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Duke Nukem Desperately Needs to Grow Up
You would think that after being well over a decade in the making this game would have plenty of time to grow up. Apparently, this is not the case. You see, I have a serious issue with Duke Nukem Forever. As a gamer, aspiring game designer and just a decent human being, this game disgusts me. Plenty of games try to push boundaries by showcasing gorgeous scenery, revolutionary stories or groundbreaking features to grab as many headlines on game news sites as they can. But when it comes to stupid, irrelevant features The Duke takes the cake. Instead of showing us interesting things that would make a gamer want to pick up and play the game, Forever shows us irreverent features that only shows how dated this game really is. Looking at the more recent headlines The Duke has become a 12 year-old jumping up and down, waving his arms and yelling “Hey! Remember me? I’m that game that’s been over a decade in the making! I let you throw feces and slap chicks, hey! HEY!”
Duke Nukem: Forever is a game that’s been well over a decade in development and has become synonymous with vaporware. Now that it might actually be coming out (I’ll believe it when I see it) the companies behind it feel the burning desire to get as much attention, bad or not, centered on this aging game. Apologies to anyone who’s still looking forward to it but here’s a spoiler: at this point Duke Nukem Forever will never live up to the hype. Instead it’s going to show you tits, gore, feces and foul language in equal amounts. It’s also going to try to be funny but from what I’ve seen of the game so far it will fail miserably in that department as well. I’ll admit I have little experience with The Duke seeing as I’ve only played Duke Nukem 3D and that was ages ago. Now, if you’re the type of gamer the industry has spent the last two decades desperately trying to keep some distance between, you probably won’t have any issues with this game.
However, if you find issue with slapping women’s bums to get them to shut up, throwing poo all over the place and sex for the sake of pleasing all the immature little boys out there, you might find reason in this quick tirade.
In the last year have you seen a single headline bearing the Duke’s name that wouldn’t be offensive to anyone because I sure as fuck haven’t. Instead all I see are how Duke Nukem Forever lets you see naked chicks, use poo as a weapon and slap distressed women with your friends. Quick tangent: does anyone else find spanking helpless women with their friends just the tiniest bit creepy?
While defending the ‘Capture the Babe’ multiplayer mode Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford tweeted about all the hullabaloo surrounding the shameless sexism in his game, saying “Get it right, folks! In the DNF MP game, “Capture the Babe”, Duke can give the girl a love smack on the booty – not face!” Are you kidding me? Either everyone at Gearbox have lost their damn minds or they must have an incredibly lenient sexual harassment policy.
For the unfamiliar, the “Capture the Babe” mode has you and some friends going over to an enemy’s base where you have to kidnap their woman and bring her back to your base (where I assume you’ll then proceed to share the spoils with a bunch of mouth-breathing strangers.) If she starts flailing around like the helpless woman she most definitely is, all you have to do is give her a quick slap on the ass to shut her up. Taking this a step further I predict if you make it to the base with her she’ll immediately be forced to cook and clean, because, everyone knows that’s all women are good for, right?
There’s even a petition that’s now well over 7,000 signatures strong, asking Gearbox to gain a little common sense. I’m all for lighthearted fun and humor since that’s been a staple of the Duke Nukem series but this isn’t that, this is childish and not the least bit funny. This is the type of behavior I would expect from a studio made up of a handful of 12 year-olds hiding in their parents’ basement, not from a top tier developer.
I said I would try my best to keep this rant short. Now, it really isn’t so I’ll resist the urge to delve into how revolutionary the feature that lets you pee in bullet wounds is and what’s wrong with showcasing one of the worst characters in the history of video games every time Gearbox promotes their game. The Duke is a terribly unfunny misogynistic pig that I have no desire to play as, but that’s just me. Hell, I could also go into what anyone could possibly find fun about picking a turd out of a toilet and flinging it around. Instead I’ll leave whether that’s something you’d like to do with your friends up to you.
Now I’d very much like to leave you with a brand new trailer showcasing the ‘babes’ of Duke Nukem Forever. This should successfully get all the horny teen boys excited for the game while also proving everything I just spent the last ten minutes (or however long it took you to read this, no one’s judging) ranting about.
‘Nuff said.
Sam Neill, the New Zealand actor best known for his role in 1993’s Jurassic Park, has passed away this week at 78 years old. In a statement shared on Neill’s Instagram page this morning, the actor’s family said that his passing was “sudden and unexpected.”
Neill had been diagnosed with a rare blood cancer in 2022, but stated the following year that he was in remission. The family notes that he “remained cancer free” at the time of his passing.
The family statement reads, “It is with immense sadness that the whānau of Sam Neill share the news of his passing on Monday 13th July, in Sydney Australia. Sam was surrounded by family and passed with the dignity that has characterised his whole life. The loss was sudden and unexpected but blessed by the fact that Sam remained cancer free.
“They would like to express their deepest gratitude to the staff at St Vincent’s Private Hospital for their incredible care. More details will be shared later, but for now, on behalf of the family, we ask that you respect their privacy as they navigate this immeasurable loss.”
In addition to his iconic role as Dr. Alan Grant in the original Jurassic Park and the sequels Jurassic Park III and Jurassic World: Dominion, Sam Neill left an indelible mark on the horror genre with memorable roles in Andrzej Żuławski’s Possession, The Omen: The Final Conflict, John Carpenter’s In the Mouth of Madness, and sci-fi horror favorite Event Horizon.
Sam Neill’s vast resume in film and television began in the early 1970s and also includes the films Sleeping Dogs, Enigma, The Good Wife, A Cry in the Dark, Dead Calm, The Hunt for Red October, Memoirs of an Invisible Man, Hostage, The Jungle Book, Snow White: A Tale of Terror, The Horse Whisperer, Bicentennial Man, Daybreakers, Escape Plan, and Thor: Ragnarok.
Sam Neill is survived by his four children and eight grandchildren.
Steven Spielberg said in a statement to Variety, “I owe a debt of gratitude to Roger Donaldson, Gilliam Armstrong, Graham Baker and Phillip Noyce for casting Sam Neill in the roles in which he was so brilliant that brought him to my attention and led to his playing Dr. Alan Grant in Jurassic Park. Sam was exceptionally collaborative. It was a stretch for him to play a character who acted as though children were messy and smelly because this was the opposite of the loving father he was to his children. I adored making all the Jurassic movies with him.”
Spielberg adds, “Along with Laura Dern and Jeff Goldblum, we will always have our Jurassic family and Sam will never be forgotten by us or his many millions of fans around the world.”
Sam Neill in ‘Event Horizon’
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