Duke Nukem Forever Not Edited For Australia 156
dotarray writes "In case you still somehow didn't believe yesterday's news that Duke Nukem Forever had been given an MA15+ rating in Australia – effectively evading the notoriously strict censors, GamePron now has confirmation that the Duke has not been edited in any way for an Australian release. Hooray!"
Won't somebody think of the children!? (Score:3, Funny)
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Uhm... You mean the 18+12 year waiting time old children?
Re:Won't somebody think of the children!? (Score:5, Funny)
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That would not be the original...the original was a side scroller. I would think the 3 in the name might clue some in, it wasn't only because it was a FPS.
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So the real age verification question is: do you remember Duke in 2D? If the person answers yes the program stops complaining about the age....
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I do, it was a great game.
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No foundation for media-violence link (Score:2)
The dominate paradigm in the humanities, and much of psychology, is called Social Constructionism [wikipedia.org]. This has come to define feminism (unfortunately) and much of the academy. While no doubt profound, social constructionism has been taken way to far, and has turned into environmental determinism. The humanities are scared silly at any thought that biology may have an important role to play
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This joke is going too far (Score:5, Funny)
This joke is going too far. They have official ratings now? Can they get in trouble for submitting something that they have no intention of finishing?
Re:This joke is going too far (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:This joke is going too far (Score:4, Funny)
Hush! Do you want to ruin one of the greatest April Fool's Day jokes of all time?!?!?
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- The game, Duke Nukem 3d. Yes, it's nothing special looking back. But for the time, the technology was very advanced. People playing this game had only just finished playing Doom II and it's ilk, so DN3D was something special there. It's use of humor was something never before seen in the genre, and that it sometimes got just a little raunchy just made it even funnier. It didn't actually have anything even slightly explicit, but by the standards of the time, it was new.
-The timeing
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>>>it's nothing special looking back. But for the time, the technology was very advanced
Speak for yourself. I am always impressed what game programmers can squeeze out of sub-100 MHz processors.
Heck even now, watching youtube on a sub-1000 processor is pretty damn impressive. (Points to PowerPC Amiga running at 500 MHz.) Software today is so overbloated, it makes you wonder what could be accomplished with some of the old Atari/Commodore programmers of the 80s (people who knew how to make every b
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In every version I have played the nipples were covered with tassels so it wasn't much more explicit than a magazine skincare advert.
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dncashman just made Duke throw around cash when you pressed 'use.' I suspect it was used by the creators for stress-testing the engine, as every note was a seperate sprite and continuous use would eventually exaust available memory.
It was all about gameplay (Score:4, Interesting)
Duke Nukem wasn't just about the (admittedly very juvenile) humor and one liners.
It actually had really great gameplay for the time. To this day Duke Nukem ranks right up there as one of my favorite multi-player FPS games.
In part it's because of the variety of weapons - you didn't just have guns but you had things like shrink rays. What other game even since then has actually had the player scale down to a tiny version of themselves and then try to elude the massive pursuers around them....
And then there's the jet-packs. Awesome aerial firefights, or flying up to office buildings high above. In todays modern games you are only begrudgingly allowed to even jump, much less fly outside of something like a helicopter.
But really my favorite part was the pipe-bombs and trip mines. No other game since Duke has done booby trapping nearly as well as Duke, which gave you the option to either trigger a trap yourself (pipe bomb) or have an unwitting enemy set it off themselves (trip mine). Best of all, you could combine both for the ultimate trap of doom.
My favorite memory of all time is an extended jet-pack fight with one other guy between sky-scrapers, which ended when he came up an elevator shaft that I had lined with something like six trip-mines. BOOM.
So I have no idea if the new game will be any good but I think it still carries a lot of the same weapons, thus I am really looking forward to it way more than I should be. If it does come out and you go wandering up the skyscrapers, I'd take the stairs if I were you.
Forgot to mention destructible environments (Score:3)
Duke Nukem was also one of the earlier games to really embrace destruction of the environment, which is another aspect I hope they have carried forward and modernized.
