Regarding other released or soon to be released games:

The sort of sequel to the brilliant Ion Fury, Phantom Fury was released a few weeks ago, and it's really divided the opinions of gamers, some people think it's a huge disappointment. Of the three first person shooter reviewers on Youtube that I watch, Civvie 11 refuses to even review it, because he found it so disappointing, and both GmanLives and Jarek the Gaming Dragon were very underwhelmed. Others find it OK, and some say it's really good, so it's not a total loss for everyone, at least.

Personally, I've only played the first couple of levels, on a mate's PC, and I found it to be uninteresting, and I've not felt the urge to continue with it, Mind you, maybe it does get better later on, and I might still buy it, especially if it's makers decide to improve the game significantly via patches. Or if I just hit another dry spot where no new games on the horizon attract me and I just want to buy something.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1733240/Phantom_Fury/




Of course, if you like Ion Fury, then the official expansion pack, Ion Fury: Aftershock, which well worth playing, it's really enjoyable.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1588720/Ion_Fury_Aftershock/




And the really promising Selaco is released on the 31st May, I'm hoping that one really does live up to our expectations, because it might well be phenominal:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1592280/Selaco/




And, at last, System Shock Remake is released on consoles on May the 21st! Less than a week to go 





And not a first person shooter, but a 2D platformer/puzzle game where you have various time control powers, but the remaster of Braid has been released at:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/499180/Braid_Anniversary_Edition/%60

if anyone hasn't already played this classic game already,

JDoranThanks for the links. Some of the forum threads you've included contains exactly the kind of stuff I had in mind.

As for Alien Armageddon, yeah, that's a name I've heard mentioned around a lot. I have very little experience with Duke3D mods (so far I've only played the DNF 2013 campaign), so I'll probably start with some smaller vanilla mappacks. It's still something I'm likely to play sometime in the future, however.

the Raze port does support it, it seems. but yeah, that one is not free if that's what you had in mind. or is it? up to you I suppose.

didn't they release an additional official episode? yes they did, see Duke Nukem 3D: 20th Anniversary World Tour.

Aftershock, the expansion pack for the Build-engine derived first person shooter Ion Fury, has now been released! Well, the Steam version has, the GOG  version isn't available yet. And I can't find the release date for the console versions (the same situation as with System Shock Remake  ).



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c49Zj6E_u98

BTW, Phantom Fury recently had a demo released, see here for details:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1733240/Phantom_Fury/

Now that's a project to watch. I'll wait for the final release, but that's definitely worth a play.

I'm torn between trying this, and waiting, too. To me, the past few years, and the foreseeable future aren'tt exactly brimming with games that appeal to me, so I am tempted to play this, rather than wait a year or two until it's finished.

I'm so glad that I'm a retro gamer. 

On the subject of Duke Nukem, it turns out that prototypes for four (4!) different Duke Nukem games were leaked in 2022!


These are:

   
Duke Nukem Forever (1996)   - A 2D sidescroller, which was abandoned in favour of the first person shooter of the same name,

Duke Nukem: Endangered Species - A cancelled PC first person shooter (see https://dukenukem.fandom.com/wiki/Duke_Nukem:_Endangered_Species for details)

Duke Nukem Forever (2001) - The one that fans are rebuilding, as shown in the video Voodoo has linked to, above.

Duke Nukem 3D: Reloaded - The amazing fan-remake that tantalized us all, until (allegedly) Gearbox killed it around eleven years ago.

I can't post links, because of this forum's desire to stay totally legal, but they aren't hard to find.

Unfortunately, the released build of Duke Nukem 3D: Reloaded is very disappointing, at least to me. It has no single player enemies, just some (not too bright) bots to play basic deathmatch against, though you do get to explore some of the single player campaign levels. And sadly, the graphics that looked great in 2011 now look much less impressive, as time and graphics have inevitably moved on.

An interesting point was made by someone on Youtube though. Apparently no company or person (be it Gearbox, 3D Realms, Randy Pitchford, etc) has complained about the leaks, or demanded that fans stay away from these files, which is unusual for leaks of this magnitude. Also, it's speculated that the same person might have leaked all of these files, and perhaps that that person is connected with Gearbox or 3D Realms or whoever, and is leaking these files with the permission of the owners of these files (Gearbox or 3D Realms), possibly (fingers crossed here ) because a new Duke Nukem game is in the works, and releasing these files (which would never be worth anything financially) would bring publicity and attention to the franchise/IP again.

I doubt it, but let's hope, eh?

The item pickup sound in Dark Forces sounds exactly like a higher-pitched version of the item pickup sound in Doom.

Now that's a project to watch. I'll wait for the final release, but that's definitely worth a play.

That does look interesting, thanks. I will definitely give it a go.

