Wolfenstein 3D's Sweet Sixteen!

We don't know if you realized it, but Monday was the sixteenth anniversary of Wolfenstein 3D. Released by Apogee back on May 5, 1992, this game by all accounts was one of the all time most influential titles, well.. EVER! Originally created by id Software, and released by us (under our then name Apogee Software), this title laid the groundwork for a lot of things that have come since.

Since it is Wolf's birthday, we wanted to bring you a few small tidbits to mark the anniversary. First up is a recreation of the Episode 3 Boss battle with Adolf Hitler from the game. The unique thing here is that it was done in Lego! There is a current craze in doing things (especially games) in Lego, so why not recreate a classic game? This was done by Wolf fan Ciamoslaw Ciamek. Here is a screen capture below - make sure and check out all of his Wolf3D Lego pictures.

Second up is an old piece of video. It's a TV interview from 1992 by Byron Harris for NBR with Scott Miller & George Broussard of Apogee as well as John Romero (then of id ). It talks about the two companies, and shows some of the background development of Wolf3D. We originally posted this video back in the summer of 1998, you can read that old news story for some background on the video.

Wolfenstein 3D is still an item we sell 16 years later. The game has been ported from its PC original to a ton of platforms, including the 3DO, Super Nintendo, the Game Boy Advance, the Macintosh, the Atari Jaguar, and the good old Apple IIgs.

Here's a few links for Wolfenstein 3D for you to check out:

• Our Wolfenstein 3D Page
• Our Wolf3D Pages in our Online Store ( CD | DL )
• Wikipedia Page for Wolfenstein 3D
• id Software's Wolfenstein 3D Page

If you're one of the two people left who have never played Wolfenstein 3D, hit our Wolf3D page to grab yourself a copy of the shareware game. Thanks to John Romero for the Lego story. John, it's time for YOU to go down the *)*$%)$ stairs! ;)

Posted by Joe Siegler at 9:39 AM | Permalink | Discuss this story on our forums
News Categories: The Classic Games

Wanted for Pigslaughter

This is Duke's Mug shot. We were sent a poster by the Liberty City Police Department about Duke. They say this about him:

Suspect was observed for the first time in January 29, 1996 in Hollywood. Witnesses last saw suspect in a teaser trailer, Wednesday December 19, 2007. Investigators remind the public that he is considered heavily armed and extremely sarcastic.

You can view the entire mugshot poster image here. Print it and hang it where people might find the suspect. Others under investigation at Liberty City can be viewed here.

This is of course a fan creation by forum member RedSplat. We thought it was funny, and wanted to bring it to your attention.

Posted by Joe Siegler at 4:15 PM | Permalink | Discuss this story on our forums
News Categories: Duke Nukem Forever

Shacknews and Duke Nukem Forever

A few weeks ago, Steve Gibson and Maarten from Shacknews were in town doing Shacknews work. George Broussard invited them over to see Duke Nukem Forever. They checked it out for about half an hour, and today they posted a few comments about what they saw.

Something you'll definitely want to read. :) It's available at Shacknews here.

Posted by Joe Siegler at 1:38 PM | Permalink | Discuss this story on our forums
News Categories: Duke Nukem Forever

Rise of the Triad Review

We noticed over the weekend a fan posted a video review of Rise of the Triad over on Youtube. We're presenting it here for you to check out.

Pretty thorough review from someone who really loved Rise of the Triad. We still have this game available in 2008, and if you're interested, check out our Official Rise of the Triad page where you can check out several pieces of goodies out there.

Posted by Joe Siegler at 8:33 AM | Permalink | Discuss this story on our forums
News Categories: Rise of the Triad

Duke Nukem Forever Screenshot Released

When we released the teaser trailer last December, the one thing people asked us all the time was when we were going to release more media. Well, today, we're here to bring you some new media.

This is a new piece of conceptual art. One thing we weren't happy with in the teaser from December was the pig cop design. Shortly after the video was released, we happened upon a really hot new artist by the name of Alex Huenick. Here's Alex's take on the classic pig cop.

We're really excited about Alex's work, and had him redo the 3D Realms corporate logo as well. You can see that work below. Wait till you see this new pig cop design in action. It'll be like nothing you've ever experienced in a game before!

Stay tuned....