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i know it's apples v oranges, but syndicate wars had amazing destructibility... you could even blow water tracts up with nuclear grenades or satellite rain, and the default metal-pipey texture would replace it.
any and every building could be flattened, and if you had good enough weapons you could destroy the whole town.
Don't expect too much (Score:2)
I, too, remember fondly DN3D and its gameplay did have all those things you mentioned. But I wouldn't expect too much from DNF. My guess, from all game sequels I have seen in recent years, is that it will have well polished graphics with a mediocre gameplay.
It was the same thing with car simulators. I played "Need for Speed - Porsche Unleashed" in 2000 in a 500 MHz Pentium 3 machine with 128 MB memory and a 6 GB hard disk. It was awesome, especially with a force-feedback wheel. It had great playability beca
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I remember the good old days when I first dabbled with online gaming, playing Duke3D on TEN (remember that?). This was at a time when MSN Gaming Zone was popular for playing commercial multiplayer games such as Outlaws, Outwars, Jedi Knight etc.
TEN had a 'Mr Bandwidth' character, an alien whose eyes would change colour according to your connection quality. I never got better than orange with my shitty internal modem, but it was still good fun to play a few games of Duke3D, and the idea of playing online w
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Except, apparently, Half-Life Deathmatch, which has both of those traps and iirc they will blow each other up.
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Duke Nukem isn't news.
Duke Nukem Forever is news. The game has been in development for longer than some of the people who will play it. The trials, tribulations, and vaporware status have fallen into legend. Wired named it vaporware of the year for something like 3 years straight, before giving it a lifetime achievement award and sending it to bed. It's right up there with "Chinese Democracy" as far as failure to launch / failure to fail goes, except this cost way more money. And even once it was final
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It's not that Duke Nukem was great.
Yes.it was. You clearly weren't around at the time, or else your idea of a great game is Farmville.
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The game has been in development for longer than some of the people who will play it.
that would be a MIGHTY long development time for a human...
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Chinese Democracy cost around $14 millions, and Duke Nukem Forever cost up to $30 millions. Now, while Chinese Democracy is the most expensive record ever, DNF is not even in the top 10. [digitalbattle.com] So I'd say Chinese Democracy was far more wasteful (but still a damn good album).
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They have box art! Real live box art! And on the box art, his gun is his penis! So you know the game is going to be awesome.
So basically one shot, maybe followed by another a couple of hours later, and then you're done?
I guess it's one of those sniper games then.
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Come on, this is Duke Nukem, he probably shoots like a machine gun :)
Uhm, yes? (Score:2)
This was the first FPS I really got into (+ the first one I learned mouse+kb for), and the level editor was amazingly easy at the time. Their timing was perfect for consumer network technology around here too where Doom2 or ROTT was still mainly a dialup game for most folks. And, pre-quake, the first video game engine to even attempt stacking levels on top of each other. Sure it was a teleport trick, but at least they tried.
After all these years they could Star Wars prequels this game and I'd still buy it.
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Didn't DN3D have true stacked rooms? The theater room above the lobby in the first level is one example. If I had access to the game files, I could load it up on my N900 to double check, but the CD's in a drawer at home :P
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*The projector room above the theater lobby
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Yes, it did, but there was a limitation in the game engine: you couldn't see both rooms at the same time or the game's graphics would bug out.
Some elevators in the game, on the other hand, were a teleporter trick.
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It's just a troll, ignore :P Duke Nukem was based on a lot more than just Roddy Piper, and Roddy Piper was Canadian. Wearing a kilt does not make you "a true Scotsman".
Kidding? (Score:2)
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No. It was cancelled, but then bought up and Gearbox have finished it up.
This is only right (Score:2)
If you're going to go Duke, you better go full Duke.
RELEASE is precisely what you've got to believe in (Score:2)
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Praised be his holly jetpack and his cigar for he is the king of the heavenly kingdom as well as the earthly realm. Hail to the king baby.
The right thing... (Score:2)
Duke Nukem won't allow you to censor him, he'll just kick your ass.
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Boogie man checks his closet for Chuck Norris.
