Cyb

As expensive blockbusters with name recognition tend to do, Doom came in #1 its opening weekend, bringing in an estimated $15.4 million. Second place was Dreamer: Inspired by a True Story with $9.3 million. For those curious, Doom cost around $70 million to make. I'd estimate the movie will drop off half its profits every week, so it will probably end up making $25 - $30 million after four weeks. It's also got a rating of 5.9/10 on IMDB, which sounds about right, if not a little high.

Does it feel weird to anyone else that the Doom movie is here? The rumors started way back when the original Doom was released, and they seemed to surface fairly regularly after that. Over time it was pretty much accepted that there would never be a Doom movie and all those rumors were horrible, horrible lies. Of course then id went and released Doom 3 to somewhat lackluster fanfare. However it made them a lot of money, so naturally that, coupled with the development hype, would renew interest in a movie. Like Doom 3 or hate it, you can pretty much thank it for this movie. Or you can curse it for this movie I guess, but that's up to you. I know some of you have an attachment to Doom, perhaps even an unhealthy one, and the thought of changing something about it makes you want to complain about it on the internet a whole bunch, and I'm sure you will. But let's face facts, Doom was never much for plot. It pretty much defined the first person shooter genre, but as far as a story went, you got a couple generic paragraphs in the manual and that was pretty much it. Even in Doom 3, which fleshed out the story, none of that plot crap mattered. In the end Doom is about a lone marine killing a whole lot of shit. So, I give the movie the benefit of the doubt and I review it not as a connoisseur of cinema (which I'm not anyway), but as a gamer who likes games where he can shoot things and watch them writhe in simulated agony. If you're looking for a movie with an in-depth and complex plot, stimulating characters and interesting dialog, then you probably shouldn't bother. It's not that type of movie. Doom doesn't mess around with things like character development. There are a bunch of marines, most of whose names I don't even remember. On top of that they're all very generic. You have the smart-mouthed black guy, the tough and quiet black guy, the nervous rookie, the religious guy, the creepy old guy, the Asian (yes, that is his defining characteristic), the hero and the tough-as-nails leader. On the UAC side you have an all-business scientist woman and a snarky cripple nicknamed Pinky for no apparent reason. It's not like they don't make attempts at character development, it's just that they fail miserably at it. John "Reaper" Grimm (Karl Urban) and his sister Samantha "I'd hit it" Grimm (Rosamund Pike) witnessed the death of their parents on Mars when they were younger. I know that sounds like a huge spoiler, but it's not important to the plot in the least, and you simply won't give a crap when it comes up. This occurs to a lesser extent with some other characters (nothing about their past, just based on their current behavior), though oddly enough not with the Rock, who is a pretty major character. And no, the demons aren't from Hell. They look like demons, smell like demons, sound like demons and act like demons, but they're not from Hell. I guess that doesn't matter, except that Hell would have made the movie a lot more interesting (assuming they did it right). Instead, the plot involves archeology and genetics experiments. The monster count is also pretty small with only three types of enemy; imp, hell knight and pinky demon (four if you count zombie). However it does take place on Mars, if that's any consolation. It may as well take place in New Jersey though, since the whole thing is indoors except for a brief shot of the Martian terrain. The acting is flat most of the time. The lines are short and might actually be kind of snappy if not for the bad delivery. At times it was hard to tell if they were trying to be campy or the director just didn't care enough to get a decent performance out of his actors all the time. I'd expect that from the Rock since he wasn't arching one eyebrow and talking about what he was cooking, but Karl Urban is certainly capable of a better performance. The other characters are so generic that their lines don't even matter. Religious guy is quiet, the rookie is nervous, creepy guy says some creepy stuff, and the smart-mouthed black guy says "aw hell naw". Okay, he only says "aw hell", but I bet they