In gaming, people complain about release delays a LOT. Nothing ever ships on time. Sometimes, the delays produce hype and impossible expectations, especially when the game is released and turns out to suck.
One game in particular has managed to avoid the “released and turned out to suck” pitfall, of course, and that game is Duke Nukem Forever, which was announced on 28 April 1997, and has yet to see the light of day.
DNF — n.b. that its initials can also stand for “did not finish” — is to be the groundbreaking next edition in a popular series; Duke Nukem 3D was the last iteration, in 1996, and was one of the first real truly immersive first-person shooters. (It was a peer to Quake at the time, which has itself had several successful sequels since its release.)
In light of this truly amazing feat of procrastination and schedule-busting, some enterprising souls have produced a fine, fine list of amusing things that have happened since the DNF announcement early in Clinton’s second term. It includes:
- The entire Grand Theft Auto series
- The entire run of the Sims game franchise
- The creation, implementation, and explosion of an entire game genre, the Massively Multiplayer Onling Role Playing Game
- 58 different Mario games
- The previous winner of “most delayed game,” Daikatana, started development 10 days before DNF, and was released in May of 2000
- The whole of Half Life
- Every Thief game
- The entire Halo trilogy
- The creation and release of the XBox, XBox 360, PS2, PS3, PSP, GameCube, Gameboy, and DS
Outside of gaming, they make the following observations:
- In 1997, a “fast” Internet connection involved a 33.6kilobit per second modem.
- Back then, a hotrod home gaming rig ran at 233Mhz.
- There was no such thing as a commercially successful MP3 player in 1997, and wouldn’t be for another 4 years. Since its intro in 2001, though, Apple has sold more than 50 million iPods.
- Napster did not exist in 1997
- There was no Google, eBay, or Blogger
- Stephen King has written 16 novels
- “The concept of Bullet Time has been developed, pioneered, and completely run into the ground.”
- There was no Britney or Harry Potter in 1997.
- “The U.S.S. Ronald Reagan (the largest nuclear-powered aircraft carrier in the world) was in contract, built, launched, commissioned, and began active duty.“
Finally, they note a few historical events of importance that took less time than DNF has so far:
- The Beatles formed, released all their records, and broke up.
- The entire U.S. program to put a man on the moon, from JFK’s speech until Armstrong’s landing.
- The Revolutionary War, the Civil War, World Wars I and II, the entire Manhattan Project, and Vietnam.
We’re sure, though, that when DNF is finally released, it’ll be awesome. Probably.