id-software posts

Boot Disk: Return to Castle Wolfenstein

by James Murff Feb 2nd 2010 @ 6:00PM

Sometimes you just need to sit down, slide a floppy into your A: drive, and enjoy gaming retro style. We know this all too well! That's why we have a list of the best and brightest from days long gone. These are some of our favorite games of all time, and we're sure that you'll love them as much as we do, if not more. Welcome to Boot Disk, and enjoy the retro ride!

Wolfenstein 3D is a fun arcade-like shooter that is considered one of the fathers of the modern first-person shooter. Roaming around a castle with an arsenal of weapons killing nazis and mecha-Hitler can't be bad, after all. That's the kind of ridiculousness you expect in a videogame! In 2001, however, id decided that it was about time to revisit their ancient classic and give it an update. Whether it's remake, re-imagining, sequel, or prequel, Return to Castle Wolfenstein is that remake and it's one of the better shooters of the early 2000s. The graphics still look alright, the level design is inspired, and the multiplayer component ridiculously good, so diving into the world of Nazi butchery after all these years isn't that bad of an idea.

Filed under: Features, FPS, Multiplayer

Steam breaks out more holiday PC game sales

by John Callaham Dec 24th 2009 @ 1:00PM

Steam's big holiday sales event is ongoing with a ton of games and game bundle collections with slashed prices. Today they have gone even further with one day sales on five titles. The prices are only valid until 12 noon Eastern time on Christmas Day.

The biggest deal is with the id Software Super Pack. You can now purchase and download over 20 games either developed by or based on id games for a mere $23.79. Also Serious Sam HD: The First Encounter can be yours for just $9.99 for one day. Left 4 Dead 2 is on sale for $33.49 while Need For Speed Shift has a price cut of $37.49. Finally Football Manager 2010 can be yours for just $29.99.

Filed under: Downloads, Driving, FPS, Multiplayer, Sports, Left 4 Dead Series

Quake Live gets into the holiday spirit starting Tuesday

by John Callaham Dec 21st 2009 @ 5:00PM

id Software's free-to-play shooter Quake Live has been live to the public for the better part of a year now and this week the game gets all "good will toward men" with a holiday themed level and player skins. Beginning on Tuesday, you will be able to frag your friends online in a special Christmas-themed level titled (what else) Silent Night. The level is basically a remake of the Distance Screams map from Quake III: Team Arena but with lots of holiday decorations and lights.

And if you ever wanted to frag a friend looking like St. Nick, Quake Live has you covered as well. Tuesday also lets players pick a Santa Claus skin and use it in all of the game types. There's also a Vixen-themed female holiday skin for those of you of the opposite sex.

Filed under: FPS, Multiplayer

Feature: The top 10 PC game news stories of 2009

by John Callaham Dec 17th 2009 @ 6:00PM

The last 12 months have seen a lot of changes in the PC game industry. Some of them were good; the growth of the play-for-free PC game market, the launch of Windows 7 and rise of digital distribution as a major factor for PC game sales. Other news items were not as good to hear about A number of PC game developers and even one major publisher shut their doors in the last 12 months. Major AAA games were canceled or delayed into 2010.

In other words it was a fairly normal year with lots of up and lots of downs. Big Download has reviewing our regular monthly top 10 news story features. Today we bring you our picks for the top 10 news items that affected the PC game industry for the entire year.

Click on the image above to continue reading the top 10 PC game news stories of 2009

Gallery: The Top 10 Biggest PC Game News Stories For 2009

Filed under: Features, Modern Warfare 2, Starcraft II

Quake Wars Online revealed for Korean market

by John Callaham Dec 17th 2009 @ 4:00PM

Id Software's free-to-play first person shooter Quake Live has been live for the better part of a year now but now it looks like another Quake-based game is going the free-to-play route, at least in Korea. Developer Splash Damage has just revealed Quake Wars Online, a game based on the developer's 2007 released Enemy Territory: Quake Wars multiplayer shooter.

Developed by Korean-based Dragonfly, Splash Damage says Quake War Online is currently moving into a public beta testing phase limited to 100,000 players. If you can read Korean you can find out more at the game's official web site. At the moments there's no word if Quake Wars Online will be made available to US players. You can check out a teaser trailer for the game after the jump.

