seriously... where is that in DNF?
I didn't think it was a bad game at all, but then again I never expected it to ever come out. In all honesty, when I bought the game and brought it home, I half expected a CGI sequence where Duke Nukem and a few enemies play "Never Gonna Give You Up" while a banner drops behind them that reads "No Refunds."
Kim, your research and in-depth analysis is the pinnacle of current video game journalism. I come back, and every time you somehow outdo yourself. Keep up the excellent work, and I am proud to be entertained. Thank you and much love.
This "dumb" circle strafing is definitely not outdated, and something that belongs to FPS games even to this day, look at Serious Sam and how solid the game is, even the new Doom, where you're relying on circle strafing to avoid enemy attacks.
Don't forget that DNF also stands for Did Not Finish. Please note, DNF is fun on PC, but controls were very poor on consoles, so please make sure you are playing on PC if you've never tried it.
It's quite easy to tell, Clint hasn't phoned it in like John St.John has the last couple of times he's voiced Duke. If Gearbox does a new Duke Nukem game, get Clint to voice Duke.
What I don't understand is why 3D Realms threw away the script for DNF 2001, or some of their original ideas for DNF '98. There were so many good things in the previous versions previewed that got lost. Bombshell and Gus, two original characters who didn't make it into the retail version, would've served as clever foils to Duke's character. Bombshell, who originally worked for Dr. Proton against Duke, eventually joins forces with Duke. The gist of her character is she doesn't find him attractive at all, Duke's attempts to flirt with her would come to nought. Gus would've constantly cracked on Duke's appearance, based upon that bit where he makes fun of his sunglasses. Considering what bits we know of story from the previous versions of DNF, 3D Realms had a good thing going, and it just boggles my mind that they sabotaged what they had. I hope that Yahtzee gets another chance to writing for a Duke Nukem game, but I don't know if he would've improved DNF. It also would've been nice if DNF allowed for some modding.
They didn't really have a script, it was designed gameplay first. The script and dialogue was only written after the game had been completed (to the extent it was completed). I don't know when Bombshell was cut and replaced with that prick Dillon, but it was pretty late, possibly only after Gearbox took over, since 3DR kept the Bombshell rights.
Maybe this is different perspective, but I don't see anyone taking Duke seriously other than critics. It's not an obvious parody, like Broforce, but still over the top.
I remember seeing the Unreal engine trailer on my Duke Nukem Manhattan Project disk I had obtained from an old Driver disk.... My 9 year old ass was SO EXCITED for that game... Oh man...when the game finally came out.... I mean come on the game starts with picking up shit.
Great Video as usual, all very top notch I can't understand why you don't have many many more subs, don't get me wrong 31k is a great achievement and a big pat on the back for that. it's just that there are other people who have more subs, but not edited to the quality that your video's are, you have a knack of letting us know what we need to know and do that in a great interesting way. keep up the great work kim.
When I played DNF back in 2011 I absolutely loved it. I could not understand all the hate towards it. I was 22 at the time and was way too hyped to be objective. So, I decided to replay the game last year. I thought that now that I am in my 30's and I already played the best FPS ever made (Doom Eternal) I would have a better perspective. So, I decided to replay DNF and The Doctor Who Cloned Me dlc. Loved it again. From start to finish. I guess it's just me being a huge Duke fanboy.
As usual, your knowledge is second to none and the chronology mixed with the pithy commentary is brilliant. Love the fact that I keep finding more and more of your docs, they are great!
The rampant misogyny is such a misunderstanding of the Duke Nukem character. He was a womanizer, but never disrespectful. Indeed, one can argue his original quest was driven by one thing: "Nobody steals our chicks!". In Duke Nukem 3D, even killing the captive women results in the player being punished, and the N64 port even changed it so you could rescue them instead. Lack of self parody aside, nothing about DNF feels in tune with the character as we knew him in Duke Nukem 3D. But what you're called on to do in the Hive level underlines that even moreso. If this tone was indeed in Broussard's version of the game and not an addition of Pitchford's team, then it really does show that something went very, very wrong with 3D Realms after 1996.
2001 version looked so cool, they should go back and finish one of the earlier versions. I'd pay good money for it, retro graphics are appreciated nowadays so nothing gets lost by using an old engine.
It's weird to think that Ion Maiden might actually be the most Duke Nukem-like return to gaming, despite not having Duke in it. In many ways, Bombshell is carrying the torch the Duke dropped long ago. Who would have thought.
