wolfenstein-3d posts

There's some interesting stuff that we will be posting about early in the morning. Just a heads up.

• Steam has new automatic updates for Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike: Source, Day of Defeat: Source and Half-Life 2: Deathmatch.
• From now until 1 pm Eastern time Tuesday you can get Darksiders for $9.99 over at Direct2Drive.
• You can now play Wolfenstein 3D in, well, 1D. It's as weird as it sounds.
• Check out this cool new Fallout fan film that's all about trying to find some Nuka Cola.
• Speaking of which someone has created their own Nuka Cola bottle and case design. Neat.

The man who helped to create the first person shooter genre is now being honored for his many accomplishments by his peers. id Software co-founder John Carmack will be given the annual Lifetime Achievement Award during the 2010 Game Developers Choice Awards. The award will be given out in San Fransisco during the Game Developers Conference on March 11.

Carmack co-founded id Software back in 1991 and his graphics engine technology was the basis behind the launch of the first person shooter genre with id's games like Wolfenstein 3D, Doom and Quake. He's also been a highly influential person in the development of PC graphics technology, particularly the hardware 3D acceleration trend that began in the late 1990s. Carmack is working on id's latest graphics engine, id tech 5, that will be used in id's two upcoming games; Rage and the next Doom game.

In related news, it was announced that the Game Developers Choice Awards ceremony will see Junction Point Studios founder Warren Spector as its host.

As id Software prepares to say "good-bye" to their long time publishing partner Activision with their upcoming game Wolfenstein, the publisher is promoting its August 4 release with a series of animation shorts on Gametrailers.com that tells the back story of William "B.J." Blazkowicz before the events of the new game.

The first animated short (we might call it a "motion comic" since the animation is so limited) basically is a retelling of the original Wolfenstein 3D game, complete with a Hitler with multiple chainguns. Supposedly there will be new shorts like this released every week until the Raven Software-developed game is released next month. You can check out the video after the jump.

On Monday we began a fond look back at the 1990s, when Star Trek was well into The Next Generation and The X-Files was our favorite way to get scared. PC games also came into their own in that decade and to prove it we picked 15 titles that were released between 1992 and 1993.

It was the time period where adventure games were all over the place and an odd PC hardware add-on called the CD-ROM would make us forget floppies. Shareware was also making a huge impact on gamers, including a little game called Doom. Let's head back about 16 or 17 years and take a look at the 1990's games that we still like to play today.

Click on the image to read more of We Love the 90s (for PC Games): 1992-1993

Many of us play games to escape reality for a while, so we don't want to see it repeated in a game. This typically means that you get to play characters who are physically super-able: they can run for hours without tiring, absorb horrific amounts of damage without it affecting their ability to function, and expertly wield any weapon they happen to come across. This also usually means that your character inhabits a world that, when the inevitable occurs and he's so damaged as to be near death, there's always a handy magical healthpack lying around in plain sight to take care of him.

Let's say you're a developer, working on your first game. It's an adventure game, and combat is a focus. You want your players to feel empowered and tough, but you also want to avoid the standard deus ex machina of health recovery. Where do you find the balance between simple entertainment and gritty realism?

While Xbox 360 and PS3 users have worked themselves into a veritable tizzy over downloadable content, PC users have been accustomed to having the lifeline of their favorite games extended far past their in-the-box values since the days of Doom - and even before that. What's more, we're used to downloading new levels, weapons, characters, and new episodes absolutely free of charge.

Big Download understands that a five-hour game can be extended by hundreds of hours via total conversions, brand new monsters, and weapons you've always wanted to see in your favorite title. In the spirit of extending a title's longevity beyond mere out-of-the-box expectations, MODmonday celebrates the best modifications for games new and old. Half-Life, Half-Life 2, StarCraft, Diablo II, Doom and more will all be represented here, ensuring a wide spread of mods available across every possible genre of PC gaming.

This week's MODmonday column features WolfGL, a source port of Wolfenstein 3D.

Wolfenstein 3D -- the groundbreaking game that brought the First Person Shooter genre into the light of day -- celebrates its sixteenth birthday today. It can legally drive a car, drop out of high school, and maybe even get married with parental consent now.

Wired celebrated the game's Sweet Sixteen with a brief summary of its history and some quotes about how revolutionary it was. "The key to the whole Wolfenstein thing is that its success -- which was massive -- paved the way for ... thousands of games that mimicked them, transforming the PC into a gaming system best known for FPS titles," said Wired blogger Earnest Cavalli. And it's true -- whether your favorite FPS is BioShock, Call of Duty 4, or even Portal, the genre as we know it today began with good ol' WOLF3D.EXE.

But if you want a reason to hate the masterpiece then think of it this way -- sick to death of World War II games? Wolfenstein 3D started this whole killing-Nazis-in-the-first-person-perspective spree! Yikes.

[Via Joystiq]