Finishing Duke Nukem Forever

One thing Pitchford is at pains to make clear is: "There's a tremendous amount of George in the game. [He's] a very capable, experienced game developer and certainly no-one was more committed than him to the objective of making sure Duke Nukem Forever was a worthy sequel to Duke 3D and a wholly entertaining, great experience."

Broussard, despite relinquishing the rights, has remained very close to the project. "He emailed me three times last night," Pitchford grins, describing an exchange that followed his BAFTA talk earlier in the week.

"I sent him an email yesterday evening saying, 'Hey, you know, I was kind of having fun with this audience talking about some random things? Like with the whole gay robot thing, and apparently that's become a story, heads up!'"

"And he's like, 'Yeah, saw that, that's the power of the Duke! People, anything they can latch onto, they're just having fun talking about it. That's the power of the Duke, baby!'"

Gearbox, 3D Realms and 2K will find out just how potent the Duke's powers are from today, with the game now on sale. Pre-order indications suggest they have little to worry about initially. Which may go some way to explaining Pitchford's possibly hubristic remarks on reviews.

"You're just missing out on a ginormous aspect of videogames history if you fail to participate."

"We know the game's great. Any journalist that decides to try to go... To lowball it is gonna be held accountable by the readers.

"It's also Duke frickin' Nukem frickin' Forever. One could not be a gamer in this world without consuming that and having that experience. You're just missing out on a ginormous aspect of videogames history if you fail to participate.

"This game's gonna ship and we're all going to be there, so it doesn't matter what the score is."

Pitchford does, at least, acknowledge the unique challenges the game presents to the media. "I would not want to be a journalist on this one, though. I would not want to be a critic. It's going to be tough." Not least, one might argue, when a publisher gives some press no reasonable chance of hitting the embargo.

Duke Nukem is no stranger to controversy. 1996 release Duke Nukem 3D was banned or censored is some territories, while stirring up a hornet's nest of moral outrage in others thanks to its adult, sexual content.

"It's sexist, degrading filth!" cried the critics. "It's harmless, tongue-in-cheek fun!" blasted back fans.

15 years on and the same arguments are raging once more. The "strong violence, sex, nudity, language & drug references" in the 18-rated game, detailed by the BBFC, are exactly what fans want and would expect. But where does Duke fit in the modern world?

"There's this line somewhere where on one side of it nobody even raises an eyebrow... And then on the other side there's, 'Oh those people should be in jail'," says Pitchford.