Posts Tagged ‘id Software’

Doom Update Brings Deathmatch, Private Matches

Free-for-all deathmatch has been the foundation of multiplayer in id Software’s shooters since, well, since they started making them, yet somehow D44m [official site] launched without it. Didn’t even get a half-hearted note from their mum (in handwriting suspiciously similar to their own) saying demons stole their deathmatch and threw it on top of the bikesheds. Well, deathmatch has finally arrived in D44m with the launch of Update 3 last night. That also brought support for Private Matches, where you can pick modes and settings as you play with your pals, along with bug fixes and such.

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Rev Your Chainsaws: Doom Finally Adding Deathmatch

Shhh. Do you hear that? Listen carefully. Yes, it’s the sound of Bethesda trying to breath life into Doom’s [official site] multiplayer. At long last the game is getting a Deathmatch mode and private matches. They’re coming in Free Update 3, so all of these goodies won’t cost you a thing. Bethesda have teased us with a brief Deathmatch trailer:

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Autobiographical Architecture Is A Personal Doom Mod

After two decades, Doom still has a vibrant modding community. Now game designer JP LeBreton has opted to draft his autobiography, Autobiographical Architecture [official site], as a Doom II mod, deeming the game a perfect medium for the multi-volume telling of his life. Doom has been a huge influence on LeBreton. He started out making his own Doom levels in his bedroom, later finding a career including working on BioShock, becoming lead level designer for its sequel, and being a designer at Double Fine Productions, before going solo. Here’s a trailer showing a little of the mod:

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Doom Half-Price To Mark First Multiplayer DLC Launch

The first bit of Doom [official site] multiplayer DLC is out now for £12 and boy, I feel strange saying that. Look, expansions to id Software’s shooter have traditionally been a bit shaky, largely adding so-so singleplayer campaigns made by other studios, but… sheesh, £12 for three maps, a new gun, and some dress-up odds and ends? That’s fairly standard for shooters nowadays, I suppose, but it feels wrong for a game from shareware veterans. Not to mention that multiplayer is hardly Doom’s strongest side.

But hey, the base game is half-price all weekend to mark this, so that’s something.

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Quake Champions Has Familiar Voices & Big Eyeballs

I do not believe that I shall ever come to terms with the fact that Quake III’s announcer was not, in fact, voiced by Michael Dorn. I believed that to be the case for so long, having been told it was so by someone at university. Watching this trailer for upcoming online shooter Quake Champions [official site], my heart leaped when I heard the familiar refrain in that familiar bass voice: “Excellent.” Worf! You’re back! No. It was never Worf, Meer. It is not Worf now. But maybe it is the original Q3A announcer returned. That would be something. You can hear Not-Worf for yourself in this first in-game footage of Champions, which rather looks like Quake III and Unreal Tournament had a baby. The speed of the former, the more vibrant palette of the latter.
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Doom Update Adding New Modes, First DLC Detailed

Even before we got a proper look at multiplayer in the new Doom [official site], it was clear that singleplayer would be its strength. It’s a shame Bethesda have only announced a load of multiplayer DLC, and adding new weapons and things across three paid DLC packs does sound weird for an id Software game. But hey, that’s the plan and it’s going ahead. Today publishers Bethesda announced the first pack will hit August 5th with a new pistol, a new playable demon, new maps, and so on.

New free stuff is coming too, mind. A free update tomorrow will bring new multiplayer modes along with more stuff for the SnapMap editor.

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Quake Champions Video Explains Special Abilities

In all the sound and fury of E3, I’d missed one big detail about the newly-announced Quake Champions [official site]: its ‘champions’ are actually classes each with a unique ability. Oh! Luckily, id Software studio director Tim Willits is on hand in a new trailer to explain the abilities of the four champions revealed so far. Expect charges, dodges, blinks, and dastardly wallhacks.

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RPS Feature Glory be

How Doom’s Glory Kills Maintain Momentum

This is The Mechanic, where Alex Wiltshire invites developers to discuss the inner workings of their games. This time, Doom [official site].

Doom, the new one, has one heck of a sense of forward momentum. It’s a game of aggression and constant movement. You’re the Doom Marine: you move like the wind and your shots are unbroken by the need to reload.

At the heart of how Doom creates this response in players is a single feature which, paradoxically, is all about pausing your interaction with the game, pressing you so close to the enemy that they often fill the screen. It’s a feature, after all, that was intended to capture something special about the original Doom that had little to do with movement, but it turned out to trigger all kinds of secondary effects. The feature was:

THE MECHANIC: Glory kills

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More FPS For Your FPS: Doom Launches Vulkan Support

A new Doom [official site] update has launched today, adding support for using the Vulkan API on supporting graphics cards. In short, Doom’s guts are now crammed full of the new hotness in goingfastness and the game should run better on most computers, letting you either bask in the glorious frames or crank up the prettiness.