Posted by Joe Siegler at 12:03 AM | Permalink | Discuss this story on our forums
News Categories: Duke Nukem Forever

Scott Miller on Radar Group, Prey 2, and more

Some pretty exciting news broke yesterday that will be of interest to 3D Realms fans. Formally announced yesterday are two new ventures that 3D Realms is involved in, those being the Radar Group, and Depth Interactive. What are these? Well, to answer that, we'll go straight to Scott Miller, the founder of Apogee / 3D Realms, and the Chief Creative Officer of the Radar Group:

Q: First, the obvious question: What is Radar Group?

Scott Miller: Radar Group is neither a publisher nor a development studio. We're something new. We believe that the best ideas in the game industry are original ideas, and so we will incubate, nurture, co-design and co-produce ideas that are tailor-made for the game industry, versus using existing licenses from other media. Think of us as the anti-Brash. lol!

Not only are we something new, we're something our industry desperately needs. Radar will team up with many of the industry's top independent studios to help them create original IP in which they own a substantial ownership stake. Why is this important? Because in today's industry it's nearly impossible, unless you're Epic or Valve, to create original games and not give away full IP ownership to the publisher. Radar believes that creators should share ownership, and all of the long-term benefits that come from that.

Another key part of the Radar plan is that all of our projects are built around a rich storyverse. Think about properties like Star Wars, Harry Potty and Lord of the Rings. All of these fictional creations have a vast and deep storyverse that can support numerous stories, with numerous compelling characters. Quite simply, a storyverse is the possibility space for stories, and all of our projects are being developed as a storyverse that can then support not only games, but linear media, too, like film, comics, TV, novels, webisodes, and so on.

Radar has every intention of leveraging our games in these other media, through our sister company based in Los Angeles, Depth Entertainment. The Max Payne film, currently filming in Toronto, is Depth's first production, by the way. Depth will specialize in respectful, high-quality game-to-film adaptations.

Q: Is there anything that you wanted to tell our readers about Radar Group or any of its titles that we hadn't hit on yet?

Miller: In part, Radar is an extension of 3D Realms' long history of working with external teams to co-create hit games, going back to 1990 when we teamed with Id Software on Commander Keen and then birthed the FPS category with Wolfenstein 3-D. It's not as well known that we were also involved with the inception of Descent, funding that game and giving design guidance for its first 16-months, before selling the publishing rights to Interplay. And then of course we played a huge role in Max Payne, working with Remedy, and also Prey, working with Human Head. If you include Duke Nukem into the mix, all of these franchises have sold over $1.1 billion at retail.

Scott also spoke in some detail about Prey 2, giving some previous unknown detail about that title.

IGN: Prey is obviously the most well-known franchise of the bunch. Since the original's release, we've also played a little game called Portal. Has said title's use of portals influenced how the technology is being used in Prey 2?

Miller: Absolutely! While Prey pioneered the portal concept, Valve's Portal took it to an all-new level. It really shows what you can do when you focus on a single core cool gameplay concept. So, while Portal impressed the heck out of us, it has also inspired us to return the favor to Valve and hopefully leap frog them as they did us. We believe we have new ideas for portals that will keep the portal race interesting.

In the original Prey, the lead character, Tommy, was too reluctant, and didn't realize his hero status until late in the game. So, in the new game we're making him a hardened, take-charge character who's learned fast from his previous experience, and ready to accept his status as a galactic savior. We're definitely beefing up the combat—expect more enemies onscreen simultaneously versus 3-4 in the original—as well as the spirit powers. And while the original was too much of a corridor shooter, Prey 2 will have much more variety and wide-open areas: think CoD4 to get a good idea of what we're shooting for in terms of open-world look and feel.

Scott also talks about the other previously announced title, Earth No More, in addition to a new title that had not been mentioned before, "Incarnate".

The quotes above are taken from a lengthy interview over at IGN where Scott talks more about Prey 2, the Radar Group, and other things you will definitely want to read. Head over to IGN and check out the full interview. For further details, make sure and check out Scott's blog at the Radar Group website here.

One final note about this announcement. It does now mean that Prey 2 & Earth No More, which had previously been announced as 3D Realms titles, are now no longer so. These are Radar Group titles. Before anyone asks, this won't affect Duke Nukem Forever. Duke Nukem Forever remains a 3D Realms title, and all this Radar stuff will not affect DNF in any way, as none of the internal DNF 3D Realms staff is working on any Radar titles, other than Scott Miller in an advisory fashion.

These titles look and sound quite exciting, you'll want to keep your eyes on the Radar Group website for all the latest!

