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Doom's multiplayer patch adds a messy free-for-all deathmatch
The new Doom had a bit of a different strategy for multiplayer when it launched earlier this year. The team at id Software focused on playing to the game's strengths by offering play-as-a-demon game-types alongside Freeze Tag, riffs on traditional modes like Warpath (king of the hill) and the tried but true team deathmatch. The game's next update adds free-for-all deathmatch (no cooperating with strangers on the internet required) and private matches, while an arcade mode for the single-player campaign is slated for later this fall.
AIs fight to the death in 'Doom' contest next month
Google DeepMind took a leap forward last year when its artificial intelligence agent mastered 49 Atari 2600 games. The learning system, or "deep Q-network" (DQN), that DeepMind designed achieved this mastery through general experience, rather than specific programming for each game. This milestone is just one step along a grander path toward the general-purpose "smart machine": an AI that can master any task with minimal input. DeepMind's work in this field is groundbreaking, and it's helping advance the field in ways you might not expect. Wojciech Jaśkowski is an assistant professor at the Institute of Computing Science (ICS) at Poznan University of Technology, Poland. After reading about DeepMind's feat in the scientific journal Nature, he began to think about the possibilities. If an agent could learn Atari 2600 with our current levels of knowledge, why not push the envelope -- why not try a 3D game? Jaskowski settled on the 1993 first-person shooter Doom. It has low power requirements and, more important, it's open source. He assembled a team of university students from ICS with the aim of building a platform that would facilitate testing AI agents.
Play Doom's premium maps for free (if your friends bought them)
Id and Bethesda want to make sure that the action never stops in the new Doom's multiplayer. That's regardless of whether or not you're buying the recently announced premium map pack, "Unto Evil." With PartyPlay, so long as someone in your party has bought the add-on, everyone can keep playing together and vice versa.
The new 'Doom' gets its first update on June 30th
The new Doom is on the cusp of getting its first major update, and it appears to be worth checking out -- especially if you have fond memories of the original games. The upgrade arrives on June 30th with the option of a classic dead-center weapon view, regardless of the mode you're playing. It's there to evoke nostalgia, of course, but it'll also be helpful if you want more of a visual aid when aiming.
Everything we saw at Bethesda's E3 event
Bethesda's big E3 show is over, and it was pretty great. We got a new Quake, lots of Fallout goodness (including Fallout 4 in VR!), a first look at the upcoming Prey reboot and a ton of detail on Dishonored 2. Oh... and a Skyrim remaster. While our very own Tim Seppala and Jessica Condit run like excited children towards that Fallout VR demo, you can check out all of the trailers from the press conference below.
Play 'Fallout 4' in VR next year
Bethesda is building a version of Fallout 4 for the HTC Vive headset, and it'll be ready next year. "If you thought that survival mode was an intense way to experience Fallout", Bethesda marketing chief Pete Hines said at the company's E3 press conference, "you ain't seen nothing yet." The company is showing off a small section of gameplay at E3. It's also got Doom in VR, which offers "a virtual tour of hell." It sounds a lot like an environmental demo, rather than an actual game. We'll bring you impressions of both once we've had a chance to check them out.
Try the first level of 'Doom' for free this week
The new Doom has launched to rave reviews, but today at E3 Bethesda announced it was looking to get even more people into the game. To that end, the first level of Doom will be available for free on Steam, Xbox One and PS4 this week only. The company said it was meant to be in the spirit of shareware demos that were so popular on the PC way back when the first Doom was popular, but this teaser is a bit more restrictive, since it'll only last for a week. Still, it's a better demo than most games offer these days.
Jerks are plagiarizing 'Fallout 4' PC mods on Xbox One
Maybe the team at Bethesda should've seen this coming: Now that mods are available for Fallout 4 on Xbox One, the more unscrupulous among us are apparently stealing creations that originated on the game's PC version and uploading them for Microsoft's latest console. Some flagrant examples noticed by Reddit users include in-game mods there were hosted exclusively on modding emporium Nexus Mods being added to Bethesda.net as original creations, with uploaders even copying and pasting the PC-centric installation instructions into the mod description.
The new 'Doom' hides sinister images in its soundtrack
It's no secret that the new Doom is chock-full of Easter eggs and other surprises, but the latest is one you wouldn't find just by wandering around the game's tortured halls. Intrepid fan TomButcher has noticed that at least one tune in the soundtrack, "Cyberdemon," shows both pentagrams and the number 666 when you visualize the music's frequencies through a spectrogram. Composer Mick Gordon recently teased that this hidden sinister imagery might be present in a video (below at the 3:29 mark), but there's no doubt about it now. Clearly, he remembers the days when the original Doom's hellish artwork had some parents in a frenzy.
The glorious gore of 'Doom' chainsaw kills
The new Doom is buttery, plain and simple -- no other word captures the ridiculous smoothness imbued in the game's mechanics. As he traverses Hell on Mars, the protagonist moves at a constant sprint, but the controls never feel too sensitive or rushed; it's the perfect speed for rapid-fire, twitchy gameplay. With Doom, developer id Software and publisher Bethesda have crafted an innovative first-person shooter that pays homage to the series' long history while propelling it into the future. A large part of Doom's history involves the chainsaw. Doom and chainsaws go together like lumberjacks and flannel, and the latest game doesn't disappoint in this department. It brings the close-up brutality of chainsaw kills into the 21st century, in glorious high-definition.
