Rock, Paper, Shotgun

I’m in love with Dishonored – or at least, what I’ve gotten to play of it at various press events and things. Torrid, disgusting, fluid-filled love. And QuakeCon’s demo, which saw me infiltrate a fancy mansion party to assassinate one of three “Lady Boyles” (only one of whom was my real target) might actually be my favorite section yet. Co-creative directors Harvey Smith and Raphael Colantonio, however, have gone on at length about how much they love it when players break their game and pull off supernatural stunts they couldn’t even conceive. So, after already sinking a few hours into repeat playthroughs, I sat down at my trusty demo station with a mission: ruin everything. Test boundaries. Push limits. Become the world’s foremost expert on Jello mold physics. And gosh, it was really, really fun.

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Against all odds, the Triads are rising again. After an attempt at performing some dark form of necromancy on Duke Nukem blew up in its face, mod-group-turned-developer Interceptor emerged mostly not-hideously-disfigured. And then, in a wondrous moment of happenstance, a resurrected Apogee offered the team the Rise of the Triad license, and the rest is history. During QuakeCon, I got the chance to play a very early version of the blindingly fast, unabashedly silly old-school FPS (hint: there is something called ‘Dog Mode’) and talk with Interceptor CEO Frederick Schreiber about what makes Rise of the Triad worth remaking, what sets it apart from other modern “old-school” shooters, why Interceptor thinks zany fun’s better than balance, mods, whether or not it’s bitten off more than it can chew with an incredibly short development cycle, and more. He also howled at me. It was kind of amazing.

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John Carmack is building the future. Well, technically, he’s only helping this time. Along with Palmer Luckey and the other fine folks at Oculus Rift, Carmack’s diving headset-first into the world of virtual reality. Of course, this isn’t the first time gaming’s tried taking Bambi-like first steps onto the Holodeck. But then the Virtual Boy happened, and everyone got really sad. Now, though, Carmack and co are claiming the tech’s reached its threshold for “useful coolness,” and – after a hands/eyes/face-on demo with a duct-tape-and-hot-glue prototype of the Rift – I’m sold. This thing’s the future. Or at least a big part of it, anyway.

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QuakeCon is basically a safari. People stalk through the halls of the Hilton Anatole in Dallas, Texas, tracing steps and leading packs of highly trained dogs in search of one mythical creature: Doom 4. Legends tell of a time many moons ago when its logo briefly appeared on a big screen, and in the moment, the hunt was on. So now I tip-toe through the case mod jungles of the BYOC, glancing every which way and– STOP. What’s that rustling around behind that row of NASA-grade supercomputers shaped like characters from My Little Pony? Could it be…? Oh, never mind. It’s just Big Foot. Nothing to see here. I have, however, picked up a few clues.

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