Duke Nukem Movie

Larry Kasanoff's Threshold Entertainment and Mark Damon's Behaviour Worldwide have pacted to finance and distribute a slate of eight pics based on some of the world's bestselling videogames. Pics included in the package are Duke Nukem, Conan, Zork, and Bogeys. Threshold will produce the films, and Behaviour will organize the financing and worldwide distribution.

So startsa news report on Variety today which talks very briefly about the Duke Nukem Movie, and who will be distributing it (along with some other games based on video game characters). Here's a bit more on what they have to say about Duke:

Also on the fast track are Duke Nukem, based on the famous no-nonsense action character; Conan, a live-action fantasy following the adventures of the legendary warrior; and Zork, a darker and more romantic pic, based on one of the best-established computer games.

As you can see, there's not a whole lot there about Duke Nukem, but it does mention that financial and distribution rights are in place, and the project is moving along. When there's something solid to report about the movie, we'll report it here. And no, no one has been cast as Duke yet.

Posted by Joe Siegler at 1:00 PM

Jumpman Died!

One of the earlier games Apogee did (slightly over eight years ago now) was a game called Jumpman Lives. We no longer have anything to do with this title (we hold no copyright or anything on the game). In fact, our official stance on the game is this:

Apogee no longer publishes Jumpman Lives, nor do we provide registered versions, or offer any support for it. We retain no copyright to the game, and we cannot assist people looking for the program, and disavow ourselves of the game.

No further information about Jumpman Lives is available from Apogee. In short, Jumpman died.

With that said, we'd like to point out a link that recently popped up on the Internet about this old game we did. Lon Matero's Apogee page has done a feature on the Jumpman Lives! game, giving some of the history of it. If you're at interested in this game, you should check it out.

If you're interested in reading some more of our company history, make sure to check out our Milestones & History page, as well as our Detailed Release History page.

Posted by Joe Siegler at 1:00 PM

All Duke, All The Time

Our Webmaster Joe Siegler writes, "As a follow up to yesterday's story about the announcement of two new Duke Nukem games, I thought you might be interested in seeing a complete list of all the versions of Duke Nukem that have been released (or are under development) for any platform. This is a comprehensive list, and when I started putting it together, I didn't quite realize how many versions of Duke there have been! If you count the two new ones announced yesterday, that brings the total number of Duke games to fifteen!"

* Games already released

Duke Nukem I (PC - Released July 1, 1991)
Duke Nukem II (PC - Released December 3, 1993)
Duke Nukem 3D (PC - Released January 29, 1996)
Duke Nukem 3D (Mac - Released May 25, 1997) (This is a Mac port of Duke Nukem 3D)
Duke Nukem 64 (N64 - Released November 16, 1997) (This is a port of Duke Nukem 3D)
Duke Nukem 3D (Sega Saturn - Released ??? 1997) (This is a port of Duke Nukem 3D)
Duke Nukem: Total Meltdown (PSX - Released December 8, 1997) (This is a port of Duke Nukem 3D)
Duke Nukem: Time to Kill (PSX - Released October 12, 1998) (This is a PSX-Only Original Title)
Duke Nukem 3D: (Tigertoys game.com Handheld game - Released ??? 1998) (This is a handheld cartridge game)
Duke Nukem 3D: (Tigertoys "Grip Games" - Released ??? 1998) (This is a handheld game)

Games under development (Release date for all of these is When it's done")

Duke Nukem Forever (PC)
Duke Nukem: Zero Hour (N64-only original game)
Duke Nukem: "Color Gameboy Game" (Color Gameboy-only original game)
Duke Nukem: "Rockstar Game" (unnamed undetermined console game)
Duke Nukem 5 (the next PC game after Duke Nukem Forever.. way way in the future)

Posted by Joe Siegler at 1:00 PM

New Duke Nukem Games Announced!

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 22, 1999-- Rockstar Games, the high end video game publishing division of Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. (NASDAQ:TTWO - news), Gathering of Developers, Ltd., and 3D Realms, Inc., today announced that it has acquired the rights to publish a game starring the legendary Duke Nukem character. The game, yet to be titled, will feature gaming's original bad boy in third person perspective for a soon to be identified next-generation video game console platform.

