Doom III

[elfs]

So, after all the dire warnings about how hard Linux gaming has turned out to be, and how I shouldn't get my hopes up about playing Doom 3 under Linux, I went ahead and installed it anyway. shaterri was kind enough to loan me his data disks. So I became root (administrator), typed emerge doom3 (emerge is gentoo's source-driven package manager, but it'll install binaries if there's no source available), and waited. Ten minutes later, the install was done.

As is recommended, I have a separate account for games. So, after installing, I logged out as "elf", logged back in as "gamer", called up the run command dialog, and typed in doom3.

And was promptly never heard from again.

Everything you've read about Doom 3 is true. The graphics are amazing. The gameplay is fabulous. The trick of using the game engine itself to do introductions by dialoguing with people, seen in Half Life, is everywhere here as well. The sound is spot on. There isn't a single missing detail. And under Linux the performance was mind-bogglingly good. There were no stutters, no frame drops, nothing problematic at all about the game. ID got Linux gameplay just right.

Half Life 2 promises a more "cinematic" game experience, a grittier and more real-life rendering. It had better be, or it's never going to be able to compete with Doom 3.

Now all I have to figure out is: where on Mars do they keep the freakin' duct tape‽

Comments

[abostick59.livejournal.com]

"action game". You said it.

All the story there is to Doom is contained in this single 16-page comic.