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After all the Doom and Duke Nukem versions were just flat out pathetic.

Don't you disrespect Doom Advance. Even though it runs in 120x120 resolution, it preserves almost everything that was good about Doom for PC, and a GBA is much lighter (i'm talking mass not brightness), provides more battery power per charge (even with the Pelican cover/light turned on), and costs a lot less than a typical used late-486 laptop. And you don't have to play on a steenkin keyboard.

I'll agree that Duke Nukem 64 by 2D Realms was no fun (having to walk through a wall to beat the early "prison" level smacks of trolling for 1-900 hint line revenue), especially when put up against Rare's Goldeneye.

I miss the days of waiting for the Next Big Thing or the next Duke Nukem

What's to miss? We're still waiting for the next Duke Nukem ; )

-A

[...] a remake of Duke Nuke 3D with newer gfx, and sound that works under WinXPa remake of Duke Nuke 3D with newer gfx, and sound that works under WinXP [...]

OK. I help you: It's called Duke Nukem Forever. It will surely be a fantastibulous game. Now, you just need to draw a pentacle on the floor of your living-room, light candles, and start muttering incantations to make that game be released (you must be a Necromant level 35+ or a 3D Realms executive to have a chance, of course :-)

Disclaimer: Post written in b0rkenEnglish[tm]. Wi arre notte responsable for speling und gramatikal mistaeks. Thaenks.

I suspect you have never played Shadow Warrior. Yes, that is a good passtime to keep up on swordsmanship skills ;-) [j/k]

...was a system they had at my local Y involving recumbent bikes. It was very similar to something like this, except the game involved four bikes networked together where you play free-for-all or teams that tried to shoot a ball into your opponents goal. The faster you pedaled, they fast your pod went. The were some controls on the handles to fire the ball. The same game also allowed you to race on a variety of courses against on another or solo for best time. It was without doubt the best exercise equipment I've ever used. The time in the bike flew by and when you played against others I found myself work much harder than I normally would've. The game their describing in the article sound a lot like "Stomp a Mole." A great game for a kid, but what about Death Rally hooked up to a bank of stationary bikes. There's no end to the games they could marry up with exercise equipment.

Ruger

By the time this comes out (they say 2004, more like 2005)

Nope, it's due out next year. id Software are generally pretty good at predicting the year of release, unlike some companies.

Actually, if you go to 3D Realms web site, you can still download for free shareware versions of their games and purchase registered copies of ALL their games. I'm currently saving up so I can get the complete Duke Nukem collection and Wolfenstien and Spear of Destiny. w00t, talk about classic FPS. Hehe, I love DukeMatching. :-D

As for games that are truly abandoned, I don't know. Yeah, we as gamers would love to be able to play these classics and share them with friends on the net, but also I would love to see the companies make money off of them if that is what they want, too. You can have it both ways. Just think of the money that will go towards the next latest and greatest title from these companies. Would you want a game released tomorrow to look like Liesure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards, or would ou want it to look better then anything Squaresoft put out to date? Personally, I want the later. If I want LSLLLL type games, I'll download them from the internet (whether it's from the companies site or an abandonware site).

Still, my personal favorite Picard impersonation still goes to Jon St. John (The guy behind Duke Nukem) found here

You might also want to look at the old Apogee/3D-Realms games, which you can download here. Many of them are nonviolent, and they tend to enhance problem solving skills to some extent -- especially Math Rescue and Word Rescue.

I'm a really big fan of everything blizzard and War3 is something I can't wait to get my hands on. Still, I prefer that they release it 6 months late (or im this case, it's been like what, 2 years ?) and have a really stable game.

I've been playing max payne lately and while it is a great game, it's buggy as hell! They can take all the time they want, as long as they release it stable.

Anyway, blizzard is just like 3drealms : Release date ? What the hell is that ??? I think they've confused "release date" with "hype date". Can you say Duke4ever ?

it seems like the "run from room to room" and "shoot stuff" motif has been done to death. a successful FPS needs a good nitch that it alone holds (until it's copied to death in the following months).

Max Payne is a great example: simple controls, basic story, but Bullet-Time kicks butt.

maybe we need new concepts instead of new technology?

_f

To clarify, ARUSH Entertainment is publishing (not developing, Sunstorm Interactive is developing it) 'Duke Nukem: Manhattan Project', a 3rd-person game in the 'Duke Nukem series'.

'The Next Duke Nukem' is more an attribute of Duke Nukem Forever, which is in perpetual development by 3D Realms (the original Duke Nukem 3D publisher/developer).

E3's eye candy isn't screenshots...

It was developed by id, and published by Apogee.

http://www.3drealms.com/keenhistory/

On the topic, I believe that this is just a case of lawyers doing their job. They were told to look for copyright infringement on the web, and they found it, and are pressing charges just as much as they would if it were a game released yesterday and posted on a web site today. We just have to see which game company takes the high road first and sets a policy for allowing abandonware.