``We're thrilled to see Duke Nukem blazing his way into future generations of console hardware,'' stated Scott Miller, head of 3D Realms. Mr. Miller added, ``We are confident that the Gathering and Rockstar share the passion and dedication to the continued success of the Duke Nukem franchise that we at 3D Realms do.''

So begins the press release put out yesterday announcing a new title in the Duke Nukem line for an as of yet unspecified next generation game console. There is no information about this game at this point, the deal was just reached a few days ago. We're mentioning it here to confirm that this is real. The game has no name, and no information as to platform availability yet.

In more Duke news, there is also a color Gameboy project underway. 3D Portal reported on some of the features a couple of days ago, but we wanted to let you know what they are here:

* Duke Nukem: Color Gameboy Features
* 16 levels!
* An annihilating arsenal of futuristic weapons! Blasters! Laser cannons! Missiles! Flame-throwers! And space shuttle dogfights!
* A murderous horde of enemies! Enemy mutations! Robo-droids and rabid-crazy alien guards challenge Duke Nukem on every level!
* Greater Nukem mobility! Duke flips! Travels hand-over-hand across pipes, chains, and ropes! Crouches and shootsupward!
* Special powers. Invincibility! Super shots and deadlier guns!
* Great secrets and features! Soda can power-ups! Turkeys for food and explosive, secret surprises!

The Color Gameboy title will be getting its own page here shortly, as well as the Duke Nukem: Zero Hour game. Keep your eyes peeled!

Posted by Joe Siegler at 1:00 PM

Duke Nukem: Zero Hour Preview

IGN64 has a pretty cool Duke
Nukem: Zero Hour preview online. It's got screen shots, game descriptions, and a short interview with Hugh Binns, one of the folks at Eurocom, the people who are making the game. It's also got zombies. Zombies? How do they fit into a Duke Nukem game? Well, you'll need to check out the full preview to find out. Here's a few tidbits from the preview:

* As always, Nukem is armed with an impressive array of weapons; everything from the standard handgun and shotgun to lightning rods and sniper-rifles. Because of this precision kills are easily executable, and in some rare cases a necessity.
* You can shoot them (zombies) in the nads. We've got specific animations for when they're shot in the groin. Some of them really are quite gory. And you can do all of this with the sniper rifle as well. You can zoom right in and blow the legs of zombies off and so on."

The preview also offers their suggestions on some lines that Duke Nukem should speak in the game. There is also a link to a slightly older Zero Hour preview IGN64 did there as well.

Posted by Joe Siegler at 1:00 PM

The Grape Unknown

DarkTalyn over at Grape's thoughts has a really cool article online called "The Unknown Factors". This article talks about the policy of two game companies (id Software and us) regarding the release of information before a game is released. Here's a bit of what he had to say about 3D Realms and Duke Nukem Forever:

* Project Leader George Broussard has often said that 3D Realms doesn't want to hype up Duke Nukem Forever, and that the team would rather surprise gamers, instead of giving away all their secrets before the game hits the shelves.

* Joe Siegler of 3D Realms, insists that all release dates given to the public are false unless given by the 3D Realms team themselves. (And this of course, will never happen:)

DarkTalyn also talks about id Software's policy, in regards to Quake 3 Arena on how they give out information (as opposed to us not doing so). Check out his thoughts on this issue, and let him know what you think!

Posted by Joe Siegler at 1:00 PM

Chris Hargrove on Programming

Loonygames has the latest article online in Chris Hargrove's "Code on the Cob" series up, however, this is a slightly different installment. Why? In the words of Chris, "Right now I'm stuck in what I guess you could call a "mini crunch", since I'm working on some time-critical (Duke Nukem Forever) code that needs to get in immediately." Because of that, he has a slightly different type of article online. This one has some of his game programming recommendations. Here's a list of them (with online links should you wish to actually buy any of them):

*Design and Structure

*Design Patterns : Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software

Interviews

We have a couple of interviews to report about today that you should read.

First up as an interview
with George Broussard (Duke Nukem Forever Project Leader) by 3dgaming.net. In it, they discuss (what else?) Duke Nukem Forever! Here's a couple of choice bits from the interview:

Q: When Unreal first came out, it was criticized for having unplayable Internet support. Did that at all worry you at the time? How do you feel now that Unreal netplay is on par with or beyond Quake II performance?
A: I never worried one bit about Unreal's net play. They simply shipped too soon. The new Unreal version 220 is 90% as good as Quake 2 from what I've seen and getting better. I think Unreal has finally achieved the performance they should have had when they shipped, and most people agree. I'd wager that with Unreal Tournament you will see a vast increase in Unreal's market share of online play.

