Hey Microsoft, Bulgaria Is Not Germany, Japan or Korea!!

Alex from, you guessed it, Bulgaria writes:

So i wanted to buy Duke Nukem 3D from arcade store and surprise "THIS ITEM IS NOT AVAILABLE FROM YOUR CURRENT LOCATION". Sorry, but when is Bulgaria became Germany, Japan and Korea? On Major Nelson blog i read this "Availability: Not available in Germany, Japan and Korea". I tried to buy DOOM too and guess what? That's right, born at the wrong location again. What do i have to do in order to buy and play that game? Anyone? Anyone?!

Alex from, that's right, Bulgaria continues after the jump.

id Would Like Another Doom Movie

id Software CEO Todd Hollenshead would like to do another Doom movie, perhaps one based on the still in production, and yet-to-be-named, new Doom game.

"Personally I'd like to do another Doom movie, I thought working with it was a blast," he said. "There are some lessons we learned. The best way to do things better is to get the experience."

Hollenshead said that Universal still has the rights for the Doom movie and sequels, so the ball is really in their court on whether another is made.

"We’ll see what happens when we get further along in development of the (new Doom) game and there's more buzz and we share more about what the game will be about.

"As the buzz meter starts to go up that may kind of kick start the guys over at Universal."

Doom 4 To Use 3X The Horsepower Of Rage, Run At 30 FPS

John Carmack revealed at the opening day of QuakeCon today that "the next Doom", which we'll just call Doom 4 for now, will surpass the already announced Rage, running on id Tech 5, in visual quality.

"The next DOOM game will look like it's built on another engine, as it uses three times the horsepower," Carmack said, according to a 1UP report.

That visual fidelity will come at a price though, as Carmack says that Doom 4 will run at 30 frames per second, compared to Rage's 60 frames per second. The only other details provided by Carmack on Doom 4 was that the game would feature "guns, blood, demons, and gibs." Should've sent a poet...

Quake Con Keynote — Live Blog [1UP]

TrustyGamer has a point. Photorealism is a good thing, but can it really be an escape from reality — especially for ostensibly lighthearted fare — when the color palette it draws on represents the depressing color scheme of our own worlds? Increasingly, that seems to be the case in every title, including EA's Skate, which "look(s) like shots from a heroin game where you have to skate to get your next fix."

"Nowadays, all screenshots basically look like they are from the same post-apocalyptic World War III nuclear fallout nightmare," smakus writes. He finds games to be stress-causing and not stress-relieving because of the dreary, gritty environments we're subjected to, compared to grim titles like Doom and Duke Nukem that dealt death largely in primary colors.

Next-gen "realistic" games (i.e. non-cartoon protagonists or action) with lively, bright colors? I can think of Bully, although the winter months stretch of that game started getting me in a funk. TF2 has cartoons in a real environment. And there's Guitar Hero and Rock Band, but that's probably outside the scope of the writer's argument. I'm sure all of you can think of more.

Like I said, I am color-blind as a bat, and so asking my opinion of a color is almost beyond useless. But it is a good question regarding design: What is ultimately the reason people will buy a game — realism or fun? — and how should that govern the rest of the game's look, feel, sound, story, etc?

I Miss Color [TrustyGamer]

The Evolution of the Team Multiplayer FPS

Quake 3 on iTouch with Tilt Controls

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm getting pretty sick of seeing Doom/Quake games show up on everything from calculators to refrigerators too, but this port is a little special. It seems to support both multiplayer gaming and tilt controls. If it's not being faked, it looks like you move around by tilting your i Pod touch in different directions. Now that's pretty friggin' sweet.

[Thanks Anthony]

New Doom Weapon Rickrolls Demons To Death

The most powerful aftermarket Doom weapon? The voice of Rick Astley apparently, as some enterprising Doom fan has created their own tribute to the English singer-songwriter-meme source in the form of a deadly boombox that never gives up. Hey, it may be old(!!!!1) to you, but since we make it a point not to troll /b/ too often, it's news to us. Hilarious, hard hitting news. Thanks for the linklog, Waxy.

John Romero Dishes on "Bitch Ad"

Doom co-creator John Romero and Gamecock's Mike Wilson go way back. Before he founded Gamecock, Mike Wilson was the CEO of Ion Storm, a company Romero founded. In less than a year, he was pushed out. (The company churned out the acclaimed Deus Ex and the not-so acclaimed Daikatana.) But Wilson's gone on to set up Gamecock, which he describes as an "independent film company for small developers." After reading the Gamecock's release schedule right here on Kotaku, Romero blogged this about his former colleague:

I got a chuckle out of reading the reader's comments on the article. People are now starting to get a clue about how Mr. Wilson operates. Hey everyone, he hasn't changed in over 10 years — these are the kinds of jackass stunts he pulled at Ion Storm with Daikatana. Remember the bitch ad? Yeah. He also ran ads ("image ads") that just had pictures of Ion Storm founders, himself and our COO. That was just the beginning of his madness.

It got much worse at Godgames where he pretty much just partied all the time and after the whole thing got reined in by Take 2 he went underground for a while, waiting for his next victim/investor so he could go hogwild all over again. And thus was born Gamecock.

Steam Super Sale Starts Now

If you didn't find anything for the PC gamer on your list in our holiday gift guide, you may want to turn to Valve's super duper Steam sale. Everything in the virtual store is between 10% and 50% off, including The Orange Box which is temporarily at the low, low price of $37.45. Other bargains? The id Super Pack, which contains 22 titles for $52.45. Think of the value!

Since Steam now supports gift giving, it's going to be the easiest way to add a last minute Christmas gift that's guaranteed to ship on time. You have until January 1st to enjoy the value added fun.

Steam Storewide Sale - All Games 10-50% Off! [Steam]