[Reply to This|Parent]

When you buy software, you are actually purchasing a license to use to the software, and vendors routinely insert clauses in their license agreements that help them meet their goals in the marketplace.

For example, Netscape prohibits publishing benchmarks in the license agreement for its Client software. The games developer Apogee (a.k.a. 3DRealms) even added a clause to its license agreement earlier this year that prevented negative reviews of its product! So Microsoft is really not acting unusually harsh in this regard.

First off, Duke Nukem 3D was made by 3D Realms. Check your sources before you start your crazy ranting.

Secondly if you really think that /. readers don't play these games you are very wrong as is evident by previous articles like Quake 3 to be sold Retail for Linux. There is an interest in this. Try running a search for Quake on /. and you'll come up with a ton of results. If you really have a problem with violent games, maybe you should speak out against the /. readers since we tend to like Quake 3 and other id releases.

Also you refered to Quake players as Windoze kiddies who just want to run around and shoot stuff. Try reading the article above. WOW it's not just for "Windoze." Maybe you should just stop trying to be so god damn 31337 and voice YOUR opinion rather than trying to portray your post as the feelings of the entire "Linux community."

I love Quake 3 and the attention that this game has earned in the gamming community is almost unmatched. More money is awarded to "CyberAtheletes" like Wombat (Mark Larsen) CPL player of the year from 1999 than ever before. I am pleased to see this much attention being directed to gamming. It makes companies write better games, and gives player more to enjoy.

Perhaps rather than writing angry letters to Fuji TV and threatening a boycott, (as one slashdot reader suggested,) we should instead take a cue from apogee and offer them a ride on the cluetrain, so to speak. Apogee has developed a license agreement laying out strict rules under which fan sites can use Apogee trademarks -- perhaps the reader remembers when this came up on slashdot a few days ago. While the Apogee license in its current form is admittedly problematic, the concept seems pretty groundbreaking. Fuji TV doesn't need to issue half a dozen cease and desist letters to protect its rights, it can simply issue terms under which fan sites may or may not use Fuji TV property... hopefully the terms will tend toward allowing fan sites the freedom to celebrate their object of admiration, while protecting the rights of the trademark owners to conrol how those marks are used.

This situation reminds me of the best observation I heard about the whole Napster/Offspring situation -- if Napster were really cool, like Offspring had hoped, they would have sent Offspring a licensing agreement rather than a cease and desist as well.

"If you open up a McDonald's franchise, you can't go on national TV and say McDonald's food sucks, and expect to still be running a McDonald's the next day." Same thing.

There is an increasingly distressing tendency of people these days to make a flawed analogy and then announce "same thing" as if the two things are identical. This is what the license says:

Please review the following terms and conditions carefully. This Agreement is a legally binding contract between you ("You") and Apogee Software Ltd., a/k/a 3D Realms, ("Apogee") regarding your access to and use of its web site (the "Site"), as well as your use of Apogee's various games (collectively, the "Property"), the information contained therein and its copyright and trademark policies.

In other words, you are agreeing to this "contract" by looking at their web site. It is not at all like agreeing not to badmouth McDonalds if you become a franchisee.

It is more like agreeing that you won't badmouth McDonalds by the very act of buying one of their burgers, or even walking past a McDonalds and looking up at their signs.

I also totally don't buy their claim of not planning on enforcing such a contract term if it so suits them. Even if the people in charge now wouldn't do such a thing, it's entirely possible it will be bought out by people who would have no compunction of doing it.

You'd have to be insane to attempt to enforce such a clause, as the resultant bad publicity would make you entirely despised, but there are lots of insane and stupid people out there and a disturbing number of them are in charge of corporations.

I'm sure some lawyer somewhere would be thrilled to do any stupid-ass crazy corporate thug-stomping heavy routine that paid in money. In any case, it won't be companies that produce good products that will attempt to use such terms. It will be thuggish crook operations that sell toxic or dangerous garbage and don't want it exposed. Scientology interestingly enough has such a gag contract on anyone receiving their "services" but even they have never been crazy enough to try to enforce it with a lawsuit.

In conclusion, I am aware of that terms of use document, I used the page it's on, thus by their reasoning "agreeing" to it, and Apogee sucks dick. Duke Nukem is a child molestor. Apogee can lick my Balls of Steel.

I don't consider such a contract binding even by current law, as unlike a "click-through" you can access it without even seeing it, as it's hidden in a little link on the bottom. Imagine a company distributing "reviewer copies" of a book and saying you couldn't give the book a bum rap!

"If you open up a McDonald's franchise, you can't go on national TV and say McDonald's food sucks, and expect to still be running a McDonald's the next day." Same thing.

