Duke Nukem Forever has become the stuff of videogame legend by being trapped in a seemingly unending development cycle that’s spanned ten years. Originally announced in 1997, DNF’s attracted a great deal of attention and enthusiasm, thanks in part to the popularity of 3D Realms earlier title, Duke Nukem 3D.

As the years wore on, the developer released little to no information about the game’s progress, and the gaming public began to wonder if DNF would ever actually see the light of day. Though 3D Realms would occasionally release a screen shot or statement to confirm that game was still in the works, some speculated that the company had no real plans to ever actually release it.

This teaser for Duke Nukem Forever is the first substantial DNF sighting to take place in years. Signs of the coming apocalypse are sure to follow. Doesn’t really show off too much other than Duke’s bulging biceps, but it’s something, anyway. What do you think?

UPDATE: Game|Life writers’ thoughts on the trailer are below.

Susan: 3D Realms has certainly mastered the quick cut, haven’t they? Here, have a nanosecond-long glimpse at some monsters! I do think the boarish-looking creature bellowing amid the bloody corpses was interesting and fun, but the little I could see of the other enemies (even going frame by frame) looked somewhat ordinary.

It does a decent job of capturing Duke’s attitude — blowing smoke into the camera is a nice touch — but I’m not sure how well the shtick has aged.

When it comes right down to it, if this weren’t Duke Nukem (Friggin’) Forever, I’m not sure how much I would care about the game based on this teaser.

Earnest: That was actually surprisingly cool. Not in the traditional form of cool, but in the hyper-masculine, aimed-entirely-at-men, 1980s-Schwarzenegger-flick kinda cool.

The graphics are vaguely blocky, and the footage didn’t look any better than Doom 3 did all those years ago, but there’s just something undeniably charming about a guy who smokes while working out that makes you wanna spend 10 or 15 hours with him blowing aliens into pieces and being sexist.

Unless they totally botch the gameplay, this could be huge.

Chris K: Going into this announcement, Broussard and co. had a lot of splainin’ to do if they were going to convince people that they were actually anywhere close to shipping this product at all. Having seen the trailer, they’re still where they were yesterday. A video and a Duke one-liner does not a game make; if it did, Duke Nukem Forever would have already shipped five times by now.

I don’t know why these people don’t get it — releasing a teaser trailer full of CG sequences that may or may not be from your final product simply isn’t in their best interest right now, as it just compounds the problem of them generating hype for a game that is miles from being a final product.

What they should have done was laid dormant, not talking about the game, quietly working on it, letting people forget it ever existed. Then, once the game was nearly ready to go and a few months from being on shelves, they have a huge info blowout and let people play it.

But they couldn’t keep this under their hats, and all it’s really done is kept Duke Nukem Forever fresh in the public eye and guaranteed it a first-place finish in next year’s Vaporware Awards because it won’t be out by then, either.

Chris B: If they’re trying to be over-the-top, they failed. The bar has been raised so much in the last ten years for gruff, laconic, absurdly musclebound hypermacho game heroes that this just feels stale. I think their best bet is to push it into parody, as if Duke Nukem was an Austin Powers figure, transported from the hair metal era and completely out of sync with the times.