61 Frames Per Second : wolfenstein

A Day in the Life: iD Before Doom

John Constantine — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 00:00:00 GMT

iD have always been more interesting than their games. That’s not to take away from Commander Keen, Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, or Quake. The technology that John Carmack created for those games and their mutual successors redefined the shape of a videogame, the type of interactive space a person could create. His partner, the ever-lovin’ John Romero himself, was no slouch either. Of course, John’s legacy lies not in the realm of groundbreaking design tools but in aesthetics (read: the preponderance of games about shooting things directly in the face.) I can’t disrespect those games, nor the creativity behind them. After reading David Kushner’s Masters of Doom, though, it’s impossible not to think of those personalities before anything about the games themselves. The story of Carmack, Romero, Tom Hall and the rest of their team is almost operatic. There’s betrayal, sex, fame, money, broken dreams. The history of iD is the nerd version of Carmen.

It would be pretty interesting to be a fly on the wall of their cluttered office before it all went wrong, a look at young people at their creative peak creating something brand new for the world to play.

It’d probably look like this.

This video comes to us from Romero himself via Joe Siegel. November 1993, just before Doom was about to come out and make them all scary, scary rich. Ah for the innocent days before Daikatana, before newspapers blamed school shootings on these goons. Fascinating.

Plus, they’re playing Aladdin on Genesis! Just like REAL people in 1993!

(Link: GameLife)

Related links:

Returning to the Return of the Castle Wolfenstein Returned: This Time It’s Just Plain Ol’ Wolfenstein
Bringing Sexy Back: John Carmack
The Art of Gore in Project Origin
Industry Predictions for 2009: Doom and Gloom Edition

Returning to the Return of the Castle Wolfenstein Returned: This Time It’s Just Plain Ol’ Wolfenstein

John Constantine — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 02:30:00 GMT

Guest contributor Adam Rosenberg covers games from his secret lair in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, typing, reading and playing the days away as his dog Loki looks on in bewilderment. In addition to the noble pursuit of video games, Adam enjoys spending time with fine film, finer food and his fine fiancée Bekah.

There must be a considerable amount of tension around Raven Software’s offices as they prepare Wolfenstein, the latest sequel to the id Software’s grand-pappy of all first-person shooters. After all, the once-cool practice of gunning down Nazis with a beefy chain gun isn’t the uncommon gaming experience it once was. Then there’s Raven, whose talent is eclipsed not only by their recent history of releasing numerous interchangeable genre titles, but also living in the shadow of id themselves. That isn’t necessarily bad news for Wolfenstein, but it does have the effect of keeping expectations firmly in check. Seeing it at Activision’s New York City preview party certainly didn’t raise those expectations. A few minutes of watching Wolfenstein gave a bad impression: another generic World War II shooter with less-than-stellar graphics and straightforward action.

It’s when I stuck around for a few more minutes that things started to get odd. For example, there were suddenly Nazis flying through the air in slow motion. Turned out to be anti-gravity. That’s kind of weird. Then there was B.J. Blazkowicz using a magical amulet to “see” Nazis on the other side of a wall. And then shoot them. Not so conventional anymore. And that’s when the Veil descended. Apparently, B.J.’s fancy new amulet — picked up early in the game — allows BJ to slip into an “otherworld” at will, a place/state-of-being called the Veil. The makeup of the world remains roughly the same within the Veil, though everything is cast in aqua-green hues and spectral bee-like insects fly around lazily, gathering energy. The Veil is ethereal. Other. (Think Tron.) When inside the Veil, weak points are highlighted on enemies, an essential feature when dealing with larger, armored soldiers. The single heavy I saw during the demo was a sort Brotherhood of Steel/Imperial Stormtrooper amalgam armed with a weapon shooting blasts of the green energy blanketing the Veil. BJ will also need to slip into the Veil to access the amulet’s magical abilities; a time-slowing power was shown, but the on-screen amulet’s four slots suggest more Nazi-killin’ powers.