There is an increasingly distressing tendency of people these days to make a flawed analogy and then announce "same thing" as if the two things are identical. This is what the license says:

Please review the following terms and conditions carefully. This Agreement is a legally binding contract between you ("You") and Apogee Software Ltd., a/k/a 3D Realms, ("Apogee") regarding your access to and use of its web site (the "Site"), as well as your use of Apogee's various games (collectively, the "Property"), the information contained therein and its copyright and trademark policies.

In other words, you are agreeing to this "contract" by looking at their web site. It is not at all like agreeing not to badmouth McDonalds if you become a franchisee.

It is more like agreeing that you won't badmouth McDonalds by the very act of buying one of their burgers, or even walking past a McDonalds and looking up at their signs.

I also totally don't buy their claim of not planning on enforcing such a contract term if it so suits them. Even if the people in charge now wouldn't do such a thing, it's entirely possible it will be bought out by people who would have no compunction of doing it.

You'd have to be insane to attempt to enforce such a clause, as the resultant bad publicity would make you entirely despised, but there are lots of insane and stupid people out there and a disturbing number of them are in charge of corporations.

I'm sure some lawyer somewhere would be thrilled to do any stupid-ass crazy corporate thug-stomping heavy routine that paid in money. In any case, it won't be companies that produce good products that will attempt to use such terms. It will be thuggish crook operations that sell toxic or dangerous garbage and don't want it exposed. Scientology interestingly enough has such a gag contract on anyone receiving their "services" but even they have never been crazy enough to try to enforce it with a lawsuit.

In conclusion, I am aware of that terms of use document, I used the page it's on, thus by their reasoning "agreeing" to it, and Apogee sucks dick. Duke Nukem is a child molestor. Apogee can lick my Balls of Steel.

I don't consider such a contract binding even by current law, as unlike a "click-through" you can access it without even seeing it, as it's hidden in a little link on the bottom. Imagine a company distributing "reviewer copies" of a book and saying you couldn't give the book a bum rap!

"If you open up a McDonald's franchise, you can't go on national TV and say McDonald's food sucks, and expect to still be running a McDonald's the next day." Same thing.

There is an increasingly distressing tendency of people these days to make a flawed analogy and then announce "same thing" as if the two things are identical. This is what the license says:

Please review the following terms and conditions carefully. This Agreement is a legally binding contract between you ("You") and Apogee Software Ltd., a/k/a 3D Realms, ("Apogee") regarding your access to and use of its web site (the "Site"), as well as your use of Apogee's various games (collectively, the "Property"), the information contained therein and its copyright and trademark policies.

In other words, you are agreeing to this "contract" by looking at their web site. It is not at all like agreeing not to badmouth McDonalds if you become a franchisee.

It is more like agreeing that you won't badmouth McDonalds by the very act of buying one of their burgers, or even walking past a McDonalds and looking up at their signs.

I also totally don't buy their claim of not planning on enforcing such a contract term if it so suits them. Even if the people in charge now wouldn't do such a thing, it's entirely possible it will be bought out by people who would have no compunction of doing it.

You'd have to be insane to attempt to enforce such a clause, as the resultant bad publicity would make you entirely despised, but there are lots of insane and stupid people out there and a disturbing number of them are in charge of corporations.

I'm sure some lawyer somewhere would be thrilled to do any stupid-ass crazy corporate thug-stomping heavy routine that paid in money. In any case, it won't be companies that produce good products that will attempt to use such terms. It will be thuggish crook operations that sell toxic or dangerous garbage and don't want it exposed. Scientology interestingly enough has such a gag contract on anyone receiving their "services" but even they have never been crazy enough to try to enforce it with a lawsuit.

In conclusion, I am aware of that terms of use document, I used the page it's on, thus by their reasoning "agreeing" to it, and Apogee sucks dick. Duke Nukem is a child molestor. Apogee can lick my Balls of Steel.

I don't consider such a contract binding even by current law, as unlike a "click-through" you can access it without even seeing it, as it's hidden in a little link on the bottom. Imagine a company distributing "reviewer copies" of a book and saying you couldn't give the book a bum rap!

"If you open up a McDonald's franchise, you can't go on national TV and say McDonald's food sucks, and expect to still be running a McDonald's the next day." Same thing.

There is an increasingly distressing tendency of people these days to make a flawed analogy and then announce "same thing" as if the two things are identical. This is what the license says:

Please review the following terms and conditions carefully. This Agreement is a legally binding contract between you ("You") and Apogee Software Ltd., a/k/a 3D Realms, ("Apogee") regarding your access to and use of its web site (the "Site"), as well as your use of Apogee's various games (collectively, the "Property"), the information contained therein and its copyright and trademark policies.

In other words, you are agreeing to this "contract" by looking at their web site. It is not at all like agreeing not to badmouth McDonalds if you become a franchisee.

