[Gambini]

Just arrived this gift from my very good friend Davox

[DavoX]

Yes, the computer was very expensive indeed! I hope you enjoy it!

Lol, j/k. Enjoy the book man

[Kathy]

Is that a rosin right next to cell phones?

[Gambini]

Cathy, on 01 June 2013 - 09:31 AM, said:

Is that a rosin right next to cell phones?

http://en.wikipedia..../Mate_(beverage)

Quote

Yes, the computer was very expensive indeed! I hope you enjoy it!

[Kathy]

Holy shit, I need to have that bombilla straw.

[beeblebrain]

Hi guys!

As you can tell I'm not exactly an active member of this community, but I just had to chime in for my response to this mod.

It a nutshell, I thought it was absolutely amazing.

I can't truly rationalise the 11/10 I would rate this, because I found it was an emotional experience playing it. I feel as if I can let a ghost rest now; the thing that has been itching since I saw the 2001 DNF trailer when I was 11 years old, dreaming it would be the most awesome thing ever...and your mod has allowed me to play part of that experience as I wanted it.

But it does even more than that: reverting what was to be a contemporary game into a retro engine and style, with all the pixelation and clunky animation that comes with it - I think you've turned DNF from a lame, unimaginative business product into a piece of art. Anyone who thinks gaming is just about graphics and Hollywood movie stories should take a little step back in time and see how an older engine can often make a much better game!

If I just picked out a few of the main things I loved:

NPCs - these were really fun, well-scripted and positioned. I thought there were some nice uses of level design and triggers to create experiences with the NPCs, just like you'd expect in a retro game! This is pretty much what I always wanted playing DN3D as a kid - humans (other than babes) who talk or (try to) help in the fight!
The motorbike, and road level, were incredible! I was just laughing at how awesome it was with the train and the highway traffic!
Great use of T-800s! They were quite scary. I thought they could have been much tougher though!
Level design, in general, extremely high quality, with plenty to interact with and lots of tactical choices to make.

Of course, my only real criticism would be that it could be longer! I appreciate that there's only so much old DNF material to take cues from, but I for one would welcome any lengths of your own creative ideas added to the mix!
I suppose if you really pushed me for more criticism I'd say perhaps some of the ordinary people in Las Vegas could have been tentacle monsters, and maybe a bit more new weaponry and opportunities to play with it!

I'll just finish by saying that I haven't actually played a second of the official Duke Nukem Forever.
And now I won't ever be tempted.
Thank you. ;D

[Mikko]

Glad you enjoyed it. Awesomeness is our game!

[Gambini]

Never understimate the power of dreams. This mod even made God call my home and ask me If i´d take his place, to what I replied only if Mikko takes the place of Saint Peter.

[Micky C]

Gambini, on 11 June 2013 - 04:35 PM, said:

Never understimate the power of dreams. This mod even made God call my home and ask me If i´d take his place, to what I replied only if Mikko takes the place of Saint Peter.

[bjd.]

For my annual post on this forum, I would like to state the obvious. This Mod is absolutely phenomenal despite a few bugs here and there. A massive thank-you and congratulations to Gambini & Mikko Sandt + anyone else that made this mod possible.

I loved every minute of it, and whilst the end boss was quite easy to defeat (the second attempt mind you.. I ran out of ammo in every gun the first time!) my only complaint would be the lack of ammo in most levels (either that or I'm far too trigger-happy).

My question is has anybody discovered all of the secret area's in each map?? I struggled to find a lot of them and maybe the authors of this Mod could link to or post each of the cheeky secrets that they built into this fine mod.

Cheers!

[Mr. Tibbs]

You guys made the front cover of PC Powerplay, a big Australian PC gaming magazine. I'll pick one up when I get the chance and post the review. http://www.pcpowerpl...-sale-tomorrow/

[Gambini]

Wow. We did get a lot of online magazines covering our mod. But this is AFAIK the first actual magazine!

Can´t wait for you posting images of it! Thanks!

[DavoX]

Excellent

[Mr. Tibbs]

Here you go!
Page one PCPP
Page two PCPP

[Gambini]

Thank you very much Mr. Tibbs for buying the magazine and posting those pages. Whoever wrote them is full of crap though. He failed big time to see what we did and his "review" is more like an insult to our whole community. He just didn´t get it. And is it me? Or he hinted twice to pirate games instaed of buying them?

