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Gearbox Software ruined one of the best running jokes in software when they brought Duke Nukem Forever to market. At a recent developer conference in Brighton, they talked about working with independent developers to revive the character.
From Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford:
"I did not acquire the franchise merely to make sure we could all experience Duke Nukem Forever," Pitchford said. "That was sort of the toll we had to pay." He then explained that while Gearbox has carried out some concept development for the franchise, they'd need to work with the "correct developer" to make a new game.
One of the pitches:
Sam Barlow (Her Story)
Duke Nukem goes into a Vegas strip club at 4am, and it's kind of empty, and there's only two strippers working. He throws some money at them. Then, because there's no one else around, they sit down and they talk to him, and Duke sits there and he listens to this stripper talk about her life, why she's stripping, her family back home and how they live a state away but she flies into Vegas for two weeks of the month to earn money, then she goes go back and looks after her kids.
Then after an hour of this conversation, of him just listening to the woman talk, she asks Duke about his life, and then it flips. It's the first time anyone's actually asked about him, and he's forced to look inside himself and understand why he does these things, why he feels the need to kick ass, and it's just a lovely moment that they share. He walks away from it feeling like he understands himself a little bit better, but the ending is kind of ambiguous. We see Duke leave the strip club and we don't know what happens next.
What's your pitch, Soylent?
Original Submission
(Score: 2) by tathra on Saturday July 18 2015, @04:09PM
now that Duke Nukem Forever is finally out, the "biggest piece of vaporware" torch is passed to Half Life 3, which was promised to us, what 10+ years ago? c'mon Valve, get to it already, and none of this bullshit you're pushing to get out of making it, that the HL2 episodes are really HL3. Half Life is the only playable FPS, everything else is just boring Doom clones, so release it already.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Saturday July 18 2015, @05:02PM
promised to us
Really? I thought nobody knew for sure they were even working on Half-Life 2 until a year before its release.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by Marand on Saturday July 18 2015, @07:20PM
now that Duke Nukem Forever is finally out, the "biggest piece of vaporware" torch is passed to Half Life 3, which was promised to us, what 10+ years ago?
Bullshit! We've still got Perl 6 and HURD, both of which have been in development hell longer than DNF. Half Life 3 doesn't have anything on them.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 18 2015, @08:30PM
Perl 6 will be out this year...
(Score: 2) by Marand on Saturday July 18 2015, @08:40PM
Perl 6 will be out this year...
Yeah, I heard that one a few times about DNF too and the date kept slipping. I'll only believe it when it actually happens.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Marand on Saturday July 18 2015, @08:16PM
(Sorry for double-posting, but I wanted to separate the joke from the serious response)
I don't get the massive HL3 hype at all. HL1 started the trend of on-rails shooters that are just glorified theme-park rides with limited freedom, and HL2 just continued and refined the same boring design, further limiting freedom of exploration. Prior to that, FPSes were known for expansive, maze-like levels, backtracking, and sometimes even passing through the same levels multiple times to open new paths. Quake 2, for example, was a game where you could get lost in the levels; learning and remembering the layouts was as much a part of the game as shooting things. I recall other games, like Hexen 2, being the same way. Basically, the levels themselves were puzzles to be solved, but with things trying to kill you throughout.
That's not even getting into games of the time like System Shock 2, Thief, or the slightly-newer Deus Ex, which all had greater freedom, new gameplay elements, and ways to make each playthrough different by adding RPG elements to the gamepay. These games had absolutely massive areas to play through, with both Thief and Deus Ex particularly well known for having multiple paths to your goal that could be taken depending on player choice (usually skills or equipment), further changing the experience on each playthrough.
Deus Ex, especially, had amazing player freedom due to its mix of RPG and FPS elements and gets its own section here. A combination of inventory, skills, and augmentations gave a lot of character-building flexibility, which influenced how you could tackle challenges that you encountered. Mission areas had multiple paths, depending on the player's stat/skill/aug choices and willingness to look for alternate routes. The entire game was full of lore, even including a mini-novel you could find in full if you explored enough to find all the chapters, and sometimes even bits of dialogue or letters left by NPCs that helped humanise them. (I remember, near the end of the supertanker level, finding a letter the captain was writing to his daughter, just after offing him because it was the easiest way to reach the goal, and feeling like an asshole for it. It was an optional thing you could have missed entirely, but when I found it I actually felt bad for killing a mook.) Then there were the civilian areas, which had side quests, places to explore, breaking-and-entering options, extra lore and game dialogue (like the creepy phone call if you break into the office in Paris), and even more flexibility in how to achieve your objectives than the missions had. The Hell's Kitchen, Hong Kong, and Paris areas were a tantalizing taste of how later games would present open, explorable worlds.
I know, Deus Ex came after HL, but the other things I listed were released around the same time (and some before, like Thief and the original System Shock). To me, Half Life felt like a step backward compared to other first person games of the time, because it took away much of the freedom the style of game gave the player. Half Life 2 was even worse about the theme-park ride design, and this was years after Deus Ex showed how awesome freedom in an FPS could be.