It is more like agreeing that you won't badmouth McDonalds by the very act of buying one of their burgers, or even walking past a McDonalds and looking up at their signs.

I also totally don't buy their claim of not planning on enforcing such a contract term if it so suits them. Even if the people in charge now wouldn't do such a thing, it's entirely possible it will be bought out by people who would have no compunction of doing it.

You'd have to be insane to attempt to enforce such a clause, as the resultant bad publicity would make you entirely despised, but there are lots of insane and stupid people out there and a disturbing number of them are in charge of corporations.

I'm sure some lawyer somewhere would be thrilled to do any stupid-ass crazy corporate thug-stomping heavy routine that paid in money. In any case, it won't be companies that produce good products that will attempt to use such terms. It will be thuggish crook operations that sell toxic or dangerous garbage and don't want it exposed. Scientology interestingly enough has such a gag contract on anyone receiving their "services" but even they have never been crazy enough to try to enforce it with a lawsuit.

In conclusion, I am aware of that terms of use document, I used the page it's on, thus by their reasoning "agreeing" to it, and Apogee sucks dick. Duke Nukem is a child molestor. Apogee can lick my Balls of Steel.

I don't consider such a contract binding even by current law, as unlike a "click-through" you can access it without even seeing it, as it's hidden in a little link on the bottom. Imagine a company distributing "reviewer copies" of a book and saying you couldn't give the book a bum rap!

http://www.3drealms.com/images/d uke/dukesymbol.jpg

Check out http://www.3drealms.com/images/duke/ dukesymbol.jpg

It's basically a slightly stylized version of the the international symbol for radioactivity.
(See http://www.epa.gov/radiation/stu dents/symbols.html)

Now, on the policy page: http://www.3drealms.com/policy/index.html

they claim that this is an Apogee trademark.

Bwa ha ha ha. And I was kind of looking forward to Duke Nukem Forever. Oh well.

Torrey Hoffman (Azog)

Check out http://www.3drealms.com/images/duke/ dukesymbol.jpg

It's basically a slightly stylized version of the the international symbol for radioactivity.
(See http://www.epa.gov/radiation/stu dents/symbols.html)

Now, on the policy page: http://www.3drealms.com/policy/index.html

they claim that this is an Apogee trademark.

Bwa ha ha ha. And I was kind of looking forward to Duke Nukem Forever. Oh well.

Torrey Hoffman (Azog)

Hmmmm...

Can I still say that someone has "balls of steel" if I mean it in a good way and I append (R) to it? How would I pronounce (R) when I say "balls of steel"?

Apogee also lists "Bombshell", the universal radiation symbol, and "Prey" as trademarked. That's interesting...

• "Come get some"
• "Hail to the king"

I might not have the math skills to write 3D rendering pipelines, but it doesn't take a Stephen Hawking to figure out that Big Mac Attacks can lead to arterial flows slower than Duke Nuke'm Forever on a 386SX/16.

I can see the tabloids now:
"Local propeller-head found dead in a pile of moldy Quarter Pounder wrappers. Although the police have not ruled out foul play, trusted sources say that the victim may have been overcome by her own ego"

And tombstone:
"Here lies Corrinne Yu, who was too good for a Time Magazine interview. Life-size statues available on request with proof of strong academic standings from MIT"

For the rest of us mortals, I'll include one of those air-brushed photos

Duke Nukem Forever was gonna use the Quake 2 engine, then the Quake 3 engine, then the Unreal engine, and now they're using the Unreal Tournament engine.

According to their specs, the game Prey, on the other hand, will use "Ultra-advanced 16-bit colored, full radiosity lighting". woohoo. and "16 bit, hi-res texture art." Ph33r! "The game will be Windows95 native" - there goes Linux support.

Oh and check out this gem:
"HEAVY use of 3D accelerator cards such as 3DFX and Rendition. We suggest you get a card today, as they will soon become mandatory for 3D gaming on the PC."

Heh. What a loser prospect. The game will not beat Unreal Tournament. This Prey crap is D.O.A. Guaranteed it is.

Apogee still has some of its old games availible for download at the bottom ofthis page (They still expect people to register them. Bah.) And two of their really old games (Supernova and Beyond the Titanic) are freeware (beer, not speech). According to the 'official' Apogee FAQ, section 2.4.1, "[The Kroz series] was finally discontinued in early 1999 and is no longer availible from Apogee." Pity.

Apogee still has some of its old games availible for download at the bottom ofthis page (They still expect people to register them. Bah.) And two of their really old games (Supernova and Beyond the Titanic) are freeware (beer, not speech). According to the 'official' Apogee FAQ, section 2.4.1, "[The Kroz series] was finally discontinued in early 1999 and is no longer availible from Apogee." Pity.