Doomverse #30 - Quakecon 2026 - The 30th Anniversary and Return of the Creators!

Well, for the first time, I have attended Quakecon and it was a special one that has not seen the light of day for decades! John Carmack, John Romero, Tom Hall and Adrian Carmack all made appearances together and in separate conferences, but they had a long time to talk. I personally met John Carmack and Tom Hall, and was able to talk to them, especially Hall. The energy was so positive and the showcase on stage was astounding as we saw interviews and speed runs! I even saw That Trav Guy. There was a bit of a disappointing assembly of booths, though. There was some nice art on display and I got a few little trinkets to remember it by, but I was really hoping for more used games or DVD/Blurays or something along those lines. Still, though, the Doom aspect and the meeting of high class celebrities of the gaming world was what made this whole excursion more than worth it. 

The Doom lore on display with the retro looking room was so beautiful, it may as well have been a museum exhibit. We saw original drawings, history, original aspects of making doom through both art and lore. Inside the exhibit was a retro room of 90's quality with wooden paneling included. There was an SNES and even Jaguar playing Doom on the screens. The security guard allowed me a photo op, so long as I didn't hurt the controller and put it back where I found it and he was very nice about it. I was just happy to see the items from Nintendo Power to PC Gamer Magazines. 

Very shortly after this, I met John Carmack alone with a lady accompanying him. I greeted him and my brother was startled to see that it was, in fact, Mr. Carmack. I told him that we played the shareware version, but we had 6 Megs of Ram and needed 2 more to put into the computer before we could run the game. He laughed and said "There must have been some poor framerate." I nodded and admitted that it was pretty bad, but I still "killed the Bruiser Brothers either way." We got a picture with him and we loved meeting him. He was very down to Earth and loved to talk to us. We didn't geek out too hard and we didn't take up too much of his time. I was honored to meet such a genius in the gaming world. 

Soon after that, we hit the LAN party in the next room. There was a lot of nostalgic stuff going on, even one big screen on the wall that had Super Mario Brother Super Show playing. Then there was the trailer for the new Quake expansion! As we were walking through, I found an Eager Beaver Chainsaw, which was the model for Doom! Very soon after that, I met Tom Hall in the... hallway. Once again, my brother was taken aback by the appearance of yet another legend in the industry and original Id Software. I asked him a few questions and he answered them all, and then told me he wanted to go into the arena tournament to see the chainsaw but didn't know where it was and didn't want to look for it in the dark. I happily told him that I had seen it and would lead him to it. He saw it and signed it immediately. Later that day, the rest of the crew in attendance would sign it, Romero and the Carmacks. Tom Hall was a delight to talk to and so nice as to sign my two Doomguy pop vinyls, as one of Doomguy's creators. 

One of the biggest highlights of the convention was John Romero playing Doom The Dark Ages classic level. He played the Underhalls from Doom 2 and he began talking about his thoughts on Doom itself, along with some of the stuff he's doing right now. He loved talking about Sigil, telling us how he wanted it to be so hard that it pushes the player to new heights. John felt like if he didn't make it as difficult as it can be, he didn't do his job right. Then Romero talked about the Brand New First Person Shooter That He Is Currently Developing!!!!!!! Well, he didn't go into much detail, but it is definitely happening and we are HERE FOR IT!!!!!!! With the industry the way it is (the way they talked about it sugarcoated everything and did not even talk about the current Id Software layoffs) it is so refreshing to know that our old friends are still stepping up to bat for us.

According to Romero, it is a game that has been in development for sometime and was cancelled. However, he was able to pull elements from that game and save millions of dollars of resources in order to repurpose it for a new game. He is not sharing a whole lot of details about it, but he does say that it is a "Brand new experience like Elden Ring was a new experience." He says that it is a lot of fun to develop with his indie team and he has played through what they have developed so far with great confidence in its performance as a shooter. We really hope to hear more about it very soon. 

We watched playthroughs of Quake, Doom, current and classic, and everyone had a lot of fun when the lead singer of Nine Inch Nails showed up on the video screen. The masterful soundtrack of Quake and Ranger's voice actor, Trent Reznor is a legend in the music industry and the gaming industry. He is an outspoken fan of Id's work and he made this Quakecon feel like a real experience. Just being there among Doomsters and Quake Maniacs was fun all its own. We played Quake on the LAN computers, but we also played a title I wasn't expecting to. I've riffed on Quake Champions more than once in the past, mostly because it just wasn't especially intuitive to play and possessed shameless microtransactions. Well, playing it against two worthy opponents was a bit of an eye-opening experience and now there will be a very detailed review of it in the near future. 

