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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: 5, Interesting) by Jesus_666 on Saturday July 18 2015, @01:31PM
Duke goes to the strip joint, talks to the stripper, hears her life story. She asks about his life and what he does. Flashback to earlier, when Duke has a perfecly normal day (doing something like bench-pressing ammo crates) that is interrupted by yet another alien invasion. Cue lots of shooting, improbable action scenes, corny one-liners and the like. The final level actually ends with Duke crashing the alien spaceship in front of the strip club and walking in. The flashback ends and instead of deep soul-searching we just see Duke put on a self-satisfied grin and saying something corny like "I'm just doing what I love."
It'd be a bait-and-switch that pretends to be an examination of the deeper layers of the two-dimensional action hero Duke is, when in the end it turns out that there are no deeper layers; Duke is a two-dimensional action hero and he likes it that way. Duke Nukem Five-Ever would be a celebration of the stupid action hero in all his corny glory. (If you want to address his casual sexism you could have someone call him out on it – upon which he points out that he's well aware he's an asshole, he just doesn't give a shit.)
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 18 2015, @02:02PM
he's well aware he's an asshole, he just doesn't give a shit.
Duke Constipatem?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by suetanvil on Saturday July 18 2015, @04:43PM
This is pretty much what I created an account here to say.
Everything up to the part where she asks him about his life is a cutscene or equivalent. Then, when she asks him about himself, he says, "Last week, when the aliens invaded, I..." and we got to the actual gameplay. The whole game would be a flashback.
Of course, between levels (and occasionally, in the middle of a battle), we'd flash forward, back to the conversation where the woman would point out obvious exaggerations in his story. Duke would concede that he embellished things to make a better story and that it really went like this: at which point, you'd replay the relevant bit but this time, the alien in power armor is really a little old alien lady in an alien walker. For example.
In other words, Duke is an unreliable narrator and a bullshitter and the game is about finding the truth. (And blowing shit up, but that goes without mentioning.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 18 2015, @10:18PM
now thats a game that I could play!
Seriously, *the* reason that I played DN3D as a teen is because it was irreverent, misogynistic, etc. I still remember thinking, "OMG titties!" even though it was pixelated crap that was slightly better than ASCII porn. I'm not going to buy a PC game that destroys those things.
It's like Cookie Monster going crazy for carrots and apples... sure, it might be good for you but there's something special about characters that embody our base instincts.
A new game based on the old concept wouldn't work today, kids (teens especially) have easy access to all of things taboo in the game, and if you try to up the ante you just step into disgusting gross gore, full on pornography (which is pretty tightly regulated), and outright hate speech. So you have to go for a nostalgia experience, and yet try to attract new players with something special. It's a hard row to hoe, I can't blame them from holding back from it.
As a counterpoint, how about Duke dies from wounds in the strip club, the stripper picks up his gun and carries on with equally outrageous tag lines. Could pursue a switch to third person view to appeal to the male demographic, but it would have to be done carefully, I doubt running around in lingerie would be tolerated...
(Score: 2) by Jesus_666 on Sunday July 19 2015, @12:56AM
Actualy, you knoew what? He does die in the strip club. He's just alive again at the end of the game. Without ever explaining how he did that. That's what people in bad action movies do.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 19 2015, @04:13PM
We cut to Duke visiting Japan. While visiting a brothel in Japan, Duke offends a prostitute. Said protistitute gets into a fistfight with Duke defending the Honor of Japan from yet another gaijin douchebag. Aliens attack. Slowly over a series of cooperative levels spanning Japan, an alien ship, the US, and then outer space they come to terms while kicking both Alien, and 'Otherworldly' trash.
Offering both misogynistic and misoandristic dialogue (Being Lo Wang's daughter has ALL SORTS of possibilities.) it would offer the perfect excuse for sexist male and female viewpoints and with a toggle for straight, bi, homo, nullo you could play through as either character with 'eye-candy' on for both genders, a single gender, or off (so nullo could be 'parental lock mode').
Maybe Gearbox can convince whoever is handling the Shadow Warrior IP now to cooperate on a crossover :)