id brings all-new Doom Resurrection to the iPhone 'next week'

Sure, the all-new iPhone 3G S was shown off to throngs of drooling consumers on Monday – wowing the geek-set with its newfound OpenGL ES 2.0 support (your lousy iPhone 3G only supports OpenGL ES 1.1!) – but don't expect id Software's just announced title, Doom Resurrection, to be a 3G S-exclusive. Id's John Carmack told VentureBeat that he's "happy with the faster iPhone 3G S" but "he is also focused on making sure that his games run on the widest number of iPhones." Translation: Doom Resurrection won't be 3G S-exclusive. (Speculation: id could make two versions of Resurrection: one 2.0-compatible and another 1.1-compatible).

But, where were we ... oh, yes! Doom Resurrection! This sure sounds like the "graphical tour de force" he promised to bring to the iPhone. Carmack & Co were able to reuse much of DOOM 3's assets (downsized for the iPhone's screen resolution, of course) and get the engine running at 30 frames per second on the latest iPod Touch. Wrapped around that fancy tech, they've built "eight full levels and about five hours of game play" – the future iPhone 3.0 OS release will also enable "peer-to-peer cooperative multiplayer" for some on-the-go Deathmatch.

One of the most notable takeaways from VB's interview: Carmack's assertion that the iPhone is "a real game platform, not a tiny little toy." He explains that "the iPhone should be better in performance than the Nintendo DS and the PlayStation Portable" in raw horsepower "but the truth is you can't exploit it all because of software inefficiencies." We imagine the newly Open GL ES 2.0-compliant iPhones (gallery below) will ameliorate much of Mr. Carmack's concerns. In the interim, check out how far he's gotten on today's hardware when Doom Resurrection shoots the AppStore in the face next week.
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