Unreleased Duke Nukem Game Discovered At Library of Congress Archives

Remember how the Duke Nukem went through mountains and valleys over the years? It seemed that it never really got past its initial success, and with Duke Nukem Forever that seemingly lived up to its name before being released to much panning by critics, it looked as though the Duke Nukem franchise is never going to attain the highs of yesteryear. Well, have all the Duke Nukem games that have been developed been released already? Apparently not, as Duke Nukem: Critical Mass which was developed for the Nintendo DS by Frontline Studios, also had a PSP version which never saw the light of day. In fact, the original source disc of the game is lying at the Library of Congress.

Basically, the Moving Image section of the Library of Congress has functioned as the custodial unit for video games since 2006, and under their jurisdiction, they have managed to receive approximately 400 video games annually via the Copyright registration process.

It was a few months back during an inventory listing that a technician chanced upon a DVD-R that was labeled Duke Nukem: Critical Mass (PSP), where a line of text on the Copyright database record read “Authorship: Entire video game; computer code; artwork; and music.” This translates to it being the source disc that authored the UMD, which unfortunately, never made it to the mass market.

Edwin Kee
Categories: Gaming
Tags: duke nukem, Social Hit