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RPS Feature Remember The Edge

Have You Played… Quake 2?

Have You Played? is an endless stream of game retrospectives. One a day, every day of the year, perhaps for all time.

I played Quake sometime around its release, though I don’t remember being enamored by it or spending much time with it. Instead Quake 2 was the first Id Software game I ever really loved, and even then it was mainly thanks to mods.

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Bang! Doom Update Adding Centred Weapons Option

Ooh aren't we old.

The new Doom [official site] already does a fine job of bringing some of that old ’90s feel to modern days, them lot will tell you, but id Software are adding something very old-school. An update arriving this week will add the option to have your fella hold his weapons right in the middle of the screen, just as space marines did back in the day. Oh, the update will also add a ‘Photo Mode’ to help folks take nice holiday snaps.

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RPS Feature

Frags For The Memories: Quake Is Twenty Today

Twenty years ago today, id Software released Quake. Following a multiplayer test that gave the world a first glimpse of the studio’s new, cutting edge 3d engine, the full game arrived on June 22, 1996. Its bizarre mash-up of medieval architecture and crunchy, industrial weaponry didn’t run through the sequels, which have focused on both singleplayer and multiplayer combat, and there hasn’t been anything else quite like it in the two decades since release.

Arena-based Quake is set for a revival with the recently announced Quake Champions, but here, we remember the original. Happy twentieth, Quake.

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Hurt Me Plenty: Doom Demo Available For A Bit Longer

If you haven’t played the Doom [official site] demo yet, good news: you now have more time to play id Software’s cracking new demon-busting FPS. If you didn’t know it had a demo and don’t know why I’m talking about a demo for a ruddy flipping id Software game as they’ve gone from shareware to elven magicks only visible in moonlight, weird news: Bethesda launched the demo during the hustle and bustle of E3, originally planning to take it down after one week. I know! Wasn’t that silly? It still is but hey, at least it’s silly for a while longer.

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Quake Champions Announced: PC Only, Multiplayer Arena Combat

Bethesda started big. When the lights and music dropped, the giant screen at the E3 showcase showed a DOS prompt. After fiddling around directories for a moment, the unseen user typed one small word: QUAKE.

The game is Quake Champions, an arena-based shooter pitting “diverse warriors with unique attributes and abilities” against one another. It has been designed for “world class esports play at every level” and contains big Stroggy bastards and a blue-haired lady.

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RPS Feature A punchier Doom

Have You Played… HeXen: Beyond Heretic

Have You Played? is an endless stream of game retrospectives. One a day, every day of the year, perhaps for all time.

Hexen was released at a time when I bought just about any first-person game that I could get my hands on. In the mid-nineties that meant I had a shelf full of games running on id engines, many of which were made by Raven Software. I still have a soft spot for Raven and always forget that they’re still around, in name at least, working on bits and pieces of Call of Duty. It’s probably a step up from Soldier of Fortune. It’s not a step up from Hexen though. I love Hexen.

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RPS Feature Snap and Tear

DOOM’s Best SnapMaps

Id’s spectacular DOOM reboot has been out for less than a fortnight, but its SnapMap level editor has quickly captured the imaginations of its community. Already there are hundreds of custom built maps and missions available. But finding one that’s worth playing can be tricky. The vast majority are slightly wonky first attempts at mapmaking, while the “most popular” lists are plagued by a host of cheap and nasty maps designed to exploit the SnapMap points system.

Hence RPS sent me on a special mission to punch my way into the bowels of SnapMap and rip out something that’s worth your time. With that in mind, here are five of the best and most interesting user-made experiences, alongside a few other suggestions.

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RPS Feature Naturally I made an all-Cacodemon map

DOOM SnapMap: A Brilliant & Accessible Modding Tool With Infuriating Restrictions

Because DOOM instantly makes me revert to being 13 years old again, my first SnapMap was a tiny room filled with 30 Cacodemons, with a boss Cacodemon with 1000% health waiting in a room just beyond it. Which, naturally, required a red keycard to access. I’m quite pleased with it, because I am 13 years old again.

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RPS Feature It sure ain't Quake 3.5

Wot I Think: DOOM Multiplayer

DOOM [official site]’s singleplayer campaign was so surprisingly strong that I no longer object to writing the name in capital letters. Of course, it has a multiplayer mode too – as important a part of the Doom heritage as is speed and shotguns – and, were you to believe the marketing, this was the most important element of the new id shooter. With the legions of Hell all defeated, I now turn my attention to real hell: other people.

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