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              <p><font color="#0000FF"><b><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" color="#0000CC">volume 
                1, issue 16</font></b></font></p>
              <p><font color="#0000FF"><b><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" color="#0000CC"> 
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              <p>  <p><font face="Courier New, Courier, mono"><b><font color="#339900" face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Today 
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        <p align="center"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="+3" color="#0022A8">Good 
          Evening, and Welcome to Hell<i> </i><font size="+1">(five years of Doom)</font></font></p>
        <p align="LEFT">&nbsp;</p>
        <p align="RIGHT"><font color="#804000"><b><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">By 
          Rowan &quot;<a target="_self" href="mailto:sumaleth@frag.com">Sumaleth</a>&quot; 
          Crawford </font></b></font></p>
        <p align="RIGHT">&nbsp;</p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">By the time <b>Quake</b> 
          had arrived, the FPS was no longer the realm of a single game; the community 
          had already begun to fragment heavily, with some players preferring 
          the RPG style of <b>Hexen</b>, others enjoying the tongue-in-cheek style 
          of <b>Duke</b>, a large number unable to enjoy anything new since <b>Doom</b>, 
          and the rest spread out around the many other titles. <b>Quake </b>changed 
          that to a degree, it refocused the community back to a single game, 
          although the days of a single game entrancing everyone were well past 
          so even <b>Quake</b> had to be one of the crowd. It simply managed to 
          gather a bigger crowd than the other games.</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Post-<b>Quake</b> came an 
          avalanche of FPS games, an event which is still very much in full swing. 
          The introduction of engine licensing suddenly gave <i>everyone</i> with 
          some talent and money the opportunity to make FPS games without the 
          overhead of creating a new engine from scratch, and so, not surprisingly, 
          many of the FPS games to come out in recent years have been based around 
          licensed engines. <b>Doom's</b> engine was used for games like <b>HACX</b>, 
          <b>Outlaws </b>used the <b>Dark Forces</b> engine, <b>Duke's </b>engine 
          ended up in a number of games such as <b>Shadow Warrior</b> and <b>Redneck 

          Rampage</b>. <b>Quake's</b> engine was the most expensive of the lot 
          to license, yet still proved to be incredibly popular with titles such 
          as <b>Hexen 2</b> and <b>Half-Life. </b> However, most games that originally 
          licensed the <b>Quake</b> engine switched to the <b>Quake 2</b> engine 
          mid development.</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">And then there was <b>Quake 
          2</b>.</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Id Software were back again 
          in almost no time at all with a nicely updated version of their own 
          Quake engine (although I suspect they didn't have to pay the license 
          fee) for a semi-sequel. A sequel by name and engine only; the story, 
          graphics and gameplay were all substantially different from Quake, yet 
          the result was one of the best examples the genre had yet seen. </font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Following the release of 
          <b>Quake 2</b> came more licenses for games such as <b>Sin</b>, <b>Anachronox</b>, 
          and <b>Kingpin</b>. However, the big <b>Quake 2</b> engine license from 
          an general interest point of view, is probably the one for <b>Daikatana</b>, 
          the brainchild of John Romero at his new company Ion Storm. John was 
          (do I need to say?) one of the names behind our birthday boy, <b>Doom</b>, 
          so to say there's a buzz of anticipation in the gaming community for 
          his first personal project is something of an understatement. Unfortunately 
          there have been a number of large delays and problems with team members 
          leaving, but there are plenty of other great games coming out that I 
          think we can wait a bit longer without bursting.</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">It took a while, nearly 5 
          years to be exact, but with the release of <b>Quake 2</b> (or shortly 
          after) the rest of the industry began to catch up in the art of 3D engine 
          design (although the <b>Duke Nukem 3D</b> 'Build' engine did lead the 
          pack briefly before the release of <b>Quake</b>). While there are still 
          a number of games being produced based on the <b>Quake 2 </b>engine, 
          there are also an incredible number of games licensing other engines, 
          and a surprising number of companies producing their own engines. <b>Unreal 
          </b>warrants a mention here, not only because it seemed to take nearly 
          4 years from the start to the end of the project, but also because it 
          introduced some major enhancements to the genre. The new features included, 
          for the first time, massive (<i>massive</i>) outdoor environments, and 
          the inclusion of ingame cinematics to the extent that they became part 
          of the game, not simply the occasional break between maps. This second 
          concept was to be heavily exploited in the recent <b>Half-Life</b>.</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">The other interesting effect 
          of <b>Unreal's</b> release was that some companies that had already 
          licensed the <b>Quake 2</b> engine, or at least announced they were 
          going to do so, actually <i>moved</i> mid-production across to the <b>Unreal</b> 
          engine (requiring a second, expensive, engine license in some cases), 
          such as the Duke Nukem Forever project.</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">The list of games in production 
          or released utilizing the <b>Unreal</b> engine include; <b>Duke Nukem 
          Forever</b>, <b>Deux Ex</b>, <b>Klingon Honor Guard</b>, <b>Wheel of 
          Time</b>, and the list goes on and on…</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Monolith recently released 
          two FPS games based around their Lithtech engine, <b>Shogo: MAD</b>, 
          and <b>Blood 2</b>. Cavedog is producing an inhouse engine for <b>Amen</b>, 
          Dreamworks created their own engine for <b>Trespasser</b>, Rebel Boat 
          Rocker has created one for <b>Prax War</b>, <b>Prey</b> has its own 
          engine, as does <b>Requiem</b>, <b>Jedi Knight</b>, <b>Rainbow Six</b> 
          (with its strategy orientated slant on the genre). Not to mention a 
          number of new companies starting up now. Oh, and I can't forget to include 
          <b>The Varginha Incident</b> in this list! </font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Lets not also forget that 
          while <b>Doom</b> may have introduced the 'first person' genre to the 
          big time, it also inadvertently introduced the 3rd person genre as well. 
