More Max Payne E3 Coverage

Over the holiday weekend, there were several more places that gave Max Payne some love. Check 'em out:

*Gamespot, saying "it promises to become one of the PC's most violent, most stylish action games to date".

*IGN Action Vault, saying "Intended for a mature audience, Max Payne features a gritty atmosphere and intense plot elements while exhibiting influences from a number of sources, most notably John Woo and The Matrix films as well as comic books."

*Firing Squad?, saying "I caught all the past screenshots, and of course I watched the teaser trailer movies several times, but none of that sufficiently prepared me for what I was about to see."

*PC Zone UK, saying "Remedy, I'm glad to say, rock."

*Gamesmania, saying "As you might expect, graphics are stunning."

Even MSNBC ran a photo of Max Payne as a lead-in to a story they did on Nintendo.

Posted by Joe Siegler at 2:00 PM

Updated Grabbag MP3 Available

Available now on our downloads page is a new version of the Grabbag MP3. Grabbag, as you may remember is the theme song to Duke Nukem 3D. The song's author, Lee Jackson has made a newer, higher quality version available, and you can download it right now. In addition to this file, there's a few other MP3 songs we have available for download that you might be interested in.

1. Grabbag MP3 (theme song from Duke Nukem 3D)

2. Lo Wang's Rap (also by Lee, from Shadow Warrior)

3. Megadeth Grabbag sample (from the Music to Score by CD)

Please note that the Grabbag song itself is unchanged. The only difference is that this is recorded at a higher MP3 bitrate than the older one. Also, if you play this and get no sound, you either need to upgrade your MP3 player, or use Winamp. Some MP3 players cannot play mp3's recorded at this high of a bitrate.

Posted by Joe Siegler at 2:00 PM

Interview with George Broussard

With the Duke Nukem Forever video making such a splash at E3, George has come out of his self imposed news blackout for a minute to give a short interview to Voodoo Extreme. The interview was mostly about things in the E3 video itself. Here's a small tidbit..

VE - I couldn't help but notice that we don't actually see Duke himself in the DNF footage. Why did you decide not to show his DNF look in the game?

GB - He's not modeled yet. In any case I don't think we would have used him. We didn't really want Duke in the video as the whole thing was from his perspective. We even opted not to include any voice clips from Duke. We liked the idea that the video was strong enough to stand on it's own, without Duke. Besides you do see his hands in a few places.

This is the first time George has spoken out about Duke Nukem Forever in some time, and is likely to be the last for some time, too. Check out the whole interview here. Also, if by some chance you haven't downloaded the Duke Nukem Forever trailer video yet, visit our downloads page for the links.

Posted by Joe Siegler at 2:00 PM

Best of E3 Awards

It's turned out to be a big news day, so let's get to it.

Voodoo Extreme has handed out their best of E3 awards, and they gave awards to two of our games. First up is Duke Nukem Forever, which they list in their Top 20 games of the show. They had this to say about DNF (which they listed first on their list here).

The movie that 3D Realms released of the game was nothing short of remarkable. The last time we saw Duke was a couple years back using the Quake 2 engine. With Unreal, the game looks generations better, and if the trailer is any indication of what the final game will be like, we should be in store for something very special.

They also included three screen shots, which were just dumps from the E3 video. Then, they also awarded Max Payne "The Winner of the Voodoo Extreme Best of E3 2001 Award" . That's a very cool award, and they had this to say about Max Payne..

Max Payne was back at E3 this year and is looking better than ever. Unlike last year when Max�s moves consisted of some simple slow motion spins, Remedy has expanded Max Payne�s gameplay to full-blown "Matrix" effects, where Max can literally slow down the speed of combat and perform dives, dodge bullets and other amazing feats of superhuman prowess. Graphically, Max Payne was stunning. The weapon models are all based from real-world counterparts, and the entire world uses photo-realistic textures as source material, making the maps almost as gritty as the seedy underbelly of New York City itself. Using hand-painted story boards to tell the tale of how Max Payne went from a good undercover cop to a man wanted dead by the mob (and worse), Remedy combines still images, with full voice acted dialogue to tell the story�s torrid tale. Max Payne is currently in heavy QA testing, and should be released early this summer, or "when it�s down" (you know, whichever comes first).

