Quick Start
Tom McDonald has been covering games for countless magazines and
newspapers for 11 years. He lives in the New Jersey Pine Barrens.Doom and
Gloom
+GAME THEORY BY^ THOMAS L. McDONALD
Doom 3 is a weird trip through the game design
Wayback Machine. Even with undeniably gorgeous
visuals cranked out by a videocard several times
more powerful than the computer I used to play the
original Doom , there is something so very 1994 about
the whole experience. Graphically, that 10-year gap
is the difference between Lascaux and DaVinci.
The game itself, however, is mired in a strange retro
sameness that mingles fan-service with current
first-person shooter trends to come up with... well,
very little, actually.
The whole experience is oddly jarring, as though
Doom 3 collided with the design doc for another
game. Unlike prior id Software games, there is
an attempt to create the active, heavily scripted
environments characteristic of modern shooters.
The integration of cutscenes is often breathtaking,
as third-person cinematics seamlessly segue into
first-person action set pieces. Moments of sustained
tension are punctuated by sudden terror, with a
pace that madly veers from frenzied run-‘n’-gun to
moody unease.
Yet, in no time at all, you begin to sense the
game’s patterns; even worse, you begin to anticipate
them. The event triggers are obvious and repetitive.
You don’t pick up anything without waiting for the
lights to go out or a hidden door to pop open and
unleash some nameless horror. After an hour or two,
this runs smack into the law of diminishing returns.
And, yes, it’s too damn dark. While the darkness
does create some moments of true fear, it creates
many more moments of pure frustration. An imp
charges, you clumsily switch from flashlight to shot-
gun, and you suddenly realize that until the imp fires
another blast, you won’t be able to see him at all.
Tense? Sure. Fair? Not so much, no.
Fans don’t want a Golden Oldies Revival. Action
games have gotten better, but instead of crafting a
contemporary, post- Half-Life -style action experience
from the ground up, Doom 3 feels more like a conven-
tional id game with a storyline and triggered events
squeegeed over the surface. The result is a bit like a
little girl who gets into mommy’s makeup box.
None of this is really surprising. Id changed the
face of gaming once, and that was enough. Every
game since has been like a tech demo for a better
game, and we know that better games will come
from developers who take this engine and turn it
into something great. Think of id as Fender Guitars:
Only they can make a Stratocaster, but it takes
Clapton to make it sing.Let’s see Nemo get out of
this one!Does your cubicle meet the
air-quality standards of your
community?For external use only.
MA XIMUMPC OCTOBER 2004
The Mini Aquarium
Pets are great fun until they barf,
poop, or contract a raging case of
Ichthyophthirius around the fin. Well,
those are yesterday’s problems—these
feisty fish live entirely off the power of
your USB port! Fill the tank with water
and drop in the two, uh, artifishal bud-
dies included in the box, and all day long
you can watch them float and frolic in
the ethereal glow of a bright blue LED
light. Create your own imaginary dialog
between the two, or dump in a batch of
Sea Monkeys for a startling desktop cen-
terpiece. Distributed by the Delta Global
Crew (no relation to J. Crew).
$22, http://usb.brando.com.hkThe Clean Ion
Air ionizers, we’re told, dispatch a stream
of negatively charged ions into the air,
which cling to airborne pollutants with
some mystical force. The weight of the
combined bulk pulls said pollutants down
to the nearest surface and away from
your delicate respiratory system. Does
the technique work? Europeans seem
to think so, but they smoke in elevators,
so we’ll take their medical advice with a
grain of salt. Nonetheless, the USB-pow-
ered air ionizer may at least bring some
peace of mind to obsessive-compulsive
hand washers and germophobes who
regard their office environs as being just
slightly less lethal than a gas chamber.
$30, http://www.thinkgeek.comThe Hot Cubby
It’s a cup warmer. Does it really need a
fancy description? Even though it’s tai-
lored with a cute slot for the cup handle,
don’t let that stop you from laying it flat
and using it to warm your Egg McMuffin,
or inserting it in each of your slippers
before getting out of bed. It’s just our
opinion, folks, but you may want to think
twice before tethering a hot cuppa joe to
your laptop.
$13, http://www.addlogix.comThe Strange World of USB, Vol. 2
What’s in your port?
“Only in Japan.” Or so we thought when we first showed you such freak-
ish accessories as the USB-powered electric toothbrush and the USB-pow-
ered lap blanket (Quick Start, May 2003). But alas, the comfort, compan-
ionship, and hygiene potential of the USB port has made its way to the
States. Here are a few items that put the “universal” in the universal serial
bus.