neurological dryer lint

i just finished playing through the doom3 demo. or as i like to call it, doom3: we know a lot of ways to have monsters jump out and scare you. also known as: half life: in the dark, on mars.

i can imagine, like a child seeing a picture of disney world in a book and dreaming of actually being there, how it would look if i had a decent video card, i.e. not my geforce2mx 64MB. it runs choppy, as is to be expected, at the lowest res. but i bet it looks sweet on a real card.

beyond that, though, about 20 minutes in i got bored by the "enter another dark room, make a zombie bust out of a corner of the room you'd never expect, shoot him, listen to the screams of your dying comrades over the radio, repeat" gameplay. that's the thing about ID. they do amazing things, make stunning advances in gameplay with each new release. but in each release, it's just that stunning new feature a million times, and nothing else. wolf3d? innovative - the first useable 3D FPS. run around and kill nazis and get treasure. doom? immersive, non-rectangular 3D environment. run around and kill zombies and open doors with keys. quake? actual polygonal 3d environment. client/server multiplayer. run around and kill monsters and open doors with keys. quake2? prettier, more of the same. quake3? prettier, replace the 'kill monsters and open doors with keys' with 'kill each other'.

here we go, guys. get valve or bungie's writers. make a new, original plot. create your game with your jaw-on-the-floor effects and gameplay, with a storyline. don't sell me a car that looks amazing on the outside, but only has one gear and can't make left or right turns.