I have to be honest. After the second instalment of the FEAR series, I wasn’t even following the development of this game let alone planning to play it. In my review of FEAR 2, I documented my disdain for what I saw as the “genericization” of the intellectual property and the “console-ization” of a PC shooter. The distinctive “pure bred” style of FEAR became a cross bred “mutt” through the heavy influence of games like Crysis and other tactical shooters. The resulting mix was not a success in my view. Yet a friend with similar leanings and opinions started playing FEAR 3... and continued playing it. As with “Mikey” from the Life cereal ads, he seemed to like it. My curiosity was piqued.

In terms of technical data, there’s almost no point in mentioning it these days unless there are glaring issues (cough *Duke Nukem* cough). These games are made “cross platform” from the ground up and for the most part, the XBOX and PS3 priorities have basically caused PC hardware requirements to flatten out considerably. That said, FEAR 3 runs just fine on my Q6600 Core 2 Quad and ATI 6870.

Beyond the irksome “console first” menus and controls, despite the near mandatory (shudder) cover system, the constant hover help and “click me” glow on every object and beyond the “you can never go back” realities of what’s hip and happening, the fact is FEAR 3 is a pretty solid and entertaining game.

Duke. Nukem. Forever.

Over the last 14 years these three little words have become, without exaggeration, the biggest joke the gaming industry has ever known. Bigger than the Infinium Labs Phantom game console, even bigger than Daikatana. The sheer number of delays and restarts that happened during the time DNF spent from initial announcement to finished product are bona fide legendary. Folks certainly complained about games like Doom 3 and Half-life 2 taking too long to release, but DNF will forever remain the measuring stick for protracted development schedules. To its credit though, developer 3D Realms never gave up on DNF, never officially delaying the game indefinitely or cancelling it outright. Even in 2009 when his company essentially folded and laid off the DNF development staff, George Broussard took to his Twitter account and quickly denounced Dukes supposed death. Much like he had done over the last decade plus, Broussard continued to claim that DNF was still in development, was still progressing despite not having a programming team, and would still be released when it was done. Particularly at that time, you would've been hard pressed to find someone who actually still believed him.

Now in 2011, thanks in part to Gearbox Software, Duke Nukem Forever is finally, finally finished. Despite all of the cute title portmanteaus and magazine vaporware awards, the game is a reality that's currently sitting on store shelves and on offer within digital distribution channels everywhere. This is a monumental moment to be sure, as for a long time the idea of DNF being a finished product was just that... an idea, a concept meaning more to the punch lines of jokes rather than as something that would actually occur in our lifetimes. So for all of the do-overs, all the development time spent (or wasted depending on perspective), and all the fan desire to see the game finally come out, what can be said now that the journey has ended and Duke Nukem Forever is readily available for purchase?