[Fox]

Wrong thread!!!!!!

[Gambini]

uh.. Wrong thread?

[TerminX]

Gambini, on 24 June 2013 - 03:46 PM, said:

Thank you very much Mr. Tibbs for buying the magazine and posting those pages. Whoever wrote them is full of crap though. He failed big time to see what we did and his "review" is more like an insult to our whole community. He just didn´t get it. And is it me? Or he hinted twice to pirate games instaed of buying them?

I agree completely. His zero respect for classic games = my zero respect for crappy writers. Also, what the hell is with the mention of Human Head, a company that had nothing to do with any iteration of Duke Nukem Forever in any way? Fucking clueless.

[Mr. Tibbs]

Yeah, I'm a little gutted Anthony Fordham wrote the review. When DNF shipped, his review spent most of the time arguing that because DNF wasn't that great Duke 3D mustn't have been very special after all. I really like most of the PCPP staff - I've had a subscription to them and PC Gamer Uk since 2000, but in no universe is Duke 3D overrated. It's one of the few perfect shooters. His DNF 2013 review is way off. It's not a send up or an attack on a protracted development schedule, it's an awesome love letter.

[Micky C]

That guy (and some other reviewers) are almost acting like Gambini and Mikko Sandt made the TC with the intention of making the actual Duke Nukem Forever and with the intention of getting the world's gaming media. When in reality it was just a nice little mod for people to play and enjoy with a few references thrown in. Although I can't entirely blame them since we ourselves felt a little bit that way about it.

The part that shows he doesn't get classic games is that he said if it was released back in 1997 it would have been fabulous and hugely successful, but not today. Once again he's assuming the creators were out for success and fame rather than creating something fun.

[DavoX]

There's always an idiot out there.

[Hank]

I feel sorry for this guy - imagine actually writing an article about a FREE EDuke32 TC, and mixing with it Human Head, Prey, Evil Dead, Half Life etc. in the hope to be read.

[DavoX]

Not to mention that he admits having a pirated version of Duke3d on a magazine.

[TerminX]

I sent the mag's editor my opinion of the article.

Spoiler

Quote

Hi.

I'm writing to you to express my distaste for the horrible excuse of an article about the "Duke Nukem Forever 2013" mod that's in your latest issue.

The multiple insinuations that people should go pirate a copy of Duke3D to play it are completely unprofessional. I mean... really? You do realize that when these games are ported to Windows/other platforms, somebody has to actually do the work, right? And that those people have families to feed? And that they expect to feed those families by getting paid for that work? And that buying the new version of the game allows them to get paid? Un-fucking-believable.

Aside from that, the next time your mag feels like reviewing a mod for a classic game, maybe you should find someone to do it other than a halfwit who clearly harbors contempt for classic games. Or, better yet, just don't review them if you're going to hold them to standards of games produced nearly 20 years after the original work.

To say that the whole point of that mod went over Anthony's head would be the understatement of the year. The fact that it was written as if the guys who made this mod intended for it to achieve some measure of success or that it was meant as some kind of "giant raised middle finger" to 3D Realms (or Human Head, who never had anything to do with Duke Nukem Forever in any iteration... the very mention of them is just another example of Anthony having no clue) proves that. In reality, the guys who made this made it as a cool gag for the Duke Nukem 3D community and a bunch of sites picked it up and ran with it. Nobody ever intended for it to be "a triumph" or "a final grand, glorious, stupid, joyous hurrah for the age of 2.5D." It's a mod for a game from 1996, nothing more, nothing less. If you can't figure that basic fact out before writing an article about it, I'm not really sure what else I can say.

Furthermore, if your writer "cannot even be bothered looking up" facts (his words), maybe he should transition to a profession where facts don't matter... I hear there are perpetual openings in politics and it looks like he would fit in great.

Oh well, at least I know where to find some toilet paper if I ever visit the side of my family that lives "down under," though it's probably a bit of a waste of time to wipe shit with more shit.

Regards,
--
Richard C. Gobeille
http://www.eduke32.com
http://www.duke4.net
terminx@gmail.com

Zero fucks given in regards to what they think of it.

[DavoX]

Excellent

[Radar]

"Technically it doesn't use build itself." Haha!