Really, that's all Valve seems to do: well-polished park rides that have things jump out at you on cue so you can shoot them and then move to the next plot or monster trigger. Even the Left 4 Dead series, with their semi-variable levels (some pathways block off or open up on a per-play basis) are this way, with only one viable route each play, creating another theme-park ride whose only difference is that the enemies don't appear in the same place every time due to the "Director" AI. Probably the most interesting thing Valve has done has been the Portal games, because they're essentially puzzle games in first person. Since they're puzzle games, and the puzzles are the point, the linear, theme-park nature of everything Valve does is irrelevant. You're there for the portals and the puzzles.
Point is, I don't get the massive fan-boner people have for HL2 and the idea of an HL3 release. There have been much more interesting games both before and since Half Life's creation. Story isn't even a strong argument, because games like Thief and System Shock (both games) did a better job of presenting story in an FPS around the same time. If you think everything else is a "boring Doom clone" you haven't actually played most of the games you criticised with your generalisation. Half-Life is more of a "Doom clone" (just a very linear one) than System Shock 2, Thief, Deus Ex, or even Descent* were.
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* It didn't really fit with the theme of the rest of the post, but I think the Descent games deserve mention, too. Two releases before Half Life existed, full 3d gameplay in a way few games have done before or even since, and huge maze-like levels. It's not quite the same type of thing, but it's sure as fuck not a "Doom clone" either.
(Score: 2) by tathra on Sunday July 19 2015, @01:10PM
you're comparing rpgs like Thief and Deus Ex to fps games. just because its played from a first-person perspective doesn't automatically make it an fps, and of course rpgs are going to be significantly superior since fps games are all bland and boring Doom clones. given your going on and on about fp-rpgs, i'm surprised you didn't mention the Elder Scrolls series, seeing as Arena was one of the first fp-rpgs (made a year after Doom), made after Ultima Underworld (which was made before Doom). the fp-rpg genre has been around almost as long as the fps genre; there's not really any such thing as "fps with rpg elements", there's just "fp-rpgs".
(Score: 2) by tathra on Sunday July 19 2015, @01:29PM
to clarify some of the differences between fp-rpgs and fps games, if it has "rpg elements" like skills, inventory, experience, etc, its a damn rpg no matter what perspective its payed from. all fps games are basically just "kill everything" games which involve little thinking and no skills like stalking and evading enemies, like in Thief. every "improvement" made to the fps genre is either in the addition of puzzles and better game mechanics and such (which HL2 made one of the larger leaps by introducing real physics), or is in converting it to an rpg - at which time it stops being an fps and becomes an rpg instead. Thief, Deus Ex, Mass Effect, etc, those are all rpgs, those i've played plenty of and enjoyed a lot. Quake, Halo, Battlefield, etc, those are all fps, and are all just the same rehashed crap they've always been.
(Score: 2) by Marand on Sunday July 19 2015, @10:33PM
you're comparing rpgs like Thief and Deus Ex to fps games. just because its played from a first-person perspective doesn't automatically make it an fps, and of course rpgs are going to be significantly superior since fps games are all bland and boring Doom clones.
You're entering "No True Scotsman" territory, trying to limit the definition of "FPS" in a way that can support your view. All the games I listed are still FPSes despite the introduction of new elements, and those "FP-RPGs" as you call them are all mentioned in the FPS entry on wikipedia. [wikipedia.org]
Of the ones I named, the one most likely to be considered a non-FPS would be Thief because the focus is on avoiding combat, but ultimately it's still more FPS than RPG. Its main RPG-like element is the inventory and items, but that's been a staple of FPSes since the beginning. Unless you count Thief having an actual plot as making it an RPG, in which case Half Life would be an RPG too, which would be silly.
As for Deus Ex, it's still an FPS with RPG trappings. Built off an FPS engine (the first Unreal Engine) with the extra bits hacked on, it relies more on player skill with the weapons and augmentations than it does player stats, with no randomness to the combat and no real leveling system. Increasing weapon skill just makes the aiming crosshair steady faster; you can still make difficult shots with skill and patience, or you can use player skill to get in close so that the unsteady aim is irrelevant. How well or poorly you play is the greatest factor in how difficult the game is, with no increasing HP or player level mechanics limiting play. Furthermore, it had online deathmatch (and team DM) modes using a rebalanced version of the singleplayer mechanics, because it is an FPS.
SS2 is also still an FPS despite class selection and improvement mechanics for similar reasons. You could also classify it as a horror game, in the same way Clive Barker's Unying was, but they're both FPSes as well. (Side note: Undying was an interesting game with a great aesthetic. So was Alice, actually.)
i'm surprised you didn't mention the Elder Scrolls series
I didn't include those because, until Oblivion at least, they still followed the dice-rolling RPG conventions of doing things like hit calculations, leveled enemies, and other tabletop RPG mechanics that replace player skill with statistics. Oh, you hit that target point-blank with a sword to the face? Sorry, the random number generator said you missed, so you miss despite clearly seeing the attack hit. You can't go there, because the enemies are level 50 and you're level 3, so GTFO.
