I've heard a hint that I might be getting Duke Nukem Forever for my birthday... Now some people think I should be excited about this - some people think I should try make some effort to get this gift changed for a voucher so I can get a 'good' game later in the year... Gears 3 would be a contender (I'm supposed to be getting LA Noire so....)
 
But anyway Duke Nukem Forever, what's the score?  Well, at the very least it will be interesting from an academic point to play if nothing else.  This is a game which has been in development for fourteen years... More or less.  This sequel to the successful 'Duke Nukem 3D' was announced in 1997, to be developed by 3D Realms.  The stage was set, the game announced 3D Realms rushed out and bought a licence for id softwares Quake 2 engine.  There was some conjecture even from the start that it was having a difficult development cycle - with some pundits suggesting that early screenshots and gameplay video's were simply mock-ups made using the old engine...
 
It wasn't until E3'1998 that a demo running on the Quake 2 Engine was shown.
 
June 1998 it was announced that the game was going to be ported to the Unreal Engine... Taking up to six weeks and retaining all the features shown at E3... 1999 it was announced that it was being ported to the newer Unreal Tournament Engine and another demo, of the game running on the Unreal Engine was shown.. Release supposedly delayed until 2000...
 
A change of publisher in 2000 pushed release back further... Suggesting 2001... In 2001, a promising demo was shown... But the publisher who had taken over responsibility for release (Gathering of Developers), shut down and Take two interractive took over - pushing back release...
 
During the 2002 - 2004 period, the Unreal 2 Engine was released, and in order to keep up with competition it was decided to port the game to the newer engine, taking on more staff to help make this fast and smooth.  In September 2004 the migration from the Karma physics engine to a new one caused a further delay.
 
The development being taken over by Gearbox was only actually announced in 2010... After legel battles, internet leaks, studio closures.... 
 
There was some irony in the abbreviation of the game DNF... Often a racing abbreviation for 'Did not finish' there were other joke names for the game too, 'Duke Nukem Never'. 'Duke Nukem Taking Forever'...
 
Yet finally we have it - is this the Unreal 2 Engine version that 3D Realms started on Quake 2 then continually ported and changed publishers and physics engines?  Or is it a total new Core with the existing assets, actors, levels and textures ported in?  I don't know... It'll be interesting to play though.  The fact was Duke Nukem 3D was a bold step forward at it's time.  Prior to D3D we were really playing Doom and Doom 2 by id Software,  which despite looking like a 3D game was not in fact in 3 Dimensions, the game itself only recognized x and y co-ordinates for location of things, there was esssentially no such thing as up and down.  Now you're thinking, hang on - what about all those lifts and raised platforms?!  Well, there were two properties, floor height and ceiling height which altered how the first person perspective looked to create the illusion of 3 Dimensions.  However you could never go under something or over it, if you lined a shot up with an enemy on a high platform - if it was in line you hit them, if not you hit the wall underneath them.  I spent hours working with DoomEd and similar making levels, many people won't believe me, but trust me, the 3D in Doom is an illusion, it's even more obvious in Wolfenstein 3D because there is never an attempt in that game to pretend to be able to go up and down, the levels are essentially played on a 2 dimensional playing field, presented in a first person perspective with the illusion of 3 dimensions.
 
So how was D3D different?  In Duke Nukem 3D we actually suddenly had the real ability to go up  and down, you could get a jet pack, use lifts, go over things and under things and had to aim up and down to shoot up and down!  The actors and assets were not rendered in 3D and were traditional 2D sprites superimposed at the correct point, like Doom they had different sprites for the angle at which you saw them - except for things like guns and power-ups, so whatever angle you approached it from it looked the same. 
 
I'm guessing rendereding full 3D actors was too processor intensive for the time, and that the compromise was in order to keep the gameplay aspects of a genuinely 3D environment to explore, but to keep the graphics processing down to a sensible level.  With the tongue and cheek humour and good level design, although it looks a bit dated now, it was a very playable game... I'll never forget the first time I met the end-game boss and heard Duke tell it, 'I'm going to rip off your head and sh*& down your neck!'.... Then after completing the battle... Low and behold you get a rendered 3D cutscene of Duke ripping the head off this thing... Getting some bog-roll out and then pulling his pants down, sitting on the hole where the head was and starts reading a newspaper and whistling...
 
I'm don't have high hopes for Duke Nukem Forever to be the most innovative game I play this year, I don't expect it to be the amazing experience that you might think a 14 year development cycle might give... After all - who wants to play 14 year old code?  That's bordering on retro gaming!
 
I expect a solid FPS shooter, with some humorous moments... Will I get that?  I'll just have to wait and see....