It was an honor to have such experiences. We didn't get to meet John Romero or Adrian Carmack, but that can be done in the future, if it ever happens. My brother and I were just happy to reunite in an environment we loved and bonding through killing each other in some Death Matching! It was a great experience and we hope to hear about next year's QuakeCon. Time will tell if we go to 31, but being a part of 30 was just what the demon doctor ordered. Let's hope the whole of Id Software will lend a hand in helping the gaming community. Doomsters are of the most loyal fanbases and we're never going to give it up. Make sure to kill all of the demons you can and give them all nine inches of the nails!! Virtua Nails! 

Doomverse #29 - Doom Mods for Doom Fans

Doom mods have existed since very shortly after Doom was released. The first Doom mods were simple, but very quickly evolved into total modifications that remade the graphics and even changed the soundtrack and sound effects. There are many Doom mods that gained notoriety, but not all of them were because they were great mods. Sometimes, these mods took it to an uncomfortable direction, but that's not what we're here to talk about. We're going to be looking at some Doom mods that people should definitely try, if for nothing else than to experience them, even if the novelty runs a little dry after a little while. 

The fun part about these mods is, if you get the file on your computer and use it to play your own custom Doom maps, you can play mods with different skins and sound effects while even being able to create maps to play it with. This is not the Brutal Doom mods, we've already discussed those in a previous Doomverse. This is a more diversified list with a nostalgic bite. 

Batman Doom

This one was not especially well implimented, but it is still a fun little excursion to just say that you did it. The cityscape is stylized, it's cool to be able to take down criminals with batarangs and it's just an interesting Doom experience. After about thirty minutes, though, it just turns into a bit of a monotonous play. Sometimes, you get lost just by missing one single tiny detail that many would find challenging to notice. It's not a bad mod, but it just needed a little more coherence.

Simpsons Doom

Well, if you wanted to play as Homer taking down Moe and Ned Flanders along with collecting donuts, your ship has come in. This is one of the oldest popular Doom mods that hit a lot of computers along with the game itself.It's just fun to see which characters you see. The bee guy, Officer Quimby and several more familiar faces show up and it's a nice trip down memory lane of when the Simpsons wasn't a never-ending series that outstayed its welcome a decade earlier. There's really not much else to talk about with this. The sound clips from the Simpsons show do get a little old as they are on perpetual repeat as you play, and sometimes the colors they used for their mod become slightly offputting. Beyond that, it's just a different flavor to add if you're in the mood to play Doom.

Super Mario Doom

One of the best things about this mod is that they slipped Mario skins onto whatever they could, whether it be a leaf as armor or a very familiar type of door we've seen from many NES titles. The Mario characters are all on display, even showing Luigi where there should be a dead Space Marine, and Shy Guys are the new Imps. With the sound effects and bloodied face of Mario when he is close to death, this is just another flavored mod to add to Knee Deep in the Dead, or your own Doom maps. 

Blood Doom

This is a polarizing mod, as Blood has always been a favorite 90's FPS around these parts. The problem stems from some of the mechanics. The real problem was that there wasn't a whole lot of difference between the two games, not enough to really differentiate the two in a similar experience that meshed together. Doom mixed with Quake because the two series are different enough to have a fun crossover, but it's hard to make the same claim for Blood. Another problem was, the zombies didn't rise again like they used to. It looks like Doom didn't have a mechanic where dead characters could have a second wind. Other than that, it was fun to see Doom mix with Blood and mix their weapon sets together. You can use the chainsaw along with the dynamite from Blood, and it can be satisfying to chainsaw a cultist into the ground. 

Toon Doom

Just a random assortment of toons. That's basically what you get here. It's Doom if you want Beavis and Butthead as the two zombie soldier types and Mario as the Imp throwing fireballs at you. The problem here is that they didn't really go full hog with it. The cacodemons are just cacodemons, and this spills over to the cyberdemon as well. The cool thing about the Tower of Babel level was that, once you come out toward the level's boss, the first thing you see is Stewie Griffin running at you as a lost soul. The problem is, though, it's simply a cyberdemon you're facing. This is a fun little mod, but not an especially enriching experience with loads of content. It's more just a passing fancy with some nostalgic characters.

Doom 4 Vanilla (Doom 2)

One of the more surprising mods I came across. While it doesn't quite play into the theme of popular characters being put into Doom from another property, it is one of the better mods on the market. It not only puts in some of the better skins for monsters, blending classic Doom with the reboot, but it also brings in a good looking, and feeling weapon set. It's blended with Doom 2 and you can see the passion put into the project. It shows a lot of skill and changes the dynamics of Doom enough that it actually feels like a different game, but the same game as well.

If you're looking for a different experience with one single game, Doom has lasted this long because they made it with these modifications. They left it open and let people play it however they wanted to. It may have cost them some money initially but it proved to be what made it timeless and one of the big reasons people still play it today. We'll delve into more mods, and possibly get into the more contraversial ones along the way. We'll see how the blood flows. Virtua Rainbow Blood!

