Possibly the longest ever software development cycle in history is at last coming to an end with the announcement of Duke Nukem Forever shipping dates.

The game has been in development since 1997 and its predecessor, Duke Nukem 3D was one of the most popular first person shooters of its day. 3DRealms worked on the game for 12 years, before finally giving up the ghost, reportedly starting from scratch more than once.

But after a company takeover and a lot of hard coding it looks like the game will finally be released on May 3 in the US and worldwide three days later, on PC, Xbox and PS3 platforms.

Judging from the blurb on the publisher 2K's site buyers can expect the same first person and multiplayer format, with a lot of features from the original game including the ever-popular shrink ray. Unfortunately it also seems to have kept the infamous misogyny of the original.

Sneak suspects a lot of middle and senior IT execs will be downloading a copy for a few evenings' nostalgia, but whether it can capture gamers' imagination in more enlightened times remains to be seen.

22 Jan 2011