You seem to have a grudge against Duke already in the background and also what you imply that Duke is remembered for, kinda isn't accurate really. Few things.. Duke3D was great because of the variety it offered in gameplay, not just because of a talking character and naked females showing. DN3D was game in the times of when PC FPS was still a new thing and many Doom clones existed. DN3D however didn't limit itself just as Doom clone but did some real pioneering for the genre. Duke3D was the first known fps to have maps set in real world locations like Radio Stations, Fire Stations, Movie Theaters, Sushi Restaurants, Waste Disposal Facilities.. instead of generic castles/scifi bases such you see in Doom or Quake. Due to this, levels are also more easy to understand as they aren't just random mazes but actual places like grocery stores and I'm pretty sure everyone knows how an inside of a grocery store works.. Game had high interactivity with the gameworld (toilets work, lightswitches can be used to turn lights on/off, walls can be broken by explosives, realtime survailence camera monitors..). The game had emphassis on verticality while Doom was a game without jumping and crouching. DN3D had heavy focus on vertical level design where the environments never felt too repeating. It even had a jetpack that you could use on some of the harder lava maps. At times you were diving underwater while at times you were climbing ladders up from sewers, breaking up a airvent hatch to access a room which door was malfunctioned.. DN3D did so much that Doom didn't and all of this before Quake was released. Duke Nukem Forever failed because of multiple things, but for this case the biggest thing would have to be the following.. Custom game engine (heavily modified Unreal Engine 1) that was always being made and designed for to be run on PC foremost, instead all the sudden is now expected to run completely fine on consoles which is an aspect that was never a part of the deving process. Since the game literally didn't perform well enough on performance side on the Xbox 360, they started scrapping massive amount of content in hopes of getting the framerate running at acceptable rates. Scrapping content and making the levels smaller wasn't the only thing however.. Because gameplay was neither ever designed for controllers, they had to re-design the entire game aswell. You can see it at 25:29 how 2009 Jace Hall build still had the full Half-Life style weapon bar in the game. Not do you have it in the final released version though. Console version has only a 2weapons at max limit and only the PC got later released a patch which added 2more slots to it, making it total of 4weapons max. 4weapons is still way too little and shows how this game was never intended to work with just selected amount of weapons equipped, because it almost always gives you what you would use in a upcomming situation. Compare pace of Half-Life 2 to released DNF and you'll see that DNF is quite slower game because it had to be optimized to work on controllers aswell.. It has been confirmed that the story of DNF was literally written by two women in the end, that Triptycht had relations to. Apparently these two women who had absolutely no kinda background in narrative writing. So it doesn't really comes as surprise then that the events in the game aren't really funny at all, when all of it has been written by people who literally didn't know at all what they were doing. Here's hoping when Duke gets brought back, that they can see what really made the original game so great. Aka non-linear level design Doom inspired PC focused fps where you weren't given anything on a silverplatter but you had to think and understand how the game worked inorder to be good at it. Finding secrets wasn't just a fun cool thing, it literally was tied into your surival by having greater firepower via secrets and also more hp and armor for your vital needs. It neither did spam you with just hordes of enemies in empty corridors ála Shadow Warrior reboot/Painkiller/Serious Sam, but instead it had actual intricate level design where each and every single one of the enemies were individually thoroughly thought and placed. Quality over quantity. End.
I honestly would love a new, AAA $60 Duke game. I find the character strangely enamoring and I'd love to see him again. Perhaps with a bit of Yahtzee's cynical humor, but I honestly just want Duke back.
God no! It'd have lootboxes out the ass and $100 season passes just to play one more level. AA game, maybe, but the AAA market is too deep in bullsh1t to have any credibility to deliver anything semi-decent.
I think sometimes people forget that Duke 3D was a game that started off as one idea & then over several iterations grew into something else entirely. Broussard got cocky because constantly changing his mind & redoing big chunks of the game actually worked out in that case.
And he didn't publish a string quartet before his Op. 51; and rewrote the 1st Piano Trio 30-some years later. The funny thing is, he could survive being an extreme perfectionist competing with Beethoven. Anyone else would have burned out, blocked himself to oblivion, etc. As Kim makes clear, though, 'perfectionism' wasn't really a factor in DNF's delay.
It was a shame about old Duke. I had it on my p233 back in 98. Then obviously quake 2. Then unreal came out. I remember the every now and then screenshot that magazines would have. Then I ended up in a bad relationship where I wasn't allowed a phone or computer as they were a waste of time. When I finally broke free after 10 years. And I got a core 2 quad my new job sold me for £20. I spent about a year catching up on the gap. When it came to what to look for Duke was the first thing I tried to find then found out it still wasn't out. It wasn't a bad game as such just the controls had no polish
@@liquidchris5215*edit found the link th-cam.com/video/5DNndYrN4qU/w-d-xo.html I'd have to find the source for the interview but apparently he had connections to whoever was in charge of casting for SA1 (whether this was dircet or through an agent I can't recall) who called him up one day and was basically like " hey can you do this voice for this dumb cat" and he just landed it
I think 47:55 sums up what's wrong with this game's apprach to humor. I can think of 5 ways off the top of my head to make this scene funny and/or bruise Duke's ego a little, and they passed the opportunity by completely just to show how badass Duke is supposed to be in this game.
I liked DNF... sure, it wasn't ground-breaking but I got exactly what I thought I'd get. The driving was fiddly and felt slightly out of place but it's a pretty small part of the game. I absolutely loved the original and remember clearly the shareware release of the 1st episode. I spent all night refreshing the 3dRealms page waiting for the download to drop so I could spend another 4 hours downloading it over my dial-up connection with my newly acquired Christmas modem. I was not disappointed. I would love to see some of the earlier stuff in a playable state, particularly after the engine change to Unreal. Unfortunately it doesn't look like any of it will ever see the light of day. Whether that's because it's been lost or - as some people believe - it was never actually playable and was all pre-rendered footage we'll likely never know. I think it's a fascinating story and well presented here. Thanks Kim.
Also this might be a detail to some, but i am pretty sure majority will agree - The DNF misses one very important feature... Where the hell is the ending NUCLEAR sign Duke always smashes to continue to another level? Like holy shit, that is probably the most iconic ending for each map that every Duke fan remembers, it always brings that satisfaction when you destroy it like " YEAAA I FUCKIN FINISHED THIS AWESOME LEVEL LETS GO FOR MORE! " you know, that adrenalin rush. They could have use this into such a great potential giving it unique animations each time, just name it, punching it through with his fist, kicking it with force, headbutting it, shooting the hell out of it. Anything, but it would be one out of many things to bring back in new clothes and it is crazy that i never noticed this actually missing from this title. ( unless its there and i just never seen it ) Cause they aimed for old school yet it feels totally not old school compared to the Duke 3D. All in all, polishing something way too long causes more trouble than good, the more changes it goes through more chaos unleashes.
