Have You Played? is an endless stream of game retrospectives. One a day, every day, perhaps for all time.>

You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you might find you get a steaming pile of half-baked ideas, geriatric technology and an exhausting cocktail of ill-judged satire and straight-up misanthropy. (more…)

Duke Nukem 3D [official site] turned twenty this year, which means it can get away with drinking hard liquor and smoking cigars in a strip club legally in some parts of the world, but might not think that s as cool as it once seemed. Mr Nukem is actually twenty-five years old, however, having appeared in two platform games before his FPS adventures. Years of development hell later, he also appeared in Duke Nukem Forever, a game remembered more for its delays than its eventual release.

Today, we’ve been thinking and chatting about all things Duke, from wonderful level design to wonky nipples and weird space tigers.

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I never intended for that picture to become the official header for What Are You/We All Playing This Weekend, you know. I found myself in charge of this section one week and thought I’d find a nice picture of a pond – which was where I intended to mostly spend my weekend. Finding nothing in antique illustration archives (we have our whole antiquated Britishness schtick, yeah?), I turned to what else> I’d be doing: appearing in visions, indulging my nymph side, and firing cannons at ghastly moustaches.

Anyway, what are you playing this weekend? Here’s what we’re into:

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A lot has changed in video games across my six years as a professional words person, but Duke Nukem has always been a shambles. In uncertain times, I knew I could always glance his way and groan “Oh no what’s happened now?” I feel a little lost now the legal troubles between old owner 3D Realms and the new Dukelords at Gearbox Software have wrapped up.

Gearbox, 3D Realms, and 3DR owner Interceptor Entertainment have issued a joint statement declaring they’ve voluntarily ended all the litigation, and that Gearbox are “the full and rightful owner[s] of the Duke Nukem franchise.”

… [visit site to read more]

No Rock, Paper, Shot Take this week, as we thought we’d try out a multi-topic chat about the week in PC gaming instead. Discussed: how to bring back Duke Nukem without it being a horrible mess, whether the Warcraft movie looks any good, whether any game moves are any good and the terrifying lure of idle games. … [visit site to read more]

The plot thickens. Actually, come to think of it, the plot was already quite thick – perhaps even viscous – given that 3D Realms sold the rights to Duke Nukem years ago only to resurface out-of-the-blue with a new Duke Nukem game being developed by Rise of the Triad developer Interceptor, get sued by Gearbox for it, sell its entire business to Interceptor, and allege that the purveyor of borders and lands has no legal ground to stand on. It’s been a mess so far, frankly – a sticky morass of contradictory claims. And now for the latest chapter, in which 3DR and Interceptor claim an agreement over an old project called Duke Nukem Survivor gives them every right to continue absconding with Gearbox’s supplies of gum and frighteningly kickable ass in the night.

… [visit site to read more]

Remember Duke Nukem Forever? No, not that one with the poo-throwing; the other one, the one people were excited about 12 years ago. The one in the 2001 trailer which appeared to offer endless impossible, fantastical things. By today’s standards, those things no longer seem impossible and quite a few them seem deeply unsavoury, but it remains a shame that the DNF we got was something entirely different. A group of modders have been busily attempting to rewrite history – by recreating the game that 2001 trailer suggested in good old Duke Nukem 3D. Given they suffered aa degree of 3D Realms-esque hubris in their struggle to finish the thing, are these the first Method Developers? (more…)

I wanted to snarkily write ’3D Realms’ in the title, but when I added the apostrophe it looked like ’3D Realms” and everyone would have thought I’d just forgotten what type of speech mark I was using. Anyway! The 3D Realms name is indeed back, even if it’s currently somewhat unclear as to whether it’s anything more than a name at present. The Duke Nukem dev closed its doors after too many years and too much money spent creating the horrible piss-mountain that was Duke Nukem Forever, but owners including Scott Miller and George Broussard kept some intangible measure of it alive afterwards. And so it is that 3D Realms’ name is attached to crowd-funded, post-apocalyptic shooter Earth No More. (more…)

Here’s today’s scandal, then. The Mechromancer, a post-release DLC character for Borderlands 2 has been revealed, and one of her skill trees is aimed at making the game more accessible to people who don’t play shooters. Officially, this set of abilities is called ‘Best Friends Forever’, and includes skills such as missed shots having a chance to auto-ricochet into their intended targets – i.e. allowing some victory from imprecise aiming. That’s fine. That’s even quite a good idea for anyone who wants to play the game with someone who isn’t well-versed in such things. I quite want to play it with my Dad, in fact.

The trouble is that a dev at Gearbox unofficially dubbed it ‘the girlfriend mode’ when talking to Eurogamer, which is clearly all kinds of offensive and quickly caused online outrage – definitely justified were the skills truly called ‘girlfriend mode’ but rather less cut and dried if it turns out to be just one guy’s personal (and foolish) nickname for the real title of Best Friends Forever. Gearbox are claiming the drama stems from misinterpretation and sensationalism. (more…)

I had been worried that Duke Nukem would never, ever make me laugh again. Then I listened to his voice actor Jon St. John reading an extract from ubiquitous rutting tome 50 Shades of Gray in character as Duke, and a multitude of recent sins were forgiven. (more…)