The music is Prelude in D-flat Major Op. 28 No. 15 – Raindrop by Frédéric Chopin, composed in the 1800s. I remember growing up with bugs bunny and how classical music was included into the cartoons, something kids theses days don’t get. So I am glad to see the commercial is so popular, it exposes kids to some very good classical music.

I hope I can get back to learning piano at some point, this is one piece I would really like to be able to play.

Here is a longer version of the music piece.

Duke Nukem 3d a classic first person shooter game from 1996. I remember playing it up on the computer labs on Friday afternoons back when I was a lab aide. Multiplayer was IPX only, everyone had to start at the same time and if one computer crashed every one in the game did, good times.

Some years ago I bought the Kill-A-Ton collection which included everything Duke up to that point. Duke Nukem 1,2, 3D, Duke It Out in DC, etc..

Recently I had been thinking about playing Duke Nukem 3d again. Problem is it doesn’t run too good under XP, especially if you want to do multiplayer. I played with setting up a DOS or Windows 95 virtual machine for Duke that we could use in the office, but the performance just wasn’t there. I was about to move on and forget about Duke when I ran across JFDuke3D. JFDuke3D has native Windows support for Duke. Install Duke 3d, install JFDuke and run. Duke never looked so good and runs great on a current OS. There is even network play support over IP, haven’t tried that yet though.

What makes Duke great is the attitude and the guns. Duke’s witty one liners are great and the weapons are classic. The shrink gun has to be my favorite. Hit someone with the shrink gun and once they shrink down to itty bitty step on them to squash them. Freeze gun is great too. Hit someone with the freeze gun to literally freeze them and then a good kick breaks them into shattered pieces. The pipe bombs also cool along with the Laser Trip Bombs. When playing multiplayer Laser Trip Bombs are great when placed right around a corner. While not a weapon the HoloDuke is also great with multiplayer. Setup the holoduke out in the open go hide near by and wait for someone to come by and be fooled by the holoduke.

It took me a couple weeks to get through all 4 episodes trying to get to all of the secret places. It really surprised me how in depth that game was. I was able to setup my keys and mouse similar to what I use in UT. W-A-S-D for movement and mouse look worked decent enough.

It is really sad that 3dRealms has dragged their feet as long as they have in releasing, if it will ever be released Duke Nukem Forever. DNF has been in development for almost 10 years now with little to show for it. I feel if they would have just taken Duke3d, updated the graphics to make it look pretty, updated the controls to be more responsive and updated the network play for true IP support, the game would have been a hit. But unfortunately that hasn’t happened.

If you have Duke Nukem 3d lying around, download JFDuke3D and give it another go. You will be impressed on how fun it still can be and at the same time sadden at how 3dRealms has literary killed Duke with their incompetence.

Imagine getting that excited over graphics and game play like that.

Broussard Updates Duke Nukem Forever Status

The May 2006 issue of Computer Games Magazine, which includes a cover feature previewing 3D Realms and Human Head Studios’ long-awaited FPS Prey, has also included fresh information on 3D Realms’s epochally long in development Duke Nukem Forever.

The game has been worked on in various forms for almost 10 years, having been originally announced in April 1997, and the update describes the current state of the title, which was viewed at 3D Realms’ Texas studios: “mainly just pieces of the game in progress and tech demos”, including “an early level, a vehicle sequence, a few test rooms”, among others.

Technology-wise, Duke Nukem Forever originally started development on the Quake II engine, before switching to Unreal, and, according to a Wikipedia entry, is now working with a heavily modified custom engine that includes some small elements from earlier iterations of Unreal Engine.

3DR’s George Broussard also demonstrated world interactivity that includes Duke standing in front of a computer and emailing the player, if he provides his email address for the game. But, according to the piece, Broussard was bashful, overall, about showing off the game, commenting: “The problem is that when we show it, people are going to be like, ‘Yeah, whatever’. Honestly, at this point we just want to finish it.”

A recently reported-on Take-Two financial filing shows that the game’s long-time publisher has significant interest in the game’s completion date, noting: “One other notable payment was the renegotiation of a $6 million charge due [to former publisher GT Interactive, now owned by Atari] upon delivery of the final PC version of Duke Nukem Forever back in March 2005. The epic delay of 3D Realms’ shooter has meant that $4.25 million of the final milestone payment has already been paid, alongside the promise of a final $500,000 upon the commercial release of Duke Nukem Forever prior to December 31, 2006.”

Further information on the game, alongside the longform Prey preview, is available in the May issue of Computer Games Magazine, more information on which can be seen at the official Computer Games Online website.

According to Slashdot this was suppose to be an update for DNF. I see no such info. One would think by the length of time this is taking that DNF would be the last/best/ultimate version of Duke Nukem. Guys just take what you got and finish it. In a couple years release another one with graphics a little bit better and a different story line. DNF has gone way beyond being a joke to the point that the whole project is sadly very pathetic.

Geosense

I think it’ll be out when pigs fly. But it’s definitely going well now. Things are together; we’re in full production. We’re basically just pulling all the pieces together and making the game out of it. There’s a lot that’s finished. All the guns are finished. Most of the creatures are finished. And as I said, we’re just basically pulling it all together and trying to make it fun. We’ve kind of got all these disassociated elements that make up a game, and you put them together and things happen. And then you just tweak it and polish it until it’s fun, and that’s kind of the phase we’re in now, just trying to make something that is really fun to play and interesting.

Full Production? What now there is 2 guys working on it? I still don’t understand how a company can spend 10 years of man hours times however many people have been working on it have no revenue to show for it, but still stay in business. Tweaking and polishing, but still have to finish all the creatures. Yeah, right. Isn’t time to switch engines again?

Ah, the days of Duke Nukem. The last version was network playable, IPX only. No internet play here. 1996 there was really no internet play anywhere. Everyone had to start the game at the same time and if someone’s computer crashed the game ended for everyone. The Friday afternoons spent in A210, those were the days.

More information about YetiSports can be find at YetiSports.org.

I have wanted to put some of my favorite flash games up on my site, been on my to-do list. First one is up, the orginial Yetisports or Pingu Throw game.
Hit the Penguin! How can you have any more fun?

With the two week break I have, hope to get more games put up.

You’re probably saying, “Oh no, you didn’t.” But oh yes … we did. From old school games to the latest, we narrowed down the competitive field of sports video gaming to an elite group of 16. Now you’re going to vote, round-by-round, and select the greatest sports video game of all time.
Round 2 starts on Monday

I think it would have been more interesting if kept to just old school games.
Blades of Steel gets my overall vote.

AN 85 year old grandmother is suing Rockstar games after she discovered the version of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas contained hidden, sexually explicit scenes. [continue]

The article makes a good point. Everything in the game the player does is illegal. But the sex, that is legal, at least in most states.
Violence in video games has for the most part been accepted, even the cop killing, but sex has not.
Interesting though, a democratic taking up this fight instead of those stuffy straight laced republicans. Some call it a political play on her part, yeah probably, but that is what politicians do.
It will be interesting how it all plays out, but one thing is for sure, the publicity for the game has been enormous.
I think this law suit is silly. The game is rated M, unless you modify the game.
I do think, if not already the case, that customers should be able to take the game back for a full refund. That is if having the ability to modify the game and have access to a little hot coffee bothers them.