PureBasic Forums - English

For the past couple of days I've been playing around with the just released Duke Nukem Forever demo.

Besides being curious if anyone else is playing this, I thought I'd put in my own two cent review. So far I don't thnk it's as good as Duke Nukem 3D was 14 years ago, but so far what I've seen can't be the result of 12 years of development.

I'm beginning to think that for much of the 12 years it was supposed to be in development it truely was vaporware!

A couple of months ago I've read a behind the scenes report about the development states of Duke Nukem. I found it to be quit "sad" and amusing at the same time as it somehow shows how success can make us fail. It's about the creators earning plenty of money around 2000, perfectionism, too fast development of game graphics, switching from one game engine to another etc. ... I'm not sure if it's this one: http://www.wired.com/magazine/2009/12/fail_duke_nukem/

Anyway, although I'm a gamer I'm not planning to play it as my computer is too outdated.

GWarner wrote:so far what I've seen can't be the result of 12 years of development.

I'm beginning to think that for much of the 12 years it was supposed to be in development it truely was vaporware!

It wasn't vapourware it was a result of the big rewrite syndrome. Too many times they decided to throw out old code and replace with new until they couldn't keep up with the changing pc hardware.

Blood wrote:It wasn't vapourware it was a result of the big rewrite syndrome.

Good article, but it's 11 years old now. Maybe he should consider rewriting it from scratch

Well, I just finished the demo, it was rather short, and didn't really impress me. Other than the Duke character theres' nothing special about this game to set it appart from all the other FPSes out there.

Duke Nukem 3D had lots of culteral references in such as in the first level you go into a bar and on the TV is O.J. Simpson's white station wagon or covered pickup truck, cruising donw the highway. In one of the bathrooms, a phone number is writen on the wall above a urinal, the number is the title of a popular song. Unless they didn't put any in the demo those references are missing from this game.

There is also Duke's wise cracks, but none of the ones I heard in the demo were new making Duke seem more like a broken record than a hero.

My conclusion is that the long awaited Duke Nukem Foreer will be a big disappointment that probably should have just stayed the world's most famous piece vaporware.

c4s wrote:A couple of months ago I've read a behind the scenes report about the development states of Duke Nukem. I found it to be quit "sad" and amusing at the same time as it somehow shows how success can make us fail. It's about the creators earning plenty of money around 2000, perfectionism, too fast development of game graphics, switching from one game engine to another etc. ... I'm not sure if it's this one: http://www.wired.com/magazine/2009/12/fail_duke_nukem/

Anyway, although I'm a gamer I'm not planning to play it as my computer is too outdated.

Yeah, it remind me of Crack.Com Abuse/Golgotha days.

Phew, after a long time didn't come here (only visit the News page once in a while).

Blood wrote:It wasn't vapourware it was a result of the big rewrite syndrome. Too many times they decided to throw out old code and replace with new until they couldn't keep up with the changing pc hardware.

...uhm...isn't this covered under the definition of vaporware?
Vaporware is a term in the computer industry that describes a product, typically computer hardware or software, that is announced to the general public but is never actually released or officially canceled.

When you have a game announcement, and the game is not released for 12 years, then it's certainly vaporware for most of those years!!!

Tenaja wrote:

Blood wrote:It wasn't vapourware it was a result of the big rewrite syndrome. Too many times they decided to throw out old code and replace with new until they couldn't keep up with the changing pc hardware.

...uhm...isn't this covered under the definition of vaporware?
Vaporware is a term in the computer industry that describes a product, typically computer hardware or software, that is announced to the general public but is never actually released or officially canceled.

When you have a game announcement, and the game is not released for 12 years, then it's certainly vaporware for most of those years!!!

No you have it wrong. Vapourware NEVER gets released. As soon as DNF was released it no longer can be considered vapourware.

No, it may no longer be vaporware but it was vaporware for many years. See what wikipedia has to say about it...

Intended to be groundbreaking, Duke Nukem Forever became infamous in the video game industry and its name became synonymous with vaporware due to its severely-protracted development schedule;

(emphasis mine.)

Wired even says they've ended their reign:
http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2011/06/d ... vaporware/

There are just too many years to say it never was vaporware. Sure, it no longer is, but it was up until the day it was released. It was vaporware for SO long that it was practically removed from the vaporware list (probably a couple times), being written off as a dead project.

The king of vaporware is dead. Long live the king of vaporware!

No you don't get it.

Vapourware means it WAS NEVER EVER EVER released!!! <-- this is important!

When a piece of software is RELEASED it can NO LONGER EVER be called vapourware because it was eventually released. <-- this is important too!

The term vapourware means that some piece of software was announced then NEVER appeared as if it was vapour!

If that piece of software APPEARS (and it doesn't matter how many years that took!) it is NOT vapour and can NO LONGER EVER be called vapourware! you get it?

Duke Nukem Forever was considered vapourware (because it took a long time) until it was released then by default it can no longer be referred as such! BECAUSE IT WAS RELEASED!!!!!!!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaporware wrote:Vaporware is a term in the computer industry that describes a product, typically computer hardware or software, that is announced to the general public but is never actually released or officially canceled.

The word never is key!

This is always fun to read (here they are talking about Prey and Duke Nukem Forever, the year is 1997):

http://groups.google.com/group/rec.game ... lain&pli=1

The incredible thing is 3D Realms never completed Prey or DNF. Both were finally released because another developer completed them (Human Head if I recall well in the case of Prey and Gearbox in the case of DNF).

Otherwise their vaporware years would be still running ...

I have it... but I'm afraid to play it

Just play it hehe. It's not as bad as reviewers claim. If you have a mind that enjoys potty humour, you will still find it fun. Just don't expect it to be something it isn't.

[Deleted due to incorrect analogy]

MachineCode wrote:That sounds as stupid as saying "that woman was classed as a virgin once".

Didn't sound stupid to me, but I also use goto without shame.

I believe the point made by the poster was the program was considered vaporware for an incredible amount of time, maybe not so rightfully in the end, but we are not talking about something "a little late". That is the amazing feature that will remain in memory, certainly not the game.
Now its status is changed, good for the publisher (maybe). But again, was not a merit of the original developer, same story for Prey.

A lot of people started working at 3drealms on that project when its develop was only beginning, and left 10 years later out of frustration because they lost 10 (or more) years of their work life without being able to add a single completed project on their curriculum.