Chuck Norris checks his closet for ... he who must not be named~
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Duke Nukem wears Jack Bauer pajamas.
Actually, Duke just gets the top. Jack gets to wear the bottoms.
Don't even try to understand the logic of it (Score:3)
Duke Nukem 3D back in the early 90s was refused classification and had been re-released as a censored version.
There is next to no consistency with the classification board, no logic. The only consistent thing is that most of their reasoning makes little to no sense when they've previously waved through worse games than the one they are classifying at the time.
Not long after the "Atomic" edition of Duke-3D was released in all its glory. No censorship, same game just with 'more'. Makes sense doesnt it?
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There is next to no consistency with the classification board
Nonsense! Like the MPAA, they consistently get a bunch of 90-year-old women together to decide what naughty bits we shouldn't be allowed to see.
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The funny thing is that it was released uncensored first. The Shareware version was uncensored and got an MA15+ in Feb 1996. Unfortunately the Port Arthur massacre in April got the new right-wing government in hysterics about violent media.
By the time of it's full release in late May, it was apparently unsuitable for MA15+, but rather than making changes to the code, the distributor decided to force the game's in-built parental control mode on. The uncensored game was still on disc, and within days of its r
This worries me greatly. (Score:2)
Re:This worries me greatly. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:This worries me greatly. (Score:4, Funny)
> Probably similar to Germany in that they're okay with killing non-humans
antisemite! :)
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Australia loves tits! In fact they only allow you to show large tits, because if they're small the person they're on could be a child.
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Yes, I still find it humorous that the gibs and blood in Team Fortress 2 were replaced with clockwork and oil.
Re:This worries me greatly. (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem with our current video game rating system is that MA15+ is the highest we have. The only other option the classification board has is to refuse the game classification altogether, thereby preventing it from being sold in Australia. This results in things that shouldn't pass a MA15+ rating getting one, because they're not so bad they should be refused classification altogether.
It's also why the idiotic "gotta protect the children!" crowd who oppose a higher rating for video games are showing themselves to be unthinking hypocrites who have zero interest in actually reducing the ease of access to violent or 'harmful' games by minors, and are instead interested only in shoving their own particular moralities down the throat of every adult in the country.
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I'm pretty sure I saw a DNF trailer with a nude (or almost nude) stripper, so I wonder how they managed this...
Censorship, sorry "classification" board is useles (Score:5, Informative)
The Classification Board is aware of just how much of a joke it's become. They've figured out that anything remotely popular now has to be given an M15+ rating regardless of content because they've been threatened by state governments to have their mandate pulled if they start trying to censor things. Basically they've become toothless, refuse classification and the media will drag you thought the mud so they'll just rubber stamp any level of violence and nudity even when it should be clearly restricted.
Basically this was the worst possible scenario for former attorney general Michael Atkinson, as 15 yr olds can now legally buy material that should be in the Restricted (R18+) category ironically because Atkinson opposed the introduction of a restricted category for video games. Hell, a 12 or 13 yr old could get it as they dont really do ID checks for M rated films, not to mention parents who dont understand the content that will buy it.
Well you made the bed Michael, now you have to lie in it.
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They don't and never have done ID checks for R rated films either. I rented Bad Boy Bubby when I was 12, and bought Se7en when I was even younger.
The ratings are a joke, nobody takes them seriously.
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they'll just rubber stamp any level of violence and nudity even when it should be clearly restricted.
What level of violence and nudity should "clearly" be restricted? It is not clear that ANY level of violence, nudity, or anything else should be restricted by the government.
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Bleargh anti-gubbermint rant.
If you bothered to find out anything, you would have learned that:
1. the classification board is an independent entity, which is why the Pro R rating government has been able to do nothing about the lack of an R rating for games.
2. Restricted is the term for the R rating which can only be sold to people over the age of 18. In other words, it does not mean what you think it means.
But dont let any of that g
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No, no. Violent media merely makes people aggressive! And, as we all know, those temporary aggressive thoughts always turn into physical violence! Therefore, games should be banned/censored. Also, teenager's brains haven't completely formed yet, so that automatically means that they are so ignorant that they can't tell the difference between fiction and reality (the same goes for children). This is all very scientific, you see...