I purchased my first x86 based personal computer in 1996. Duke Nukem 3d was the first game I ever purchased for it. It was sad to see a type of psychosis take hold of Broussard. His identity became attached to his development of Duke Nukem Forever. This attachment made it impossible for him to actually finish the game. The development process gave him a type of power and meaning. When the game was finished; all of that would have been gone. I am seeing similar behavior from the team behind Star Citizen. I would really like to see a documentary style video about the team that Gearbox assigned to the project. What they had to work with and what they did to bring the finished game to market.
There's not a whole lot to say about Gearbox's contribution to DNF's development aside from actually taking the project and getting it out there. Most of the development was done by Triptych, which was largely made up of ex-3D Realms people who'd been working on the game - so their job never really stopped despite 3D Realms pulling the plug in 2009 (when they had been working very intensely on pulling DNF together since around 2007) - even before Gearbox officially bought the Duke, people were working on the game from home...Gearbox didn't make all that many big changes to what was already there and according to folks like JohnQPublic the final game isn't a whole lot different to what they were working on in 2009.
I LOVE!!! The fact that you keep your references perfectly ENGLISH!! I doubt there is an American ALIVE!! that knows who Jim Davidson is.. hahahah... You always remind me of a nerdy friend that i might have had back in the day.. the one that knew EVERYTHING about every system available.. you would have been the one that bought all the computer mags.. SPECCY, ATARI ST. AMIGA.. etc.. Love the channel, Love your indepth (to the point of professional journalism) look at every subject.. great stuff man.. ill be around later today to swap some Pirate Amiga Games :) heheh..
You know this game's development was epic when Max Payne 2, a game in 2003, actually referenced Miller and Broussard and the game's troubled development.
I love your work and agree with a lot of what you were saying. I just don't think DNF was that bad or that much of a change in pace from its predecessors. I think you were right on about asking if Duke 3D was even that funny to begin with. People's taste changes and without nostalgia sitting in your way, is that product you once loved, worthy of your taste today. I personally still enjoy the dumbness of it today. I don't play video games for the hyper realism or the complex stories. I play video games for a fun, mindless adventure. I started play Duke in Duke Nukem 2 and seriously his character hasn't changed much. People in his universe loved him in that game and kissed the ground he walked on. He continued fighting aliens and saving the world so I can only imagine the admiration growing. Make sense. I feel like it's a logical progression. I think it's unfair to say Duke's character is shit, without saying that he's always been shit. I also did not buy DNF at launch. I waited years to buy it and was very well versed of how shitty it was. I bought the game for 5 bucks and realized that I really didn't think it was that bad. I had low expectations so maybe that's why I defend it. It's not perfect, but I'd rather play this then Call of Duty 73. Anyways, thanks for the wonderful content you've always produced. Please don't think I'm nit picking. I think it shows a lot that your video was able to start a discussion. Thanks
I will never understand all the hate for this game. It's not that bad. It's not great, but it's not the worst game ever. This was one of the first instances where people had written it off as bad before they had seen it. The game is at least playable and that puts it above half of the games out on steam. Also, way to take the cocoon thing out of context. He's not a sociopath as he is actually keeping them from continued suffering. A sociopath would leave the to die at the hands of the aliens. Sorry to rant, but people do needlessly complain about this game. Lets be honest. The real reason it didn't get rave reviews is that it didn't have a decent online component. At that time that's really all most game publications cared about. Then they reem the game over the coals for being immature (like all the previous games in the series) just so they can pat themselves on the back for having taken some non-existent moral high ground. There are different types of comedy, it seems like most people were expecting a South Park when Duke has always been more like Drawn Together. It satires things by making what was subtle in the source material overt. Making fun of aliens design which had hidden sexual overtones and making it random boobs on a wall and walking wieners which is what Geiger's art is most of the time. To end this all, maybe it was the audience who had the wrong impression of Duke by this point. More people had played the neutered third party games (which had really toned done the humor) and most hadn't actually played the original Duke games.
"More people had played the neutered third party games (which had really toned done the humor) and most hadn't actually played the original Duke games." HAHHAHAHAHA No
It's fucking maddening to see so called old-school fans defending this garbage because it's called Duke Nukem in the title when the game is basically fully realized version of "What if Doom was released today" on TH-cam.
It's the videogame critics echo chamber. They look up a game that other people hate and then do their own video of why they hate it. Gamers are always bitching. Holy shit, Duke Forever actually got released. Let's cry.
I agree. I liked the game. The PC version is WAY better than the consoles- much faster loading, hold 4 weapons at a time, sharper/better textures to name a few.
God, it's so sad. I loved Duke Nukem 3D. The very first time I went to GameSpot was to look for DNF info in 1999. The worst thing about DNF was it was so boring (I pre-ordered it, then read the reviews when it first came out... D'oh! That was also the last game I pre-ordered a game!)
And just to think, this disaster could’ve been avoided if someone or everyone at 3d Realms stood up to George when his feature-creeping first began. By the time Brian Hook came to the scene, it was already too late
This video made me reload the DNF game. It's not terrible by any means, but it did take freakin' forever to finally come. I do remember every SJW trying to tear this game apart too. People need to relax, it's a freakin' game.
By the time Duke Nukem Forever finally came out Duke wasn't awesome like the game wants to make you believe, he was a fucking joke. If the game had put some irony in to the story and was about a cheesy action hero who thinks he's the most awesome human being ever but everyone else actually thinks he's dried up and mental then it could have been funny.