wanted to make him say "aw hell naw". The movie tries be like Aliens (which is what Doom was based on in the first place), but it fails because it's bad at building up suspense. In Aliens you don't actually see any aliens for the first third of the movie, but Doom pretty much decides not to beat around the bush and you end up seeing them shortly after the marines arrive at the facility. The attempts at building up suspense aren't very good, and the requisite false alarms end up being funny instead of suspenseful. I know I said I'd review it as a gamer, but I figured that I'd get all the movie stuff out of the way. As a movie it's not very good, and by all rights I should hate it, but I just can't bring myself to do that. Not because of the aforementioned unhealthy attachment to Doom, but just because it was a fun movie. Once the initial bullshit suspense build up is done, the movie gets into the nitty gritty of marines vs. monsters, and there's a whole lot of violence. There are a number of fights, many of which are so over the top that you just can't help cringing in entertainment as some poor marine gets thrown around like a rag doll. And since I know people will ask; I really liked the first-person sequence. I thought I would hate it, I expected to hate it, but I didn't. It was very goofy at points, but it was a pretty cool tribute to the source material, and really it was pretty interesting to watch. It's probably something you need to see in a theater to fully appreciate, because I'm sure it loses something if you watch it on a TV or in Windows Media Player (don't deny it!) without the big screen and booming sound. Anyone who is a fan of Doom will probably at least appreciate that sequence, even if you don't like it. I'm sure it will become a hot topic for debate on all the gaming web sites and forums in the future, and you know that's going to be a lot of fun. What else is important about Doom? They already wrecked the Hell angle, so we move on to the weapons. No rocket launcher, but there's a heavy chaingun, shotguns, pistols and what I guess were pulse rifles of some sort. Strangely the guns had flashlights attached to them. Also the Rock finds the BFG which is assuredly big and a gun of the fucking-sized variety. It fires a large blue projectile that pretty much turns whatever it hits into a smoldering pile of melted... stuff. The Rock isn't much of a BFG whore though, so he only fires it a couple times. Oh hey, and don't forget the zombies! If you ever wanted to see a movie where a bunch of marines mow down a shitload of zombies with automatic weapons, then you should check out Doom. Sadly all the other zombie movies I've seen were lacking in automatic weapons, which is surprising because it seems like such an obvious thing to do. So yeah, I didn't hate this movie and I'm sure I'll be in the minority when it comes out on Friday. I guess saying "I didn't hate it" or "it's not that bad" are the best compliments I can give it, because it's still not a very good movie by any means. So perhaps the unhealthy obsession with Doom does come into play, because I still enjoyed the movie even though I probably shouldn't have. I really couldn't tell you why. It's a just a simple, brainless movie, and you'll either hate it or enjoy it for what it is. Also apparently having an extra chromosome doesn't make you retarded, but in fact makes you super human. You learn something new every day.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting some drama at id Software (the article is here, but you need a subscription). Adrian Carmack has filed a suit claiming that he was fired earlier this year (which I don't recall hearing about, so the article is either inaccurate or this info was kept secret) when he refused a buyout offer of $20 million from his fellow id executives. The suit claims that Activision bid $90 million last year for the Wolfenstein, Doom and Quake franchises, and was considering a $105 million bid for the entire company. Carmack was forced out when he refused the buyout, claiming his share would have come to 41% (which is of course higher than $20 million for the $105 million bid). Edit: To summarize, since the wording is confusing: Activision was going to offer id $105 million for the company. Of the five owners of id, only Adrian Carmack wanted to accept this. The other four owners offered to buyout Adrian Carmack's shares for $20 million, but he refused because 41% of $105 million is $43.05 million, not $20 million. Then he was fired from id, and now he has to sell his shares for $11 million.

