By: roushimsx 
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Duke Nukem Forever (Randy & Trailer)
The conference room was situated in the corner, with six desktop machines setup in the middle (complete with headphones, wired 360 gamepads, keyboards, mice, and 24" flatpanel monitors), a large screen projector on the west wall, and yet another set of heritage shelves on the south wall that were stocked with more impressive Brothers in Arms memorabilia that I had never seen (oversized promo boxes for Earned in Blood and Road to Hill 30) and yet another copy of Dreamcast Half Life. Below sat the AV equipment and lining the outside walls under the windows were colored pillows on the windowsill, so we could all comfortable sit around.
When I pulled my gaze away from the awesome collection on the shelves, I noticed Randy Pitchford's face at the doorway to the room. I was completely surprised because I didn't think he would be able to find time to talk with us; I was under the impression that we were just going to go in, play some Duke Nukem Forever, watch the trailer, and get sent on our way.
He introduced himself to us and began talking about his relationship with the Duke Nukem character, the history of Duke Nukem, and a detailed layman's summary of the legal drama surrounding the history of Duke Nukem Forever. While I was familiar with the events and I had done a pretty good job of keeping abreast of all of the news, his unique presentation, candor, and obvious love for the franchise made for an incredibly enjoyable and entertaining speech. I honestly wasn't too sure how I felt about the game landing at Gearbox, but once I heard Randy talk about the importance of Duke Nukem and about how Duke can't die, I damn near shed a tear, grabbed a shrink ray gun, and stomped off to war.
Amazingly, despite loving Duke so much as to make Dognose appear to be a casual farmville mom in comparison, his description of the work and effort of the individuals at Triptych post-3D Realms closure was positively inspiring. Everyone's shown their happiness over Dognose getting to play Duke Nukem Forever, but the person I'm most happy for is Allen Blum.
Allen is the guy that's been with Duke since the beginning. Allen and Todd Replogle created the very first Duke Nukem game and Allen has been with Duke all the way up to 3D Realms' closure. Duke means everything to him and when 3D Realms died, Allen refused to accept that that was the end of the line. He banded together with a small number of other former employees (I think it was 9? I saw conflicting numbers online) and formed Triptych. They negotiated with GeorgeB to be able to legally continue work on the game themselves and they worked for the better part of a year, without pay and out of their own homes with the dream of finishing Duke Nukem Forever.
Randy mentioned in the past that Gearbox didn't take the game over, they simply stepped in to enable them to finish it. In the hilarious Star Wars analogy that Randy fleshed out (and that I wish I had recorded so I wouldn't have to do it the injustice of being completely paraphrased), Allen Blum and the Triptych guys were Luke Skywalker in the X-Wing, running the Death Star trench run. Wedge had bailed, Biggs was dead, and the exhaust port was coming up fast. Gearbox is simply the Millennium Falcon taking a shot at the Tie-Advanced and Randy is just Han Solo saying "you're all clear kid, now let's blow this thing and go home!".
After wrapping up his impromptu speech commemorating the importance of Duke Nukem and the level of love for the property at the studio, he cranked up the speakers and turned on the PAX 2010 Duke Nukem Forever trailer.
There's really noway for me to describe how awesome the trailer was; they really crammed everything possible in it. Duke is missing when the aliens return and they take advantage of his absence to conquer the planet. There's a scene of them pulling down a Duke Nukem statue and ravaging a large city. Unfortunately for them, they messed with our babes and Duke comes back to kick ass. Strippers, guns, explosions, juvenile humor, gore, three breasted aliens, it was all in there and set to Prodigy's "Invaders Must Die".
It's a shame that they won't cut out some of the more offensive stuff in the trailer and release a slightly edited version on the internet. The extended shot of Duke pissing in the toilet like Animal from Revenge of the Nerds, the bare breasted strippers, and the three breasted Alien...they could all be cut and left in an age-gated, unrated trailer to be released later down the line. The rest really needs to be seen to be believed. Dognose didn't feel it surpassed the glory of the 2001 trailer and while I concede that it's pretty much impossible to top "ALWAYS BET ON DUKE", as a whole the new trailer pumped me up as much as the 2001 trailer did when it came out. It was an awesome.
After the trailer, they picked the first six people starting on the north end of the room and the rest of us wandered back to the break area. Randy picked up his lunch and joined us there to sit around and talk with us. With his absolute rabid devotion to Duke, easy going attitude, and the ease at which he was able to hop between discussions on different games, it was easy to forget that this guy runs a fairly sizable development house. The dude is a no bullshit hardcore gamer and while I don't agree with his views on all games, getting a chance to shoot the shit with him was amazing.
EricZBA walked in out of nowhere proclaiming that he'd beaten the demo. Apparently he got so absorbed by the game that he'd forgotten to slowly savor it, he was Duke fucking Nukem and he was going to stomp his way right through that sucker. Maybe he saw a 3D Realms Time posted before the level started or something and he wanted to beat it. I don't think anyone in the break area DIDN'T give him a hard time about rushing it. Future SpeedDemosArchive entry on Duke Nukem Forever will probably be coming from him when the game gets released.
Once the rest of the first group came back, they picked the next six including myself, Dognose, ninjase, and the ScrewAttack guys.
