Have you played... Duke Nukem Forever?

Have You Played? is an endless stream of game retrospectives. One a day, every day, perhaps for all time.

You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you might find you get a steaming pile of half-baked ideas, geriatric technology and an exhausting cocktail of ill-judged satire and straight-up misanthropy.

In hindsight, what happened was the only appropriate ending for the saga of Duke Nukem Forever, the ever-game, the saviour, the everything and anything. How could all those years, all those promises, all that hype possibly coalesce into anything other than chaos? Look upon my works, ye mighty, and be glad you didn't pre-order. More to the point, the sorry state of the eventual DNF only adds to the legend.

The most likely alternative - it was released a decade previous, was fine for the time, and then there were a string of diminishing-returns sequels that only looked increasingly pathetic as blockbuster videogame aesthetics moved further and further away from wisecracking lunkheads, 'babes' and oversized guns - would, I suspect, have been a sadder fate than burning so brightly for so long, then self-immolating in this insane way.

God, it's really a thing that happened. I mean - that's something, isn't it? And the bit with the poo was funny first time around.