Straight Jacket Type Fun
QUAKECON 2005
Doom 3 Movie pictures: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14
Serious Sam 2 in-game video footage. In game photos please not the parrot of death. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9
Sphinx here and I just returned from the floor show at Quakecon 2005 and am back safe and sound, the din and noise of the floor show a distant, yet buzzing, noise in my head. As expected, the usual eclectic crowd represents, from the hardcore gamers whose hair and physical appearance suggest a certain lack of soap comprehension all the way across the spectrum to a mother with a stroller. A MOTHER WITH A STROLLER, what the holy hell Quakecon is busting mainstream in it's 10th year. As a gentle reminder to some of the attendees, if your leg color matches eggs, wear jeans. That's what I do and it's the humane thing to do.
People watching aside, let's get to the stuff.
First up was a brief panel discussion of the DOOM movie. This discussion had Todd H., a person on the production team named Jerry Steckler, and a person from Stan Winston's creature shop --John Rosengrant-- discussing the movie. The moderator of the panel was some schmoe from IGN who couldn't ask good questions if he had a doctorate in test question writing for the SAT group.
The first softball bullshit question he had written (most likely while drunk, high, or crying in his lonely hotel bed) was directed at Todd H., asking about why it took so long to make the movie? Todd H. had a quizzical look on his face as if to say "Jesus Christ this question has only been asked a thousand fucking times you short bus candidate!" but he kept his cool (as any man with super long hair must do) and answered it well discussing the hesitation of studios to finance it and also how they (id software) were displeased with what was pitched to them in terms of the studio and director's vision.
But, when the production kicked into gear, the biggest thing id tried to was NOT tell the makers the six million things they could NOT do but instead encourage the production team to explore and flesh out the material. This appears to be the case as Todd and Steckler mentioned that the script went through 30 revisions. Now honestly I don't know why a script for Doom would need 30 revisions but perhaps they were running out of adjectives to describe "violent dismemberment."
Todd was then asked what, if anything, just HAD to be on screen for the movie to be acceptable to the staff of id. The biggest thing, he stated, was a need to capture the intensity and atmosphere of the game. In this regards the movie does appear to deliver as several new clips of the movie were shown, including more in regards to the first person shooter perspective. Steckler also emphasized that to achieve this feeling, the R-rating had to be maintained.
One concern I maintained in regards to the movie is when Steckler discusses that they took many "liberties" in regards to the story. While they don't strip mine the game wholesale and spit out something different, the entire panel seemed to tiptoe around the fact that while this is Doom it also is a movie and so will need to appeal to a bit wider audience. For that purpose, there's more characters (at least initially) such as a female scientist, and there is a bit more of a relationship or history between the Doom Guy and Sarge (The Rock). Another example is how the story opens. Instead of shipping in via a ship, the entire team is warned of a problem on Mars (yes it's on Mars thank goodness) and they use a wormhole to jump from Earth to Mars. A minor point of change for sure but again they seemed to be dancing around some of the bigger changes.
Finally, John Rosengrant of Stan Winston Studios discussed some of the F/X shots and brought slides and pictures showing off some of the pre-production modeling.
There is a mixture of CG animation (pinky demon) and animatronics. The example given for animatronics being used in the movie was the Hell Knight which is about eight or nine feet tall and a person actually was in it. John discussed how the head alone had over 30 individual motors to articulate it's facial features as well the swelling and movement of it's skin and various tumors located on the creatures body.
The first person video sequence was shown again but, unfortunately since the lighting was so poor (it was a rough cut), the clip did not show up well on my video camera. But rest assured that the clip is bloody and it does capture that up close and personal feel of the monsters trying to kill you. John stated the entire first person shot was done in one cut and took nearly two years to prepare and over two weeks to film.
A Q&A session was allowed but the questions were simply written down and brought up to the speakers. The first asked what was the production team looking for when casting the Doom guy. It was decided that the Doom Guy should be hardcore, tough, and strong, and have a really tough guy look. I think what they were trying to say was that the Doom Guy should be a gay gym jock.
Another question asked about if the movie followed the storyline exactly. The entire panel seemed to squirm a little and reply that no it did not as they needed to flesh out the storyline a little bit more to appeal to a wider audience. I don't think it's a matter of fleshing out the story for Doom but it's more like making the storyline of Doom. Yes Doom 3 was at least an attempt at a story but it's definitely not even a comic book plot.
The final question asked what would be the legacy of Doom? I didn't listen to this question but I figure Todd H. mentioned that it would make him and id a lot more money. In Tood H's case that probably means more money for hair care products. The man has the hair mane of Simba.
After looking at some of the kiosks and various displays we finally found the Serious Sam 2 demo we had heard would be at the event. As expected there's a ton of bad guys, it runs great, and the weapons provide giggling glee as the horde of monsters fall (or explode) at your feet. The two weapons that impressed me the most were the multi-barrel single shot shotgun whose barrel rotated after each shot and also the parrot of death who flew a bomb to the bad guys. Polly want a cracker? No, Polly wants to explode you into gibs!
Finally there's Quake IV but I'm very, very, very unimpressed. This game was being played by groups of people on some super high-end Alienware machine and the look, weapons, textures, and play style all reminded me of Quake III. You run around in no particular order, you shoot stuff or avoid getting shot, and that's it. The first person shooter genre, and particularly Quake, deserve better than this.
And that's it for Friday.