Play 'Doom II' on a Raspberry Pi-powered Painsaw
For a game as extreme as Doom II, you need an equally extreme piece of tech to play it on. Sure, you could fire up DOSBox to go a few rounds, or you could nab a Raspberry Pi Zero and get the game running on a toy chainsaw. But it's not just any toy chainsaw anymore. It's the Painsaw now.
What's on your HDTV: 'Deadpool,' 'Uncharted 4,' 'Doom,' 'Chelsea'
There's a lot to unpack this week, including the ongoing NHL and NBA playoffs and Drake taking over SNL. Of course, my favorite highlight is the arrival of Deadpool on Blu-ray and Ultra HD Blu-ray, following its record-setting digital download debut two weeks ago. Netflix will take its big leap into almost-live content this week, as it presents the first three episodes of Chelsea Handler's new talk show, starting on Thursday morning. Of course for gamers the big attractions are Uncharted 4: A Thief's End and Doom. Look after the break to check out each day's highlights, including trailers and let us know what you think (or what we missed).
'Doom' creators pull 'Blackroom' Kickstarter after four days
That lasted long. John Romero and Adrian Carmack, founders of the Doom and Quake developer iD Software, have already pulled the plug on their new Kickstarter project. The Blackroom campaign had been running for four days when the pair decided to press "pause," citing the need to make a gameplay demo. That's most likely so that their new, rebooted campaign can adhere to Kickstarter's own rules, which require "explicit demos of working prototypes" for any proposed physical product. The pair say finishing an early slice of Blackroom will take longer than the current campaign, which is why they've decided to end it so prematurely.
AI will frag each other with rocket launchers in 'Doom'
An AI learning to walk through a Doom-inspired maze by sight is one thing, but how can it handle live multiplayer mayhem? That's what the "Visual Doom AI" competition this September hopes to discover. The first set of matches are limited to a dozen 10-minute rounds on a known map, with only one weapon: the rocket launcher. The AI "controllers" can pick up health packs and ammo, as well, and the winner will be picked by highest kill count.
Play Doom's open beta all weekend on PS4, Xbox One and Steam
As promised, Doom's multiplayer open beta has arrived. It's been available to download the past few days and now you can actually play the thing. Contents include two maps and two play mode (team deathmatch and warpath), while weapons range from plasma rifles, to shotguns, lightning guns and (yes) rocket launchers. The Gauss Cannon also makes an appearance as a power weapon, and you'll even be able to play as a demon, if that's your choice in life. It's live starting today on PS4, Xbox One and Steam. It's going to be a busy month for betas: Overwatch's own is happening right now, while both GOW4 and Mirror's Edge will kick off next week.
'Doom' open beta kicks off April 15th
You won't have to pre-order a game to get a taste of Doom's multiplayer mode before the ultra-violent first-person shooter arrives on May 13th. Bethesda and id Software have revealed that the open beta for the game will run April 15th through the 17th on the PS4, Xbox One and Windows PCs. As with the closed test, you're getting a sliver of the full online experience: you'll have two maps (Heatwave and Infernal), two game modes (Team Deathmatch and Warpath) and one demon to invoke.
The new 'Doom' drops on May 13th
The brand-new Doom hits Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC on Friday, May 13th, Bethesda and id Software announced in a trailer today. About this trailer -- we've embedded it below, but make sure to watch it when you're in the mood for some serious gore. This is Doom, after all.
The first 'Doom' gets a new map from co-creator John Romero
John Romero is virtually synonymous with Doom as one of its key developers, but he never made a map for it after 1995. Quake, and eventually his other studios, took over after that. However, he's finally coming home to roost: Romero has released an add-on map for the original Doom, "Tech Gone Bad," that reimagines the Phobos Anomaly at the end of Episode 1. That's bound to whet your appetite if you're a veteran gamer. He's not only intimately familiar with Doom, he's approaching it with 21 years of additional experience under his belt -- as early reactions attest, this is probably much better than the homebrew maps that you saw two decades ago.
I quite literally ran around a virtual arena and loved it
We've been watching the development of Virtuix's Omni VR treadmill since 2013. The company debuted a fully-functional production model at CES 2016 and I was lucky enough to take the $700 device for a test drive -- or rather test run.
Sign up to try 'Doom' on PS4, XB1 or Steam this weekend
So you didn't buy Wolfenstein: The New Order, but you still want early access to the new Doom game? Run, don't walk to the sign-up page and get your information in (those who bought Wolfenstein last year should just search for the download on their respective gaming platforms), because this weekend it's taking testers for the test version on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Steam. The website is (predictably) crushed by gamers seeking a return to demon-filled corridors of their youth, but with access promised "first-come, first-serve" it's time to give that F5 key or auto-refresh script a workout. Good luck, but if you don't get in then maybe this quick taste of some multiplayer footage will help.Update (12/4): And...that's it, registration is closed. If you got in, we'll see you online!
