In news that shouldn’t be all that surprising, id software has announced that they have begun production of the next installment in the Doom series. And…that’s really all that we know right now. However, id has also announced that they’re now looking to hire some new people for the project:

“DOOM is part of the id Software DNA and demands the greatest talent and brightest minds in the industry to bring the next installment of our flagship franchise to Earth,” said Todd Hollenshead, CEO, id Software. “It’s critical for id Software to have the best creative minds in-house to develop games that meet the standards synonymous with our titles.”

Odds are the game will be an FPS involving a space marine fighting demons on Mars. Unless they shake things up a bit and make it real-time-strategy-kart-racing game. Frankly, with the FPS genre so oversaturated these days, I’d welcome the change of pace.

Via Press Release

Looks like I’ll have to amend my exhibitor list again. Kotaku is reporting that six more publishers have dropped out of E3 this year. Who are the missing half-dozen?

Well, to Vivendi and Activision you can add the following: Codemasters, NCSoft, Her Entertainment, and id Software. The new four have confirmed that they are not attending this year’s show, but they are remaining members of the ESA.

Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter has been quoted as placing at least part of the blame at the feet of ESA President, Mike Gallagher.

“Lowenstein was a very savvy industry veteran who paid attention to the goings-on in the industry and cared what the community had to say. The new person… whose name completely escapes me because I’ve never met him or heard from him, is far less knowledgeable and sophisticated about this industry than Doug was and is going to make some rookie mistakes.

Doug used to be a very visible spokesperson in congress… when you’d get these [things like] Barack Obama saying videogames are corrupting our youth or MADD saying that Take-Two should pull GTA off the shelves, you would hear Lowenstein immediately shoot back. I would guess that Activision doesn’t perceive the same value from the ESA as they did under Doug’s leadership. I criticize [Gallagher's] lack of drive to learn about the industry.”

Thus far, the ESA and Gallagher have had no comment, but it seems to me that common sense would say that if your largest members are leaving and/or not supporting your signature event, you may have a problem on your hands.

To be fair, NCSoft has publicly stated that their decision not to attend is based soley on their game development cycles, and has nothing ot do with the ESA or its leadership. However, the rest of us are left wondering what may come from all the other companies in the coming week, especially with the news that Activision will be holding an event on the first day of E3, just not in the convention center as part of E3.

Is this the beginning of the end for E3? We’ve speculated on it for quite some time, literally every year since the format was changed. Could it finally be upon us?

Via: Kotaku

The developers of Quake Live (formerly known as “Quake Zero”) are now accepting sign ups for the game’s beta test. The game will pretty much be a port of Quake III, but completely free and playable via a web browser. Players will also be able to access friends lists, stat tracking, tournaments, and communication directly through a web browser. We’ll have to wait and see if all that can actually bring in a vibrant community. I have to admit, the prospect of being able to play a quality FPS on any computer is an enticing prospect.

To sign for the Quake Live beta, you just have to head over to the official website and submit your e-mail address.

Develop 100 ranks the world’s games development studios based on the revenues their products made at UK retail in 2007. This year, not surprisingly, the top honor goes to Nintendo and I have listed the Top 20 here for you.

1. Nintendo (£129.83m)
2. EA Canada (£68.78m)
3. Ubisoft Montreal (£52.17m)
4. Konami (£41.67m)
5. Infinity Ward (£39.6m)
6. EA Black Box (£37.31m)
7. Maxis (£36.84m)
8. Bungie (£31.45m)
9. Sega Studios Japan (£27.7m)
10. Traveller’s Tales (£27.06m)
11. Ubisoft France (£25.37m)
12. Yuke’s (£24.5m)
13. Amaze Entertainment (£24.07m)
14. EA LA (£22.49m)
15. Capcom (£22.3m)
16. Rebellion (£20.13m)
17. EA Redwood Shores (£19.99m)
18. Vicarious Visions (£17.56m)
19. A2M (£17.5m)
20. Hudson (£16.22m)

It was no surprise to see that EA took nine of the spots considering that they own many a gaming studio across the globe. Criterion, and BioWare which are also owned by EA were listed as well and maybe even a few that I missed. I expect EA to become the majority share holder for both Heaven and Hell eventually.

For the full list click here.

The final version of the Doom 3: Last man Standing Mod is now available. This mod brings the heart pounding experience of Classic Doom to the Doom 3 multiplayer coop. Version 4.0 brings a new map to the fight. there are also more than ten new LMS SP Coop easter eggs to find as well as the expected tweaks and bug fixes.

Here are the highlights of v. 4.0:

• Windows (including the steam version), Mac and Linux Compatible
• Over ten new LMS SP Coop easter eggs to find!
• New Map TS_HellPentagram.
• Now features over 80 maps tweaked for Cooperative play!
• Upgraded to the heavily optimized 1.3.1 Classic Doom for Doom 3 Maps
• Heavily Improved New Supermaggot skin! Also new menu and wrench icons.
• Portals added so players don’t get left behind on train maps.
• Spawns have been significantly tweaked to reduce or eliminate telefragging.
• Training Simulation maps (TS_) have been updated and fixed.
• Numerous SP Coop tweaks and fixes to optimize your gaming experience.

Gamers can download the Windows version and the Multiplatform version from FileFront.

Aspyr has announced that Enemy Territory QUAKE Wars is coming to the Mac. This shooter built on id Software’s MegaTexture rendering technology offers strategic game play and story-driven military missions. ET QUAKE Wars follows Neverwinter Nights 2, The Sims 2: Bon Voyage and Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock all developed for the Mac by Aspyr.