The conference room was situated in the corner, with six desktop machines setup in the middle (complete with headphones, wired 360 gamepads, keyboards, mice, and 24" flatpanel monitors), a large screen projector on the west wall, and yet another set of heritage shelves on the south wall that were stocked with more impressive Brothers in Arms memorabilia that I had never seen (oversized promo boxes for Earned in Blood and Road to Hill 30) and yet another copy of Dreamcast Half Life. Below sat the AV equipment and lining the outside walls under the windows were colored pillows on the windowsill, so we could all comfortable sit around.
When I pulled my gaze away from the awesome collection on the shelves, I noticed Randy Pitchford's face at the doorway to the room. I was completely surprised because I didn't think he would be able to find time to talk with us; I was under the impression that we were just going to go in, play some Duke Nukem Forever, watch the trailer, and get sent on our way.
He introduced himself to us and began talking about his relationship with the Duke Nukem character, the history of Duke Nukem, and a detailed layman's summary of the legal drama surrounding the history of Duke Nukem Forever. While I was familiar with the events and I had done a pretty good job of keeping abreast of all of the news, his unique presentation, candor, and obvious love for the franchise made for an incredibly enjoyable and entertaining speech. I honestly wasn't too sure how I felt about the game landing at Gearbox, but once I heard Randy talk about the importance of Duke Nukem and about how Duke can't die, I damn near shed a tear, grabbed a shrink ray gun, and stomped off to war.
Amazingly, despite loving Duke so much as to make Dognose appear to be a casual farmville mom in comparison, his description of the work and effort of the individuals at Triptych post-3D Realms closure was positively inspiring. Everyone's shown their happiness over Dognose getting to play Duke Nukem Forever, but the person I'm most happy for is Allen Blum.
Allen is the guy that's been with Duke since the beginning. Allen and Todd Replogle created the very first Duke Nukem game and Allen has been with Duke all the way up to 3D Realms' closure. Duke means everything to him and when 3D Realms died, Allen refused to accept that that was the end of the line. He banded together with a small number of other former employees (I think it was 9? I saw conflicting numbers online) and formed Triptych. They negotiated with GeorgeB to be able to legally continue work on the game themselves and they worked for the better part of a year, without pay and out of their own homes with the dream of finishing Duke Nukem Forever.
Randy mentioned in the past that Gearbox didn't take the game over, they simply stepped in to enable them to finish it. In the hilarious Star Wars analogy that Randy fleshed out (and that I wish I had recorded so I wouldn't have to do it the injustice of being completely paraphrased), Allen Blum and the Triptych guys were Luke Skywalker in the X-Wing, running the Death Star trench run. Wedge had bailed, Biggs was dead, and the exhaust port was coming up fast. Gearbox is simply the Millennium Falcon taking a shot at the Tie-Advanced and Randy is just Han Solo saying "you're all clear kid, now let's blow this thing and go home!".
After wrapping up his impromptu speech commemorating the importance of Duke Nukem and the level of love for the property at the studio, he cranked up the speakers and turned on the PAX 2010 Duke Nukem Forever trailer.
There's really noway for me to describe how awesome the trailer was; they really crammed everything possible in it. Duke is missing when the aliens return and they take advantage of his absence to conquer the planet. There's a scene of them pulling down a Duke Nukem statue and ravaging a large city. Unfortunately for them, they messed with our babes and Duke comes back to kick ass. Strippers, guns, explosions, juvenile humor, gore, three breasted aliens, it was all in there and set to Prodigy's "Invaders Must Die".
It's a shame that they won't cut out some of the more offensive stuff in the trailer and release a slightly edited version on the internet. The extended shot of Duke pissing in the toilet like Animal from Revenge of the Nerds, the bare breasted strippers, and the three breasted Alien...they could all be cut and left in an age-gated, unrated trailer to be released later down the line. The rest really needs to be seen to be believed. Dognose didn't feel it surpassed the glory of the 2001 trailer and while I concede that it's pretty much impossible to top "ALWAYS BET ON DUKE", as a whole the new trailer pumped me up as much as the 2001 trailer did when it came out. It was an awesome.
After the trailer, they picked the first six people starting on the north end of the room and the rest of us wandered back to the break area. Randy picked up his lunch and joined us there to sit around and talk with us. With his absolute rabid devotion to Duke, easy going attitude, and the ease at which he was able to hop between discussions on different games, it was easy to forget that this guy runs a fairly sizable development house. The dude is a no bullshit hardcore gamer and while I don't agree with his views on all games, getting a chance to shoot the shit with him was amazing.
EricZBA walked in out of nowhere proclaiming that he'd beaten the demo. Apparently he got so absorbed by the game that he'd forgotten to slowly savor it, he was Duke fucking Nukem and he was going to stomp his way right through that sucker. Maybe he saw a 3D Realms Time posted before the level started or something and he wanted to beat it. I don't think anyone in the break area DIDN'T give him a hard time about rushing it. Future SpeedDemosArchive entry on Duke Nukem Forever will probably be coming from him when the game gets released.
Once the rest of the first group came back, they picked the next six including myself, Dognose, ninjase, and the ScrewAttack guys.