Iron Man (2008) - Where Chaos Took Form

Iron Man is where everything rested, as far as Marvel was concerned. This was their final shot in creating their own film studio and it was set in motion because comic books were dying. Marvel has had some great highs along with some historic lows, and Iron Man was what pulled it out of the pits of near bankrupcy. It did that, and it revitalized Robert Downey Jr's career after a long battle with addiction and unreliability in the eyes of Hollywood. This is the first movie that officially brought about what was coined the Marvel Cinematic Universe and pulled victory from the jaws of defeat. It not only brought Marvel back into full mainstream attention, but it also brought the comic books from the brink of destruction. 

This is rather strange, because Iron Man is not what one would call a masterpiece, but it does what it set out to do. Even Stan Lee agrees that Downey Jr is definitively Tony Stark and he has remained as such throughout the MCU's run. Another great thing that helps this movie is the legendary Jeff Bridges, who plays the main antagonist Obediah Stane. While he doesn't make a very good giant robot boss, he does make a very devious, slick talking snake. No matter what the deal, he always has a way out and takes whatever advantage he can when the time comes. 

The greatest victory this movie performs is Tony's backstory of being captured by Middle Eastern Radicalists who try to use him to create a massively devastating weapon system. Instead of building the missile attack device, he is assisted by his scientific friend in creating Iron Man's prototyical suit. Tony's escape is easily one of the best scenes of this entire film and is both heartfelt and action packed. It's even got a little dark humor when one of the terrorists tries to sneak up on him and shoot him in the helmet. 

While Gwyneth Paltrow is a bit of a controversial subject all her own, she does well in this movie as Tony's love interest. Both her and John Favreau play their roles very well, as well as Favreau directing the film itself. The performances are stellar, and that elevated this movie to its highly favorable position. The only problem was the ending when Iron Man faces off against War Monger, Stane's iron suit. The banter is humorous and the fight is unique when the thought is put behind the icing problem at high elevations. Beyond that, though, they made Iron Man have a handicap because he's using an outdated energy core for the device in his chest, keeping him alive. 

The movie is just flat out entertaining and gives you some great characters through amazing acting talent. The story has a great pace and the fact that they focused on making it a great movie rather than the start of a cinematic universe, only shows their dedication to success rather than weighing it down with hints of Hulk, Thor and Black Widow. They allowed movies to be movies and that really let people ease into the idea of a feature connected to another feature to make a series. This was normally done with one character in mind, not an entire barrage of main characters who were destined to form a team. There were so many factors that made this movie and series a success and it all began with this fantastic film that had minor issues but major impact. Virtua-Venger  

Virtua Kombat #3: Long Live Mortal Kombat - Maybe Pull the Plug?

There are ways to prolong an idea's life. It takes a lot of hard thinking and sometimes means you need to evolve with the times. Mortal Kombat tripped and stumbled along the way, but it did have a very long, prestigious life up until the writing of this article. However, as for this book, it did not exactly have the game's creation strictly in the forefront of their thoughts. When we FINALLY get to Mortal Kombat's original creation, we have already been through a ton of chapters and pages going through how the original company was created from a pinball manufacturer. Williams' creation was interesting on some levels, but the point was that I'm here to read about Mortal Kombat's creation.

Once we get right to it, mapping out the human recordings and choosing the original actors, this book thrives. Learning about how Boon and Tobias went through the processes of creating martial arts for the game was fascinating. It really was much more of a gum and duct tape job, because they got all of that from their actors who just so happened to know different martial arts forms. For a good while, this book took on a great story of Mortal Kombat's original development and the hardships they went through. 

Then we get to the game's release. It was fun to read about how the office they worked at began to form lines around the machine they had in the hallway. The original arcades that it was given a beta test made it burst with popularity from just word of mouth alone, and so once the mainstream release went into full effect, Mortal Kombat became a household name and kids were lining up the quarters across the screen's base. Even with all of the controversy, kids were finding ways to play it no matter what, even breaking their parents strict guidelines and getting grounded. 

These elements were wonderful to read, but then the book goes off on yet another tangeant. This time, they just started talking about playing the characters and strategies that they used in order to get the best gameplay for tournaments. This is... excessively boring. Even with a deep and intimate knowledge of Mortal Kombat's combat, I do not care how other players play for great efficiency. Even if that weren't true, reading it in a book is not how I would want to learn. There are literally hundreds of thousands of videos that show off different styles of play. Many of them even give away the controls with which to play in the style. 

The book really should have stuck to it strength and just gone with the game's creation and release. Tobias and Boon's struggles and triumphs were far better to read about than what this book seemed to focus on, which was almost nothing. The foreword was detailing the author, David L Craddock's journey into Mortal Kombat. A simple 1000 word essay would have been acceptable but this guy went into so much description, I finally began to skim because I, once again, did not get this book under the pretense that I would be wasting my time on some other guy's experiences with the game. The fact that Craddock is a dedicated fan was obvious from the first paragraph, we did not need an entire anecdote that was just as long, if not longer, than an actual chapter. 