Q: What would you predict to be the minimum system requirements? Will you be using the same specs as what Unreal asked for (which weren't too precise anyway), or will they be changed?
A: We're not sure yet. In the end, the game will require what it requires. Unreal was a little slow when it shipped (mainly due to map inefficiencies), and CPU's levels and 3D cards will raise before DNF ships. We're going to make the most competitive game we can that will run on as many systems as we can. How's that for dodging the issue? In the end I'd predict you will want a Voodoo2 quality accelerator and P233-266 as a base.

Q: And lastly, when can we expect Duke Nukem Forever to hit shelves? Even though its current status is "when it's done", in what timeframe do you estimate we will be able to play this great game?
A: When it's done That's as close as we're going to get. In the end, we know what the fans want and expect, and it will take as long as it takes to achieve that. That's another reason to try and keep the hype level down until we are ready.

The second interview is one I neglected to cover a few days ago. This one is with Duke Nukem Forever Programmer, Chris Hargrove. This is from a site called Sweet Oblivion. This interview seems to be more geared towards Chris himself, instead of Duke. However, there's some good reading here, too. Make sure to check it out!

Posted by Joe Siegler at 1:00 PM

More on Duke Nukem

David Laprad brings us word of a Duke Nukem sighting over on MSNBC. In an article entitled "How the Digital Playground stacks up" written by David Kent, Duke Nukem is brought up in a discussion of video games vs. "real life" play. Here's what the article says about Duke:

MSNBC: Are there reasons to throw up red flags about games like, say, �Duke Nukem�?

HJ: It�s not the most imaginative or interesting game out there, but I don�t think any one work is going to be the cause of serious social harm. I think that�s the wrong way to confront it. I would rather see us foster and promote more interesting games, more challenging games, more innovative games that enrich the options available to people in our society than to waste our time focusing on two or three titles of games that we see as excessively violent. Many games, like �Postal,� are not particularly successful commercially. We often trot them out as examples and make them more commercially viable than they should be by the fact that we�ve flagged them as having particularly explicitly violent imagery.

It's another of the video games vs. violence articles, but not the usual slam on video games that we've come to expect anymore. It's definitely worth a read, as the author does talk positive about the effects of video games. As a side note, the picture in the article is of two kids playing football on the old Mattel Intellivsion video game system. For an article that claims to be about video games in the 90's, it's funny that the picture used is that old.

Posted by Joe Siegler at 1:00 PM

Duke Nukem Forever FAQ

Do you have a question about Duke Nukem Forever? Well, then we have a link for you. It's the Official Official Duke Nukem Forever FAQ. This FAQ (by Dukeworld) covers a wide range of topics about Duke Nukem Forever such as:

* How many weapons will Duke Nukem Forever have? What will they be?
* Will DNF be available for any platforms other than Win95/98/NT?
* What are the System Requirements?
* And finally, "When will the game be released?" (Astute 3D Realms fans should know the answer to this before looking.

Please note that this FAQ was not done by 3D Realms, it was done by Chris Day & Andy Morris of Dukeworld. It was approved by 3D Realms, but it was not authored by us. As such, any information contained within the FAQ is subject to change, and should not be taken as gospel. That said, this is a good source of information on Duke Nukem Forever, and you should check it out today!

For further information on our games, check out the 3D Realms FAQ area, which contains FAQs to several of our games, including a text version of the Duke Nukem Forever FAQ.

Posted by Joe Siegler at 1:00 PM

Duke Nukem on the BBC

We received an email today from a 3D Realms fan named Neil Atkinson, who informed us of Duke Nukem being mentioned yesterday on the BBC. Here's what Neil had to say:

Hi 3dRealms,

Duke Nukem got a mention again on UK TV on Monday the 8th of Feb 1999 at 8:30. It was featured on a comedy series called "Dad". I wish I had evidence, i.e. a Sound file of it but I didn't know it was coming up. Perhaps you should contact the BBC for further information. Here's how it went on the programme.

