For Dummies

If you're not sure what it's really like at E3, or have trouble explaining it to a friend, I am here to help you. I've written "7 Things You Do At A Video Game Conference," a guide for dummies. Or for cynics. Please, please do not take me seriously. At least not too much.

In addition to those things, while I was at E3 I also did an interview with Insomniac's Ted Price about going multiplatform with Overstrike. Amazing dude, amazing studio.

Eurogamer's review of Duke Nukem Forever is the most thorough and best one I've yet read. The only defense people who are, for whatever reason, big fans of this game have been able to mount is that it's impossible to review this game in context, yet this review handily acknowledges all the forces that might come to bear on a review of a forever-awaited sequel in a defunct franchise and explains itself well in their light.

I mean, it seems that way to me, at least. I was never really even interested in original Duke Nukem; back in those days I could barely be bothered to put down my Genesis controller long enough to say, "first-person shooters? Those aren't video games, those are weird sports for boys." Ha.

But as much as I've long agreed at the consensus that Duke is an embarrassing exercise in looking backward that probably didn't need to happen, I feel weirdly sorry for Duke. I know, I know -- Randy Pitchford was so effing psyched that effing Duke Nukem was coming back that we got this enormous marketing presence stuffed in our craw that told us that if we didn't think stupid dick jokes were funny we had no sense of humor, and if we didn't want to spank women to shut them up we needed to loosen up, and if we weren't also so effing psyched about effing Duke effing Nukem then we weren't even Real Gamers.

I know. It sucked. It was a condescending mistreatment of us as consumers through and through, and this coming from me -- more liable to tell entitlement to quit whining than to take up arms and feel incensed. I'm not exactly glad that the game is getting probably the worst critical reception of any major launch I've seen in years, because who wants developers to fail?

I will, however, admit to feeling sort of satisfied. We all suspected there was no more place for clunky, gross Duke in our modern landscape, and now we can say told you so. More than that, doesn't it make you feel a little proud of the modern gaming landscape? In all of that Duke buzz, weren't you a little bit afraid that he would make a grand return, heralding a new wave of hysteria for the kind of misogyny and poop jokes that we thought were left well behind in our adolescent days? Wouldn't an excellent Duke game have been kind of, y'know, bad for everyone?

Luckily, no: It really is over. There's no room for Duke Nukem, neither its tacky design nor its stupid jokes. And I'm glad.

But like I said, I feel kind of a sympathy pang, too, like when the Simpsons started to show Nelson's home life and you realized how sad the world that sneering bully lived in was. I mean, it was funny, and it helped you like Nelson a little more, but it was sad! It was cute!

And I choose to doubt that anything went on at Gearbox besides a bunch of dudes who had spent a bunch of time working on this, really hoping everyone would love it, or at least like it and have a little fun. And we don't, and that's always sad. RIP, Duke.

[Today's Good Song: Craft Spells, 'You Should Close The Door']