          If you follow the influences back from hit games such as </font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>Tomb Raider</b>, <b>Heretic 
          2</b>, and even <b>Mario64</b> you invariably end up back at <b>Doom</b>. 
          I've also failed to mention all the mods that have surfaced for many 
          FPS games such as <b>Capture The Flag</b>, as well as the mission packs 
          etc (see my </font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">loonygames feature article 
          from last week for more on 'addons'). <b>Doom</b> didn't just introduce 
          new game genres, it also touched on a number of completely different 
          industries. The prime example has to be the <b>Doom</b> movie that has 
          been mentioned on and off over the last couple of years. According to 
          Todd Hollenshead, CEO of id Software, "Sony/Columbia/TriStar insists 
          that it is a priority with them and that they are diligently working 
          on it."</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">They can mark me down for 
          a ticket right now if they like.</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Then there is the US army 
          that used a modified version of Doom as training for their soldiers. 
          I'm not sure how they explained respawn to the troops. Other items include 
          a range of pewter miniatures based on the Doom characters. You actually 
          got a Cyberdemon model (along with a TON of other cool stuff: a <b>Doom</b> 
          Comic book, the book of id, a limited edition t-shirt, dog tags, poster, 
          etc.) if you bought the id Anthology. The latest and greatest <b>Doom</b>-child 
          is <b>Half-Life</b> by Valve Software, a game that put its hand up and 
          offered to take the FPS to a new level in gameplay through the use of 
          artificial intelligence (AI that, for once, actually seemed intelligent), 
          and an interactive story that literally <i>is</i> the game. It pushes 
          deeply into territories discovered in only the last 12 months - plots, 
          non-player characters, interactive environments, ingame cinematics etc 
          - territories that open up vast acres of potential for the FPS genre, 
          and the gaming community as a whole. The future looks very bright indeed.</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>To Infinity and Beyond</b></font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">And what exactly <i>is</i> 
          the future of the FPS genre? The main game of the moment has to be id 
          Software's current project, <b>Quake 3: Arena</b>. With its emphasis 
          on deathmatch based gameplay, <b>Arena</b> sees id departing from the 
          traditional FPS design (i.e. the one they created) in an attempt to 
          again try something different. The world's collective breath is well 
          and truly baited.</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>Duke Nukem Forever</b> 
          is definitely one to watch. The Ion Storm series of games - <b>Daikatana</b>, 
          <b>Anachronox</b> and <b>Deux Ex</b> - are heavily anticipated releases 
          since the heavy hyping of the company’s birth. Cavedog is currently 
          working on <b>Amen</b>, their attempt to do for the FPS genre what they 
          did for the realtime strategy genre with <b>Total Annihilation</b>. 
          <b>Prey</b>? Well, it sounds like it's still coming.</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">It might be a good time to 
          look back over the last dozen or so paragraphs and try to comprehend 
          that all these fantastic games are the direct, irrefutable, result of 
          that game of the moment, <b>Doom</b>! And that is only a <i>very</i> 
          partial list of all the games that could be considered children of <b>Doom</b>.</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">The children of <b>Doom</b> 
          story may well come full circle in the future, with John Carmack recently 
          uttering that magical phrase; "<b>Doom2000</b>". The title was mentioned 
          as a <i>possible</i> future title, depending on the success or otherwise 
          of the <b>Arena</b> experiment and many other contributing factors, 
          but there can't be many people who aren't now dribbling uncontrollably 
          at the thought of the <b>Doom </b>universe revisited using the Trinity 
          engine and the combined talent of the id Software team. A Steed version 
          of the Cyberdemon sounds almost too good to be true!</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">There you have it, the remarkable 
          impact of <b>Doom</b> condensed awkwardly into a single article. One 
          game that took on a life of its own, and in the process, become firmly 
          cemented in the halls of history. Life without <b>Doom</b>, can you 
          imagine what it might be like? I would probably have a lot more spare 
          time on my hands for one thing, and I suspect there'd be a lot of people 
          out there scratching their ass and bumping into things. <b>Doom</b>, 
          and all its subsequent offspring, provide so many of us with an interest, 
          a hobby, something creative to do, an adrenaline kick, a reason for 
          meeting new people, a reason for staying up late, a job, a goal for 
          the future, an outlet for whatever needs out letting, and, finally, 
          a reason for being.</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Happy birthday, <b>Doom</b> 
          Guy.</font></p>
        <p align="LEFT">&nbsp;</p>
        <p align="RIGHT">&nbsp;</p>
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    <td><i><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-2"><b>Credits:</b> 
      Good Evening, and Welcome to Hell &copy; 1998 Rowan Crawford. All other 
      content is &copy; 1998 <a target="_self" href="http://www.loonyboi.com">loonyboi 
      productions</a>. Unauthorized reproduction is strictly prohibited, dangit.</font></i></td>
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