Yahtzee said the first level in his version would have shown Duke as a fat Vegas Elvis, well past his prime. This is such a smart choice, since it would have contextualised the character and given us a reason to root for him as he tries to pull himself back to former glory.
so much hate on this game damn man. I played it start to finish and it is not as bad as you make it out to be. I will say the jokes are crude but that's what I expected from the Duke.
Ditto, i played just about any shooter in the nineties, i survived the looooong wait and yes i had given up on it ever being released, loved the demo and the game was out it was all i played, fckn loved this game.
Just had a random thought of how to make a (potentially internet breaking) ending with the Duke,you play through the game in typical Duke fashion,mowing down wave after wave of gribblies,then at the end it flashbacks to key moments from the game and he was just killing normal people the entire time,he's had a full on psychotic break,unable to handle his own ego,granted it would be an ending that may give you whiplash but could lead to an interesting discussion,and wouldn't be expected
If you liked this then think about having a gander through my social media, and get yourself on my Patreon: www.patreon.com/KimbleJustice
Done , done and done!
Today we live in a mangina sjw femi nazi sissy snowflake millennial useless society , its sooo easy to make a great Duke Nukem game devouring all the previously mentioned useless humans
The crazo thing is, if they hadn't fallen into the feature creep, they could of made a duke game every two years or so and kept up with the tides of change, and by now have something good to go back to.
I never liked John Carmack, (personally I think he was always an overrated drama queen,) but he had the guts to force out company partners if they became a liability, and Broussard was the very definition of a liability. (Hell, Carmack fired John Romero, the guy who HIRED HIM IN THE FIRST PLACE so even partners can be fired.) Miller should have given him an ultimatum, release the game AS IS during the Quake engine build, or take a buy out and GTFO. After the Unreal fiasco, it was clear that Broussard had no interest whatsoever in finishing the game, just dicking around with other people's money, (including Scott's.) George kept claiming "we don't want drama", yet he courted it every chance he got. He was everything that was wrong with 90s gaming and Miller deserves to be unemployed for not stopping the fart huffing.
I still to this day find myself wishing that the timeline where Yahtzee Croshaw wrote the full script for DNF was the one that actually came to pass. We truly live in the darkest timeline.
Happy to see someone mention serious Sam
This comment was later completely vindicated by the year 2020.
Duke Nukem 3D is without doubt one of the top 5 FPSes of all time.
"Duke is the straight man in a much more insane world." you hit the nail on the god damn head. I loved Duke's quips, even in this game. Duke is supposed to be bombastic, the loud, action hero who says all the cheesey lines, who fires all the guns and gets all the women, but it only works if HE is the one who's clearly the odd one out. Everything around Duke is supposed to be normal ,save for the occasional easter egg and reference, and guess what, a lot of the references are in his lines, not right in the screen. Many of the little references in the Dream sequence do this better; the eternally spinning top, REDRUM written in the bathroom, because it's a dream, some things are SUPPOSED to be weird, but it's also not the 30 people AROUND duke pointing the fucking thing out.
It's supposed to be the basic folks with body armor fighting a bloody tooth and nail battle with the aliens, and then suddenly, here is duke in a tank top and jeans with a gun in each hand spouting one liners and mopping up an army by himself. You know, like an action movie.
Gearbox is just gonna misuse duke because they don't understand what made him great. Sure, jon st john will not be out of work, but honestly, only the most obsessed and starved people will be getting the things he's been shoehorned in.
Duke is the straight man in a world were Bionicle got a well made G3.
Duke Nukem: Manhatten Project was an underappreciated gem. It was the true sequel to the side scrolling games and absolutely outstanding.
I really want to see a modernized Duke game. By modernized, I mean take the piss out of popular game and movie tropes. Have a section where you are fighting through the sound stage of a superhero movie recently taken over by Aliens. Have him kvetch and moan about having to deal with a modern military situation with medals to be awarded by the general when the squabble is done. Have a section of the game with "random" weapon drops that aren't worth it (Literally have the default weapons labeled as "Better than stuff lying on the ground,") and random level ups that don't do much other than push enemies back and refill your health.
Hell, have a level completely based off of one of the first Duke3D games and have him constantly complain about how Producers always going too far when it comes to getting the feel of the games.
Duke should be closer to Deadpool for the game delivered.
And ending each level with the satisfying smash of the nuclear sign he always used to do in Duke 3D and our lives would be complete!
Like seriously... where is that in DNF?
Mark Johnson hoover dam
Hell, I’d play It.
DNF is pretty close to what you're wanting.
You might as well use Deadpool for that instead of Duke since they're pretty much the same archetype.
LGR and Kim Justice in one video? My life is complete!
Aegon of Astora they certainly are noth highly accomplished.
They are both legends.
Eeyup. Pretty much sums up my feelings on the matter.
And finally 5 years after this video we have the 2001 E3 Build leaked. 😍
I didn't think it was a bad game at all, but then again I never expected it to ever come out. In all honesty, when I bought the game and brought it home, I half expected a CGI sequence where Duke Nukem and a few enemies play "Never Gonna Give You Up" while a banner drops behind them that reads "No Refunds."
That "yeah, thats me", with baba o'reilly in the background has totally stood the test of time 😂😂
Kim, your research and in-depth analysis is the pinnacle of current video game journalism.
I come back, and every time you somehow outdo yourself. Keep up the excellent work, and I am proud to be entertained. Thank you and much love.
This "dumb" circle strafing is definitely not outdated, and something that belongs to FPS games even to this day, look at Serious Sam and how solid the game is, even the new Doom, where you're relying on circle strafing to avoid enemy attacks.
Duke Nukem Forever was that guy you hadn't seen since school telling the same fart jokes and getting mad when you didn't laugh.