Head over to Voodoo Extreme, and check out their E3 awards today!

Posted by Joe Siegler at 2:00 PM

Adobe Photoshop Help

Skaven over at Remedy has an article online that might be of interest to those who use Photoshop. The article is titled "The power of the high pass filter". In Skaven's own words, "It's a technical feature about the wonders of the High Pass filter of Photoshop, so some of you graphic artists out there might find this handy."

If you use Adobe Photoshop, check the article out. Even if you don't use it, and are interested in what a gaming professional feels about the software, it's an interesting read.

Posted by Joe Siegler at 1:00 PM

Interview with John Pollard

This got posted while we were out in Los Angeles, and with all the server issues yesterday, this got missed. However, you shouldn't miss it - it's a cool interview with our own John Pollard; Duke Nukem Forever programmer. It's sh ort, but is a good read. Here, check out this snippet from the interview:

TTH: How's it like working for the great 3D Realms?

John: It's really cool. The guys here are great, and really talented, and it shows. There is a lot of history here, and you can feel it when you walk down the halls and look at all the posters of past 3D Realms games .

Make sure to check out the whole interview here. Thanks Neil Abraham.

Posted by Joe Siegler at 5:15 PM

Duke Nukem Forever "Best of E3"

In addition to the Max Payne award above, we also have a report that Duke Nukem Forever was given the best of E3 award by gamersclick.com. This is interesting, considering Duke Nukem Forever wasn't at the show. The only thing at the show was the DNF trailer, which you can download from our site here.

Anyway, their award goes to Duke Nukem Forever, in their words:

DNF had a great showing at E3, backed by an awesome demo video. The game still has a few months until release, but it's shaping up to be an awesome FPS. It was just too good. A single demo movie, showing off the rewards of four years of labor, stunned the gaming community.

Yeah. Duke's back, baby, and don't you forget it. 3DRealms has been working on this bad boy for years, and at E3, they finally gave the public a little peek into the game. Amazement ensued, and everyone who had previously been shouting, "Vaporware, vaporware" was silenced. The first-person shooter genre is advancing faster than any other, technologically, and DNF is at the top of a very large heap of hot-looking shooters.

In addition, they also gave 3D Realms the best PC developer award for the show. Here's what they had to say about us:

With Duke Nukem Forever and Max Payne on display, George Broussard's boys had a huge show. It's not often that a developer can make everyone walk away from a show with their jaws wide open, but 3DR did it.

Posted by Joe Siegler at 5:15 PM

Max Payne Best of E3 Award

The folks over at Source Magazine have given Max Payne their Best of E3 award. Check out what they said about it.

"The PC also stole some of the limelight with several huge hit games that are right around the corner. ***The best game of the show for PC was Max Payne*** that will be coming to us this July from Remedy Entertainment and Gathering of Developers (G.O.D.). This game centers on a New York policeman who has everything in his life taken from him, including his family and his job since he was framed. With nothing to lose, Max hits the cold streets of New York to clear his name and revenge his family. While the story may not sound too intriguing, the state-of-the-art graphics and play-style left all of the press breathless. Remedy has incorporated Hollywood style effects like those seen in the movie "The Matrix", which add to both the rich atmosphere of the game."

You can check out a thread on SourceMagazine's forums about this here.

Posted by Joe Siegler at 5:15 PM

First batch of E3 pics online

We've had several requests for our annual E3 picture archive... "When is it going online?" Well, fear not. The first batch of pictures are ready to go. They're online now in our "Caught on Camera" section of the web site.

This first batch are just the pictures from Joe Siegler and others who had cameras. The second batch, which will come later in the week are from George Broussard. George went mad with his camera, took several thousand pictures, totalling over 4 GIGS of files. It's going to take slightly longer to plow through all of those to pick out what we want to post online.

Posted by Joe Siegler at 1:40 PM

More Max Payne E3 Coverage

In addition to yesterday's Max Payne coverage, we also have these reviews of the game for you to check out:

*Gamespot Australia's Max Payne Coverage

*Overgame's Max Payne Coverage (in French)

*Gamesmania's Top 10 PC Picks (Max is #2)

*Fragland's E3 Coverage

*Gamepower's E3 Coverage (Max picked best of show)

*Peliplaneetta's Max Coverage (in Finnish)

In addition to this coverage, you can download the Max Payne E3 trailer video by clicking on the downloads button to your left. It's available for you right now!

