Now here’s a total blast from the past to blow your mind on a Friday evening. 3D Realms is back in business, and to celebrate the studio re-launch an amazing bundle of 32 3D Realms and Apogee gaming classics has been released.

While sadly the 3D Realms Anthology is only available as a digital download and does not come in the tauntingly glorious faux box packaging pictured above, this bundle of retro gaming awesomeness does feature a unified game launcher, DRM-free support for modern Windows PCs, partial controller support, and a remastered soundtrack. In fact, the new soundtrack, titled 3D Realms Re-Rockestrated, comes included featuring 9 tracks re-composed by Interceptor Entertainment’s Andrew Hulshult.

The Anthology comes with every 3D Realms game except for Max Payne and Prey (the full list is pasted in below). Those two may be missing, but all your old favorites like Duke Nukem, Wolfenstein 3D, Shadow Warrior, Rise of the Triad and Commander Keen are back with a vengeance.

For an extremely limited time, all 32 games can be yours for just $19.99. After 48 hours (which began counting down yesterday), the price will rise to $39.99. Jump on this deal pronto!

•Arctic Adventure
•Bio Menace
•Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold
•Commander Keen: Goodbye Galaxy
•Commander Keen: Invasion of the Vorticons
•Math Rescue
•Monster Bash
•Mystic Towers
•Paganitzu
•Monuments of Mars
•Cosmo’s Cosmic Adventure
•Crystal Caves
•Death Rally
•Alien Carnage
•Hocus Pocus
•Major Stryker
•Blake Stone: Planet Strike
•Realms of Chaos
•Pharaoh’s Tomb
•Word Rescue
•Secret Agent
•Raptor: Call of the Shadows
•Terminal Velocity
•Wacky Wheels
•Stargunner
•Shadow Warrior
•Wolfenstein 3D
•Rise of the Triad: Dark War
•Duke Nukem
•Duke Nukem 2
•Duke Nukem 3D
•Duke Nukem: Manhattan Project

Now that I have a PC that can actually run every game I throw at it, Interceptor Entertainment’s Rise of the Triad reboot is high on my games-to-catch-up-on list. Today, it jumped up the list a few more notches with the release of patch version 1.4, which bundles a bunch of fixes and updates with free DLC, including 6 new community maps and the almighty Doomstick, “a semi-automatic Ludicrous shotgun from Hell.” How can you not want to shoot things with a gun called the Doomstick?

Even better news–at least for Steamers that don’t already own the game–Rise of the Triad is running at a 75% discount as the current Daily Deal on Steam. For the next 30-some-odd hours (as of press time), you can buy the game for a mere three bucks and some change. Holy Doomstick, that’s a great deal!

Apogee and Interceptor Entertainment’s balls-to-the-wall Unreal Engine 3 remake of 90s FPS Rise of the Triad is coming your digital download way on July 31st. Pre-orders are available now from Apogee, Steam, GOG.com, and Green Man Gaming, with the added bonus of a digital copy of the newly released Apogee Throwback Pack, which includes the original Rise of the Triad: Dark War and its Extreme Rise of the Triad expansion pack, plus Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold and Blake Stone: Planet Strike.

That’s a whole lotta retro first-person shooter goodness for only $9.99, but by pre-ordering the new Rise of the Triad, which sells for $14.99 by itself, the four Apogee Throwback classics will be yours for free, available for immediate download at the time of pre-purchase. I’d say it’s time to get ludicrous, y’all.

Ahhh… Is that the lovely scent of shareware in the air? Yep, must be, because Apogee Software is in the news again today with an announcement you probably didn’t see coming.

An Unreal Engine 3 remake of cult-favorite first-person shooter Rise of the Triad is in development at Interceptor Entertainment for a PC digital download release later this year via Steam. I’m ashamed to admit that I must’ve been playing too much Doom, Quake, Wolfenstein 3D and Duke Nukem 3D at the time to notice this lesser known 90s era FPS, but the remake sure looks like a dismemberment- and explosion-filled blast from the past based on the first trailer and screenshots released today (check the bottom of the page).

Apogee and Interceptor sure are packing on the features, too. Take a look at this LONG list of Rise of the Triad‘s 2012 offerings:

– Step into the shoes of the H.U.N.T. (High-Risk United Nations Taskforce) with five unique characters, each with different play styles.

-Blast through over 20 of levels of explosive single-player action.

-Unique multiplayer maps bring back all the fun and excitement of classic ROTT.

– The full arsenal of over-the top weapons is back, including the Flamewall, Firebomb, Split Missile, Drunk Missile and, of course, the Excalibat!

– The maniacal modes return, too, with God mode, Elasto mode, Mercury mode, Shrooms mode and everyone’s favorite, Dog mode!

– Build your own levels, mods and share them with Valve’s Steamworks.

– Offline single-player and multiplayer allows for instant action.

– Find tons of secrets, collectables, special events and hidden areas to explore.

– Get more than 100 achievements to add to your score, which is tracked on our worldwide leaderboard and stat-tracking system.

– ROTT is bloodier and more ludicrous than ever, with full character and enemy dismemberment.

– The iconic original soundtrack has been completely re-forged in the fires of heavy metal!

– Nostalgia abounds with the option to play with all the original sounds and music.

– Built on fully-licensed Unreal Engine 3 technology, ROTT will run on low-end PCs and push high-end PCs to their limits!

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Duke Nukem: Critical Mass, the first installment in Apogee’s Duke Nukem Trilogy reboot series for DS and PSP, is supposedly due out late this summer, these first screens from both versions hopefully a sign that the game will actually come out on time unlike Duke Nukem Forever. Not the prettiest of games — the DS version looking particularly dark and muddy — but nevertheless it should be fun to hop back into the role of Duke Nukem after such a long time. The PSP version actually appears like it’ll be playable in both third-person and first-person views. Pretty nifty.

DS:

PSP:

Now here’s a pleasant little E3 surprise announcement. Old shareware king Apogee Software is getting back in the game, today announcing plans to revive its “legacy catalogue of 30+ releases” and even begin publishing all-new original IPs. Apogee’s comeback will begin with the Duke Nukem Trilogy, a series of three new Duke Nukem games — Critical Mass, Chain Reaction, and Proving Grounds — produced under an agreement with 3D Realms and MachineWorks Northwest. The trilogy is being developed with a continuous storyline for both the DS and PSP, with the first title in the series set for a summer 2009 release. Zip over to Apogee’s website for all the details.