We played Duke Nukem Forever. It exists. And it’s going to be released. Seriously.

Old-school PC gamers and videogame history buffs understand the magnitude of that statement. This legendary vaporware first-person shooter — sequel to 1996’s classic Duke Nukem 3D and a dozen years in the making before seemingly being dealt a litigious deathblow last year — is back. Former 3D Realms level designer and current Gearbox boss Randy Pitchford (Borderlands, Brothers in Arms) purchased the whole kit and caboodle — unfinished game assets, IP, and all — and is finishing what 3D Realms began in 1997…and will release Duke Nukem Forever on Xbox 360 next year. The full story is incredible enough to fill an entire magazine (hmm…), but for now we’re too excited about the fact that we actually played the most infamous videogame to ever exist.

Fans of Duke know that the muscle-bound throwback to 1980s action heroes is all about three things: women, attitude, and killing the alien scum who’ve invaded Earth and are stealing our hot chicks. As the action begins on the game’s first level, titled “Duke Lives,” we’re greeted by the sight of a urinal and the prompt “Hold RT to piss.” Giving Duke a stinging prostate problem is easy, as you can stop and start his flow at will until you’re out of, uh, juice.

Stepping back, you’re in the locker room of the Detonators, a (fake) professional football team. Interactivity remains a hallmark of this series, as faucets can be turned on, toilets can be flushed, soap dispensers can be pressed, and logs of poop can be lifted from the bowls and flung around the locker room. “What am I, a chimpanzee?” “A turd in the hand is worth two in the bush,” and “Aww, why am I doing this?” are just a few of the lines Duke squeezes out as we keep picking up the specimen and hurling it around, laughing hysterically as our hero seems to never run out of hilarious gags to say about the disgusting act.

Did we mention that Duke is unabashedly politically incorrect?

As a clueless military man doodles on a locker-room whiteboard (it’s a rudderless plan — dubbed “Operation C**k Block” — for how to kill the giant, one-eyed Cycloid monster out on the stadium’s field), you can actually write and erase on the board yourself to your heart’s content. (In the spirit of the game, we scrawl a phallus.)

After we pick up the Devastator rocket launcher and move outside, the fight with the Cycloid harkens back to the final football-stadium boss battle of Duke 3D. The coup de grace is hilarious: you rip out the baddie’s oxygen tanks by mashing the A button, and when it topples and its lone giant eye rolls out of its head next to your boot, you press X to “kick a field goal” through the end-zone uprights. Then, in an unexpected meta moment, the camera pulls back to reveal that you were playing a Duke videogame within a Duke videogame. Duke’s holding a 360-esque gamepad with D, U, K, and E face buttons, and two girls get up from their knees in front of our hero (use your imagination here) and ask, “What about the game, Duke? Was it any good?” He self-deprecatingly replies, “Yeah, but after 12 f***ing years, it should be!”

In today’s gaming landscape, Duke serves as a stark — and welcome — contrast to the brooding, serious first-person shooters that dot the 360 landscape. Duke Nukem Forever is a frantic, fast-paced frag-fest that’s all about kicking alien ass with tongue wedged firmly in cheek. It’s impossible to know if the dozen-year development cycle will result in the greatest game of all time or a strange anachronism that would’ve been better left in the ’90s. But one thing is certain: we wouldn’t miss it for the world. Hell, we’ve waited this long…