Perspective is a funny old thing. If you follow any modern discussion about the classic 90’s shooter Duke Nukem 3D, it almost always circulates around how out-of-date and embarrassingly sexist he seems now in in retrospect. Back in the 90’s trashy Howard Stern toilet humour was wildly popular – It gave rise to cultural icons with South Park and The Simpsons. Even wrestling got in on the act with a trashier, cooler product of “cool” bad guys and thumping metal music. 20 years later, though, the generation X of rock and roll culture has very slowly dissipated from memory and it’s no longer as funny or clever to laugh at sex workers and turds and naughty swears as it once was and criticism of how out of place old man Duke is nowadays is just as common as articles about how ground breaking the original Duke Nukem 3D was. Gearbox software have taken the reigns on the latest re-release of the classic 90’s naughty swear word shooter and this time they’ve crammed it full of new bits. Now, full disclosure, I absolutely adore Duke, and the out-of-date arguments we hear a lot of usually make me feel really confused, so what is it that’s pushed it just outside of people’s memories?  Continue reading “Duke Revisited: How can we refresh an outdated image?”