Put aside BJ’s supernatural powers and you’re still left with rote Nazi-killin’, right? Wrong. Wolfenstein is set in the city of Eisenstadt, an open environment situated around a central hub, with new areas opening as the game progresses. What’s more, there are three non-Nazi factions populating the city: Nazi resistance fighters, scholars who harbor an interest in the amulet and a shadowy black market. Players will be able to pick up optional missions to earn money, which can then be spent on the black market to upgrade or buy weapons. But the open world and non-linear play is not enough to justify the game’s existence. There needs to be an immersive experience attached to it, one that leaves room for player-tailoring to co-exist with a scripted storyline. This is what made Far Cry 2 stand-out from the over-crowded FPS field. It is, however, encouraging to see Raven stepping away from the generic corridor shooter towards the faux-RPG trappings of their Jedi Knight series. Time – and additional previews and hands-on sessions – will tell, but first impressions at least point to a new direction for the Wolfenstein series. That’s saying something for a series that created its genre.

Related links:

Bringing Sexy Back: John Carmack
Whatcha Playing: Far Cry 2
John’s Games of 2008: Year of the Open World

The 61FPS Review: LittleBigPlanet - Part 1

Derrick Sanskrit — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 15:00:00 GMT

Many would agree with me the LittleBigPlanet is the most significant game release of 2008. Sure, Spore was a big deal, but it was only the next logical step in Will Wright's Sim series. LittleBigPlanet is a platform for whatever the user wants it to be, a venue for sharing and interaction, and a robust toolbox for imaginative and aspiring game designers. There's no denying LittleBigPlanet is an impressive and forward-thinking new box of toys for the kids, but is it a fun game? With one week of Sackboy inhabitance under my belt, I'm prepared to render my first impressions.

First, an astounding "Yes!" LittleBigPlanet succeeds in its campaign to bring fun back to gaming. From the charming tutorials narrated by Stephen Fry (remember his delightful British voiceovers in the feature film treatment of Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy? Accompanying those wonderful Shynola-produced animated sequences? The very definition of whimsy, right there.) to the wondrously expressive characters and environments, the fancifully capricious score of licensed music to the patchwork globe user-interface, everything about this package just oozes fun the way a frat boy at a party oozes Axe body spray, only you'll want to spend the whole evening with LittleBigPlanet, wake up next to it the following day and ask if it has plans the next night.

There are, of course, a few areas where the fun breaks into "well, that's annoying." While the stages included on disc are ingeniously designed spectacles of platform peril, precise jumps and landings are frustratingly difficult due to the fact that Sackboy sort of floats into place rather than the stop-on-a-dime runs and jumps we've gotten used to from Mario and Mega Man. I've lost dozens of innocent Sackboys to spike pits, poison gas, and electrified obstacles because they didn't quite land jumps the way I expected them to. This brings me to my next qualm, the ever-archaic lives system. Each checkpoint throughout the stage allows you to respawn there for a certain number of lives before you fail the entire stage and I am left wondering why. Shouldn't an all-ages game focused on cooperation and fun like this allow at least the option for infinite lives? It's quite annoying to make it more than halfway through a stage filled with challenging obstacles only to come across one of those aforementioned difficult-to-land jumps, quickly fail at it four times and have to start back at the very beginning again. Just let me try this jump until I get it right! There are wonderfully informative tutorial videos on how to use each and every tool and object in the game's create mode, but while there are easy-to-use reality-altering pause, fast-forward and rewind commands for the world around Sackboy in create mode, these timeline controls do not apply to the videos, which continue uninterrupted until they end. Miss something important? You have to wait for the video to be over, then hit the switch to start the whole thing over again.

But enough whining, because what LittleBigPlanet does well it does astonishingly well. Not only is the story mode included on disc thoughtful and compelling, it continuously activates the players imagination. Every stage introduces obstacles and puzzles and enemies unseen before and then provides you with the tools and knowledge to make those elements or your own crazier takes on them. The true measure of a game's fun for me has always been how much I find myself thinking about it when I'm not playing, such as keeping track of the time I spend running for trains outside of WiiFit or pondering my place in the universe and how that effects my fashion choices outside of The World Ends With You. Well, this past weekend, waiting for a train after a Halloween party, I found myself dreaming up obstacles to build for my little Sackboy. Within seconds I had pulled out the sketchbook and doodled this curious little environmental puzzle:

