Yesterday we took a look at Minecraft, The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, Capcom, Dark Souls and Portal 2. Today, we have a whole second set of awards to be given out for the best (and worst) of 2011.

Game That Shouldn’t Have Taken Nearly As Long to Come Out: Duke Nukem Forever

What happened in the time span since Duke Nukem Forever began development?

The entire Presidential run of George W. Bush.

This writer’s entire high school and college career.

Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, Revenge of the Sith, and The Clone Wars were all released in theaters.

The XBox was released and ended its lifecycle.

Activision released 7 proper Call of Duty titles.

Lost.

A child born when development started would have grown to be a teenager.

The list goes on and on…

And the worst part is, after all that wait… Duke Nukem Forever wasn’t very good when it did finally come out. What was considered controversial when the game began production is pretty tame by comparison to what people are enjoying in gaming now and the humor comes off as sophomoric instead of clever.

While we can understand the desire to release a passion project to finally let it see the light of day, sometimes it is better to let it enjoy a quiet death with some dignity instead of coming out guns blazing as a failure.

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If you’re one of the people who’s been waiting fifteen years for Duke Nukem Forever to arrive, your wait is finally over. That’s right folks, after many, many delays and lots of time since Duke Nukem 3D’s original release, the sequel Duke Nukem Forever, which was announced way back in 1997, has now arrived.

“June 14 in North America will forever be celebrated as the day that legendary Duke Nukem Forever went from video game folklore to earth-shattering reality,” Christoph Hartmann, president of 2K Games, said. “For 15 years, fans have waited in limbo just yearning to hear those two little lovely words strung together–now available.”

As happy as this news is for many old school gamers, early reviews of the game have not been, shall we say, kind. The Guardian’s review was particularly unflattering saying: ”If this was 15 years in the making, it makes you wonder what they did for the other 14 years and 10 months.” Ouch.

Even with the seeming bad press after waiting so long for a game to arrive it seems a shame to not at least check it out. After all, how bad could it really be?

Duke Nukem Forever is in stores now and available for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC.

After years of speculation, delays and a feeling it was really never going to happen at all, we’ve finally got a firm belief that Duke Nukem Forever is actually going to come out. How do we know?

Well, we’ve got a launch trailer for the game to share with you today. Sure, it’s only taken about 14 years (the game was first in development in 1997) to get to his point, but who’s counting? Having a launch trailer has got to be a pretty good indicator, right?

In case you’re not familiar with Duke Nukem Forever, it’s the sequel to Duke Nukem 3D, which launched in 1996, and continues the story of badass Duke Nukem as he winds his way through a world infested with zombies, aliens and scantily clad women. In this new game the aliens have returned and are stealing earth’s women. Of course, Duke isn’t having any and takes matters into his own hands.

Check out the trailer after the jump. By clicking through you certify you are 18 years of age or older.

Duke Nukem Forever drops on June 14th for XBox 360, PS3 and PC.

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With any true fan film, the one element that needs to stand out above all else is that pure “fan” element that is embedded in the source material any aspiring director decides to adapt into a short film.

That’s what director Paul J. Helin of New Dawn Productions had in mind with his short film The Duke: Fate of Humanity, focusing on one of the most bad ass video game characters of all time: Duke Nukem.

All shot on the Red One, the film has incredible cinematic shots, but not much of a geeky pay off, which could very well come down the line if we get a longer version.

Check out the possibly NSFW (not really) fan film after the jump, and keep an eye out for more from New Dawn Productions.

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