I've been meaning to try the Duke Nukem 3D mod Alien Armageddon (https://www.moddb.com/mods/duke-nukem-alien-armageddon) for a while now. By all accounts it's amazing, having not just new weapons and new levels, but also different playable characters, RPG elements, and even the standard four Duke Nukem 3D episodes with improvements and rescue-able characters.

Unfortunately, due to my ever diminishing free time, I've pretty much had to stop following the game modding scene. There must be some truly amazing mods now for games that I love, that I will never get to play 

the fire extinguisher is still not voxelified, this is unusable.

but seriously, this isn't looking bad, wonder whether it will work with the open source ports.

I just discovered that a year ago someone released a mod for Blood that converts all the enemies into voxels.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9xMYbuZuPw

Retro Gamer Magazine had an extensive article on the games development, with interviews with devs, screenshots taken from the various versions etc. Tracking that article down be the tricky bit.

Are you sure it was in Retro Gamer? It's not listed in either of the online indexes that I know of:

https://amigareviews.leveluphost.com/retrogam.htm

http://www.parkproductions.co.uk/area/magazine/retrogamer.htm

Yes, and from what I've read, every time George saw something new (or at least new to him) in a first person shooter that he had tried, he insisted that it be put in to DNF, thereby not only adding to the list of things to be contained in DNF, but also taking people away from their current tasks and forcing them to become involved in planning/programming/testing/whatever the new feature. There was never, if what I've read is true, even a remotely finalized list of what the finished game should be, at least not when George was involved in it. He was constantly changing what the end product should be.

So again I have to ask, why is the finished game (the one released in 2011) so generic and utterly lacking in great, even if second-hand, features or spectacle? Even if the 2011 game (the one that commercially released) had been released in 2001 (but still been the 2011 game), then it wouldn't exactly have been original or innovative.

The development story of Duke Nukem Forever has been broadly told, but I would be fascinated to read a more detailed account. I would especially like to know if it's true (as seems to be reputedly the case) that it was solely George Broussard's bad decisions that caused the total restarts and the constant feature creep. Why didn't any of 3D Realms higher ups (or equals, I don't know the hierarchy of the company) say something like "You'd been making this game for five years now, enough is enough, we're giving you twelve months from today, we want it finished and ready for the discs to be pressed, one year from now"? Why did the company go silent, as regards trailer videos and
screenshots, after a few years, when originally they were happy to show the world what they were working on?

And how is that the finished game contains nothing innovative at all? It was so bland and unimaginative, so where were all the ideas and innovations that had supposedly caused the game to be delayed whilst these great new ideas were added and tested?

watched a few quick youtube videos, funnily enough, it looks more playable/finished than Blood2. I think they should have done what Monolith did - wrap up what they had, and release. would it have been a perfect game? no, but it would be good enough, most likely.

good. I'll probably hold off and see whether the modders plan to clean it up - waited for some quarter of a century for this, what's a couple of more months.

not quite, as we never got a game based on those older builds - RE2 still is quite close to RE1.5, there are changes, but you definitely can see the games are closely related. DNF2011 is nothing like those old 1998/2001/2002 builds, iirc.

if you are letting something to rot away, then maybe it's better off in someone else's hands.

iirc, a 80% finished 2001 build is in the hands of one of the developers (Randy Pitchfork), but he said he will not release it.

so if this is getting leaked, then that's great, very sure the community will be able to finish it up, and give the world the DNF it deserves.

don't care much for the Wolf3D clone, but Chasm, yeah, sign me up.

yeah, I have to admit, they did a pretty good job here, bringing everything everywhere, allowing everyone to play everything. not having to rely on emulators to play the wobbly mess that are the originals is a godsend (funnily enough, you actually can enable all the wobbliness and lowresness if you want, it seems - wonder whether it's possible to turn the pc version weapon reload and slaveguy barks on).

now we only need someone to port the PSE resources back to the Build engine and I will be a happy camper.

so, Powerslave Exhumed is out, but I'll definitely wait for a 50% discount, especially because my RX560 just died and I'm rocking a HD4770 for now, and I can't imagine that experience would be anywhere near tolerable. and the gpu market seems to be dead right now, like dead dead, with just a couple of gpus available in the 300+ buck range - checked whether I maybe can get another rx560 on ebay, and it's 2x the price than what I've paid 5 years ago for my original card.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDKrc_OK5EY

the NDS PowerSlave(K)EX is going to be based on the PS1/Saturn version, not the pc DOS version.

and it will be called PowerSlave Exhumed;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWWY_kf9boA
this is probably going to be interesting, we'll be able to play a version that never quite existed before, one the free ports do not offer.

more Civvie stuff;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=soYqDq9nGIg
this is the interesting bit: https://raze.zdoom.org/about

//filtering available, slope tilting can be turned off, and no more issues with custom assets missing when loading the Shadow Warrior datadisks. I'm sold.