Having played with the create tools for an hour or two by the time I'd sketched this, I already had a general idea of how it would all work, and it took maybe five minutes to build as a functioning prototype in-game. No, it's not huge or world-altering, but as a small bit of a larger environment it's enormously satisfying. This brings us to the biggest aspect of LittleBigPlanet and the hardest to review: user-generated content. LittleBigPlanet is all about sharing. If you don't make your own stages and/or play other people's stages, you're only playing an incredibly small part of the game. Sure, betas have been out for a while, but the full game and its server have only been around for about a week and, having played around 45 user-generated stages at this point, I can say that I'm honestly blown away by what some people are making. Of course they aren't all great, it's commonly accepted that a majority of all user-generated contet will be complete rubbish, but it's a testament to either the creativity of the early adopters or the jury process of how the stages are organized that so many of the user-created stages I've played so far have been beautiful and well thought-out experiments in game design, from underwater temples to basketball courts to classic game soundtracks to a recreation of the Pac-Man arcade. The only reason I haven't finished LittleBigPlanet's story mode yet is that I feel propelled to check out the new user-created stages every time I turn the game on, I am just so fascniated by them all. (Edit: Shortly after writing this, I did face off against the final boss and earned my "Just Beginning" trophy for completing story mode.)

Clearly so far, LittleBigPlanet is not a perfect gaming experience, but it transcends. LittleBigPlanet is so compelling, so unique, so inspirational that it will undoubtedly be played widely for the entire lifespan of the Playstation3 and beyond and is likely to usher in a whole new generation of gaming like Super Mario Bros, Wolfenstein 3D and Dance Dance Revolution before it. Unlike last year's PS3 blockbuster Ratchet & Clank which was billed by critics as being the first game to look like you were playing a Pixar movie, LittleBigPlanet strikes me as the game that would result if the creative minds at Pixar decided to make a game instead of a movie. What can be done in games that can't be done in other media? What can be done in games that hasn't been done in games before? How can we make all of this a compelling emotional experience for players, regardless of age, gender, or nationality? I believe LittleBigPlanet will reshape the way both gamers and game designers approach the medium and, as is the whole point of the software, bring the two groups even closer together.

Look for continued impressions and final analysis to come...

Related Articles:
Sackboy vs. Muhammad
LittleBigPlanet is Insane
The Natural World of LittleBigPlanet
Sony Fans, Meet Your New Totem, Sackboy

61FPS Reviews:
Dead Space
LOL
Dragon Quest IV
Ninja Gaidan 2 part 1 & part 2
Metal Gear Solid 4 part 1 & part 2
Wii Fit
Grand Theft Auto IV part 1, part 2 & part 3

Bringing Sexy Back: John Carmack

John Constantine — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 23:00:00 GMT

You’d think I’d be sitting here talking about John Romero, American McGee, or one of the other lookers from the grand history of id software for a Brining Sexy Back feature, but John Carmack is the only one for me. Those penetrating, bespectacled eyes, the sandy blonde quaff that says, “I could have been one of the Duke boys if I hadn’t been an indoor child.” It’s all too much to resist!

John Carmack isn’t exactly what you what call sexy in the traditional sense, though he seems significantly more personable these days. For anyone who has read David Kushner’s Masters of Doom (an excellent page turner. Seriously.), you know Carmack’s come a long way from the “computer with legs” he was described as in his youth. What’s sexy about Carmack is his devotion to a singular goal: making the best damn foundation for a game he can build. Carmack and id’s games have never been beautiful creations, aesthetically or mechanically. The company made a name for itself on the cartoonishly grotesque and through its blunt, aggressive play, a combination that has kept their games satisfying (if not revelatory) for fifteen years. But they have always been elegant creations thanks to Carmack’s engines, from the scrolling animation of Wolfenstein 3D all the way to the still-stunning light-and-shadow play of Doom 3. He remains a master architect in his medium. id’s new game, Rage, and the id Tech 5 engine that powers it, look to continue the trend.

Plus, anyone who tries to make a spaceship by hand is sexy. Except Billy Bob Thorton. It’s stupid when he does it.

More Bringing Sexy Back:

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Susan O’Connor
Yoji Shinkawa