It's one of the great 'What ifs' of PC gaming. What if Duke Nukem Forever had not stumbled onto Steam in 2011 looking tired and confused in a washed-out Doom 3 engine, but had released as depicted in its legendary E3 2001 trailer, where it looked set to steal Half-Life 2's thunder with its cinematic storytelling, imaginative set-pieces, and preposterous levels of interactivity.
Like a lot of middle-aged PC gamers, I've often wondered what this version of Duke Nukem Forever might be like to play. But when a playable prototype of DNF 2001 leaked a few years back, I found myself oddly reluctant to jump in. What if it proved to be terrible, obliterating my fantasy that somewhere there's a universe in which Duke Nukem Forever was good? Worse, what if it proved to be great, leaving me further frustrated that the version we got was such a groaning disappointment?
