• The central tenet of the Cherokee tribe is, as noted by the opening voice-over of the Prey demo, that “the world is full of stories, and from time to time they permit themselves to be told.” The Cherokee are proud of their centuries of peaceful and harmonious co-existence with the obstinate herds of story in their lands. In the Cherokee tongue, the story that tells of a brave single-handedly stopping an invasion is known as a “hacknee”.
• The Cherokee talk to themselves almost all the time, to the point where psychiatrists now have a separate DSM classification for their unique predilection for schizotypal personality disorder.

  

  Here we see Prey’s actually-named-Tommy-Hawk protagonist, Tommy Hawk, looking in the bathroom mirror of the bar his girlfriend owns and being sarcastic with himself about being scared of women. That may seem somewhat whiny and nebbishy, but being a total dipshit is the traditional Cherokee hero’s tragic flaw. For instance, the great Cherokee hero Kanati, also known as “The Luckiest Hunter”, was so perplexed by the concept of vaginas and the people who own them that he ended up marrying an ear of corn.

• The Cherokee, like all Native Americans, love nothing more than drinking themselves into a stupor whenever they can sell enough turquoise to buy booze.

  

  Pictured above: This is the very first thing Tommy’s grandpa does after giving him a prophetic warning that he will need to embrace his Cherokee heritage to survive.

• The Cherokee are from what is now the southeastern United States, namely Tennessee, Georgia, and the Carolinas. Here is a screenshot of the spirit lands of the Cherokee, where Tommy goes after dying.

  

  This is, as grandpa says, the ancient land of the Cherokee forefathers, before the white man came and filled in all the canyons and replaced the desert climate with the more temperate and less arid conditions the region is known for today.

• A Cherokee brave, even those that reject their heritage like Tommy, can instantly learn the ability to “spirit walk”, which looks cool and makes you immortal.

  

  All that is required is for your mystical dead grandpa to tell you to “let your spirit carry you where your body cannot pass”, which you can simulate by pressing the ‘E’ key. For unknown reasons the Cherokee saved this secret specifically for the case of alien invasion, giving the Trail of Tears and the smallpox stuff a pass. Luckily Tommy is not smart enough to think about this, because it would probably make him hate being a Cherokee even more.

  Also pictured: a Cherokee “spirit guide” in the form of a hawk. Cherokee spirit guides have all played Quake IV, and thus have the ability to translate alien gibberish on a computer screen just by sitting on the top of it.

Though 3D Realms has now got to take some of the blame for this continuing, because George “The Decider” Broussard himself can’t even be bothered to know for sure what the deal is. Or maybe he really does, and the plan is to let this story ride until even Take-Two starts thinking that they owe 3D Realms $4.25 million when Duke ships. Naw, that’s too clever, or at least too not-cribbed-from-a-Bruce-Campbell-or-other-iconic-gamer-movie.

[Editor's note: GameSpot originally misreported the figure 3D Realms would be paid upon completion of Duke Nukem Forever. It has since been corrected. We regret the error.]

Keep regretting, fellas, because the amount 3D Realms is getting paid is zero.

It’s the new Highlander Style Fact-Checking Method: when you are notified of an inaccuracy in an article, stop as soon as you find and correct it, as there can be only one.

Joystiq has also fixed the erroneous $4,250 dollar figure, and also still have that money as going to 3D Realms. Can these almost assiduous all-stars pull off another screw-up or will they get it right the next time? And what about sites like Next Generation that haven’t made any corrections yet? Will they just crib from GameSpot again and stay wrong, like Ponyboy stays gold? Did Robert Frost ever write a poem about being wrong that makes fictional greasers a little gay for each other?

Joystiq’s update, with ironic jab at GameSpot’s acumen *UPDATE 6/13* …is now completely fixed (I think, it’s 90% unreadable now)

The new deal was referenced as being reported in Take-Two’s most recent SEC filing. SEC filings always report figures in thousands of dollars. So Take-Two actually brought the payout down from $6 million to $4.25 million, stupids. It takes very little time to get the SEC filing off of Yahoo, and then CTRL-F to search for “Duke”. Less than a minute. Then you would have had a chance to see you were being dumb.

What you couldn’t have known from reading that, though, is that a) this is two month-old news, or five months if you were good at connecting old dots, and b) the payment isn’t going to 3D Realms, but rather has already gone to DNF’s original publisher, GT Interactive, now part of Atari. If you’ll recall GT also had gotten $6 million when they signed over the publishing rights to Take-Two in the first place, too, aka the smartest deal GT Interactive ever made. The truth is, 3D Realms is going to get nothing from Take-Two for shipping except a a royalty check or two before the game is laughed off of shelves.

You guys did nail the part about the $500,000 bonus if it ships before the end of the year, though! Except it also goes to Atari. Great blogging!

Quite a list of blogtardedness involved here:

GameSpot, probably Patient Zero, who passed it on to

Joystiq, whereupon

Destructoid got it, and got a typo mutation that left Take-Two offering themselves the $4,250.

Slashdot and Voodoo Extreme got caught by GameSpot, too.

Evil Avatar didn’t repeat or dispute the number but did have the money as going to 3D Realms.

Kotaku actually got the $4.25 million right but also said it would be going to 3D Realms.

As did Next Generation.

Again, “good job” to all of you, for getting stale news almost completely wrong.

But after plugging away at DNF for eight out of its ten years, and having long since given up on his famous vow five years ago not to post on any internet forums until the game went gold, Charlie has thrown in the towel and said goodbye to 3D Realms. Taken from a post on his personal website’s forums:

Unsure exactly what I’ll be doing next and right now I’m just enjoying a true vacation with no time pressures and no need to do anything except play around.

Yes! No more time pressures! Wait…huh? Well, I guess I’d have lost a little perspective after eight years, too.