Traditionally gamers have invested in PCs because gaming has been limited for the Mac. With more games in development for the Mac now, I wonder if we’ll start to see a shift in numbers of PC versus Mac sales among gaming enthusiasts.

via Aspyr

The development blog for Enemy Territory: Quake Wars yesterday brought disappointing news for Quake Wars fans, as the 1.4 update has been delayed. Problems were found while the update went through QA testing, including issues that are ATI card-specific. Developer Splash Damage is working with AMD and ATI to solve that particular problem in addition to ironing out the other issues that the update currently has.

As a result, it’s unlikely that the update will be released by the end of the year, so Splash Damage is now looking at an early January ’08 release. As disappointing as that is, it’s certainly a whole lot better than releasing a broken update that could have potentially prevented gamers from even being able to play the game.

CVG recently scored an interview with id software’s CEO Todd Hollenshead and lead level designer Matt Hooper. The interview is a bit strange as it barely touches any details regarding id’s next game, Rage. Instead, the interview focuses more on how a typical working day is at id. We’re treated to a fair bit of reminiscing from Hollenshead (who acts half-drunk). Needless to say, Rage (& effectively Hooper) takes a back seat half-way into the interview where Hollenshead completely takes over.

When the topic is actually focused on Rage, Hollenshead & Hooper (who barely chimes in) advocate that the [major] consoles out right now are just as important as PCs (this coming from a historically PC-centric company). In fact, id is developing Rage on several platforms concurrently (PC, 360, PS3, & even Mac). To id, not having a product branded as a port is pretty important these days. Given id’s reputation (and its most prized possession, ‘The Carmack’), you can pretty much expect Rage to run optimally on your platform of choice – whenever that is.

Hollenshead goes on to pimp Quake III as “still the most popular [pure deathmatch] game”. He mentions a thing or two about Quake Zero and how anxious id are at getting Quake III onto XBLA. (Mooooo….. Apparently you 360 owners were all over Doom.)

The most interesting part of the interview (other than the backyard fornication comment) was Hollenshead’s note that the art staff for id right now is larger than the entire development team behind Quake 2. A sign of the times, indeed. Keep in mind that id is still a small company by today’s standards (a staff of 35 is tiny). When reminiscing about the lax id days of old, Hollenshead spouted:

“Like before we had no vacation policy; it was like, if you take off too much time you got your a** kicked out. Where as now we have approved vacations, somebody tracks all this stuff and there’s a lot more administration stuff.”

Was that a poke at a certain former id employee? You bad boy, Todd. *chuckle*

The interview is an entertaining read, to say the least. Hollenshead is a real goofball here. He had me laughing all the way through. It’s also good to see id is alive & kicking (and anything but bored), albeit a bit under the radar compared to the id of yesteryear. Perhaps low media exposure is what they’ve been needing all along.

Bring on the Rrrrrage!

Via CVG

Recently I had the opportunity to play the newest RPG to hit the Nintendo DS, and while I was a bit skeptical of the title, I can say with relative frankness that Orcs & Elves is probably one of the best handheld RPGs that have come out in forever and a day. Granted, the term RPG is being used loosely with Orcs & Elves, because unlike more traditional role-playing games you cannot choose your character’s appearance, class, faction, name, or any other means of personalization that are familiar to RPG titles. Nevertheless, Orcs & Elves is indeed an RPG and although it is an RPG in its most basic form, this only adds to the sheer amazement fans of the original mobile game will feel when popping this into their DS.

In the game, you play a nameless hero dungeon crawling his way through a vast Dwarven citadel wielding a talking wand. Your quest is to rid yourself and the world of the rancorous enemies blocking your path of vengeance for the kidnapping of your king. Your wand, Ellon, may remind you of Navi from Ocarina of Time at first but you will quickly learn that Ellon is not near as annoying as Navi and instead of wanting to punch Ellon for talking too much, you are instead lucky to have him/her along with you on your adventure. Ellon comes in very handy when you need to cast a spell, even if sometimes it takes forever to recharge, but Ellon is essential to the storyline – especially in the areas where you need to interact with an NPC. These characters are mainly drunken dwarves who have long since perished and funnily enough, they speak a language only Ellon can understand.

Read the full article »

One of the first fantasy RPG titles to cross over to the Nintendo DS from mobile phones, Orcs & Elves has finally hit shelves. Electronic Arts, Fountainhead Entertainment, and id Software have created a handheld dungeon-crawling fantasy game from their award winning cell-phone game, where gamers play as a young half-elf exploring a massive Dwarven fortress riddled with ancient treasure, powerful weapons, and waves of ruthless enemies. On a quest to expel the ultimate evil from the mountain’s core, players can utilize the DS touch screen to cast spells, move and attack enemies, make use of magic potions, enchanted rings, and armor, and bargain for goods.

“Orcs & Elves is captivating on the Nintendo DS,” said Katherine Anna Kang, founder and president of Fountainhead Entertainment. “We were able to expand on the award winning original game by adding hours of new content and using the unique Nintendo DS touch screen to immerse the player into a magical world where they are the hero.”

Wanna see the launch trailer for the game? Of course you so, and you can get it on our FileFront page.

In addition, Orcs & Elves II for mobile phones is scheduled to be released in late November on most wireless carriers, and it continues the epic story from the original game and expands the Orcs & Elves universe. As a novice thief who has stolen the legendary wand Ellon, the player must return to his under siege town before it’s too late, players will encounter new creatures, allies and villains as they explore seven interactive environments including towns, collapsing caverns and haunted forests.

We have plenty of screens for Orcs & Elves for you to browse through, and if you want to read up a bit more on the game, you can check out our previous posts here and here.

Via: Press Release