If the entire series played like Oblivion onward, I might have included it. Oblivion actually moved the series closer to FPS because of two changes. It took away the statistic-based hit calculations in favour of the FPS model for determing hits, and by making the enemies scale with you, it took away most (but not all) of the level-based statistic gating. It still has some of the other tabletop RPG trappings, but it's definitely the game that started blurring the series' RPG/FPS distinction.
Thief, Deus Ex, Mass Effect, etc, those are all rpgs, those i've played plenty of and enjoyed a lot. Quake, Halo, Battlefield, etc, those are all fps, and are all just the same rehashed crap they've always been.
Interesting that you include Battlefield, considering it has a class system (RPG element) and a level system that unlocks new weapons (e.g. skills. RPG element). It's still an FPS, but has more RPG elements than, say, Thief but you tried to drop Thief into the RPG category.
if it has "rpg elements" like skills, inventory, experience, etc, its a damn rpg no matter what perspective its payed from
Technically, every FPS since the beginning has had an inventory system. Even Wolfenstein 3D let you collect, carry, and change weapons. If your definition of RPG is that broad, practically every game ever is an RPG.
Which, actually, wouldn't be that far from the truth, and it's not just an FPS thing. There's basically no genre "purity" in games; as time goes on it seems like they all pick up elements from other genres, with tabletop RPG mechanics being especially popular to incorporate to add depth to a game. Another example is how FPSes have borrowed puzzle elements from practically the start. Even Wolf3D had lock/key type puzzles, secret rooms, and maze designs as primitive puzzle elements.
It's the same sort of problem as music classification. Genres like "heavy metal" "rock" "techno" etc. have the creators pulling in influences from other styles, and people start trying to sub-classify them and contention occurs when a band doesn't fit clearly into a category.
What you're doing, basically, is trying to separate out the FPSes you like from the FPSes you consider boring and place them in their own category. Otherwise you'd have to admit you actually like certain FPSes, which you don't want to do for some reason. You want to stick labels on games as an easy way to dismiss certain ones, so when an exception crops up you find a way to relabel it.
I sort of understand it, because I was the same way originally. I didn't like Wolf3D, Doom, the original Quake, or a bunch of other FPSes I'd tried, so I was convinced I just didn't like the genre. (I did like Quake 2 and Duke3D, but mostly for the cooperative play, so I considered them exceptions.) When I found things like Thief, SS2, and DX, I tried looking at it as "oh, they're not really FPSes, that's why I like them" but it was bullshit. It took me a while to realise that, but it was. Just because I like the FPSes that have extra complexity doesn't mean I should try to redefine them to not-FPSes to fit my previous worldview; instead, I decided that my original conclusion was incorrect and updated it.
I was also the same way about fighting games; I played a bunch and didn't like them, so I thought I just didn't like the genre. Eventually I found enough that I did like (Tekken 3, Soul Calibur 2, a bunch of King of Fighters games, and the Darkstalkers series primarily) and I realised that it wasn't that I didn't like the style of game, I just didn't like the design choices of the ones I'd tried before.
(Score: 2) by tathra on Monday July 20 2015, @07:48PM
right here on the wikipedia page you linked to, it even makes my point
FPSes are based on shooting. not exploring, not having an engaging story, not character development, but shooting. they're shooter games [wikipedia.org] from a first-person perspective. there's no "no true scottsman" there, thats the definition of "first-person shooter". if the focus of the game is something other than shooting, it is not a first-person shooter.
(Score: 2) by tathra on Monday July 20 2015, @07:53PM
sorry, this [wikipedia.org] is the link i wanted for general shooters, didn't notice that was just a subgenre of them.
if the main focus of the game is something other than shooting, its not a shooter. see, these things called "genres" are useful for classifying games. rpg is a giant category that could technically include every video game period (because you're playing a role other than yourself in all of them), but "shooter" is a pretty thin one that only involves games revolving completely around shooting and little else.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 19 2015, @04:26PM
... impressive.
Back during the era of Pentium 200s to PII-300s Half-Life allowed squad based AI throughout the levels.
Combined with the quicksave, you could redo the same section 5 times and have the AI attack you from 2-5 different directions with the same 3-5 guys. This was actually the only reason I gave it a pass at the time. The other games available, such as Quake2 and company were still using simplistic AIs with little or no teamwork, very rudimentary AI's that only really responded to 'visual radius', player position and maybe 'friendly fire'. Additionally, it was the first 'major' game to support NPC backups (albeit they gimped it so you couldn't carry them from one area to the next, which infuriated me since they often killed them off rather than giving them an avenue to escape. Similiar problem to the later Halo in fact!)
Steam is what killed off Half-Life for me. And their lack of support for upgrading the sierra era version to interoperate with the 'standard' half-life reissue they did when they became their own publisher.