Continue reading Quake Wars Online revealed for Korean market

Filed under: FPS, Multiplayer

EA doesn't seem too upset over losing Rage

by John Callaham Dec 16th 2009 @ 9:00AM

Electronic Arts seemed to be very happy to have id Software in its line-up of third party game developed a year and a half ago when it first announced its publishing deal for Rage. Now that the first person shooter is in the hands of id's new owner ZeniMax Media, EA doesn't seem very upset about the situation.

IGN posted up a statement from an EA rep who stated, "In keeping with EA's initiative to focus on fewer hits, we have ended our publishing agreement with ZeniMax. We wish the very best outcome for the id team on what we believe will be an extraordinary game." While EA is indeed going through a restructuring where it is laying off 1,500 team members, it's also likely that EA didn't want to share any of Rage's revenue with ZeniMax, which is slowly becoming a major publisher in itself.

Gallery: Rage

Filed under: FPS, Rage

ZeniMax/Bethesda Softworks to publish id Software's Rage

by John Callaham Dec 15th 2009 @ 10:30AM

One of Electronic Arts' biggest third party publishing deals is now no more. ZeniMax Media, the parent company of Bethesda Softworks and the owner of id Software, has just announced that they will take over as the publisher of id's next game, the first person shooter Rage.

Rage was first announced in 2007 during QuakeCon and at E3 in 2008 Electronic Arts announced it would handle the publishing duties for the game. However ZeniMax went ahead and bought id Software in June of 2009. At the time both ZeniMax and EA stated that the publishing deal for Rage would go unchanged. Neither EA nor ZeniMax has announced the financial specifics of this new publishing transfer, with ZeniMax saying only that, "The ongoing development of Rage is unaffected by this development."

[Via email press release]

Gallery: Rage

Filed under: Biz, FPS, Rage

Boot Disk: Quake

by James Murff Dec 14th 2009 @ 9:00PM

C:\BootDisk\Quake

Sometimes you just need to sit down, slide a floppy into your A: drive, and enjoy gaming retro style. We know this all too well! That's why we have a list of the best and brightest from days long gone. These are some of our favorite games of all time, and we're sure that you'll love them as much as we do, if not more. Welcome to Boot Disk, and enjoy the retro ride!

id is well known for two series of games: Doom and Quake. While we've certainly covered Doom before, and Quake's multiplayer offering, we've never really gotten to the core of the Quake franchise. Therefore, we should take a look at one of the most revolutionary games of all time. While it certainly doesn't seem like it, Quake sent shockwaves through the first-person realm that are still felt today. It's even more important than Doom, although only slightly so, and thanks to wider availability of retro games, Quake is open to those that wish to play a classic first-person shooter with high-end systems.

Filed under: Features, FPS

Quake Live gets major update

by John Callaham Dec 10th 2009 @ 8:00AM

It's been a while since we had given an update on Quake Live but this week id Software issued a major new update for their free-to-play first person shooter. While the developer didn't add any new content to the game in this update they did put in a large amount of game and map changes.

One of the big update is for character hitboxes for weapon hit detection. id is now using a cylindrical collision box and they admit, "We fully expect there to be a required adjustment period for most players." However they feel the changes are worth it, saying, "the new hitbox provides a more consistent game play experience, it will be slightly easier to dodge and hitting other players can feel more rewarding." The game servers now run with an increased frame rate in the new update which should increase frame rates for all players. Finally the registration process has been improved for new players.

Gallery: Quake Live Open Beta Screenshots

Filed under: Browser, FPS, Multiplayer

Feature: Unreal Tournament and Quake III Arena - 10 Years Later

by John Callaham Dec 4th 2009 @ 7:00PM

The world was a very different place back in late 1999. Bill Clinton still had over a year to go in his presidency. This new thing called the "internet" and the "world wide web" was beginning to look less like a trend and more like a real communications tool. Broadband usage was still well below dial-up access.

It was also near the height of the PC game industry. Thanks in part to the growing use of the internet, people were buying desktop PCs at a record rate. PC gaming rigs were getting faster all the time and the use of hardware acceleration in PC games and in graphics cards increased the performance and the looks of many PC game titles to height that were much better than the best console games at the time.

Continue reading Feature: Unreal Tournament and Quake III Arena - 10 Years Later

Filed under: Downloads, Demos, Features, FPS, Multiplayer

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