A kid was playing his Playstation and was playing a game which was obviously made up by the unrealistic sound FX and actors actions. Something like Ninja Assassins. His Mum started playing it and completed the made up game in 10 seconds proving she was better than her son at computer games. Later she gets bored and looks through his selection of games, she reads out Doom, Tomb Raider and she gets to Duke Nukem (Original Version) and holds up the box clearly visible to the camera and says something like "Duke Nukem is this game any good, what's this game about". He replies "I don't want to talk about it" but he was actually ignoring her as he didn't want her to play the game because of his fears of her being better than the game than he is. I hope you find this information useful

Neil A

If anyone else out there has a video clip or a sound file of this, please contact us. Thanks to Neil for letting us know about this!

Posted by Joe Siegler at 1:00 PM

Interviews

Loonygames lives up to it's name again with this title - "Gimme Your Money". This is an article written about the history of shareware which focuses heavily on our own Scott Miller, partner and founder of Scott Miller. The article talks about the genesis of shareware (PC-File), and moves on to Atari 400/800 computers, and onto Scott's move of releasing Kroz in 1987 as the first shareware PC computer game. Here's a bit from the full article:

The great shareware boom started in June of 1991, when Apogee released the Duke Nukem sidescroller (which, with hindsight, should probably have been called Duke Nukem 2D). By this time only turtleneck-wearing die-hards were still defending the Amiga and Atari machines, and with just the still expensive Macintosh for competition, the PC had finally defeated its more interesting rivals with longevity and sack-it-yourself grocery store prices. Saying that Duke Nukem wouldn't have gotten a second notice if it had been released for the Nintendo Entertainment System four years earlier (two years after Super Mario Bros. showed up in the States) may sound like an insult, but it felt good to show that a $2000 box could begin to approach a dedicated game system of any kind. And Todd Replogle's Duke Nukem, with speaker tweedling sound effects by Scott Miller, sold fifteen hundred copies a month well into 1992. For $30 a copy.

This is a very good read - you should check out the full article. If you'd like to read more of our history here, you can visit our history and milestones page, as well as our detailed release history page.

Posted by Joe Siegler at 1:00 PM

The Duke Nukem Movie

We get asked every once in awhile if the Duke Nukem movie is still happening. It is. However, as with most all Duke developments, we prefer to keep them a secret, as well as their release date being "When it's done". Please keep in mind that anything you might read about the Duke movie having been cast already is false. That has not occurred, nor has any filming started (the script isn't even done yet!) Unless you see it announced on these pages (or in one of our .plan files), you should take the information with a grain of salt. That being said, here are a few links of information about the Duke Nukem Movie:

*Recent News story about the Duke Movie by Daily Movies

*Internet Movie Database page for Duke Nukem: The Movie

Once we have something official to announce about it, it will most definitely be posted here. Count on it. In the meantime, there's nothing official to report other than "work is progressing, albeit slowly".

Posted by Joe Siegler at 1:00 PM

Duke Nukem Action Figures

Some of the more popular Duke Nukem items over the last year or so have been the Action Figures. There's several in the line of Duke Action Figures. From Duke himself, to the Battlelord, to the Pig Cop, or even alternate versions of Duke himself, these figures have proven to be very popular.

New Max Payne Stuff

Max Screenshots: The Official Max Payne Web Site has some new screenshots online - make sure to visit the site to see them! These screenshots are not totally new, they've been floating around in a few places before, but they're online on the Max Payne Web site for the first time.

The Preview: This one is by gamelinks, and was written by Nick Hone. Here's a bit of what Nick had to say about Max Payne.

From observation of the screen shots I've got my paws on , the inclusion of colored lighting is tastefully implemented and not gaudy. The best part of the lighting however, is the radiosity method used to render it. This provides for true lighting and shadows. The texture art also looks to be realistically done. Good texture art adds tremendously to the beliveability of a game.

For more information about Max Payne, check out the Official Max Payne Web site today!

Posted by Joe Siegler at 1:00 PM

Apogee, 3D Realms, & "Y2K"

The "Y2K" issue is one that's going around in the press a lot lately. We do get asked this every once in awhile, so we thought we'd look into it. Last week, we conducted a test of all of our games, and we can say that all of our games are "Year 2000 Compliant". We didn't think this would be an issue to us at all, since none of our games use date check code, but we ran all of them just the same, and they all ran on a machine that was operating in the year 2000.

You can rest assured that Duke will keep on battling aliens along with the rest of our product line when your computer hits January 1, 2000.

Posted by Joe Siegler at 1:00 PM