Will Doom 3 revive the struggling PC Gaming Industry?

CNN:Money ^ | July 14, 2004 | Chris Morris

[Paradox]

NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Since 2000, developer id Software has told the world the next installment of "Doom," the game that kicked off the action genre, would ship "when it's done."

Good news, gamers: It's done. In the lexicon of the industry, "Doom 3" has gone gold.That means with id Software's work done, publisher Activision is duplicating copies to ship to retail. What it all boils down to is you'll be able to pick up a copy at retail on Aug. 5, though some stores could start selling the game as early as Aug. 3.

[No.6]

What exactly is your problem with WW2O (or rather the future of it)? It's easy to say "developers have their heads up their sixes" ...

N.B. I am not currently a WW2O subscriber since I'm more a flightsimmer and therefore active in WarBirds, but since the WW2O team used to be the WB team I hate to see them disparaged without cause, or at least without explanation.

[Nowhere Man]

I guess I'd better upgrade this Pentium II, 266 MHz with the 4 MB video card. B-) I have the original Doom as well as Duke Nukem and they are great for spending some time gaming. I also like the Diablo games too, especially Diablo II where I could be a necromancer and have my skeleton army and golem do the fighting. B-) On the Playstation, I love Final Fantasy VII & VIII, Legend of the Dragoon, and Lunar - Silver Star Story.

[Bikers4Bush]

Sweeeeeet!

[Kleon]

The perspective in Diablo II is always the same, so it doesn't have the negative effects on your eyes and brain. The downside is that because it doesn't really stress your eyes, you can waste hours playing it... ;)

Yes, but you can stress your finger. Click, Click, Click.

[BrooklynGOP]

Wish I had the time to try out all those games :(

[Moonman62]

I think that was a Wendy's commercial. Hilarious. Everyone looked like Leonid Brezhnev, including the female models.

These days they'd all look like Hillary and be wearing black pantsuits.

[discostu]

It's doing bad for the gaming industry, kind of like how the music industry is doing bad for the music industry. Still making gigantic piles of money that stretch as far as the eye can see, but they've been making a few less piles a year than they were before.

[100%FEDUP]

I'm more excited about The Battle for Middle Earth coming out in November than I am about Doom 3.

[Shryke]

Far Cry ran slow on your system? Mind telling me your specs?

[Strategerist]

N.B. I am not currently a WW2O subscriber since I'm more a flightsimmer and therefore active in WarBirds, but since the WW2O team used to be the WB team I hate to see them disparaged without cause, or at least without explanation.

Well, technically the WW2O team used to be the subordinates of the WB team; the heads of the WB team are now the Aces High team, which I play.

WW2O set some sort of record as the most overpromised game of history (a separate issue from most delayed)...they bit off about 90000% more than they could chew. I believe only about 10% of what was on the outside of the retail box was actually implemented in the game in the first year.

What didn't help was all the fanboys convinced it would be the greatest thing since sliced bread for months BEFORE it came out.."I'm quitting AH as soon as WWIIOL comes out, which will be the greatest game ever!"...then it turned out to have an arcade flight sim model and be focused on the ground war.

[Nowhere Man]

I remember with Doom 2 you could find all sorts of mods where people had replaced the heads of demons and other monsters with Clinton and other figures. IIRC, Clinton's head was on the imps, and it would make a very Bubba-like sound when you blew it away.

I remember for the original Doom, there was a patch that turned the caco-demons (those floating ball things) into a float head of Bill Clinton who shot the words "Tax/Spend" at you. It was hilarious. I remember the disclaimer was that "either you were insane or a disgruntled Republican." another game I like is "Carmageddon II" where you tinker with the peds, making dogs the size of SUV's, minature elephants, and so on, it was a hoot.

[zook]

I know it's passe', but I love Tomb Raider. Ok, the latest game wasn't brilliant, but it was still fun (at least at $14.95). There's nothing I love better after a hard day's work than setting TRII to "all weapons and ammo" mode and blowing up bad guys with my grenade launcher.

Also, anyone play Evil Dead Fist Full of Boomstick? I love it because the action allegedly occurs in my hometown of Dearborn Michigan!

[BrooklynGOP]

p4 3ghz, ATI 9800 pro, 512 ram.

It ran mostly fine at 1024 by 768, but would slow down at some scenes.

[Skooz]

The best online game I have ever played was Red Faction. As a single-player fps it was pretty good, not really as good as Quake 2, but more advanced in some ways because it was newer.

But in online play it absolutely ROCKED. I had to stop playing it because hours would go by and I wouldn't notice.

More than once, while I was playing, I glanced up at my clock and thought it was broken because it said that 3+ hours had gone by since I started, but it felt like 30 minutes.

It never got old. What an excellent online game. By far the best and most addictive I have played

[Shryke]

Double your ram. Are you running off of a single ATA hard drive?

[Pyro7480]

I went to a Catholic high school, and in my freshman year, I took an introductory class for computer. It was basically a class on how to use Windows 3.1 and Microsoft Works, with a little BASIC programming. Many of us took the class as an elective, since we already knew most of the material. Our teacher, a priest(!), had Doom on our computer network (an old Novell network). Once his lecturing was done, we'd scramble to the computers to play Doom. Some of us became quite addicted to it. We'd send dirty messages to each other over the game, and using the network software. We even had some of the Doom mods on some of the machines (Simpsons Doom anyone?)

[Give Piece A Chance]

I do understand that console games have cut into them some.

Good point. Now that PS2s and XBoxes can be networked, there's much less of a need to have a PC for multiplayer games.

On a related note, does anyone think Half-Life 2 will actually ship in 2004?

[COEXERJ145]

If you used "Number6" as your name in WWIIOL, I remember you very well.

Now maybe the plans have changed since Hatch gave me the boot but their idea of "brigade spawning" is what turned me off to the game. Many of us "lone wolves" were afraid that it would either force us into a squad or would prohibit us from using anything other than the most basic weapons, rifleman, PAK-36, Panzer II, 232, BF-110, etc. When I and others tired to make our concerns clear to the Rats (for those who don't know about WWIIOL, the "Rats" are the guys who make the game, Cornered Rat Software) we were usually told just to accept the fact it was coming and to realize the game would change whether every single person liked it or not.

What got me banned was telling Hatch to "Bite Me" when he started to get snitty at me because of my continual posts asking for a clarification of "brigade spawning". He banned me from the forums and a couple of days later during the "Channel Dash" his DD was the one myself and Borya were supposed to escort. Well, about an hour after the Channel Dash was over (thanks to a server crash) I got an e-mail saying my entire account was banned and don't bother to come back.

The game, despite all of its bugs, glitches and problems, was a heck of a lot of fun and I wish I hadn't been forced to leave.

[STFrancis]

I have played maybe the first 4 levels in single player. Love going on against real competition. And the sniper rifle is my friend.

If you see "a 18year old fuzzy bearded kid" that's me. My favorite map is Bocage...

[SaveTheChief]

I have grown tired of Galaxies myself, and have been playing City of Heroes. It is another MMORPG and allows you to make your very own superhero (many actually), design the costume, and choose superpower sets so you can go out and beat up the bad guy.

It is a load of fun.