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Man, alternate reality Nazis play soccer much differently than we do here.Read more...

With its monumental, raw design and lighting, Hungary's new, fourth metro line undeniably has a lot in common with old-school FPS games. Quake II in this particular case.Read more...

BJ Blazkowicz is probably regretting his choice of transport. When he clicked on The Trainline’s website and booked his tickets, instead of grabbing a seat in the “Moving HQ of the Aryan Race”, he should have selected “Quiet Coach”. That way the worst that would have happened is the that someone might be playing music on tinny earbuds DESPITE THE CONDITIONS OF THE COACH BEING CLEARLY DISPLAYED. He chose poorly, and this footage of Wolfenstein: The New Order shows the peril of accidentally sharing space with an Aryan matriarch and her pet ED209.

… [visit site to read more]

Doom: The Mercenaries, the mod which turns Doom into a particularly action-heavy Resident Evil game , is now fully released. The trailer for the final version is above, and it's looking as fun as ever. See the mod's forum thread for more info. [via DSOGaming]Read more...

“In my dream, I smell the barbecue. I hear children. A dog. I think I see someone. Someone I love.

These things are not for me. I move by roaring engines. Among warriors. We come from the night.”

Gawp. Yawp. Goggle. B.J. Blazkowicz does beat poetry. This can’t be Wolfenstein? But it is. … [visit site to read more]

In an interview with USA Today, John Carmack characterizes his recent decision to leave id Software for Oculus VR as motivated by the potential of the Oculus Rift and VR technology in general.

"I really do think VR is now one of the most exciting things that can be done in this whole sector of consumer electronic entertainment stuff," said Carmack. "I've seen this when we transitioned from 2D games to 3D games and everybody has seen the mobile transition, right now in the last five years. After you have been around for a while, you can notice some of the trends. It really feels like VR has the possibility to be something really huge."

That John Carmack, a man responsible for some the most influential 3D game engines in history, would be drawn to new rendering technology should come as no shock. What is surprising, however, is that Carmack offered id Software parent company ZeniMax Media a deal whereby id could work alongside Oculus VR, allowing Carmack to retain his old position while also feeding his drive to explore the potential of VR.

Carmack's proposal was rejected. "It would have been a huge win," said Carmack. "It seemed like a sensible plan for me.

"But they couldn't come together on that which made me really sad. It was just unfortunate. When it became clear that I wasn't going to have the opportunity to do any work on VR while at id Software, I decided to not renew my contract." [Image: Oculus VR]

The newest internal prototype of the Oculus Rift, codenamed Crystal Cove, adds positional tracking, low persistence and an OLED screen, iterating on the 1080p HD developer model out in the wild. Positional tracking is a straightforward addition that players have been looking out for, and the Oculus achieves this with an external camera that faces the player and watches a series of LEDs on the front of the headset. With positional tracking, players are able to lean down and read text or get a closer look at objects in front of them.

Low persistence is a trickier beast to tackle, but it basically means the Oculus Rift has erased motion blur, allowing the player to move his head and keep his eyes fixed on one point, as humans do in reality. The Crystal Cove prototype reduces latency to 30 milliseconds from 60 milliseconds in the HD dev kit, though Oculus VR's goal for a consumer product is 16 to 20 milliseconds.

"You want to be able to stay focused on something," Oculus VR CEO Brendan Iribe said during a hands-on demo at CES. "If there's text in the world and you're looking at it, you want to be able to move while you stare at that text. Your head is always moving. So it actually ends up being really key - it's a breakthrough. This is a huge breakthrough."

The Oculus Rift team works with Valve to solve some of the headset's technical issues, and the low persistence solution spawned in part from Valve R&D man Michael Abrash. Abrash previously co-created Quake at id Software with John Carmack, who is Chief Technology Officer at Oculus VR.

Wow. Just... wow. There are no words.Read more...

You might be thrilled with next gen—er, current gen. But John Carmack, ex-id Software star programmer and Oculus Rift guru, isn't yet. He thinks we can still do more with last gen.Read more...

Twenty years ago, on December 10, 1993, John Carmack, John Romero and the rest of the team at upstart id Software unleashed a game called Doom upon the world. Twenty years later, both men have written about their favorite memories of the game for you and all fans of Doom to read. Here they are, in their own words...Read more...

Doom creator John Romero leads us through the game's legendary original episode, sharing stories and secrets.