John Romero kept on subject and only went off on small anecdotes when they related to what was going on in his very long tale of his life. I'm interested in Romero for obvious reasons, but there's no way this author will ever have as much credibility as one of the actual creators of Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, and Quake. He had chapters about his entire life, but he did not go too long with this and even had foreshadowing for what was to come later. Long Live Mortal Kombat just couldn't decide what facet of the Mortal Kombat fandom it wanted to cover. Trying to cover all of it made it feel more like a textbook created by a nerd rather than a loveletter to MK. If any of what I have detailed in this review sounds like something you'd be interested in, you are more than welcome to try this book out for yourself. This may have just been a book for a different fighting game fan or someone who wished to become an MK scholar of sorts. This book may be just what you're looking for. It's well written and obviously did its homework. It could either be exactly what you're looking for or it could take your soul. Choose Your Destiny. 

Resident Evil 2026 Trailer - How Does It Look?

 

Well, this is apparently the second trailer to come out for the upcoming Resident Evil. I'm a little disappointed that they called it "Resident Evil" and nothing but that. Do they not understand how confusing using the same title on multiple creations? That's not even just the movie and the game, they titled that for that Netflix TV Show. Anyway, they announce that this is by the same director as Weapons, Zach Cregger. One look at the main character and hearing just two sentences of dialogue and that was an especially easy conclusion to come to. Now, how does this look? 

Well, it's not exactly what I was hoping for, but it does look promising in some areas. For the good part, it does look like it actually is a horror movie with scares and creepy atmosphere. Obviously, we have the Cregger writing on full display with the... let's call it... "languid" pacing and progression. That brings it to a sour note in the trailer, though. I know we're not going for video game accuracy, but is this the way to go? Resident Evil is more than just guns and zombies, you need to solidify some Raccoon City elements into your movie and link it with the bigger picture, if just in some smaller way.

This trailer did not seem interested in this at all... except for the organ. The fact that this is an organ delivery guy tells me that he may be going to some lab or very important medical facility that holds some secrets to the T Virus, which is on plain display here. There are some good looking scenes that look soaked in suspense and a very human character who is clumsy, awkward, and just doing his best to make a buck. These are the characters that Cregger excels at, even some of the more unsightly aspects of real life people. 

The gore looks plentiful, the atmosphere looks about right, but the problem is that, while it may just be a good start, if this is our main character for the rest of the film... well I hope he grows a spine. I really hope this becomes something of an actual arch for this guy and he becomes hardened, while also becoming more skilled with various ways of survival. At least make him set some traps for the zombies or something substantial to his character development. 

It looks like it could be promising. Hopefully, Cregger is enough of a fan of Resident Evil to pull off the very first good Resident Evil live action film/series since Resident Evil 2002. To some extent, I have some faith in Zach Cregger. He seems to know the assignment when he creates a film and if they gave him enough creative freedom, there's a good chance he could pull it off. This review of the trailer could age like milk for all I know, but that's the point of an initial reaction to a trailer. This is at least some hope in a vast desert that we all know is coming. The film industry, the comic industry, the video game industry, all of them are going to be coming up dry for the foreseeable future. It's alright, we'll be fine, so long as we drink our water. 

Doomverse #28 - Weaponized Mayhem

Doom is known for many things. Many things have already been said about Doom and Quake, especially on Planet Virtua. What really matters for a lot of people are the weapons. The guns, the chainsaw, the Rune Sword, all of these are the focus for a great deal of the fans. Many of them have been used in multiple games and represented in other games. These titles have affected the gaming world as we know it. The Doomverse weapons roster hasn't just stood the test of time, but modern games are still trying to perfect it. Sure, you can say Halo did it better, but everyone's wrong at some point in their lives.

This is a list of the greatest weapons in the Doomverse, beit Quake 3 Arena or Doom Eternal. Some weapons have an improved version in later editions, some of them are featured once and then basically never again. These are the weapons that thrived under the pressure of being compared to another in the Doom Arsenal. Whether they create more destruction or just iconized Doom as a whole, these rose to the top. 

The Dark Age's Bonecrusher

The newest Doom game, at the time of this writing, had no shortage of cool weapons, but this is one that truly stood out. It certainly wasn't the "BFC". The Bonecrusher in both of its other iterations used this idea to a great degree. The thought of a skull being used to drive shrapnel into your enemies is just such a brutal idea and its upgrades made it quite the demon grinder. The Ravager was probably the best iteration out of any of them and I can only hope that it will be in future titles. Part of me doubts it, but one can hope.

Doom 4's Heavy Assault Rifle

The repeating rifle was not a weapon in the original Doom games, mostly because it didn't need one with the chaingun. Doom 2016 brought this about in probably the most boss way possible. It not only starts like a true Doom weapon, but throughout the game, the upgrades build it up to a legendary status that deserves to be on this list. You can upgrade the bullets to explode after impact, and it even eats through cyber mancubi like hot water through ice. 

