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Duke Nukem Not Out In 2003, Manhunt, GTA, More..
Thanks to several readers for pointing out Take Two's financial results for Q2 2003, as the owner of the Rockstar, Gotham Games, and Gathering labels had a 58 percent increase in profit, largely due to Rockstar's massive Grand Theft Auto franchise and the new Midnight Club 2. The accompanying earnings conference call had a question about Duke Nukem Forever coming out in 2003, which the CEO answered: "for this holiday season.. no.. we're just hopeful that the team in Dallas will finish it." Also trailed was "a significant Xbox game" from Rockstar to release in Q1 2004 (GTA, anyone?), and that one of Gathering's (PC?) titles is using the Halo engine. Finally, there was another mention of Rockstar North's mysterious Manhunt - an even darker, more twisted game from the GTA developers?
It's actually in the works. Has been, since, uh 1997 (almost six years so far, and counting!) The webpage is here.
The DNF team started work with the Quake I engine, dumped it for the Quake II engine, dumped it for the Unreal engine...not sure what they're working on now, but it better not be the Unreal engine (the original one; not UT or UT23k), as that'd be hideously ancient by now too.
Still no release date set. But we're assured that they're still working on it.
Unfortunately, the big selling point of Manhunt right now is that it's 'mysterious'. Gotta love stealth advertising? Or not. I saw one foreign website comparing the game to the movie 'The Fugitive', but I have no idea if that's right or not.
So there's still no screenshots and details, though the game has been on release lists since 2001. Rockstar launched GTA3 with a fair bit of stealth, though (probably because they wanted to get into stores before complaints about the content started!), which makes me hopeful.. we'll see.
That's the problem with relying on other people's engines in long development cycles... When you have been in development since 1997, you either have to dump your engine repeatedly, or ship before you get stale with an under-polished game. Either way your engine will be behind the engine of your competition, whose last iteration will be competing with your next release... a tough act to follow for a AAA title.
Doom 3 has an excellent engine (judging by the leaked alphas), and HalfLife 2 will probably just rock too. For years to come games will be based upon these engines. Whatever the Duke kiddies have up their sleves, it had better be slick or else they are going to have a hard time competing with them.
Of course, after 6 years of active development and the somewhat unenthusiastic comments of those working on the project, I would be willing to wager this is one project stuck in the bad type of development hell, and whose eventual release will not be met with much acclaim.
Next big thing, please.
The ______ Agenda
GTA3 and VC don't have MP for a reason. Rockstar's net code just plain sucks. Ever played a GTA1/2 MP game with a ping over 100? The lag is pretty bad. They also have to deal with spawning cars, which is OK for only one person, but it gets complicated to make sure multiple people are all seeing the same cars in the same place. Because if Bob gets into a car that only exists on Bob's game, and is inexistent on Joe's game, that's not a good thing.
A very appropriate quote, from Donny in Gone in 60 Seconds (the black dude with the hat):
"Pull over. Pull it the hell over! Let's see, you can't negotiate traffic, you can't signal properly, you can't parallel park. Hell, you can't drive, honey. I can't swim, I know I can't. So you know what I do? I stay my black ass out the pool!"
Rockstar just plain sucks at MP code. So they don't do it. I'm not saying they gave up, I'm pretty sure they're trying, but do you really want buggy, laggy, messed-up, glitchy multiplayer games? I'd rather have a really good single player game.