Forever Denied

It seems the eventual arrival of Duke Nukem Forever is the talk of the town at the moment. Some people are angry that their long running joke won't be funny any more, some people are seething that the game just wouldn't lay down and die whilst other people are so furious, they're willing to put the boot in before the game has ever been released.

Personally, seeing people react to this (as yet) unreleased game for me is more interesting than the game itself. If anything, the amount of delays explained through using (seemingly) flimsy excuses is indeed the ultimate betrayal to many gamers. Thus, it is easier to dismiss the game, make jokes and strike up a meme then actually sitting down and giving it a chance - when it comes out of course.

I believe Pat from http://socksmakepeoplesexy summed it up best in his assessment of Final Fantasy VIII:

Let's face it: gamers are a tough audience to please, especially when it comes to sequels. Case in point: Street Fighter. (Yes, the only games I know anything about are 2D fighters and JRPGs, thanks for asking.) Street Fighter II was a megahit. It changed video games, revitalized the arcade scene, and pleased just about everybody - excluding, I suppose, fanatical Karate Champ loyalists. Naturally, fans craved more. Capcom took an "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" approach to following it up, releasing Street Fighter II: Champion Edition and then Street Fighter II: Hyper Fighting. Each new version included additional moves, playable boss characters,and minor game-balancing changes, but they weren't really new games. They were tweaks meant to make a good game even better. And for a while, fans bought it. Champion Edition and Hyper Fighting were well-received in the arcades, and SNES owners who'd already bought Street Fighter II's 16-bit port happily shelled out another fifty bucks for Street Fighter II Turbo. But by the time Capcom unveiled Super Street Fighter II Turbo, many fans were turned off. "Just more of the same," they grumbled, and went to place their quarters on the Mortal Kombat and Samurai Shodown cabinets. Capcom took heed and released Street Fighter Alpha. It was a fine game, and a good starting point for a new 2D fighting series, but I don't recall it turning many heads. "Sure, the new graphic style is nice," we said. "But there aren't enough characters, and most of them are just the same people, anyway. It's still too much of the same old, same old. When is Street Fighter III coming out already?" A couple years later, Capcom released III, and nobody even cared. "It's too different," we whined this time. "Who are all these new people? What happened to the old ones? What's with only being able to pick one Super Art? And besides, 2D games are practically antiques at this point. 3D games - now those are the wave of the future!" Recently, when Capcom announced Street Fighter IV would contain most or all of the old cast from Street Fighter II and would be 3D, gamers were already tearing their hair out and wailing that it was definitely going to suck. I would hate to have an audience like us.

Couldn't have put it more succinctly myself.

Ultimately, I would like to see Duke Nukem Forever turn out to be a great game. Not just for the sake of having a 'fun' shooter when nearly all of them these days are 'serious' (as mentioned in a previous blog post) - No, I want the game to be awesome just to silence all the many detractors. Considering the frustration that went into the overlong development phase, it would be delight for DNF to be awesome - unlike a lot of other games that took too long in development *coughTooHumancough*.
On a personal level, I champion the underdog and I favor anyone who stands defiant against the majority - after all, what do you do when the majority seem to be acting like complete prats?

Of course, there is the chance that a failure may cause some gamers to pause and reassess their tastes and the demands they make but what's the chances of that happening?