 Doom 4's Chaingun

Fully upgraded and able to immediately begin spinning, this chaingun will take down any horde of demons and destroy a boss demon's hit bar. This chaingun gets an upgrade where it sprouts three different turrets which all fire at once. It overheats faster, but it also does more damage than it would in normal fire rates. This is enough damage to take down a fresh Cyber Mancubus. The gun itself is a one-machine barrage.

Quake 3 Arena's Lightning Gun

More deadly than the first Quake's lightning gun, this one reaches far and drains the opponent's HP within seconds. One big problem is that it does run out of ammunition fairly quickly. If you're fortunate enough to get a fully loaded lightning, it can mow down any group of fighters. It doesn't chain lightning enemies, that would be a little overpowered, but it doesn't take away from how the gun turned out. 

Quake 3 Arena's Plasma Gun

The gun that inspired Dark Age's plasma gun. Though it can be argued that it's not quite as powerful as the Doom 1 iteration, it is still such a satisfying gun to use when you start to unleash upon a single or multiple targets. It also has the drawback of not being able to fire up close without massive backfire. It is known as "melting your face". So, pick your poison between the two. They're both A Class Doomverse weapons.

Quake 3 Arena's Railgun

If you want one of the better aspects of Quake 3 Arena, you do a railgun fight. These guns are so easy to use, you just pick one up and put someone in your sights. If you want to be real stylish, you shoot someone with no zoom. That one small second to line up your sights can be the second where you get killed, so you need to be fast and this is the way to one-shot an opponent. It will even kill someone with a near miss and does tons of damage when grazing a target. Quake 3 and Quake 4 did it right.

Quake's Nailgun

If you want a more iconic weapon, it's hard to beat Quake's original nailgun. This is where they proudly declared "Nine Inch Nails did our soundtrack" through the NIN symbols on the ammo boxes. The nailgun and super nailgun will get you through many levels of Quake with glorious nail fire. The problem really is that their nail doesn't last, especially with the super nailgun's fire rate. 

Doom Eternal's Crucible

One of the biggest hype pieces from Doom 2016. This sword was introduced at the very end, and we finally get our own in Doom Eternal. It is an instant-kill weapon with very limited ammo, unless you're fighting the Icon of Sin. This sword will immediately slice huge demons in half, even the mini-bosses. Given this powerful weapon near the end of Doom Eternal was a gigantic help when the going got tough. It was as dependable as the BFG when you needed a quick death between a rock and a hard place.

Doom Eternal's Unmaykr

Introduced in Doom 64 and perfected in Eternal, The Unmaker, or "Unmakyr" in this case, is a weapon on par with the Big Fucking Gun. One good pull will destroy the largest demons within a few seconds. It sends multiple laser blasts all at once, which make any demon crumble under its weight, even the bosses. The feeling of unleashing this enormous barrage all at once is very satisfying. You don't need to upgrade it like you did in 64, it's ridiculously powerful as soon as you unlock it by doing all of the callenge stages. It takes a while to accomplish, but it is a labor of love for a fantastic weapon in your arsenal. 

Doom 4's Chainsaw

What sets this apart from the other chainsaws, is that it is an instant kill weapon that is not wholly required to be used. Yes, it is still made to revamp your ammunition by spawning it from your victim, but it is not a need like it is in Doom Eternal. The death animations you get from this have to be among the greatest glory kills in the entire game. The blood and severed body parts are worth its use alone, you never need to make it required.

Doom 4's Gauss Cannon

A standout weapon for many, many reasons. It's Doom 2016's answer to the railgun. Somehow, though, they turned it into one of the most powerful weapons outside of the normal fair. Two words: "Siege Mode". This mode will turn this fairly decent blaster cannon into a decimating powerhouse of burning terror! One single shot from Siege Mode has the power to take down Barons of Hell and turn them into piles. It is one of the weapons that reminds you how awesome the power fantasy can get. Turn mancubi and cyber mancubi into piles of organs at your leisure and have a ball. It is even better when you're able to move in this mode.

Rocket Launcher

Doom 1 did this right from the start and they rolled with it in each and every iteration. Rocket jumps, blast back, rocket battles against Cyberdemons, everything about this gun has some sort of iconic affect on its game. Quake cashed in on the rocket jump first and it has since become a staple of First Person Shooters as a result. It may be a bad idea to use it on Lost Souls or Pinkies, for obvious reasons but it's just so wonderful to fire one missile into a group to see body parts begin to fly. Rip and Tear, indeed.