Posted by Joe Siegler at 11:30 AM | Permalink | Discuss this story on our forums
News Categories: About 3DR / 3DR Staff | Duke Nukem Forever | Earth No More | Prey | Radar Group

Duke's Search for Jenny

Saw a fan video pop up on Youtube today based on the old Tommy Tutone song 867-5309 (Jenny). It was done by 3DR fan "Vinsane". Check it out:

If you don't remember where this turned up, in the Hollywood Holocaust level in Duke Nukem 3D, you can see above one of the urinals in the bathroom the number (867-5309) on the wall. Surprisingly, we still get asked about that to this day 12 years later. :)

Posted by Joe Siegler at 9:45 AM | Permalink | Discuss this story on our forums
News Categories: Duke Nukem

Duke on HD-DVD

If you're reading this website, then you're aware that we released a teaser video for Duke Nukem Forever back in December. At the time we told you that it was originally done as an internal gag for the company Christmas party. That part of the story is true, but what we didn't tell you at the time is that the video was only half of it. There was a second half of the video which we didn't announce, nor release.

As part of the "present to the company", we got Jon St. John to participate as well by recording an audio track as Duke which runs about 4 minutes or so where he "talks" to the development team about Duke Nukem Forever. This was audio only, there was no "video" with it. For the majority of the team, it was the first time they had heard the clip; it was quite funny. At the time we didn't consider releasing it, since we wanted the teaser video to stand on its own. Furthermore, it was made up of an awful lot of inside jokes and remarks about the staff; things we never expected most people to “get”.

So why are we telling you about this now? Well, when Toshiba announced earlier this week that they were dropping support for the HD-DVD format, we remembered that Duke was prophetic about this in the unreleased clip. In it Duke Nukem says that Blu-Ray was the future of high definition, before everyone else except maybe Sony realized it. This was a joke about one of our programmers here who was a seriously hard core internal advocate of HD-DVD, but Duke predicted Blu-Ray would win. "The King is never wrong." :)

So as Duke’s little going away present to the HD-DVD format, we decided to toss the small audio clip out there. You can download it here.

No, we’re not prepared at this time to release the entire audio clip, but as we said back in December, "Stay tuned" - one never knows what the future might bring,.

Posted by Joe Siegler at 2:08 PM | Permalink | Discuss this story on our forums
News Categories: Duke Nukem Forever

Duke Nukem Forever

Here is a message from George Broussard, the president of 3D Realms as posted in our forums this afternoon..

I'd like to address the article the Dallas Business Journal put up today.

In what appears to be an unfortunate turn of events, there seems to have been some confusion between what was 'off the record' and what was not. I suppose we're used to dealing with gaming press and not mainstream press. Lesson learned.

While we have internal targets, dates and goals, like every developer, we are not ready to share them. What's amazing about this is that the DBJ must have assumed that we'd actually announce a date to them, and not gaming press, and that even in the light of Scott's quote of "We can't make an official announcement.", the DBJ effectively did that. Lesson learned.

The release date is still 'when it's done', and will be until the appropriate moment. Platforms have not been finalized or announced. You can rest assured that we are moving toward a goal and that the recently released teaser trailer is the start of that process and seeing more of the game, sooner than later.

We apologize to gamers and websites everywhere for this series of events. Sometimes, you can be too trusting of people and assume things that come back to bite you. Lesson learned.

Posted by Joe Siegler at 4:35 PM | Permalink | Discuss this story on our forums
News Categories: Duke Nukem Forever

Max Payne Movie News

This week brings some news on the long delayed Max Payne movie. According to multiple reports, the movie is supposed to start filming on March 2nd in Toronto. Max will be played by actor Mark Wahlberg (Invincible, Rock Star, Perfect Storm, Taking of Pelham 1-2-3), and Natasha Alam (rumored to be Mona Sax). The movie will be directed by John Moore (Behind Enemy Lines, The Omen). You can get some more details about the production over at productioncharts.com.

Administrative note: We'd like to point out that we don't have anything to do with the production of the movie. We're as eager to see what is done with the movie as the rest of you.

Posted by Joe Siegler at 1:51 PM | Permalink | Discuss this story on our forums
News Categories: Max Payne

Prey v1.4 Patch Released

Here's a quick note to let everyone know that we've released a new patch for Prey, v1.4. It's available now, and here's a summary of what's changed in this new update from the readme:

Prey v1.4 Readme

1. Compatibility files for the Japanese release of Prey.
2. The disc check is removed from the game.

There are no bug fixes or new content in this release. The release is backwards compatible with Prey v1.2 and v1.3 in multiplayer.

