Duke Nukem Forever update

All right, so PC shooter Duke Nukem Forever may not be heading to the shops in time for Christmas after all, despite rumours to the contrary. But at least it's coming along nicely, according to a 3D Realms staff member posting on the developer's forum.

"The current game sits at 9.6 gigs," the poster wrote. Blimey.

"But as I've said in the past, that will be trimmed as there is surely lots of data in there that needs to be culled. I can't see culling more than 2-3 gigs though."

The poster also responded to a query as to how many lines have been coded so far: "I don't have an exact number, but the guys have told me in the past that we're at a million lines or more.

"Meqon code is excluded because that's just linked in. We don't have the source code."

Elsewhere on the forum, 3D Realms CEO George Broussard replied to one Duke Nukem fan who questioned why development is taking so long, writing: "I've said it before and I'll say it again that I would have been happy playing two or three less than polished Duke PC titles just to keep the spirit alive rather than wait this out."

"And I'm right there with you. I wish that had been an option," Broussard said.

"I've said it before and I'll say it again, we screwed up on early versions and made some mistakes. This hasn't been a journey of perfection. It's been a journey of just trying to finish what we started, and make it as cool as possibile.

"I would love to have been on Duke 7 by now, but that's not how things panned out," Broussard continued.

"So all we can do is finish the game, and make it the best that we can, then move on. That's what we're trying to do right now."

Duke Nukem Forever is due out... Oh, who are we kidding. It's already been in development for around eight years now, and there's no guarantee it'll see the light of day in 2006. Here's hoping...