Posted by Joe Siegler at 1:40 PM

Max Payne E3 Coverage

The coverage has started for the title Max Payne. We won't bore you with tons of quotes about how cool the game is, we're just going to direct you to various sites' coverage of Max Payne. Check out all of these:

*Gamespy's Max Payne Coverage by Caryn "Hellchick" Law

*Gamesdomain's Max Payne Coverage

*IGN's Max Payne Coverage by Trent Ward

*Gamespot UK's Max Payne Coverage by Mike Alle

*TechTV's Max Payne Coverage by Ed Lee

In addition to this coverage, you can download the Max Payne E3 trailer video by clicking on the downloads button to your left. It's available for you right now!

Posted by Joe Siegler at 5:40 PM

We're Back

Well, we're all back. Games, videos, strippers, dancers, and a lot of fun later, we're all back here at 3DR HQ. Bleary eyed, but ready to get back to work, we're currently plowing through feedback and online E3 reports today.

Our own picture collection will be online in the next couple of days (we've got literally thousands of pictures to go through).

In the meantime, you can download the Duke Nukem Forever video files from our site now, click on the downloads button to your left.

Thanks to all for the positive feedback on the Duke Nukem Forever & Max Payne videos - they both were a big attraction at E3 this year. We couldn't walk anywhere without being asked about them.

Posted by Joe Siegler at 2:10 PM

Off to E3

In about 30 minutes, 3D Realms will be off to the airport to go to E3.

The Duke Nukem Forever & Max Payne 2001 Floor videos will be released tomorrow online. Please note THAT THEY WILL NOT BE ON THIS SITE UNTIL WE RETURN FROM LOS ANGELES - Don't come here looking for them until next Monday.

They will be released around 10AM Pacific time tomorrow the 17th - which is the same time the show opens. The idea is that y'all online will be able to see it around the same time folks on the show floor can.

Make sure to hit all the popular game news sites - most of them have been contacted directly with the video, and even if they haven't, I'm sure they'll grab it from one of the sites that did get it almost instantly!

Have a great weekend, and enjoy the videos!

Posted by Joe Siegler at 1:25 PM

Joe Siegler Interview Pt 2

A couple of weeks ago, we ran a story on our webmaster, Joe Siegler being interviewed by Euniverse Live. Part two of that interview was placed online yesterday over at EUniverse Live. In part two, Joe & TC talk about Duke Nukem Forever, Max Payne, and other game stuff.

To no one's surprise, not a whole lot was said about Duke Nukem Forever, but it was a pretty cool interview. Check it out here - you can listen to a streaming version, or download an MP3 of the entire show.

If you missed it, you can check out Part 1 of the interview here.

Posted by Joe Siegler at 11:30 PM

Duke Nukem: Manhattan Project Info

Today, we bring you some small information regarding the title, "Duke Nukem: Manhattan Project". This is a game being developed by Sunstorm Interactive (who created a number of Duke Nukem 3D add-on packs several years ago) and published by ARUSH Entertainment. The information comes in the form of an interview with Jim Perkins of ARush by stomped.com. Here's a little from the interview:

Stomped: How involved is 3D Realms in the creation of the game?

Perkins: 3D Realms is as you can imagine, very protective of Duke, so they are in on the approval process from start to finish. I can't speak for them, but 3D Realms seems very excited about the Duke Nukem: Manhattan Project concept, the game's look and feel, and the environment...they approve of and, I believe, are impressed with the game.

Stomped: What weapons and enemies will be featured and will we see some old Duke favorites in these categories?

Perkins: It's a little early to go into this---there will be new weapons and enemies but many favorites will return. We are keeping this game in the true Duke Nukem spirit so enemies, weapons and ,most importantly, attitude will be very familiar to Duke fans.

There's more to this interview with Jim, so make sure to check it out over at Stomped.

