It’s hard not to get swept up by the excitement exuding from the four people on stage for a panel about virtual reality at QuakeCon.  It’s the Oculus Rift VR headset (with a kickstarter that recently broke the million dollar funding level) that has gotten panel members thinking that virtual reality gaming is feasible.  John Carmack and Todd Hollenshead of id, Michael Abrash of Valve, and Palmer Luckey from Oculus talked about the problems with virtual reality headsets through history, where things are now, and where they are headed.  Id has solidified their interest in the Oculus Rift headset by agreeing to provide a copy of Doom 3 BFG Edition with every headset sold in the future.  For now, that’s the only software confirmed to be playable with the product intended primarily for developers.  When Abrash was asked if Valve had plans to make their products playable with Rift, he could only confirm his desire to do so but not any concrete plans.

John Carmack gave his QuakeCon keynote this year which focused on his efforts and thoughts about virtual reality.  Following the release of Rage, Carmack allowed himself to let loose, buy some VR headsets and get his engineering mind locked in on a new technology.  Carmack spoke for over three hours, wandering away and then back time after time to the virtual reality theme.  His sleuthing and coding has led to the creation of a playable VR demo of Doom 3 (which he tried to temper expectations for).  Virtual reality has been portrayed by the media to be a realistic life simulator, but Carmack assures us that there is still plenty of work to be done.  These warnings led into musings on the state of display technology, cloud gaming, Ouya, and many other topics during a three hour one-man show that most audience members couldn’t endure ‘til the end.

I love Doom.  From the moment I shot my first demon with a shotgun on an occupied Martian base in the early '90s, I was hooked.  The sense of power, the satisfaction of getting a perfect shot, the click-clack of cocking that beastly boom stick yet again for another blow, all balanced with the tension of not knowing what’s around the next corner. It all came together to form an addictive stew of demon slaying madness.  Doom II was basically more of the same, and after that, the franchise lay dormant for over a decade.

You may not have known that you wanted it, but Bethesda has just announced the aptly titled Doom 3 BFG Edition.  Seemingly coming out of nowhere, the BFG Edition will be released on PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 sometime this fall and as you would expect, it packs a wallop.