Steven L. Kent
List Price: $19.99
By: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media
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Subjects -> Computers & Internet -> Games & Strategy Guides -> Strategy Guides -> Doom
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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 5
Average rating: 4.5 of 5
No meat romp 3 out of 5 stars.
13 of 16 people found this review helpful.
This book was an utter let-down. I was pumped up ready to dive into this book after reading the previous reviews here on Amazon. The reviews made it sound like it was a solid book with a lot of detailed information regarding the actual "making of doom 3". This book in reality is a half-assed, piece-mailed collage of hype and fluff. There is no meat here. Steven Kent is not David Kushner, and this is not "The Masters of Doom" (part 2)... very unfortunately.
What I was expecting from this book was stuff about how the team created what they created (which the book does, to some extent), but more importantly, WHY. What were the reasons for making certain decisions, what were the challenges they had to overcome, what technological barriers did they break, and how did they persevere together, as a team? I also wanted to know about the personal stories and the inner happenings of the game in production. I wanted to learn about the conflicts between the developers and the motivations for doing things they way they did. I wanted to know what kind of pizza they ordered after working 80+ hours a week, and how many liters of Mountain Dew they consumed as a whole. None of this was even pretended to be addressed.
What the book does is a cheap, glossed-over summary of doom 3. It talks about the doom story mostly and tells some basic information about how things were created. (Anyone already in game development will surely recognize the provided information as elementary and immediately self-evident.)
About the only good thing in this book is the Question and Answer Section with John Carmack. As always, John provides a real treat by articulating his knowledge of technical issues and world view opinion in the most elegant way. The author, Steven Kent, gets one point here for not editing Carmack's dialogue; for Carmack, on a number of occasions, seems to poke fun at the interviewer's most obvious lack of game development knowledge.
Get this book if you are interested in game design (but have no previous knowledge) and/or if you are a die-hard id fanboy.
Editorial Review:
Meet the Creators of DOOM 3! Walk through the doors of id Software and meet the close-knit group of extraordinary designers behind the computer game that is being hailed as possibly the greatest ever made. Through exclusive interviews, behind-the-scenes photos, and never-before-seen game art, you will discover what it takes to pull off an achievement of this magnitude. From initial conception to completed game comprised a four-year journey filled with hard work, setbacks, breakthroughs, and ultimate success. The team at id describe in their own words the inspirations and ideas behind the making of DOOM 3.