Everybody wants a new romance! Everybody's goin' off the deep end! Sorry. Ken Scott of id Software fame (you've heard of them, right?) has updated his .plan with news that id Software is hiring. In specific they're looking for a 3D environmental artist. You need to have experience with a bunch of 3D modeling applications and be good at art and such. I don't know if anyone who fits that actually reads DW, but you never know, right?

At the San Diego ComicCon there was a Doom movie panel, apparently. Any attendees got a glimpse of a 90 second trailer for the movie and a second unfinished piece as well: The teaser trailer had a lot of quick cuts of The Rock; Karl Urban and the rest of the cast along with brief looks at the monsters, the environment (and they look right out of Doom 3, by the way; right down to the computer screens on the base) and battles with the monsters. The second clip is the one that got the most reaction; part of the first person shooter sequence featuring Urban’s character. Yes, the movie will at one point have a viewpoint just like the game, right down to the weapons loading animation. Check out the rest of the article over at Gamecloud. The movie hits theaters on Octover 21st, by the way. Muchas gracias to Shacknews. You may commence complaining and/or speculating... now.

Hey, there hasn't been any news on the Doom movie in a while, right? Check out a preview of a set visit on Dark Horizons. Of course filming wrapped a month or two ago (or maybe more, I haven't been paying attention), but better late than never, right? I'll just cut to the meat of the article since very little else is said about the film: 1) In their own words, the makers of the film are going for a "Hard R." 2) Every set, every corridor, every weapon looks faithful to the game. The set is a maze of dark corridors, steel-dungeony-looking hallways that should be scary as hell. The arsenal of weapons includes several nods to the game, including, of course, the BFG. 3) Real models when possible, minimizing the employment of green screens. 4) Sometime in the future, John Grimm (Karl Oben), Sarge (The Rock), and a military -esque crew receive a distress call from a science lab on the remote planet Olduvai. Once on Oldvuai, they're thrown into a maelstrom of dimly-lit hallways, monsters, and bloodshed. 5) The sets are all indoors So you can at least stop complaining that it won't be ultra-violent and move onto the fact that it takes place on 'Oldvuai' and takes place pretty much entirely indoors. Hey, just like Doom 3!

Update at Johnny C's blog outlining what he's been doing when not working on id's next game or with Armadillo Aerospace, if that's even still an entity. What is it you ask? Cell phones, hence my hilarious headline. Hilarious I say! Here's a snip: I have a small list of games that I think would work out well, but what I decided to work on is DoomRPG – sort of Bard’s Tale meets Doom. Step based smooth sliding/turning tile movement and combat works out well for the phone input buttons, and exploring a 3D world through the cell phone window is pretty neat. We talked to Jamdat about the business side of things, and hired Fountainhead Entertainment to turn my proof-of-concept demo and game plans into a full-featured game. Read the rest of the update if you hate Java like John hates Java. Also if you're not a programmer, you may want to wait for the version with subtitles to come out.

Mordeth updated the Mordeth site with news that Mordeth (the project) is still not released yet. In other news, Mord (the person) has been playing with some of the new features in Eternity such as portals and 3DMidTex which are sure to make him want to go back at redo all the maps, thus extending the development of the project another twenty years. I'd be mad, but it turns out infinity plus twenty is still infinity, so it's all good. Oh yeah, there's a new screenshot you can check out too.

Phobos, from the makers of RTC3057 and also known as the last remaining Doom 3 project, have a progress update for you to look at and read and stuff. News includes a new member and some sweet concept sketches. If you guys don't finish this, I'm gonna have to choke a bitch!

Update at ZDoom dot org for all you fans of, uh, ZDoom. Randy is hard at work on the next version which will not only include customizable weapons (via the decorate lump, much like with EDGE or Eternity), but also brand new floating point calculations and a vector math class. That probably made all the non-programmers cower in fear, so just know that you probably won't notice anything. There are also some nifty screenshots of untextured levels rendered with Ken Silverman's Polymost renderer. What that means is that, once in use, ZDoom will not have any of that weird fisheye warping stuff when you use freelook.

That's right! It was shocking news to me as well. Anyway, welcome DW's latest hosted site to the ever-growing list of unfinished, lost and abandoned projects and ideas that were never fully realized. Sounds exciting, no? The future is a bleak place, my friends. Anyway, hopefully Team Visplane Overflow will not meet the same fate as many other abandoned projects which shall remain nameless, though I'm not quite sure why the team would want to name themselves after a crash message, but I suppose that's their prerogative. Check out the site for all the latest news and developments with the team including upcoming releases, tutorials, reviews and articles.

Over at the site of my good buddy SoM, you can see a couple screenshots of the in-development version of Eternity featuring stacked sectors, or portals or whatever the hell you want to call them. Of course Eternity has already had them for a few months now, but this is significant because you can now stack a sector on top and bottom! That's like making a sandwich out of a Doom map! I'm not sure where I'm going with this, so just check out the screenshots you punks.

Soon I won't be able to say that to Carn and watch the little vein in his forehead pulsate like... something that pulsates. Not that I still won't do it, but it just won't have the same impact. The new Skulltag Website is up, along with news that the next version of the other popular online Doom multiplayer engine based on ZDoom will be out in a week! Not ZDaemon you big sillies, this update is about Skulltag. Also I think you still have time to enter that banner contest Manc updated about a couple days ago. So hop to it!