Also included with the patch is updated Windows based dedicated server files. Updated dedicated server files for Linux are available over at icculus.org.

Click here to get to our Prey downloads page, which contains links where you can download the patch. Please note that this patch is only for the standalone PC game - If your copy of Prey was through Steam, do not use this patch, Steam users will be handled through that system. There is no update for the Xbox 360 game necessary. Additionally, there is no patch available for the Macintosh version of Prey. There is however a Mac patch forthcoming, and it is expected to be released around the end of the month.

Please note that this is planned to be the final patch release for Prey.

Posted by Joe Siegler at 1:56 PM | Permalink | Discuss this story on our forums
News Categories: Prey

Max Payne gets Steamed!

As you may recall, back on November 30, 2006 we announced that Prey was available on the popular online distribution service, Steam. We're here to follow up with news that a couple more 3D Realms titles are available on Steam now. Effective immediately, Max Payne and Max Payne 2 are available for purchase on Steam.

This is part of a larger collection of games available on Steam from publisher Rockstar Games. In addition to the two Max Payne games, the following titles are also available: Grand Theft Auto 3, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, Manhunt, Midnight Club 2, Grand Theft Auto, Grand Theft Auto 2, and Wild Metal.

The games are the same as they were when originally released, except now that you can purchase them online. The Max games are available in a few different packages from Steam. You can get them:

• Max Payne 1 or Max Payne 2 for $9.95 each.
• Together in the "Max Payne Bundle" for $14.95
• As part of the "Rockstar Collection" for $59.95 (includes all the titles listed above)

The prices shown here are the "regular" prices on Steam. However, if you buy them during the first week of launch, the prices are discounted to $8.95, $13.95, and $53.95 respectively. If you've never played Max Payne, you should check them out, they were groundbreaking award winning games when released, and are still fun today.

We have more information about the games here on our website here and here.

Please note that the Macintosh versions of Max Payne are not part of this package, this is for the PC originals only.

Posted by Joe Siegler at 4:44 PM | Permalink | Discuss this story on our forums
News Categories: Max Payne

Duke Nukem Forever Teaser Trailer Released

As promised yesterday (actually an hour earlier than promised), we are proud to finally bring you an all new teaser trailer for Duke Nukem Forever. I'm sure you don't want to read us blab about it, you want to go watch the video. Here is a list of places that are hosting the video.

• Bittorrent download
• Shacknews
• Gametrailers.com
• Fileplanet
• IGN
• Filefront
• Worthplaying.com
• Internode
• Gamershell
• Softpedia
• Actiontrip
• Computergames.ro
• Gamesfire
• Primotech
• Stage 6
• Voodoo Extreme
• GameZ.nl
• duke4.net
• Avidgamer UK
• CNet Download.com
• CHIP Online (Germany)

Also, if you have an iPhone, there is a version of the trailer specifically formatted for that. You can get that file here or here.

In addition, Shacknews has a story about the history of Duke. You can read that here.

Thanks to Shacknews for the HD stream.

Posted by Joe Siegler at 11:02 AM | Permalink | Discuss this story on our forums
News Categories: Duke Nukem Forever

DNF Teaser Video coming tomorrow

Last Saturday we had our annual company Christmas party. It was a lot of fun as usual but it featured one special surprise. It turns out that several people had been secretly working late nights and into the wee hours of the morning preparing a special video for those at the party. They created a short teaser for Duke Nukem Forever.

After seeing the teaser we thought it was something we should share with all of you and while it's just a teaser, rest assured more is coming.

Tomorrow, Wednesday the 19th, around noon CST, we will release the first teaser trailer from Duke Nukem Forever. To tide you over until then, there has been a screen shot taken from the teaser and posted in our forums. Check it out here.

Thank you for being fans of the game and for your continued patience.

We'd like to thank the people on the team that worked so hard to create this teaser and the friends of 3DR that helped create it (Jeremy Soule and Julian Soule, Frank Bry, Jason Evigan and of course, Jon St. John).

UPDATE: Here is an update that George Broussard made online this evening:

Guys just to manage expectations...

This is a teaser. It's not a full blown trailer like the 2001 trailer (but something like that is coming). I tried to be clear about that in the message board post, so just bear in mind that it's a teaser :)

Enjoy.

Posted by Joe Siegler at 3:13 PM | Permalink | Discuss this story on our forums
News Categories: Duke Nukem Forever