So some of you guys might have seen the Duke Nukem Forever 2013 trailer which was posted on Youtube one month ago. While it was considered to be a nice joke, no one would have ever believed it was meant to be anything beyond an amusing mock-up to show what the actual Duke Nukem Forever was missing compared to the legendary E3 trailer from 2001.

We couldn't have been more wrong, folks...!

On April 30, Gambini put an announcement into the Duke4.net forums which changed pretty much everything. The trailer actually wasn't any hoax, it was showing actual ingame footage from a Duke3D mod which has now been unleashed on the world!

Spanning over five levels and providing about two hours of gameplay, Gambini, Mikko Sandt and a few other masterminds are delivering the awesomeness which could (or should) have been included with DNF in the first place! Master new weapons (Assault Rifle, redesigned RPG/Shrinker), fight new enemies (T-800, new types of Enforcers which fire lasers or freezer projectiles, tentacle soldiers and more), explore locations you know from the E3 trailer (e.g. EDF Headquarters, the Anderson Mines or encounters with the frightened girl and old Gus), ride a motorbike and the legendary donkey and, most importantly, enjoy some of the most entertaining Duke3D levels you might have played in ages!

It is impossible to put everything that could be said about this mod here, but I have posted a small review in the Duke4.net forums (also with some screenshots, and the thread contains more). Basically, all you need to do is to place the mod contents in a folder, put a copy of your duke3d.grp there as well and run the included batch file, done. Minimum effort, maximum enjoyment.

Stop wasting more time and get the "DAM" thing NOW over at ModDB!

After two new music packs have been added recently, I have taken a look at the older SC-55 Music Pack once again and realized that its tracks are not normalized, resulting in a lower ingame volume than intended. I have taken care of that issue and uploaded an updated version (v3.1) which you can get from the Download section as usual.

This will serve as a placeholder release until MusicallyInspired finishes his work on v4.0 which should include these changes, also adding looping points featured in more recent EDuke32 snapshots.

Since March 20, the Duke Nukem 3D Megaton Edition is available on Steam! Besides the option to run the game in OpenGL or classic mode (via DOSBox), it also includes the addons Duke Caribbean, Duke It Out in D.C. and Nuclear Winter. These expansions were kind of hard to come by so far, so this is your chance to get the full package right now!

You will get a 10% discount if you buy until March 27, so anyone who is still missing this must-have title should seriously fix this as soon as possible!

The first announcement of this year brings a double-pack for all those who would like to have even more options to choose from when listening to Duke3D music ingame!

Two new music packs have been added for your listening pleasure. While the first one addresses those who loved the Gravis Ultrasound back in the old days (beefed up with EAWPATS patches to sound even better than the original ever did), the second one utilizes the Fluid R3 soundfont, delivering crystal-clear music with great instruments. Duke music has rarely sounded better (at least concerning mere MIDI conversions), so it is definitely worth paying a visit to the Download section!

In other news, there has been some activity within the HRP SVN repository in the meantime. Among other stuff, the maphacks system has seen a revision, featuring support for custom maps without breaking hacks for the classic original levels. Also, Tea Monster released awesome high-quality Duke and Cycloid Emperor models back in February, meant as a goodbye present for the community. He will be missed, but his creative work will live on in our HRP (and hopefully elsewhere, too)!
When all this will be officially available in another public release has not yet been decided, but something around summer might be realistic, after everything has been tested and polished. Right now, we are talking about roughly 100 MB additional or changed content, so it's not bad at all.

Oh, Tidings of Comfort and Joy! Once again, the Duke is bringing some presents - and of course, this means you can get busy with playing until all those freaking aliens finally blow up in those nice, colorful explosions we all like so much. *That* is the Christmas spirit! Well, maybe at least for Duke... :)

Experts among you have already guessed what this is all about. And you are right: We went again into the depths of the SVN repository and compiled for you the latest Duke3D Highres Pack v5.2! Even though not too much new stuff has accumulated throughout 2012, many fixes and tweaks turn this into a rock-solid release. Especially those of you who are running EDuke32 in Polymost mode will be happy since you won't need a separate HRP any more. Be sure to check out the instructions on the Download page for details!

You can expect these changes in v5.2:

• [FEATURE] Full Polymost compatibility (use parameter -hduke3d_hrp_polymost.def)
• [UPDATE] New HUD weapon models for pistol and shotgun
• [UPDATE] New hanging slime babe
• [UPDATE] Improved crosshairs
• [UPDATE] Polymer/Polymost adding/optimization for many textures
• [FIX] FOV change for RPG, fixed animation for HUD Devastator
• [FIX] Model fixes for Trooper
• [FIX] Rotation corrections for various models
• [FIX] Activation of various "forgotten" textures throughout the HRP

Half a year has gone by again already... insane how quickly time passes. Some of you may have been wondering what is going on in the meantime. Well, regarding the HRP project, not THAT much. If you take a look at the SVN repository, you see that mostly tweaks have been applied to existing content, some Polymer versions here, some Polymost versions there, fixes for some glitches etc. Since August, actually no additions have been made at all.

I have been inactive due to RL issues for the better part of this year so far, but I intend to return soon. Even more so since Parkar has asked me to move him to "retired" status officially in the Contact section now. He is more or less not involved in the project any more, so it makes sense to do it like this. As far as I am concerned, I will keep doing what I can to push some releases when it makes sense, and of course I remain available for email support in case you guys have some questions.

Hopefully, the general inactivity is again only a temporary one and we can think about another HRP version later this year, ideally around Christmas. It has become some sort of tradition to issue something at that time, and I hate to break with traditions. :)

After we gave you a little break from the somewhat crazy February update madness, it pays off to head over to the Downloads section for the Polymer HRP Update Pack v5.1.302.

Once more, the list of changes is really short, but significant. Most importantly, you'll get the new HUD pistol made by Tea Monster and finished by Spiker. This was a long-awaited addition to the pack, and the result is quite impressive as you can see on this comparison screenshot! You wonder how you could ever accept the old model for such a long time after you have tried the new one. A definite improvement and closer to the original sprite.

What's happening right now:
LeoD is having a close look at the current HRP contents, re-adding all Polymost items which had been removed after Polymer was introduced. Hopefully, this will make it easier to provide Polymost packs in the future. For now, lots of internal file renaming needs to be made, so any future update packs would probably contain many duplicated files. Maybe it will make more sense to wait until the process is finished and release another "refreshed" HRP version after that. Anyway, there's work going on - and that's never a bad thing.

Well folks, I told you a few days ago there would be a "refreshed" release for the HRP update pack. It really wasn't a joke, so head over to the Downloads section once again (I think you know where it is by now) and get your Polymer HRP Update Pack v5.1.295.

The changes seem minor enough - just two new textures for Episode 4 and a badly needed FOV fix for the HUD shotgun. Wait, what? Yeah, that's right. Our shotty finally doesn't look like a literal "boomstick" any more, now it feels much more like the original sprite we know and like. Take a look at this comparison screenshot and see for yourself! Hard to believe, but the model didn't change - all it needed was a new feature in EDuke32 to adjust the Field of Vision (FOV) for HUD weapons via definition files (implemented a while ago already) - and someone to actually do it, which was Spiker in this case. The result pretty much speaks for itself. Unfortunately, this considerable improvement is only available for the Polymer renderer right now, but anyone who is able to run it should definitely use this.