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id taking a break from mobile to work on Doom 4
QuakeCon is happening in Texas this weekend, and id software head John Carmack has been giving interviews to the press on hand. He told The Verge that id software has decided to step away from mobile development long enough to focus on the forthcoming Doom 4. "We did make the decision to close up our mobile development," says Carmack, "which saddens me a lot ... I hope we get back to mobile in various ways in the future, but the big real aim is blockbuster, AAA titles, and for id that means Doom 4, it means that we get the whole company behind that after we get Doom 3: BFG Edition out the door, essentially everybody will be focused on Doom 4 as a project." In the past, id has had some solid success on the App Store, both with ports of old id games, as well as versions of newer games like Rage. But it looks like for the moment, id is done with putting out new releases on the App Store. I wouldn't worry too much about this. Clearly, Carmack knows and loves Apple's mobile platforms, and its a common practice in big studios to focus the team on a sigle project, especially when its as big as Doom 4. For now, the team may be focusing in on an AAA title, but I don't think it'll be long at all before we see some more mobile work coming out of id and its developers. #next_pages_container { width: 5px; hight: 5px; position: absolute; top: -100px; left: -100px; z-index: 2147483647 !important; }
Rage Campaign Edition now available on the Mac App Store
I almost didn't bother telling you all about this, because the circumstances around this release really rub the wrong way. But for gamers who've been waiting to play id games' latest, Rage, on the Mac, the Campaign Edition of the title is now available on the Mac App Store, for US$39.99. The Campaign Edition includes all of the extra equipment from the original Anarchy Edition of the game, along with a whole bunch of extra missions and content to play. If you've wanted to play Rage on the Mac, this is it. So why am I so annoyed by this release? Because it's a port of the game, done by Aspyr Media. I don't have anything personally against Aspyr, but why has it taken us this long to get this game ported over to the Mac? Why can't we run the game natively? id games made a big show of the title being able to run cross-platform originally, and in fact the company released a version of this game on iOS, using the native engine, even before the main title was out. Yet here we are, five months after the game's PC release, getting a second-class version of the title on Mac. Even worse, the game isn't compatible with Steam -- it's not available as a SteamPlay title (which means PC owners on Steam won't have access to the Mac version), and the Steamworks cloud save service doesn't work with the game either. However, Aspyr will be happy to tell you that Rage is available on its proprietary GameAgent store if you'd like to buy it there. In short, while getting Rage and all of these extras for $40 might seem like a good thing for players, id games is doing this all wrong by going with Aspyr. This game should have been running natively on the Mac on day one, and it should be available on Steam. Having it available through the Mac App Store is nice, but seeing it released as an Aspyr port this late in the game doesn't say much for what id thinks of Mac gamers.
Rage: Mutant Bash TV brings id Tech 5 to iOS
We saw id games' newest title, Rage, demonstrated earlier this year on an iOS device, but now there's more details and specifics on just how it's coming to iOS. It's not a straight port of the PC and console shooter -- rather, id is calling it Rage: Mutant Bash TV, and releasing this version of the game as an original, on-rails shooter. IGN has some video of the game running, and it looks pretty great. While the on-rails part means that you don't control movement at all, the camera controls and shooting gameplay look like a lot of fun. Of course the graphics look terrific -- Epic Games' Infinity Blade will apparently have some competition for the best-looking next-gen game on iOS. And while there's no word yet on what kind of Game Center integration we'll see (or, you know, price or date), apparently the game will have a "TV Out" option, allowing you to output the video to your television if you've got the appropriate cables for your iPad or iPhone. Sounds good -- we'll keep a look out for this one and let you know when it's out.