The BFG 9000

They tried to make a BFG 10,000 more than once. One was a strange iteration from Quake 3 Arena, the other was a planet destroying beam in Doom Eternal that blows a hole into Mars. They were nice but nothing will replace the Big Fucking Gun 9000. One pull of the trigger kills entire hordes and does incomparable damage to mini-bosses if it doesn't finish them outright. Doom films have never gotten this weapon right, but it is thankfully handled very well in every other sequel. We're not going to go into the crossbow from The Dark Ages, there's only one super powered laser cannon that we want. We want the one they used to name an alcoholic drink mix. You know, the one that three clips a Cyberdemon. We want that one!

The Super Shotgun

At first glance, in Doom 2, this may just look like a normal double barrel shotgun. Well, not only does it take 2 shells in each shot, but it also has the capacity to kill multiple demons in one pull. There's no blowback, though, and hearing that meaty sound as you fire and reload is hard to top. Doom 4 brought it back in all its wondrous glory and outshined even the Quake iterations as a result. With uranium shells and the ability to double shot, Doom 2016 brought the super shotgun to a newfound glory through some of the most awesome upgrades imaginable. Eternal's super shotgun had a hook for chain jumping and that may have been an interesting novelty, but it ultimately did very little for the super shotty all around. One upclose shot from this gun should be sending demon parts scattering across the screen. If not, you're doing it wrong.

There are a lot more weapons to be considered, but these are a good start. Next time, we'll take a look at the weapons of Wolfenstein, as those are a list all their own. Doom has no shortage of metal that grinds demons into dust, and Quake drives some pretty hard nails into the coffin. They are often duplicated by others, but they will always be judged by the best.

Doomverse #27 - ID May Be Doomed

Unfortunately, thanks to a lot of terrible crashing in the gaming industry, a very large amount of employees in ID Software have been laid off. The layoffs came as Microsoft are continuing to lose support for the Xbox. Pretty much, after the Revelations DLC was released for Doom The Dark Ages, the ID Software studios are now down to less than half of their former numbers. This was in the wake of new Quake installment rumors floating around, even going so far as to tease a new project in future plans that are now heavily in question. 

Xbox announced that it was going to just keep chugging along with the layoffs, as ID Software is far from the only one affected by all of this. The gaming crash continues to destroy more and more studios. Developers and publishers are now finding out why they need their customer base. This is especially hard, considering ID Software was the one that consistently delivered amazing games. Doom 2016, Doom Eternal and Doom The Dark Ages brought players what they wanted. While TDA didn't perform quite as well as they hoped, they still took out a ton of game developing experience! They threw the baby out with the bath water, seeing has how ID Software was ready to keep going with what they were doing. 

Bethesda also had their big toy, Fallout taken away from them and handed off to Fallout New Vegas team, Obsidian. Judging by how well The Outer Worlds 2 turned out, I'm still not holding out hope. Xbox has been making so many consistent wrong decisions that it's basically too late to save it. To think that they could make a New Vegas sequel or Fallout Spinoff of any kind is rather laughable at this point. 

Sadly, this could also mean it will be a very long time before we get a proper Doom or Quake sequel, if ever. Other gaming franchises have gone ice cold over the decades and it's hard to believe that they would ever put Doom back into the freezer, but that has been the case for a lot of our favorites. The worst thing you can do is panic over this. In the end, it is not worth losing yourself over. Doom is legendary for a reason, as it is ageless. It is one of those fandoms that will always survive because it was made for the fans by true gaming geniuses that loved and respected their base of loyal subjects. However, this is not the time for giving up on it.

The game crash is hitting us where it hurts, but we still have our own libraries full of endless classic Doom levels, Doom 4 levels from the map makers, all of the games we've been collecting over the years are still within our fingertips and we do not need to give them up for anything because they're ours. Remember to keep Deathmatching, playing the single players and keeping the Doomverse alive through pure fandom. It may be a long road for the gaming industry to recover, but now it's time to hunker down and help each other like true gamers should. Either way, keep ripping and tearing, and get some old Doom ports. Then you'll Virtua Shred!!! 

Virtua Fighter 3tb - Punch Your Problems Away

When you come off of such a high point as Virtua Fighter 2 on the Sega Saturn, once you harken in a new console with a new numbered sequel to such a prestigious franchise, you need to bring your absolute A game. You need to batten down the hatches and make sure that this sequel is going to be the next great thing. Did they succeed? In a word, yes. When I said that Virtua Fighter 3tb for the Sega Dreamcast was the worst Virtua Fighter game, that was more of a joke. It was also, believe it or not, an absolute compliment. The truth of the matter is, I disliked Virtua Fighter Remix the worst of any of them. The first Virtua Fighter is objectively worse than VF3tb. 

This game gives you so much fighting, you begin to burst. You put in one mode of the game, whether it be single player or 2nd player mode, you are going to drown in combat. There are more characters, more levels, and more rounds than ever. The combat is still silky smooth and you can find your own character fighting style. Jackie specializes in kicks and has speedy attack style. Jeffry is much more tankish, slow, but he also has hard grappling moves and slams. Now they have brought in some of the newer characters, including the sumo wrestler, Taka-Arashi. 