John Carmack has officially packed his bags and taken a rocket car over to Oculus Rift, now his sole employer until he decides he wants to become the world’s foremost expert on Hyperloops or something. So what better way to celebrate/commiserate than by playing maybe the last game he’ll ever see to completion? Answer: there is no better way. If you are doing anything else, John Carmack will probably never be your friend or spend upwards of five hours giving you breathless life advice. Fortunately, RAGE is free on Steam this weekend. Details below.

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Shock! Awe! Implausibility! Ceaseless insanity! Cats marrying dogs, oceans boiling into a deliciously apocalyptic fish stew!

OK, yeah, actually none of those things. We all probably should’ve seen this coming from a mile away. Earlier this year, John Carmack became Chief Technology Officer at VR megalith Oculus Rift, a position that didn’t seem to leave much time for a second full-time gig at the studio that pioneered both first-person shooters and the practice of naming game companies after Freudian psychological concepts. Bethesda, however, insisted that Carmack would be just dandy pulling double-duty. Predictably, that was a rather significant enhancement to the truth.

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John Carmack, co-founder of Doom developer id Software, has left the company in order to pursue new projects outside the field of game development, reports IGN.

"John Carmack, who has become interested in focusing on things other than game development at id, has resigned from the studio," id Software studio director Tim Willits told IGN. "John's work on id Tech 5 and the technology for the current development work at id is complete, and his departure will not affect any current projects. We are fortunate to have a brilliant group of programmers at id who worked with John and will carry on id's tradition of making great games with cutting-edge technology. As colleagues of John for many years, we wish him well."

Carmack joined up with Oculus VR as Chief Technology Officer in August, but remained with id in the months afterward, serving in a leadership role for unspecified projects.

Carmack's resignation follows up on former CEO Todd Hollenshead's recent departure from id, ending a 17-year tenure with the company.

The Dark Mod, a Thief: The Dark Project-inspired mod for Doom 3, has been made standalone, meaning you no longer require id Software's sci-fi horror romp to play. The mod was originally created by Broken Glass Studios as a way to re-experience the gameplay of Looking Glass Studios' 1998 stealth classic with updated graphics.

Don't expect to play through the original Thief exactly as you remember it, though. Due to copyright issues, The Dark Mod cannot use characters, names, locations or any other copyrighted material from the Thief series. Instead, the mod offers community-created, piecemeal missions which take place in an original setting that shares the medieval and steampunk vibe of the original games. It's more of a Thief ho-mod-ge. Buh-dum-tish!

Anyone with a taste for first-person stealth games can now download the game, free of charge, from the Dark Mod website. If you're hungry for an official expansion to the Thief universe, the Eidos Montreal-developed Thief is planning a heist for February of next year.

If you have the fear over the upcoming Thief, then I have a soothing salve to help alleviate the symptoms. The Dark Mod, a fairly well-known Doom 3 modification, has been freed from the sci-fi prison of Doom 3 ownership: the modders fulfilled the promise they made years ago and used the source code of the engine to turn their wonderful Thief restoration into a free download. Now all you need is a capable PC, an internet connection, and a cowl. That last one is non-negotiable.(more…)

Or, more accurately, you want to buy several, along with the pain elemental, and then attach them to a mobile over a baby's crib, thus making that child impervious to any fear once the colonization of Mars begins within its lifetime.

Other option: Dangle it from the ceiling over the bed of anybody who played Doom growing up and enjoy the cacophonous variety of screaming they provide.

So many options. Purchase either or both at the Bethesda store.

Digital artist Eric Ridgeway has added a few more pixels to the classic monsters from Doom and Doom II, making them all the more horrifying. Read more...

Legendary game programmer and Doom co-creator John Carmack is getting a new "full-time" job. He's going to be working as the head of technology at Oculus VR, the company behind the upstart Rift virtual reality goggles. Read more...

Legendary game programmer and Doom co-creator John Carmack is getting a new "full-time" job. He's going to be working as the head of technology at Oculus VR, the company behind the upstart Rift virtual reality goggles. Read more...

QuakeCon is over. By now, you’ve probably perused several hundred thousand BYOC (Bring Your Own Computer; basically a gigantic, nonstop four-day LAN party) case mod galleries. You’ve seen the competition winners from every conceivable angle. You’ve ogled the Star Wars action figures, giant NES controllers, weathered Fallout terminals, and very uncomfortable fish alike. But come on: that’s standard flashy case mod fare. This one, however, was created on the fly, during the show, by hundreds of attendees. Its core component? Post-It Notes. 

