Like everybody else in 2004, I was eagerly awaiting Half-Life 2. But I wouldn’t be a massive Doom geek if I wasn’t looking forward to Doom 3 more. I was 16 when Doom 3 came out in the summer of 2004. I’d been back into the Doom scene for a solid two years, probably more, and that’s on top of Doom having been one of the biggest games in my house for most of the ’90s. I was making my first maps at this point, awful as they might have been. Doom was in my blood, and I was ready
Tag: id Software
30 Games That Made Me Who I Am: 1993
On that same shareware collection that brought Wolfenstein 3D onto my family’s home computer, there was another, even more important game to me. Probably the most important game in my life. We’re talking, of course, about Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold. Nah, I’m just messing with you. We’re talking about DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM! As good as it was, there’s no surprise Blake Stone is completely forgotten in the wake of the game that came out just a week later and literally changed the world: id Software’s Doom. Doom forever changed the landscape of videogames. It codified an entire genre, appealed to people who’d never considered themselves gamers, ruined
A DIGITALEIDOSCOPE Exclusive: 13 Most Memorable Maps
It’s the holidays! Another Doomsday just a few days ago, with Christmas and New Years right on the horizon. There’s another sort of holiday to celebrate today, too: the 25th episode of What’s Awesome, Doom?, and just over three years that I’ve been doing the column! Yeah, I’ve really only done 25 episodes in all that time. What a professional! To celebrate the holiday season and these big landmarks, I’ve put together a special episode: one of those Top Ten lists the internet loves so much. Except this is a Top 13 — my personal most memorable maps: three official
RAGE-worthy (Part II)
Where was I? Right — Rage. I started off my… what I think is now long and self-indulgent enough to call an “essay”… about Rage by pointing out how confused it is as a whole. Of course, like a dope, I racked up a thousand and a half words talking pretty exclusively about the story, and that’s not where Rage is really confused. Dumb, maybe, but I think it embraces its dumbness. And who cares — I mean, really cares — about the story in an id game? You could say the only mistake that was made there was in having
RAGE-worthy (Part I)
What are you, Rage? What do you want to be when you grow up? What do you want to do with your life? Really, that’s the question, and I can’t answer it for you. Truth is — I’m not sure anyone at id agreed on what Rage was supposed to be either. If there’s anyone who’s more confused about what it’s getting into than the people who played this game in its first few months — it’s Rage itself. I suspect a lot gamers were looking forward to a typical id shooter. Those who weren’t familiar with id were probably
RAGE-worthy (Screenshots)
I just finished Rage a couple hours ago. For the second time. Since I’m still in the process of digesting the experience and figuring out what I want to say about it (there’s a lot to say), I figured I’d tide you over with some screenshots. If there’s one thing you can’t deny, it’s that Rage is a really pretty game, so while I sort the mess of notes I took into something comprehensible and hopefully worth reading, enjoy some (really pretty) virtual carnage. (Don’t look at me like that! …it’s not like I’m just trying to offload some of
Why Didn’t Anyone Tell Me About Dangerous Dave?
Seriously… this game. Seriously. Where have you been all my life? I’ll admit I’m biased toward liking Dangerous Dave. I have a kind of pseudo-nostalgia for this early era of PC games, in all its 16-color, PC speaker glory. I say pseudo-nostalgia because I wasn’t even around for it when it was going down. It really wasn’t until Doom that I came onto the PC gaming scene, but there’s still this warm, fuzzy feeling that creeps up on me when I load up these older games.
DOOM
Is your nostalgia center tingling yet? How about now? Doom is one of those games that almost anyone, gamer or no, has heard of. And if you played it back in its prime, you probably have a lot of fond memories. I don’t think anyone would argue if I called it one of the most beloved games of all time. There’s a staggering amount of stuff to talk about when it comes to Doom: its frenetic, balls-to-the-wall gameplay; its technical achievements that revolutionized PC gaming; the parade of sequels (of varying quality) that followed; its identity in the late ’90s