This is, no joke, a lot of combat to go through just for some arcade modes. Sometimes, five or six matches is all it takes, but no, these matches kept going and going. Great combat, that much is certain, but sometimes, it is better just to give the people a small match roster. This is accentuated in the Team Battle, which this game was titled after. 

However, if this is a full on tournament mode situation when you have a party to go through, Virtua Fighter 3 is your baby. You want enough fighting and bashing skulls to satiate an entire party, you get Smash Brothers and you get VF3tb, and you will make the best experience to come. This will test people to their breaking point and there may be friendships lost as you find either the cheapest or the most effective techniques to beat the snot out of one another. 

If you wanted more fighting and more Virtua Fighter, this is the one you go to, especially if you have a lot of time on your hands. It has the controls, the characters and the awesome looking backgrounds. One place where this version falls short, however, is the uncanny valley happening with their characters in this awkward stage in style. Virtua Fighter 2 is probably where they caught the beautiful classic style the best. Virtua Fighrer 3 should have probably stuck closer to the older graphical settings. 

It's still awesome fighting from an awesome fighting game. If you want fighting and you want nostalgia, you go to Virtua Fighter and you start stomping face. Whoever your favorite character is, they have a great selection here. Even Lyon and Shun return from their introduction in Virtua Fighter 2. Play this game enough and you'll find your rhythm, especially once you find the character that matches your style. It's all here, get ready to Mash Virtua Skulls! 

Resident Evil The Final Chapter - Alice Ends

It is very sad to say that Resident Evil live action iterations never improved. All of them, up until the writing of this article, have never surpassed the decency of the first Resident Evil film directed by Anderson. The animated movies have a far better track record, but those are considered niche Resident Evil fan viewings. If you have any interest in the games, the animated movie series is far more worth your time. These live action films, even as stand-alone movies, only show the viewer how nonsensical and repetitive they become by the end. 

If you have been paying attention, you'll understand that Alice is the prime example of a Mary Sue. She literally is never seriously injured more than being knocked out, beyond a strategic loss of some fingers. Any screw ups she has are all minimalistic and survived with hardly a scratch. Her stunts are extremely unrealistic as a result. She becomes the cornerstone of this entire story, even when she only played a very tiny part in the beginning. She was in the Hive in order to infiltrate it and prove that they were doing illegal experiments. Beyond living on top of it in a strange undercover marriage story that makes no sense, Alice's role was basically meeting a contact and exchanging data. 

Now, in this story, she is everything and anything that is or ever will be important. They shoe-horn her into this horrific plot like she was everything that matters with whatever is happening. They even go so far as to [SPOILER ALERT] make her out to be the CLONE of a top share-holder of the Umbrella Corporation. She is now, suddenly, the daughter of one of the head scientists who was cloned in order to... live her better life because she has a rapidly aging disease that caused her to become sick and need to freeze hersel--- Okay, seriously, this whole thing just flew directly off of the rails. 

All of the sudden, Wesker's double-cross in the last movie was retconned. Not only was it retconned, but the powers he gave back to Alice are now fake and she's still a "normal human" who can do death defying stunts without fail and kill anyone and everyone. You know, just normal human things. Wesker's part in this is, once again, minimalistic. Why they even bothered to bring him back after he seemingly died in the fourth movie is an answer lost in time. He barely even matters in the entire film after being one of its most continuous villains, only to be killed by a door chopping his leg off. He seriously bleeds to death and that's it. 

They bring back the scientist from the third film who died and say that he was actually a clone. This one is for real, just trust us. He basically takes Wesker's role in this film and still does a very bad job of it. Alice continuously bests him in comically stupid ways and he keeps proving why they should have never cloned him or given him any sort of authority. Dr. Isaacs just has the cure for the T-Virus in his jacket pocket and it somehow can be broken outside and spread across the entire world, curing everyone and killing the zombies or something like that. However, if it's broken inside it will not go anywhere and be useless. The logic behind all of this is so flawed, it really makes the head spin. 

Anderson thought that if we just put a mindless time limit on how long the human race can survive, it would bring up the tension. Somehow, in X amount of hours, the human race is going to be killed by... zombies or the T-Virus or something. Anything to make the plot keep moving to some sort of goal. Then he thought that he could just retcon everything we know about Alice and say she is a clone now. Like, she's also got amnesia because she can't remember anything about her past, guy, just, like, deal with it or something. That's not a joke. Dr. Isaacs literally comes out and tells her that she can't remember anything about her past. This comes out of left field and has never been delved into. In the original movie, she was a double agent working to bring down Umbrella, now she has a super badass action hero past of not knowing who she is or where she came from because she was cloned from blah blah blah. 

