2004 will soon be at an end, and once again, another year will have gone by that has not seen the release of Duke Nukem Forever. el oh el.

Here is an interesting list I saw on the SA forums that helps put DNF's development time in perspective:

The first press release I can find concerning DNF is dated April 25, 1997.
• Grand Theft Auto 1, 2, London, III, Vice City, likely San Andreas
• Fallout, Fallout 2, All eight (to my knowledge) Infinity Engine games and expansions, and three Baldur's Gate console spinoffs
• Final Fantasies VII, VIII, IX, X, X-2 XI, Tactics, Tactics Advance, Crystal Chronicles, Origins, Anthology, Chronicles and the Ergheiz & two Mysterious Dungeon spinoffs
• Legend of Zelda: Four Swords, Wind Waker, Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask, Link's Awakening DX, Link to the Past GBA, Legend of Zelda GBA, Oracle of Seasons, Oracle of Ages
• Unreal, Return to wherever the fuck that was, Unreal Tournament, UT2k3, UT2k4 and at least 4 games off the top of my head that use its engine
• Quakes 2 and 3, and God knows how many games used those two engines
• Thief 1, 2, 3
• The Sims and all seven expansions
• Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1, 2, 2x, 3, 4, Underground
• Madden NFL '98, FIFA '98, NBA '98 and NHL '98 for the Super Nintendo, and NHL '98 for both the SNES and Genesis
• Might & Magic VI, VII, VIII and IX
• With the exception of Meridian 59, every MMORPG apart from MUDs (I may be off here; at any rate UO was released five months after DNF was announced)
• Romance of the Three Kingdoms VI, VII, VIII, IX, Dynasty Warriors 1-4 (and 2 expansions), Samurai Warriors, Kessen 1 & 2, Dynasty Tactics 1 & 2, Mystic Heroes
• Every Dance Dance Revolution game
• Every single Pokémon game released in the US
• Every Deer Hunter game
• Chessmaster 5500, 6000, 7000, 8000, 9000 with 10th edition out in two months, just on the PC
• Twenty (to my knowledge) Mega Man titles, for GBC, GBA, GC and N64, not including direct ports
• Thirty (to my knowledge) Star Wars titles, again not including direct ports

And something new! Working Designs is famous for taking absolutely forever to release a product. Since the announcement of Duke Nukem Forever, WD has released Albert Oddesy, Magic Knight Rayearth, Sega Ages (maybe), Raystorm, Elemental Gearbolt, Lunar: Silver Star Story, Sillhouette Mirage, Lunar 2: Eternal Blue, Alundra, Arc the Lad Collection, Raycrisis, ThunderForce V, Vanguard Bandits, Silpheed and Gungriffon Blaze, with Growlanser Generations out in two months. Working Designs CEO Victor Ireland has made approximately 3,710 Usenet posts since the announcement of Duke Nukem Forever.

Also:

The Voyager 1 spacecraft has travelled approximately 2.5 billion miles since the announcement of Duke Nukem Forever.

The rovers Spirit and Opportunity were proposed, authorized, announced, designed, launched and successfully landed upon Mars within the timeframe of Duke Nukem Forever's development.

The majority of the children who were entering high school the school year following Duke Nukem Forever's announcemnt are now eligible to drink.

Don't forget my personal favourite: the Beatles managed to release their first single through to their last studio album in less time than DNF has been in development.


Video game systems that have been released in DNF's development time:

Neo Geo Pocket Color
Wonderswan
Dreamcast
Gameboy Advance
N-Gage
Playstation 2
X-Box
Gamecube

Systems around the corner:

Playstation Portable
Nintendo DS
X-Box 2
GameCube Successor
Playstation 3

---

I have a copy of the PCGamer magazine that has the "first ever" screenshots of DNF. The date is November 1997. I keep it for the nostalgia, and the hilarity.

All I can say is.. "el oh el"