Posted by Joe Siegler at 3:00 PM

Intellectual Property Article

3D Action planet has a really good article online today - It's actually called "Your chocolate is in my peanut butter". Silly title aside, it's an article on intellectual property issues and how they're relevant to video games, mods, and using company's characters without their permission. This is a pretty contested issue with both gamers and game companies, and this article does a pretty good job of presenting the issue. Here's a few relevant points:

It happens every time a mod or other project gets foxed: the message boards light up with the collective rage of a community that feels it's been wronged, and the developers or publishers are accused of squashing the little guy in favor of more money. The mod community begins calling for the developers' heads on platters.

The most common accusation hurled is that the company is only doing it because of greed. While money is almost certainly tied into it, the predominant issue is one of intellectual property law.

Recently I had to tell a modeler that several models he'd done violated copyright law--he'd converted Quake III Arena models for use in Unreal Tournament. The issue was similar to the recent axing of the Duke It Out in Quake mod--both groups had taken one company's intellectual property from one game and ported it into another. This is the most common and obvious violation of copyright law in community development and it should be common sense not to violate it, but apparently it isn't when it's the biggest puddle the community steps in. But despite the ubiquitous outrage that inevitably follows with each fall of the axe, the companies can and must put a stop to it for a few reasons.

This is a very good, and well written article - you should go check it out now, and read all of it.

Posted by Joe Siegler at 3:55 PM

Doug Myers Dies

From Joe Siegler... "Doug Myers is a name that is in the minds of everyone here at 3D Realms today. Doug passed away last night at the age of 36 from an asthma attack. Doug was one of the two guys who was over at 3D Realms HQ from the Gathering working on the E3 Duke Nukem Forever video. He can be seen in one of the shots I posted the other day of the guys working on the video (he's the one on the left).

Doug was instrumental in helping us out with web site issues over this past year, and while I can't say I know him on a day to day basis, he was nothing more than kind and pleasant to me in all my business dealings with the Gathering. I'll miss him, but that can't compare to the ache that must be felt over at the Gathering at the moment, as well as his family. My thoughts go out to his family and close friends at this sad time.

You can check out what the Gathering has to say about Doug over at their web site.

You'll get to see some of the work he did on the DNF video once it's released later this month around the E3 show."

Posted by Joe Siegler at 1:20 PM

DNF Video Complete!

George Broussard has posted another update on our forums re: the DNF E3 video. It's been completed, and is ready for show.

We think you're gonna like it.

Posted by Joe Siegler at 11:50 AM

Max Payne Officially Rated "M"ature

Here's a piece that we feel that Max Payne fans would like to see.

Below is a thumbnail of the fax we received recently which officially designates the game as "Mature". You can click on the ESRB rating graphic to your right for an explanation of the various ESRB ratings, including the mature one.

Max is moving closer to being completed and released - and we thought you'd like to see this "behind the scenes" look at a part of just about every game's development. You can read the fax and check out some of the conditions that the ratings board places on use of the rating graphic.

Click on the thumbnail below to see a larger version of the fax we received.

Posted by Joe Siegler at 11:50 AM

DNF E3 Video News Update

No, this is not some kind of sick joke on our site visitors, we actually have some Duke Nukem Forever news to report. Work has begun on the video to be shown at this year's E3 in Los Angeles. George Broussard has posted an update on the progress made on the video at our forums. Here's what he had to say.

Well, we recorded the video footage. It took us about 3-4 hours, then we went to dinner. We came back and were about to rip the shots from the digital video, when we noticed - the sound was all too low. DOH! In our excitement to record footage, we neglected to check the sound levels. Sigh...

At 3am we finished re-recording all the footage...again But it went faster since we had a dry run.

We ripped shots from one hour of tape and we'll do the second hour tomorrow. We're going to have a lot more shots than can fit in the video, but it's always good to have more.

The guys from Gathering that are editing the video have their equipment setup in our conference room. We'll be working closely with them Tuesday to cut the video together, then we hope to polish/tweak it and be done Wednesday.

Will keep you posted. I think you're all going to like it a lot. The DNF team has put an incredible amount of work into what you are going to see.

That was posted very early this morning (around 6AM), and then the team went to catch some sleep. This afternoon, the God guys returned to the office, and we bring you these two shots of the '01 DNF video in production (click on either for a larger image):

Posted by Joe Siegler at 4:45 PM