Aftermath Wherefore Art Thou?

[-:Nighthawk:-]

Obviously "aftermath wherefore art thou?" thus means "why are you after math, instead of before math?" In this case, "math" is a word roughly meaning "christmas."



Sometimes the decryption of old English is a little challenging, but Zips would never make a mistake. Ever.

[Urban Terror]

I wonder what's taking them so long. ID software had a Doom 3 expansion pack out in a matter of months, and it actually included new weapons and enemies (which "Aftermath" probably wont have).

[-:Nighthawk:-]

Couple of key differences. Seeing as id software didn't set a release date in advance to meet, they could work on the levels to be released in the expansion concurrantly with main game production if desired. Additionally, Doom 3's expansion was based around modeling and mapping, whereas there is a significant boost to character AI interaction being implimented with Aftermath in addtion to all of the other aspects.



Don't get me wrong, id software is a fantastic company and I thought Doom 3 was a very well-made game, but their work doesn't seem like a very close comparison with VALVe's work.

[3unknown3]

yeah id software has been going down the drain lately. Their games aren't as good anymore and revolutionary IMO (but still good) and are just making the same game over and over again since wolf3d, it's been: wolf3ddoomdoomdoomquakequakequakewolfdoomquake. Any they are working on ANOTHER wolfenstein. I mean that's not much variety is it?

[entRo]

If only Quake 4 was good..

[-:Nighthawk:-]

I still think Quake 3 was the pinnacle of FPS deathmatch games (never was as big a fan of the UT series, though I played 'em all) but I haven't really been inspired by any of id software's single-player experiences after probably Doom 2. I played through RTCW simply because I didn't want to feel I had quit on it, but it just didn't have the magic. Doom 3 was the closest they've come to recapturing that (in my book, anyway) but it still had the cliché feel and quickly lost the "it's way too dark so it's scary" novelty factor.



Basically, I guess it felt like expectations went up after Half-Life came out, but id software stuck with the same formula for making their games. When you think about it, the gameplay of "find the keycard, go to the next elevator" from Wolfenstein 3D is still basically how the game plays.



The technology is great (I still feel Doom 3's lighting model far exceeds HL2's tech) in each game they release, definitely. All 3 of the previous Quake engines were licensed extensively, and some of my all-time favorite games resulted in those efforts -- ranging from Half-Life to Alice. I haven't played Quake 4 yet, but watching vids of it, I wasn't blown away the way I was when I saw, for instance, the first HL2 videos.



Maybe that's what it comes down to... id software needs to keep on pumping out next-generation graphics technology for everyone else to buy and make fun games from. VALVe on the other hand need to keep on pushing the boundaries in areas as they've done with the physics, AI, and other subtle areas (voice-sync, eye-movements, etc) and the rest of the FPS industry slowly follows suit.



That said, props to games like FEAR that come out of nowhere with exceptional physics, AI, and graphics all in one package. I've only played the demo, though... how'd the full game turn out? Pity the dang thing kicks the crap out of my system if I turn the visuals up much at all...

[Que_?]

Que_? wrote..

I just hope it's not a year late. Also for something that's maybe 3 hours of play, that it is very cheap. Or they have a package deal for all the episodes. Does anyone know how many episodes there will be?

Anyone know- How many episodes there will be?