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The world's best Quake players descended on QuakeCon 2013 this past weekend—guys like evil, Chance, Stermy and DaHaNG. This awesome highlight reel from Youtuber neoQLive showing them all fragging each other with the most precise shots you could imagine.Read more...

See? Simple.

This year's QuakeCon kicked off yesterday, not just with John Carmack's annual marathon keynote, but with some skillful Quake III duels.Read more...

This is a full playthrough of the beta version of Doom:One, an upcoming fan reconstruction of the first episode from id Software's Doom with updated visuals, continuous levels, new secrets and, well, iron sights. If you wanna give the mod a try yourself, you can grab a demo at its official ModDB page.Read more...

There's something odd going on with Wolfenstein 3D on PSN and XBLM. First off, this week the ESRB re-rated the classic game on Xbox 360 and PS3, nearly four years after it arrived on the platforms digitally. Secondly, it's sprouted an additional page on XBLM.

Playing Spot the Difference between the two pages, the new one lists the publisher as Bethesda rather than Activision. Developer id Software was acquired by Bethesda's parent company Zenimax in June 2009, just a few weeks after Wolfenstein 3D came to XBLM and PSN. Also, the release date is now listed as May 31 of this year, which is a bit odd. The box art is slightly different too, and once more notes Bethesda's name instead of Activision's.

Overall, the whole thing's as curious as Adolf Hitler in a mech suit. The timing's certainly interesting given the recent reveal of Wolfenstein: The New Order. When approached on the matter, a company spokesperson told Joystiq, "No comment on that from Bethesda."

Bethesda has announced it has opened a Play Test Lab in Dallas, Texas, inside the offices of id Software. The lab will be used to test upcoming games with local Dallas players, and Bethesda promises some extra "games or swag" to anyone who comes in for testing.

You'll need to be 18 or over to apply, and Bethesda says it's looking for gamers of all types, both casual and hardcore. If you're around Dallas and want to put your name in the hat, you can sign up on the website right now.

Pre-registration for QuakeCon 2013 is now open and being offered alongside a few special packages. General admission is free, but extras are available at additional cost.

The Swag Pack, of which there are 250 available, costs $60. It includes three different shirts (including an officially branded QuakeCon tee), a QuakeCon-branded Logitech G400 Mouse, and a $10 voucher for use on Bethesda's site.

The Swag Pack is available in conjunction with a "Bring Your Own Computer" Select-a-Seat, which nets you a reserved spot in the special BYOC section for $90, with only 500 available. You can also get a BYOC seat along with just a "QuakeCon done Quick" pass, which will grant you express lane access to all of the show's panels and events. That package with a single shirt is available for $50, and 250 are available in total.

Finally, if it's just a BYOC reservation and shirt you want, you'll pay $30 for one of 1,250 packages available.

All package options and prices are listed in full over on the official website. QuakeCon 2013 will be held at the Hilton Anatole in Dallas, Texas, from August 1 until August 4.

Bethblog has word that the Rage tookit has arrived on Steam, along with some serious documentation to speed would-be modders on their way. Carmack has some advice, too, tweeting: “Doing significant work will require patience, because internally we use a 300 core renderfarm for megatexture creation.”

It’d be interesting to see what people could mod in using existing assets, though. If the toolkit gave enough access to get at the inventory and so on then I think there might be a true open world sandbox/economy game in there waiting to get out. But maybe not. Either way, significant work will require patience. And an enthusiasm for Rage.

For a while there, I thought we were going to find RAGE on some trashy “What ever happened to… ?” television special. It’d have been huddled in the back of a barely lit trailer, clad in a grease-and-sweat-stained bathrobe and wolfing down an entire carton of metropolitan ice cream. “I coulda been somethin’,” it’d have said between chunky mouthfuls. “I coulda gone places. But then id got all distant, and everyone forgot about me.” Then: warm salty tears, pitter-pattering into the sticky sugar soup below. That depressing reality, however, is no longer our own. After leaving RAGE untouched for a year, id’s finally returned to its not-so-deserted deserts. The result? A brand new, six-area DLC tale called “Scorchers.” Sweet, sweet deets after the break.

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