Don't forget that DNF also stands for Did Not Finish.
Please note, DNF is fun on PC, but controls were very poor on consoles, so please make sure you are playing on PC if you've never tried it.
I'm currently 3mins into the video, that was LGR as Duke right?
He does it so well I can never tell......
It was.
yeah it is him LGR Nukem
Thanks guys, I noticed his name in the credits.
Love this video! Great history.
It's quite easy to tell, Clint hasn't phoned it in like John St.John has the last couple of times he's voiced Duke. If Gearbox does a new Duke Nukem game, get Clint to voice Duke.
What I don't understand is why 3D Realms threw away the script for DNF 2001, or some of their original ideas for DNF '98. There were so many good things in the previous versions previewed that got lost. Bombshell and Gus, two original characters who didn't make it into the retail version, would've served as clever foils to Duke's character. Bombshell, who originally worked for Dr. Proton against Duke, eventually joins forces with Duke. The gist of her character is she doesn't find him attractive at all, Duke's attempts to flirt with her would come to nought. Gus would've constantly cracked on Duke's appearance, based upon that bit where he makes fun of his sunglasses. Considering what bits we know of story from the previous versions of DNF, 3D Realms had a good thing going, and it just boggles my mind that they sabotaged what they had. I hope that Yahtzee gets another chance to writing for a Duke Nukem game, but I don't know if he would've improved DNF. It also would've been nice if DNF allowed for some modding.
They didn't really have a script, it was designed gameplay first. The script and dialogue was only written after the game had been completed (to the extent it was completed). I don't know when Bombshell was cut and replaced with that prick Dillon, but it was pretty late, possibly only after Gearbox took over, since 3DR kept the Bombshell rights.
Maybe this is different perspective, but I don't see anyone taking Duke seriously other than critics. It's not an obvious parody, like Broforce, but still over the top.
I remember seeing the Unreal engine trailer on my Duke Nukem Manhattan Project disk I had obtained from an old Driver disk....
My 9 year old ass was SO EXCITED for that game...
Oh man...when the game finally came out....
I mean come on the game starts with picking up shit.
31:31 If you want to skip to the review
Great Video as usual, all very top notch I can't understand why you don't have many many more subs, don't get me wrong 31k is a great achievement and a big pat on the back for that. it's just that there are other people who have more subs, but not edited to the quality that your video's are, you have a knack of letting us know what we need to know and do that in a great interesting way. keep up the great work kim.
When I played DNF back in 2011 I absolutely loved it. I could not understand all the hate towards it. I was 22 at the time and was way too hyped to be objective. So, I decided to replay the game last year. I thought that now that I am in my 30's and I already played the best FPS ever made (Doom Eternal) I would have a better perspective. So, I decided to replay DNF and The Doctor Who Cloned Me dlc. Loved it again. From start to finish. I guess it's just me being a huge Duke fanboy.
Would’ve been epic in 2004
This. Is me now 33 and about to play the dlc for the first time, the guy reviewing this game is a pussy like the duke would say
" a love letter to pc gaming, scrawled in crayon by an alcoholic bigot". Beautiful
As usual, your knowledge is second to none and the chronology mixed with the pithy commentary is brilliant.
Love the fact that I keep finding more and more of your docs, they are great!
With a few changes to the story, Bulletstorm would have been an excellent Duke Nukem game.
Roger Morris bulletstorm is its own game mot duke nukem
Bulletstorm is what DNF should've been but couldn't.
Wish I had played those old builds of DNF.. They look really solid
Rumours that some devs wanna release 2001 build to public but thanks to Randy it won't happen.
@@hayro252 hop in your time machine fellas. One of the builds leaked. Drips with potential.
The rampant misogyny is such a misunderstanding of the Duke Nukem character. He was a womanizer, but never disrespectful. Indeed, one can argue his original quest was driven by one thing: "Nobody steals our chicks!". In Duke Nukem 3D, even killing the captive women results in the player being punished, and the N64 port even changed it so you could rescue them instead. Lack of self parody aside, nothing about DNF feels in tune with the character as we knew him in Duke Nukem 3D. But what you're called on to do in the Hive level underlines that even moreso. If this tone was indeed in Broussard's version of the game and not an addition of Pitchford's team, then it really does show that something went very, very wrong with 3D Realms after 1996.
The moment I heard Clint's (LGR) voice my heart jumped in delight. :)
Yeah, I stopped the video to check the description and sure enough...
Lol thought the same
Might as well be John St John..
2001 version looked so cool, they should go back and finish one of the earlier versions. I'd pay good money for it, retro graphics are appreciated nowadays so nothing gets lost by using an old engine.
Thanks for reminding me about Death Rally. I used to love it.
Your channel is awesome man ! Love your content and presentation !
Press 'F' to pay respect to the superior Megaton Edition!
51:46 Just a few days ago the cancelled PSP Duke Nukem finally got dumped
I miss Duke Nukem. Damn you George Broussard and Randy Pitchford.
It's weird to think that Ion Maiden might actually be the most Duke Nukem-like return to gaming, despite not having Duke in it.
In many ways, Bombshell is carrying the torch the Duke dropped long ago. Who would have thought.
"Yahtzee" was probable MUCH closer to the kind of game we wanted (Duke Nukem Forever to be)...
You seem to have a grudge against Duke already in the background and also what you imply that Duke is remembered for, kinda isn't accurate really.