For the sake of losing myself in a story, editing is not even something I try to pay attention to when watching movies. The plot and characters normally take the forefront. That is, if there aren't enormous, glaring issues. The editing will give you a headache with how quick and choppy it can get. When getting images for this review, locking onto a single shot was an absolute hair-pulling experience. There are flashing lights in dark spaces, especially if a gun is being fired and it is absolute migraine fuel. The acting has not been good for a few movies now, if it was ever considered good to begin with. However, that is the very least of its problems by this point.

This was a chore to get through. Paul Anderson said that he was going to have Alice die at the end, but ended up not doing it because he... said he did things to make the ending so emotional. Emotional. Paul needs a dictionary or something with very detailed descriptions of vocabulary words. There is literally nothing emotional about any of this. I barely even remembered that Claire Redfield somehow wandered her way aimlessly into this movie. To be honest, I don't even remember if it was Jill or Claire. They're both so superfluous to everything going on because Alice takes up the screen with no room for other characters. Her emotionless journey, coasting through the world on stunt wires, culminates to nothing more than a very long and pointless search for a cure that apparently doesn't work immediately. That's right, she breaks the vial outside so it can travel across the world "but there's still so much to do!" Well, that's nice. I hope it reaches the people before they are savagely ripped apart by undead things or mutations of a horrific nature. 

There was nothing about this movie that even came close to entertainment. You are far too transfixed by the nonsensical plot, eye-gouging editing, Mila's lifeless portrayal of a wooden Mary Sue, hordes of easily avoided zombies and pointless plot devices showing up on the screen before being discarded for more wackiness. This isn't a chore to get through, it's downright brain torture. This entire series lost the plot and just decided it was cool with that, because it did it again and again and again. It's really no wonder that both Mila Jovovich and Paul W.S. Anderson fell far out of favor in the film industry after this travesty of a series. Monster Hunter did not turn out any better because Anderson decided to put his wife front and center, again, and ignore everything he didn't like about the games, which was everything, apparently. We may have gotten one good film in the beginning, but this whole decade of trash movies and storytelling was not really worth it. Thankfully, the series is Virtua Dead. 

And Then it Crashed...

Well, we should have seen this coming for a while, which we did, but it still isn't fun news. Playstation and Xbox have both decided to stop selling physical copies of games, basically destroying the market for used games, which is half of the market. What this means is a lot of suffering customers and suffering sales. The worst part about it is what it will do to physical outlets like Gamestop and Game XChange, along with many other stores that rely on used games for most of their profit margin. 

It's time like this that I hate when I'm right. I've pushed hard to physical copies and this is the very reason. Without physical discs, that leaves customers vulnerable with their collections being 100% digital from here on. This means that there will be no used games or new games for outlets even like Walmart or Target. All of it will be on their home stores and that is basically putting all of their eggs in one basket. Not only can they inflate prices however they want, they can also delete the games from digital accounts if they so wanted to, which they have made abundantly clear. 

Keeping used games in circulation is more important now than ever before. There's really no telling how long this whole scorched Earth tactic will go on. It could be done and done for, or there is always the chance that backlash and falling sales could change their minds. Either way, this means very bad things for the gaming industry. 

The article I released today was supposed to be released later this month, but instead I released it today because what I was writing about came very true. Again, this is a time to vote with your wallets and make sure that if you want physical media to come back, it's time to stop buying the digital stuff or at least cut down on the spending as a whole. If you're down with physical media going the way of the beeper, that's your little red wagon, but I am all for them stopping this horrible posturing like now they have all of the cards and are ready to deal them on the buying customer whenever they so please. Without the need to create discs and cases, they'll save millions within the first few months alone on game costs. Will we be seeing a duck in prices as well? Oh, I wouldn't hold my breath on that one just yet, Virtua Bro. 

Judging by the discourse against this blatant anti-consumerism that we've been seeing for years, it has reached a boiling point, and a lot of people are waking up to the fact that gaming industries really don't have their best interests or fun factor in mind. All they really have been after was your wallets and purses from the very start. While this was obvious, they at least went to some lengths to fulfill the customer's order. At this point, the industry is basically expressing nothing but contempt for their own audience, convinced that they are overly hard to please simply for having an opinion that their games shouldn't be glitching so bad as to make you fall through the Earth pixels every time you press right on the joystick.

Hopefully, you have some good games to fall back on in what will be coming. This dry spell is going to suck, but that's just the order of things at this point. Much like the crash of the 80's, this one is going to run its course for as long as it takes. Be friendly and be productive. If you don't play your old machines, sell them to a good home or sell them to someone who will give them one. Be thankful for what we are given but reject the things you don't want. As always, they need to earn their paychecks if they want to see their games stop flopping and until then, enjoy some old games. Looks like it's time to make a Virtua Return to the consoles that birthed this site. Keeping it mixed up, but mixing in some classics, as always. Help each other and we'll be fine. Virtua Peace.