BYOC Lines and Booth Babes - Long lines are usually a downer, but in QuakeCon's case, waiting is half the fun! Take a look at pictures of the BYOC (Bring Your Own Computer) area, gamers waiting with their rigs, and of course, a few booth babes sporting this year's trendy Wolfenstein soldier apparel.


New Wolfenstein trailer, screenshots: id Software may be focusing the spotlight on Rage, but that doesn't mean it will let the Raven Software-developed Wolfenstein fade into the background. This new trailer, available in a high definition download, comes directly from the event. If you need to catch up from a few weeks prior to QuakeCon, we also have the E3 trailer in high def. While you're downloading the gorgeous files, feast your eyes on several new screenshots.


Case Mods: Though playing computer games is certainly the point of QuakeCon, it's not the main attraction for many. Gamers with the most fancy, the most eclectic, the most bizarre of gaming rigs lug their cases (some built brick by brick, some cooler than others) for miles across the country (many even across oceans) in order to not only rack up headshots, but show off the rig that gave them the edge in competition. Browse our case mod gallery for a look at some of the standout systems from this year's QuakeCon event.


Rage round-up: A round-up within a round-up! Yee-haw. Rage was the primary focal point of id's QuakeCon announcements, as they're not ready to show too much on Doom. Two new screenshots were released (yeah, two) and John Carmack discussed the Rage engine, which is just about finished. Does that mean we'll be Rage-ing within a year's time? Maybe, maybe not; as usual, id proclaimed Rage's release date as "when it's done."

EA, Doom: Among many subjects broached during John Carmack's QuakeCon keynote were the apparent oddity of selecting Electronic Arts as a publisher for Rage, as well as a few Doom morsels of information. Though we suggest reading the Doom-related articles for further info, here's a quick recap: Doom 4 won't be called Doom 4, and you can expect the game's pace to be more akin to Doom II's rather than that of a survival horror game. Speaking of which...


Darkness, QuakeCon party: id Software revealed that they'd been working on a survival horror title known as Darkness for over a year before pulling the plug. Why? According to Carmack, the title was repeating what many consumers, magazines and even id members believed were Doom 3's mistakes. How depressing, right? Yeah, but there's some good news to this good news/bad news post: someone won a car! QuakeCon ended as it began: with a big party, one that saw Quake Live and ET: Quake Wars competition, some Guitar Hero rocking, and one lucky attendee drive away from the convention with a smokin' new set of wheels.


Frag: What's it like to be Jonathan "Fatal1ty" Wendel? Pretty good, but only if you can make it that big. Big Download Co-lead Writer John Callaham attended a special QuakeCon screening of Frag, a documentary that follows the joys and sorrows of several professional gamers. Some win big, most lose even bigger.




Hands-on: Though there's not as much to see at QuakeCon in terms of games on display (most of the gaming action is appropriately found in the BYOC area), Co-lead Writer David Craddock had the chance to sample a few products that were on hand. I took Wolfenstein RPG, Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars and Spore: Origins for a spin on several mobile phones, and also immersed myself in all the Phillips amBX system has to offer.

Why did we cover mobile games, you ask? True, such coverage is not typical for Big Download, but we sampled the games because A) they were there, so why not? And B) they're all derivatives of popular PC titles, so we thought some of you PC gamers looking for mobile phone entertainment might be intrigued.

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Files & Galleries

Download the HD QuakeCon 2008 Wolfenstein trailer

Gallery: Wolfenstein

Gallery: Rage