Few things.. Duke3D was great because of the variety it offered in gameplay, not just because of a talking character and naked females showing. DN3D was game in the times of when PC FPS was still a new thing and many Doom clones existed. DN3D however didn't limit itself just as Doom clone but did some real pioneering for the genre. Duke3D was the first known fps to have maps set in real world locations like Radio Stations, Fire Stations, Movie Theaters, Sushi Restaurants, Waste Disposal Facilities.. instead of generic castles/scifi bases such you see in Doom or Quake. Due to this, levels are also more easy to understand as they aren't just random mazes but actual places like grocery stores and I'm pretty sure everyone knows how an inside of a grocery store works..
Game had high interactivity with the gameworld (toilets work, lightswitches can be used to turn lights on/off, walls can be broken by explosives, realtime survailence camera monitors..). The game had emphassis on verticality while Doom was a game without jumping and crouching. DN3D had heavy focus on vertical level design where the environments never felt too repeating. It even had a jetpack that you could use on some of the harder lava maps. At times you were diving underwater while at times you were climbing ladders up from sewers, breaking up a airvent hatch to access a room which door was malfunctioned.. DN3D did so much that Doom didn't and all of this before Quake was released.
Duke Nukem Forever failed because of multiple things, but for this case the biggest thing would have to be the following.. Custom game engine (heavily modified Unreal Engine 1) that was always being made and designed for to be run on PC foremost, instead all the sudden is now expected to run completely fine on consoles which is an aspect that was never a part of the deving process. Since the game literally didn't perform well enough on performance side on the Xbox 360, they started scrapping massive amount of content in hopes of getting the framerate running at acceptable rates.
Scrapping content and making the levels smaller wasn't the only thing however.. Because gameplay was neither ever designed for controllers, they had to re-design the entire game aswell. You can see it at 25:29 how 2009 Jace Hall build still had the full Half-Life style weapon bar in the game. Not do you have it in the final released version though. Console version has only a 2weapons at max limit and only the PC got later released a patch which added 2more slots to it, making it total of 4weapons max. 4weapons is still way too little and shows how this game was never intended to work with just selected amount of weapons equipped, because it almost always gives you what you would use in a upcomming situation.
Compare pace of Half-Life 2 to released DNF and you'll see that DNF is quite slower game because it had to be optimized to work on controllers aswell..
It has been confirmed that the story of DNF was literally written by two women in the end, that Triptycht had relations to. Apparently these two women who had absolutely no kinda background in narrative writing. So it doesn't really comes as surprise then that the events in the game aren't really funny at all, when all of it has been written by people who literally didn't know at all what they were doing.
Here's hoping when Duke gets brought back, that they can see what really made the original game so great. Aka non-linear level design Doom inspired PC focused fps where you weren't given anything on a silverplatter but you had to think and understand how the game worked inorder to be good at it. Finding secrets wasn't just a fun cool thing, it literally was tied into your surival by having greater firepower via secrets and also more hp and armor for your vital needs. It neither did spam you with just hordes of enemies in empty corridors ála Shadow Warrior reboot/Painkiller/Serious Sam, but instead it had actual intricate level design where each and every single one of the enemies were individually thoroughly thought and placed. Quality over quantity. End.
Why isn't this higher up?
After playing the 2001 leak of Duke Forever, I must admit, no wonder people got pissed of by restarting development on it...
You really put foot to ass on the quality of your videos. Very good job. Keep it up!
0:19 Wait, is that a Star Wars Robot Chicken reference, or did Robot Chicken reference this?
The problem with a relatively small team and an ambitious idea is either a rushed flop or an incomplete title that never releases.
I honestly would love a new, AAA $60 Duke game. I find the character strangely enamoring and I'd love to see him again. Perhaps with a bit of Yahtzee's cynical humor, but I honestly just want Duke back.
God no! It'd have lootboxes out the ass and $100 season passes just to play one more level. AA game, maybe, but the AAA market is too deep in bullsh1t to have any credibility to deliver anything semi-decent.
When it comes to Duke...Were still wating to get some....
Great stuff Kim, your videos are just getting better and better.
I think sometimes people forget that Duke 3D was a game that started off as one idea & then over several iterations grew into something else entirely. Broussard got cocky because constantly changing his mind & redoing big chunks of the game actually worked out in that case.
To add to your list, it took the legendary composer Brahms over 20 years to write his first symphony!
And he didn't publish a string quartet before his Op. 51; and rewrote the 1st Piano Trio 30-some years later. The funny thing is, he could survive being an extreme perfectionist competing with Beethoven. Anyone else would have burned out, blocked himself to oblivion, etc.
As Kim makes clear, though, 'perfectionism' wasn't really a factor in DNF's delay.
Great insightful vid dude! Duke Nukem 3D is one of my favorite FPSs and it's a shame that DNF just couldn't top that.
2:00: you forgot one, Kim: Did Not Finish.
It was a shame about old Duke. I had it on my p233 back in 98. Then obviously quake 2. Then unreal came out. I remember the every now and then screenshot that magazines would have. Then I ended up in a bad relationship where I wasn't allowed a phone or computer as they were a waste of time. When I finally broke free after 10 years. And I got a core 2 quad my new job sold me for £20. I spent about a year catching up on the gap. When it came to what to look for Duke was the first thing I tried to find then found out it still wasn't out. It wasn't a bad game as such just the controls had no polish
Having played the unreleased 2001 version, its a shame it wasnt finished. Give it 2 years though and modders will piece it together
You really put this into perspective when you said every single Harry Potter movie came out during the production of this game
Anyone mention the parallels between this and Star Citizen?...
salute!
