Id Software has released the Godfather of all first person shooters, Doom Classic. [$6.99 - iTunes Link] The game has been ported nicely while including a completely new episode not found in the original along with a few other extras sprinkled in for your gaming pleasure.
- Play the legendary first person shooter, DOOM, with an iPhone or iPod Touch. Fight through 36 missions in four action-packed episodes: Knee-Deep in the Dead, Shores of Hell, Inferno, and Thy Flesh Consumed.
- Experience DOOM multiplayer on your mobile device, including Deathmatch and Cooperative play for up to four players via wireless internet.
- Choose from three different control types and customize the interface to suit your style.
- Explore the depths of Mars while utilizing the topdown map to help you explore and save your game on the fly.
- Listen to the original soundtrack or disable it and use your own iPod music.
After spending some time with Doom Classic it’s safe to say that FPS fans should enjoy this classic action.
DOOOOOOOOOM! [$9.99 - iTunes link] That’s right, the mother of all Martian first person shooters (FPS) is in the App Store now:
-Advanced graphics engine designed from the ground up to take full advantage of the power found in Apple’s mobile devices
-Wield an arsenal of heavy-hitting weapons to defeat a variety of hideous monsters and bosses
-Innovative controls for fast-paced and accessible first-person action
-An all-new chapter of the DOOM saga that new players and long-time DOOM fans can enjoy
How does a golden oldie translate to the newest, greatest mobile platform? If you try it out, and live to tell the tale, let us know what you think!
John Carmack has written an update on his Doom port for the iPhone, and he’s continuing the same candor he began with his Wolfenstein 3D post. What are we getting? A classic in almost every sense of the word:
Before I actually started coding on the project, I had visions of adding a lot of modern tuned effects to the core gameplay experience. It would certainly stay a sprite-and-sector based game, but there are many things that would be done differently with the benefit of a GPU and the wisdom of hindsight. Once I began actually working on it, it started to look like a bad idea for a number of reasons. I am trying to not be very disruptive in the main codebase, because I want it to stay a part of prBoom instead of being another codebase fork. While I can certainly add a bunch of new features fairly quickly, iterating through a lot of user testing and checking for problems across the >100 commercial Doom levels would take a lot longer. There really is value in ” classic” in this case, and there would be some degree of negative backlash to almost any “improvements” I made. There will still be a couple tiny tweaks, but nothing radical is changing in the basic play. It would be fun to take a small team, permanently fork it, and make a “Doom++” just for the iPhone, but that wouldn’t be the best first move. Maybe later.
Check out the full post for more on his experiences with iPhone game development.
[Thanks to Icebike for the tip!]
Waaaaaay back in the early days of the iPhone, word spread that legendary creator of 3D first person shooters like Wolfenstein and Doom, John Carmack was eager to develop games for the iPhone. Well, hopefully good things come to those who wait, because Carmack has just posted news that Wolfenstein is on its way, and there’s more to come.
In a monstrous blog post, Carmack explains what took so long, the pros (graphics more capable than Nintendo DS) and cons (driver overhead is far, far worse), design notes, and programming.
Must read for anyone interested in iPhone development and id games. For those who just want to play, Wolfenstein is coming, Doom is coming, and undisclosed but hopefully uber-cool new id-goodness is coming.
So, who’s loading their chain guns?
You know, you know: the iPhone ranks up there with the PSP for sheer gaming power, heck John Carmack has said it could even be in the same category as the PS2 or the Xbox. Carmack speaks out on the iPhone often enough that TiPb seems to have a full-on crush on the guy. One tidbit that we missed during his last talk comes to us via Apple Insider and it puts our pie-in-the-sky gaming hopes in the proper context:
The verdict is also out on whether Apple has a concrete grasp of gaming, the id co-founder said. The company’s reception to criticism has also been counterintuitive, which has led to its relationship with id being something akin to a roller-coaster ride.
Apple essentially kisses his ass when they need him to show up for one of Steve Jobs’ keynotes, but then throws him the cold shoulder the second he passes judgement, Carmack said.
Ouch. Here’s one way to get Apple to sit up and take notice, Carmack: deliver that ‘graphical tour-de-force’ for the iPhone you’ve been chatting up post haste. It’s a lot easier to get a company to kiss your ass when they can wipe it with $100 bills you’ve helped them earn. Just saying.
Meanwhile, the gaming potential of the iPhone is hitting the mainstream media, as Time Magazine profiles the various happenings on the gaming front. Coming soon: a genuine multiplayer-over-WiFi game (Asphalt 4) and, Spore Origins (SQUEEE!), featuring “18 levels of game play and an ‘Arena’ mode for competing with others around the globe.” We’ve all been waiting for Spore for so long now that we’re pretty sure that when it’s finally playable on the iPhone, we’ll be so enmeshed in the game for so long that actual evolution will likely occur on a massive scale without us noticing it.
