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Nick Perrin

Just got "Masters of DooM"...

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... And so far it's pretty good, I've only read 3 chapters so far.
For those who don't know:
http://www.techsoc.com/doom.htm

It's a really interesting book, and gives a fast-paced and detailed account of the lives of John Romero and John Carmack leading up to the creations of doom and quake, talking about their passions for games as kids, coding for Apple II's, working at Softdisk, then later, I haven't read that far yet, starting id software, commander keen, wolf3d, doom, quake etc.

If you're a fan of doom you will be very interested with this book, it covers the early careers of people at id very well(but mostly carmack and romero). Reminds of that movie "Pirates of Silicon Valley," that one about steve jobs and wozniak, and bill gates etc. in that it's an account of history dealing with computers and in this case also a revolution of games.

Has anyone here read this book yet?

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I bought this book as well, about a year ago. Though I was inpressed with the background information it provided, David Kushner's drab style made the book a labor to get through. The topic was certainly interesting enough, (though my particular zeal for the subject betrays my thinly masked bias,) but the way in which it was delivered left me very disappointed. Sadly, I have to say that this book is only of interest to those interested in the specific video game title, or the origins of the FPS genre. Other than that, don't bother.

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I read Masters of Doom not long after it came out. While I did find it really interesting, I have agree somewhat with NailGunner in that it could have been done better. On another note, Kushner seems to be a little confused and got some facts wrong. If I remember correctly, he attempted explaining telefragging at one point but was completely off.

I'd say the best parts of the book are the last chapter, epilogue, and obviously the part on Doom itself. It's a good read, at any rate, and I got a lot out of it that I didn't know about.

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Nick Perrin said:
Seems the reviewer doesn't liked doom...

It's a troll. Salon.com specializes in inflammatory articles to sell their subscriptions.

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I read it myself. The piece of information I liked the most was about John Romero's girlfriend Stevie Case posing for Playboy ;)

Must find that issue...

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Texas Libra said:

I read it myself. The piece of information I liked the most was about John Romero's girlfriend Stevie Case posing for Playboy ;)

Must find that issue...


You're not missing much...

(Edit: The pictures never made it to print, but were released online.)

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I love the book, but I always put it down once I get to Quake Development, because it only gets sad from there. *sigh*

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Hey! I just finished the book today, all I can say it was definitely a very enjoyable read and extremely interesting... I finally know the full story and all the details behind id software.

I just wish that more would have been written about the development of doom3, but even at the time of the edition I have, doom3 wasn't out yet.

Highly recommended! True doom fans will love it. Even just plain video game fans and gamers will love it. At least, I loved it.

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Nick Perrin said:

Hey! I just finished the book today, all I can say it was definitely a very enjoyable read and extremely interesting... I finally know the full story and all the details behind id software.

I just wish that more would have been written about the development of doom3, but even at the time of the edition I have, doom3 wasn't out yet.

Highly recommended! True doom fans will love it. Even just plain video game fans and gamers will love it. At least, I loved it.


A book about Doom 3's development would rock. But we did get that piece of ass Making of Doom 3 book. Waste of money. If anyone thinking of buying it talk to me and i'll come up with about fifty ways not to.

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