[Jimmy]

Orange singlet? This guy is such a dumbass he doesn't know what the colour red is.

[TerminX]

I just got this reply from the guy who who wrote the review:

Spoiler

Quote

Hi Richard,

Firstly – thanks for getting in contact. It’s not often we get the project lead on a renderer write to us about a mod that’s been built on his new platform. Normally I don’t response to criticism that includes… scatological references… but given your standing in the community I thought it appropriate this time.

Before I begin I would like to say that I am actually quite interested in eduke32 and would welcome an opportunity to discuss the project with you with a view to a one-page article in our “state of play” section – I imagine the challenges of getting Duke 3D to run on modern hardware are not trivial.

On with the response then!

Straight up – yes, there is one factual error in the review, which is the throwaway comment about Human Head: it should of course have been Gearbox. I definitely apologise for that. The “can’t even be bothered looking them up” is intended as an ironic joke in keeping with the general theme that the eventual, ‘official’ release of Duke Nukem Forever was a poor game.

PCPP is an Australian magazine with a long history and it has a cultural context. One of these contexts is the “running gag” of Duke Nukem Forever which we used from around 2000 to 2011 when the game was finally released. There is a lot of satire under the bridge with regards to Duke – including a 2001 April Fool’s joke where we ran a fictitious review of 3DRealm’s DNF.

As a result this piece is not a “normal” review and it is targeted to our regular readers, not the general internet population. We did not mark the review as such because this is our magazine and we do what we like *shrug*.

I’ll push back against the comment that I encourage people to pirate Duke 3D. In fact, I use the phrase “legitimate copy” then put a (*cough*) in brackets. To my mind, I was acknowledging the fact some people, these days, probably would just torrent the one file they need to play the mod. I was in no way encouraging, or instructing people to pirate Duke3D.

The further joke in the “or try this” section that reads: “Paid? 3D Realms wins suckaaa!” does not encourage pirating. It just doesn’t. It makes fun of the reader for buying a 20 year old game that they probably already own somewhere.

I cannot immediately see how someone would be inspired to pirate Duke 3D from these jokes. Some writers choose to constantly rail against piracy – I choose to acknowledge it in the manner of, perhaps, a fatalistic older brother.

As for my attitude to the mod itself, in the same way that the review carries a cultural context within the magazine, the experience of and attitude to the mod carries its own context within the core of the Duke3D community. Our readers are by no means “hardcore” Duke3D fans, and to them DNF is an old joke that has unexpectedly popped up again.

While it’s obvious the mod is an in-joke and a creative exercise, by using DNF there are cultural assumptions that will be made, and connections will be drawn. This mod does not stand on its own merits, it requires a knowledge of and interest in the DNF story – the fact it uses set-pieces from the trailer confirms this in my mind.

As a result, when game critics write about it, some of them (such as myself) will use the mod as a catalyst to talk about DNF and its cultural legacy.

The “raised middle finger” references the fact that 3DRealms took a decade to not-release a game, and the mod demonstrates that the game – or something like it – could always have been built in Build. Or if not Build, one of the other engines 3D Realms discarded along the way.

I firmly believe the mod IS “a final grand, glorious, stupid, joyous hurrah” for 2.5D, a brief reminder that these were the games we used to play – soliciting strippers and finding the blue keycard. Visplanes, sidedefs, triggers (I was a Doom guy). The criticism of this statement reminds me of the time Jerry Seinfeld said to a heckler: “Oh, so you want attention, but not TOO MUCH attention?”

In other words, the mod team made a mod to get a response, but when – in my case – the response was more about DNF’s cultural legacy, the stupidity of 3DRealms and the corporate shenanigans that went on behind it, it seems this causes offence?

The creators of art do not get to decide or control the audience’s response to it. My response to the DNF mod was as written. While it is a response that invites disagreement or further meta-criticism, it is not prima facie invalid.

Thanks for the note, and I hope eduke32 continues to provide a way for us to play these classics for many years to come.

Cheers,

AF

I haven't replied further yet.

[Radar]

A just response imo. You should take up his offer on that interview.

[Micky C]

"The mod doesn't stand on its own merits"???

The references are meant to be the icing on the cake, not the core of the game, take them out and it's still a fun play.
It's no different to seeing Luke Skywalker and Indianna Jones in Duke 3D.