I think it was a solid seven out of 10 game and I really enjoyed the humor
Okay, that explains how John St. John landed Duke,
But I'm still trying to figure out how John landed Big the Cat.
yeah that was a big shock to me too lol
@@liquidchris5215*edit found the link
th-cam.com/video/5DNndYrN4qU/w-d-xo.html
I'd have to find the source for the interview but apparently he had connections to whoever was in charge of casting for SA1 (whether this was dircet or through an agent I can't recall) who called him up one day and was basically like " hey can you do this voice for this dumb cat" and he just landed it
@@minemariosonic cheers, ill check that out, i mean i know vas can do different voices but its still a shock lol
I think 47:55 sums up what's wrong with this game's apprach to humor. I can think of 5 ways off the top of my head to make this scene funny and/or bruise Duke's ego a little, and they passed the opportunity by completely just to show how badass Duke is supposed to be in this game.
Another excellent piece, flawlessly researched, covering just about every angle of the Forever story. Superbly done as usual, Kim!
Seriously, how are you not making these for the BBC?
Thanks Andrew Neil
I didn't say BBC news. The BBC still makes some pretty good documentaries and comedy.
Because his voice is fucking insufferable. That's why.
You never saw Planet Earth II? And you say BBC is shit? Oh come on, quit dreaming.
HELL YEAH! Next stop definitely BBC. Reminds me of Adam Curtis' style.
Subtitles went ‘Wives of the Triad’ lol
Simply a fantastic video!
Smashed out of the park again, great watch.
I liked DNF... sure, it wasn't ground-breaking but I got exactly what I thought I'd get. The driving was fiddly and felt slightly out of place but it's a pretty small part of the game. I absolutely loved the original and remember clearly the shareware release of the 1st episode. I spent all night refreshing the 3dRealms page waiting for the download to drop so I could spend another 4 hours downloading it over my dial-up connection with my newly acquired Christmas modem. I was not disappointed.
I would love to see some of the earlier stuff in a playable state, particularly after the engine change to Unreal. Unfortunately it doesn't look like any of it will ever see the light of day. Whether that's because it's been lost or - as some people believe - it was never actually playable and was all pre-rendered footage we'll likely never know. I think it's a fascinating story and well presented here. Thanks Kim.
Also this might be a detail to some, but i am pretty sure majority will agree - The DNF misses one very important feature... Where the hell is the ending NUCLEAR sign Duke always smashes to continue to another level? Like holy shit, that is probably the most iconic ending for each map that every Duke fan remembers, it always brings that satisfaction when you destroy it like " YEAAA I FUCKIN FINISHED THIS AWESOME LEVEL LETS GO FOR MORE! " you know, that adrenalin rush.
They could have use this into such a great potential giving it unique animations each time, just name it, punching it through with his fist, kicking it with force, headbutting it, shooting the hell out of it. Anything, but it would be one out of many things to bring back in new clothes and it is crazy that i never noticed this actually missing from this title. ( unless its there and i just never seen it )
Cause they aimed for old school yet it feels totally not old school compared to the Duke 3D. All in all, polishing something way too long causes more trouble than good, the more changes it goes through more chaos unleashes.
As always another great and informative video, thank you.
Man this game was poorly managed.
I purchased my first x86 based personal computer in 1996. Duke Nukem 3d was the first game I ever purchased for it.
It was sad to see a type of psychosis take hold of Broussard. His identity became attached to his development of Duke Nukem Forever. This attachment made it impossible for him to actually finish the game. The development process gave him a type of power and meaning. When the game was finished; all of that would have been gone. I am seeing similar behavior from the team behind Star Citizen.
I would really like to see a documentary style video about the team that Gearbox assigned to the project. What they had to work with and what they did to bring the finished game to market.
There's not a whole lot to say about Gearbox's contribution to DNF's development aside from actually taking the project and getting it out there. Most of the development was done by Triptych, which was largely made up of ex-3D Realms people who'd been working on the game - so their job never really stopped despite 3D Realms pulling the plug in 2009 (when they had been working very intensely on pulling DNF together since around 2007) - even before Gearbox officially bought the Duke, people were working on the game from home...Gearbox didn't make all that many big changes to what was already there and according to folks like JohnQPublic the final game isn't a whole lot different to what they were working on in 2009.
I suspected that they didn't change much if anything at all.
I LOVE!!! The fact that you keep your references perfectly ENGLISH!! I doubt there is an American ALIVE!! that knows who Jim Davidson is.. hahahah... You always remind me of a nerdy friend that i might have had back in the day.. the one that knew EVERYTHING about every system available.. you would have been the one that bought all the computer mags.. SPECCY, ATARI ST. AMIGA.. etc.. Love the channel, Love your indepth (to the point of professional journalism) look at every subject.. great stuff man.. ill be around later today to swap some Pirate Amiga Games :) heheh..
awesome video...your best one yet kim 👌🙌🏆
OMG is that Clint as Duke Nukem? Love the casting choice!
No it's not lmao
OMG you did it KIM ! I've suggested this weeks ago ! Thank you soooo much !!
Imagine thinking not being left behind by The Thing is a hill to die on
2001's "Endangered Species Hunter" was turned into "Vivisector", with EVERYTHING relating to Duke Nukem removed or worked out.
DukeNukem Forever is not a bad game to be fair
Didn't Endangered Species become Vivisector, and wasn't that game considered to have been a fair bit better than DNF turned out to be?
I can go back to Blake Stone and Triad so easily in my mind, it was a pretty sweet time to be a gamer.
You know this game's development was epic when Max Payne 2, a game in 2003, actually referenced Miller and Broussard and the game's troubled development.
I love your work and agree with a lot of what you were saying. I just don't think DNF was that bad or that much of a change in pace from its predecessors. I think you were right on about asking if Duke 3D was even that funny to begin with. People's taste changes and without nostalgia sitting in your way, is that product you once loved, worthy of your taste today. I personally still enjoy the dumbness of it today. I don't play video games for the hyper realism or the complex stories. I play video games for a fun, mindless adventure.