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I wouldn't say that, violence has always been pretty depraved throughout history, we just dont write that bit in the history books. We tend to remember the past with rose tinted glasses.
But the second part is true, we have the lowest rates of murders, domestic violence, assaults and several other crimes in the last 100 odd years. Personally I put this down to cultural shifts away from the glorification of ac
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Perhaps I didn't make my point clearly enough. I did say "any level" of nudity, not any nudity.
The difference between an M (Mature) rated and an R (Restricted) rated film is normally the severity and frequency of violence and nudity.
Australia is not like the US, we have naked breasts on TV all the time, however when it becomes excessive or turns into full frontal nudity it tends to be a bit more restricted. Even simulate
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Pretty much what I was trying to say mate, you're reading into my melodrama a bit too much. Think of it as twisting the knife in Atkinson's side, his opposition to R18 means that R material is being released as M15.
The Classification Board (Fuck it, we need to rename it back to the Office of Film and Literature Classification) should only offer "ratings advice"
Wow. (Score:2)
Now Yahtzee will have to review it for real...
A good test platform (Score:3)
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In the Australian edition (Score:2)
Will Duke wear a cork hat?
Re:Not censored in australia? (Score:4, Informative)
Left 4 dead 2 had zombie corpses despawning before they hit the ground, no decapitations or amputations, no blood or gore.
It's horrendous to play in that condition. The rules are not applied equally either. It depends on which particular censor you get. Studios can of course contest the rating to a higher board which seems to be a little better.
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the COB (formerly OFLC) are kinda arbitrary.
contesting a classification comes at a high price and no guarantee that the rating will be any more sane (i know of some DVD titles that came back worse after a re-classification).
it surprises me how games with major studios behind them seem to get MA ratings when games with less financial backing will be rejected with an R rating.
just sayin', wouldn't want to imply that money had changed hands or anything.
in the end it means that the MA audience are often gettin
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Re:Aren't Australians all the grandchildren of rap (Score:4, Informative)
So long as we're ignoring the huge figures of people moving here from overseas: Actually, we're the grandchildren of petty theives. The nasty ones all would've been hanged back in England.
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I would've went with slave owners and tax dodgers but I guess that's fair too.
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You're thinking of the Americans.
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Nice. A whooshjack.
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Bzzt. The vast majority of convicts sent to British colonies in the 1700s (which includes Australia, and GASP, also America pre-1776!) were petty crooks. Small time thieves, people stealing some food for their family, or general undesirables that managed to piss off the establishment. Serious criminals (murderers and rapists etc.) would most definitely have been executed in England at the time. They wouldn't waste time and money shipping them to the other side of the planet.
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Sybil, is that you?
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Whoa, hold on thar cowboy. At least admit it's a bit disengenuous. Like germany preaching tolerance towards jews. Keep a little historic perspective is all I'm really saying. Like it or not, we're all to some extent a product of our national history.
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The fact that Australians are descended from criminals is historic fact. It's only offensive if you're Australian and choose to be ashamed of it.
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GNU is submitting the Hurd to the Australian censors tomorrow. As long as the censors don't block it for promoting anti-corporate values they still have a chance of getting in before DNF. However, should the censor request changes, such as the addition of DRM, expect indefinite further delay.
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I see he tested it with an Xbox controller. Well duh, any FPS feels less interesting without the proper control system: keyboard+mouse.
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All these articles I read about DNF and how "bad" it is actually just make me want to play it more. I think people have forgotten what an FPS is like when it's not an ultra realistic war/scifi shooter.
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From the Ars Technica review:
Women want to be with him, and men want to be him. He has his own casino; he has his own video game—which took 12 years to create; he complains loudly in a nice touch of meta-humor—and he's getting head from two blonde twins.
They are called the Holsom Twins, modeled after a certain set of child stars, and they love Duke and each other very much... and very graphically.
Seems like this game could make the God of War minigames look tame...