I want to take time out to say that John Carmack is a whore. I read the transcript of his talk at Quakecon '00, and I'm very very unimpressed.

His new games will _require_ 128 MB of RAM? WTF? I've seen Q3A, and it's just Quake with pretty colors - nothing more. I guess if I could run it on my computer I'd think better of it. But from what I have played, it is more of the same. Granted, Q3Fortress kicks ass, but even that is not much better than Quake TF - just prettier.

I bought a Playstation 2 years ago, so I could play Final Fantasy. At the time, I looked at the specs on my PC, and the specs on the PS. for the time, Final Fantasy VII for the PC required a rather boffo machine to run. P233 with 32 MB of RAM and a 3d card. The PC version of that game paled in comparison to the PS version. Note this - the PS is a 33MHz machine with 2 MB of RAM. This is slower than a basic 386, and the game looks and plays better!!

Now, John Carmack wants to develop on the X-Box, because it has all the spiffy computer parts that he's used to. It has lots of RAM. Whoop-de-freakin-doo. PS2 doesn't have much RAM at all. Y'know why? Because it doesn't need it. The PS2 is a completely new computing paradigm. It's basic design eschews use of RAM by having dual vector processing units - those processors draw on the fly, it's like having an entire computer built around dual video cards. What else do you need for a game?

I guess Carmack needs more. He's stuck in this ancient Microsoft-induced programming coma. Rather than optimize his code, he bows to featureitis. Who the hell _needs_ 32-bit texturing? Especially in a game where you are running so fast, you can't appreciate it! I remember running Quake 1 at 640x480 and being damn happy. I don't need Quake 3 running at 2048x1280. Noone needs that. Noone but the graphics whores that Carmack pimps. It's about the game! Vagrant Story by SquareSoft completely blows away Q3A. It doesn't have the pretty 128-bit texel compression, and it runs on a box that still has a 2-digit MHz rating, but the depth of that game is truly amazing.

Quake was revolutionary for its time. I love Quake. At 320x200 software resolution I still love Quake. You can see the graniness of the walls, the decay. You can almost imagine the rust, the decay, the blood caked bones splattered on the floor. Quake 3 just can't match that. It's _too_ pretty. Sure, you have bezier curves, and a larger pallette, but have you ever been shocked out of your seat by Quake3? Have you ever jumped when you are low on health, and you can hear a demon panting in the corner, just out of sight in Q3A? No. With your jacked resolutions, and bright colors, all the fear has been scraped away. I hope you're happy.

This rant isn't meant to be coherent. It's just the rambilings of an old PC gamer. You can take it as a "when I was your age" old-fogey tale, or as a criticism on how bad modern id games have become. Just don't complain about my coherency :)

No, I'm not dead - I've just been busy with my own site, NextWish's Game Modifications - Which hosts modifications I and others have made for games. I've re-done the entire structure of this site and fixed up all the broken links, but theirs a chance I may of missed some - So If you see one, be sure to send me a email. Anyways, I'm going to be updating here a little bit more often, so send in some tips / stories :)