I started play Duke in Duke Nukem 2 and seriously his character hasn't changed much. People in his universe loved him in that game and kissed the ground he walked on. He continued fighting aliens and saving the world so I can only imagine the admiration growing. Make sense. I feel like it's a logical progression. I think it's unfair to say Duke's character is shit, without saying that he's always been shit.
I also did not buy DNF at launch. I waited years to buy it and was very well versed of how shitty it was. I bought the game for 5 bucks and realized that I really didn't think it was that bad. I had low expectations so maybe that's why I defend it. It's not perfect, but I'd rather play this then Call of Duty 73.
Anyways, thanks for the wonderful content you've always produced. Please don't think I'm nit picking. I think it shows a lot that your video was able to start a discussion.
Thanks
"Damn I'm looking good"
rest in peace, duke nukem you relic of the past.
Nah
Anyone have a link to that Gizmo joke/parody video ?
I will never understand all the hate for this game. It's not that bad. It's not great, but it's not the worst game ever. This was one of the first instances where people had written it off as bad before they had seen it. The game is at least playable and that puts it above half of the games out on steam. Also, way to take the cocoon thing out of context. He's not a sociopath as he is actually keeping them from continued suffering. A sociopath would leave the to die at the hands of the aliens. Sorry to rant, but people do needlessly complain about this game. Lets be honest. The real reason it didn't get rave reviews is that it didn't have a decent online component. At that time that's really all most game publications cared about. Then they reem the game over the coals for being immature (like all the previous games in the series) just so they can pat themselves on the back for having taken some non-existent moral high ground. There are different types of comedy, it seems like most people were expecting a South Park when Duke has always been more like Drawn Together. It satires things by making what was subtle in the source material overt. Making fun of aliens design which had hidden sexual overtones and making it random boobs on a wall and walking wieners which is what Geiger's art is most of the time. To end this all, maybe it was the audience who had the wrong impression of Duke by this point. More people had played the neutered third party games (which had really toned done the humor) and most hadn't actually played the original Duke games.
"More people had played the neutered third party games (which had really toned done the humor) and most hadn't actually played the original Duke games."
HAHHAHAHAHA
No
It's fucking maddening to see so called old-school fans defending this garbage because it's called Duke Nukem in the title when the game is basically fully realized version of "What if Doom was released today" on TH-cam.
It's the videogame critics echo chamber. They look up a game that other people hate and then do their own video of why they hate it. Gamers are always bitching. Holy shit, Duke Forever actually got released. Let's cry.
its just trash compared to 3d...syeroids dont add speed..etc etc its trash
I agree. I liked the game. The PC version is WAY better than the consoles- much faster loading, hold 4 weapons at a time, sharper/better textures to name a few.
What a great retrospective! I'd never heard of Duke Nukem Critical Mass for the Nintendo DS.
I still hope we one day would see the 2001 game...
God, it's so sad. I loved Duke Nukem 3D. The very first time I went to GameSpot was to look for DNF info in 1999. The worst thing about DNF was it was so boring (I pre-ordered it, then read the reviews when it first came out... D'oh! That was also the last game I pre-ordered a game!)
I really hope Duke Nukem gets a new game
Another good one. Thanks for the speccy tapes.
Another fantastic video. Great work.
Excellent doc.
Really good video. Definitely glad I watched all of it
And just to think, this disaster could’ve been avoided if someone or everyone at 3d Realms stood up to George when his feature-creeping first began. By the time Brian Hook came to the scene, it was already too late
Dude , lass , whatever,it doesn't matter ...the research you do and the quality of your videos is just amazing !!!!!
great video. don't forget how terrible the load times are!
This video made me reload the DNF game. It's not terrible by any means, but it did take freakin' forever to finally come. I do remember every SJW trying to tear this game apart too. People need to relax, it's a freakin' game.
This video made me confused. I've never heard of this "Duke Nukem Fowevew" game he is talking about.
Really enjoyed this video bro.
I watched tour jet-set willy video a long time ago, just started duke nukem and wanted to look up some info and bam
I love the fact you got LGR to do his Duke Nukem Voice!
3 minutes in and this is already excellent
I almost wish you played the Dlc campaign for DNF, though I'd imagine clones of duke would just break you at this point
By the time Duke Nukem Forever finally came out Duke wasn't awesome like the game wants to make you believe, he was a fucking joke. If the game had put some irony in to the story and was about a cheesy action hero who thinks he's the most awesome human being ever but everyone else actually thinks he's dried up and mental then it could have been funny.
Yahtzee said the first level in his version would have shown Duke as a fat Vegas Elvis, well past his prime. This is such a smart choice, since it would have contextualised the character and given us a reason to root for him as he tries to pull himself back to former glory.
(...Apologies if it already said that in this video! I'm at work and saving it until later)
A Rocky like story of a washed up Duke fighting to make a comeback would actually be pretty awesome.
so much hate on this game damn man. I played it start to finish and it is not as bad as you make it out to be. I will say the jokes are crude but that's what I expected from the Duke.
Ditto, i played just about any shooter in the nineties, i survived the looooong wait and yes i had given up on it ever being released, loved the demo and the game was out it was all i played, fckn loved this game.
Just had a random thought of how to make a (potentially internet breaking) ending with the Duke,you play through the game in typical Duke fashion,mowing down wave after wave of gribblies,then at the end it flashbacks to key moments from the game and he was just killing normal people the entire time,he's had a full on psychotic break,unable to handle his own ego,granted it would be an ending that may give you whiplash but could lead to an interesting discussion,and wouldn't be expected