Gearbox Community Day 2011: This Party Was 15 Years In The Making

This past Saturday (June 11th, 2011), Gearbox Software invited all of it’s fans in the Dallas, Texas area to come on down to the Palladium ballroom and enjoy panels and gameplay from their wide range of titles. It was a similar format to Quakecon, with developers, artists, and engineers all taking the stage to answer questions and give video gamer’s an inside look at the titles they lovingly play.

First off, Community Day was packed with fans. Gearbox sent out invites to their beta testers, families, friends, and anyone who would go to the Gearbox website. During the event, Randy Pitchford (CEO of Gearbox Software) stated that they had had over 2,600 fans pre-register for the events throughout the day, with more expected to show for the Duke Nukem Launch Party later that night. The show did get off to a late start (with all of those fans wrapping around the building, waiting to check-in), but boy did it start. They started with a gameplay demo for Aliens: Colonial Marines.

From what was said during the Aliens: Colonial Marines panel and what I gathered from the gameplay demo, Aliens: CM will be the true sequel to the second Alien film directed by James Cameron. The guys at Gearbox Software are passionate about the alien lore and saga, as well as wanting to dive deeper into the world to answer some questions left behind on the planet LV-426.

You play as a marine sent onto LV-426, part of the cavalry that was called in from the movie, destined to investigate what happened to the original crew that stumbled upon the alien queen and eggs. It’s a dark, ambient first-person shooter, with glowing reds, yellows, and whites coming through grates in the floor and ceiling. As a gamer, I can usually tell in my first glimpse of a game what the developers chose to skimp on, and what the game engine assets are hanging their hat on. For Aliens: CM, they’re going for lighting and ambiance. The mood for the demo was great. The soundsystem was turned up loud, the darkness engulfed the room, and everyone was sitting on the edge of their seat completely silent in the dark, waiting for the next scare. Being a huge Alien fan, I got fucking chill bumps from the gameplay demo for Aliens: CM, if that will tell you something.

Next up came the Borderlands panel immediately following the Aliens: Colonial Marines demo. If you listen to the Aliens panel, around the 45 minute mark or so you can start to hear all of these people talking. This pissed me off to no end. Someone decided it was a great idea to open up all of the doors surrounding the conference room and let people leave. Not only did these people leave and be disrespectful, they immediately started chatting about how they were going to get their grubby hands on a PC to play Duke Nukem Forever, knowing full well they’ll have the entire day (until 5pm to play it).

The Borderlands panel was informative, if not a little long. It’s hard to have a panel on a game that’s been out for a few years and everyone has read everything about it online. Still though, it’s Borderlands, and I had no idea that Randy Pitchford did the voice of Crazy Earl, and Mikey Neumann did the voice of the iconic Scooter from the game.

Next up came the Brothers In Arms: Furious 4 demo. This was another one of the gameplay demos I shouldn’t have recorded. Set during World War II, there is a small group of 4 soldiers sent in by the government to kill Hitler on his own turf. These guys get access to some weirdly cool weapons and wreak havoc on the Nazis. I don’t know what the offical politically correct version of that is, but I’m calling it a fucking good time. We’re talking about 4-person co-op, dynamic cut scenes, cool perks and weapons to unlock, all under this stylized version of World War II. I think the best way to sum this up was from Mr. Neumann during the panel when he said that the setting and time of the events is in WWII Brothers In Arms, but the attitude of the game is completely new. So we’re going to see gruesome chainsaw deaths, pick-axe throws to the heads, and we’re going to be doing it to punk music or even Ride With Me by the Vines. It was definitely a different take on World War II, one that looks pretty awesome.

Last but certainly not least was the Duke Nukem Forever panel. This was obviously the star of the show and the reason we all made the trek down into downtown Dallas to be here. With John Saint John in front of a mic doing the voice of Duke, you know things got crazy. It started out as a “we did this and kinda fucked this up” type of affair, but after the panel went into a new direction, the voice was simply, “We fucking did it! Even though it took 15 years, Duke finally has a home.”

After 7 constant hours of panels and content without a meal and barely anything to drink, I headed home for a catnap and came back for the Duke Nukem Forever launch party. Needless to say, the guest list was star studded. Cliffy B even showed up!

That’s me and my buddy Chris (I’m on the left) with the creator of the Gears of War series and most recently Bulletstorm. No telling who the guy behind us is who photobombed us, but it was a chance for gamers to come and rub elbows with the creators who spent so much time on the game over the years, taking refuge in someone’s house to continue development on the game, even when 3D Realms folded.

So with that being all said, Duke Nukem Forever is going to hit store shelves tomorrow. It won’t win any awards. It won’t be a benchmark in gaming and what to do or how to do something. It’s Duke. He’s back. You’re either a fan of Duke Nukem or you’re not. The game is a mish-mash of game engine, audio, textures, and lighting engines strung along together since 2006.

So when you think about buying Duke tomorrow on release day, ask yourself, “Did Duke 3D ever win any awards? Did Duke 3D ever get a high review score?” I’ll answer that. No and no. But what you do remember is playing Duke 3D and having a great time. That’s what you’re going to get from this game, so when you play Duke Nukem Forever and you go into the bathroom and you pick up that piece of shit out of the toilet and throw it at the wall? That’s a Duke Nukem experience. It took 15 fucking years to get here, but I’m happy he’s back. It’s a relief for a lot of people to get this out to gamers’ hands who’ve been clamoring for it for a long time. Now we can get our taste of toilet bowl shit on the wall and wait for the next Duke Nukem game to come down the pipeline.