geekosystem

Everyone knew that the Mechromancer DLC for Borderlands 2 was coming. The fifth class had been teased long before the game actually released. The DLC actually going live yesterday, however, was not something that was expected. The fact that there's a new class for Borderlands 2 isn't even the juicy part, though. The update included references to something called Captain Scarlett and Her Pirate's Booty -- which sounds an awful lot like more DLC.

The quickest way to win the hearts and minds of Internet denizens is by amusingly trolling them. At least, that's apparently what Gearbox Software was counting on when they made one very special gun: Hyperion's Energizing Bane for Borderlands 2. The gun itself boasts some impressive stats. It also just so happens to make an infernal racket when players shoot, and slows characters to a crawl. Hit the jump if you want to hear what very well may be the most annoying sound in the world.

Tom Petty had it right; the waiting really is the hardest part. Borderlands 2, the sequel to the much beloved shooter, is set to hit shelves September 18th in North America and September 21st internationally. The developer, Gearbox Software, knows that folks are itching to play the newest offering and trek across Pandora one more time. In order to whet gamers' appetites, they've released an official 16-bit demake of the game.

We knew it was happening. When Gearbox Software surprisingly relaunched the development of the fabled Duke Nukem Forever, we knew one day it would finally launch. And yet, here we are, presented with the news that the King's return has gone gold and will be released to the public next month, and it still seems like a weird alternate reality, or at least regular reality where on launch day Gearbox declares, "Just kidding."

"It's just a game releasing," you might say. "Duke is offensive and childish," someone else who isn't fond of the completely satirical take on extreme masculinity might offer. "It's just a first-person shooter," someone too young to remember the impact on gaming the original Duke Nukem 3D had. Duke Nukem Forever going gold matters for two reasons. The first reason being that the game has been the joke of the gaming industry for the past fourteen years. That's 1997. This game has been in development since 1997. It has a development history Wikipedia page that is longer than its regular Wikipedia page. Fourteen years of development, and the game finally made it. It should be some kind of milestone if it weren't so ridiculous. Secondly, back in the early days of gaming, when pixelated first-person shooters reigned supreme, Duke was one of the first games to offer gamers a coherent, fun, online gaming experience, as well as one of the first user-friendly level builders, which allowed users to pump out well-made custom maps with minimal effort. However one may feel about Duke, from a historical gaming standpoint, Duke matters, and after fourteen years of development hell, Duke Nukem Forever is no longer vaporware.

Now we just have to hope it's good.

(@GearboxSoftware via Rock, Paper, Shotgun)

Built on Epic Games' Unreal Engine 3, Duke Nukem: Next-Gen, a fan-made remake of the 1996 venerable, campy PC first person shooter, Duke Nukem 3D, has been officially approved by current Duke Nukem 3D license holder Gearbox Software, in yet another act of Gearbox being totally awesome.

When developer Gearbox Software took it upon themselves to steal away one of the video game industry's best jokes--the ludicrous twelve-year-long development period for Duke Nukem Forever--gamers everywhere were both astounded that the game would actually be coming out and sad to lose one of our industry's most venerable jokes. When Gearbox took over the development, gamers humorously wondered if their pre-orders from twelve years ago would be honored. At a press event in London yesterday, Gearbox decided to be both simultaneously awesome for revealing they were talking to retailers to somehow find a way to honor the old pre-orders, and jerks for taking yet another Duke Nukem Forever joke away from us.