I have to admit up front that I’m not necessarily a fan of first person shooters. I don’t play games that often. But when I do, I prefer games that require some thought and logic rather than blowing up everything that gets in your way. I’m a fan of games like the Myst series, Schism (the DVD version) and that ilk.

Then there’s Doom.

I’ve been playing Doom for somewhere around 10 years, give or take. As far as I’m concerned, it’s the perfect FPS: Little or no plot, big guns, lots of stuff to blow up, mindless enemies to destroy. Oh yeah! I have Doom II installed, and I still play it. I also think it’s cool that Doom can be patched and expanded. I have a few patches installed: Barrels turned into Beer kegs and health drinks turned into Pepsi cans. My favorite patch turns demons into a certain big purple dinosaur, who comes bouncing into the base singing a certain amazingly obnoxious song, and then turns into nice purple splats when blown up.

Everyone who knows me knows that I am in no way a violent person. I shoo bugs out of my house rather than kill them, even. But there’s something just so stress-relievingly satisfying about Doom’s mindless, pointless violence.

And now, after what seems like forever, Doom 3 is released, and you’d better believe I was in line to get my copy. Fry’s gave me a rain check for one at $45 — everyone else is $55, so I was willing to wait an extra day — and last night I finally had it in my hot little hands. It’s rated “M” for blood, gore and intense violence. I knew I was in good hands.

There were a few false starts getting it installed. It didn’t like being installed on my D: drive, where I usually install non-OS software. It died when trying to unpack. So I had to delete and reinstall on C:. It wants to run at 800X600 at High quality. OK. I can accept that. I’d rather have 1024×768, and thought I’d get that with my ATI 9800XT, but it’s OK. Configuring it to use surround sound caused the sound to cut out and then the game to freeze. I’ve solved this by using 2D sound. It may be a driver issue. There’s a new driver for my Audigy 2 ZS Platinum. I’ll download and install it tonight.

#1 Son came in while I was messing around with freezes caused by the sound problem. He offered to install it on his computer to see if it worked better there. I told him he’d have to pry it out of my cold, dead fingers.

OK… first impressions:

The graphics rock. Period. The attention to detail is awesome. I love the way my point of view moves when something hits me – very disorienting. I wish I could afford a next-generation graphics card, but I can’t justify it right now.

The game starts out deceptively simple. The first missions are to report to headquarters, get armed, find your way outside and to the next building, and locate a missing scientist. That’s where things start to go to hell in a handbasket.

I’m not one to really get that caught up in a game, but the atmosphere is really spooky. The lights go off and weird things come out of nowhere. I had a tendency to blindly spray everything in sight with bullets. Not a good idea if you’re standing next to something that might blow up.

I didn’t have much time to play, so I didn’t make a huge effort. I made it back to the main base building and was attempting to cycle the airlock when the demons got me, the world turned red, and that was all she wrote.

I’m not sure I like having a plot — even as thin as the plot is. But I’m willing to work with it.

I don’t want to talk to people. I want to blow things up. It’s annoying to have to stop and talk to other characters. This is Doom, dammit, not Journey To The Center Of The Earth.

The PDA is both annoying and a good tool. Having to locate a downed person’s PDA in order to have access to a restricted area isn’t that different from having to find a key of a particular color. But it’s a little bit annoying to have to pause to refer to the PDA for other info. Hints are not unappreciated, however, so I guess it’s good in some ways. But see under “I’m not sure I like having a plot.”

There are lots of dark, narrow, twisty hallways. I’m hoping that I can get to somewhere open and light where it makes sense to use the big guns. It will be hard to use them in the halls. And a flashlight? Gimmeabreak. I’m on Mars. I should at least have night vision. I want to use the flashlight to see, but I know as soon as I do some demon is going to jump out and get me because I don’t have a weapon.

That aside, I still recommend Doom 3 to anyone who’s a fan of FPS or of the original Doom series. I notice that it’s expandable and patchable, like the original Doom. I’m hoping for a Barney patch, or the Bush equivalent, soon, along with a few custom levels out in the open.

Mom’s grade:

Below are some pictures from the Guitar Center Battle of the Bands at Summerfest.

The bands who competed were Autistic Youth, representing Southridge; Not That Ugly, from Aloha; and Of God, from Westview.

The bands were judged on stuff like look, showmanship, passion and music, with each being worth a total of 15 points (5 points/judge). After all of the bands had played, the audience also voted for their favorite via loudest applause. This was also worth 15 points.

Alas, Autistic Youth came in third. I think they were hurt by the fact that the other two bands had larger followings present in the audience. Of God placed second only because they had the loudest cheering section — I think they brought their whole church along, but nobody else was too impressed. A lot of the general crowd actually left during Of God. Autistic Youth pulled them back in towards the end of their set, which meant Not That Ugly had a larger audience to cheer for them. If it hadn’t been for those two things, Autistic Youth would have placed second, and maybe first.

Mom’s reviews:

Summerfest in general:
Lots of good food — but expensive. Lots of stuff for kids to do — but expensive. More exhibitors than I remember in the past, and lots of freebies. Plenty of tables with chairs available for eating and listening to the music. I miss Nightglow, but the evening concert line-up was better. What with the weather semi-cooperating (muggy, but overcast and around 80 instead of 93), a fun time was had by all.

The Guitar Center Battle Of The Bands:
I give them one star for giving to the schools and lending the sound equipment and drum set. The sound guy, however, had no clue what he was doing. The sound board was at the back of the stage and he never put his headphones on, so he only heard the sound via the monitors. The sound from the speakers was horrible. Very heavy bass (I’m surprised I still have the fillings in my teeth and I was not that close), very light everything else. We couldn’t hear the vocals during Autistic Youth and Not That Ugly totally lost their lead guitar. Bad, bad, bad. And the announcer was pretty lame, too, although he did follow Autistic Youth’s direction to introduce them as “leaving shortly for their one-day tour of Newberg.”

Of God:
What can I say? Christian Rock is not my cup of tea. But, subject matter aside, all of their songs were really long and sounded the same. By the third song I was really bored and just wanted them to be done. I give them two stars, though, because the keyboardist really rocked. Pity we couldn’t hear him half the time. I give their “fan” contingent no stars, because they couldn’t be bothered to listen to the other two bands. They left after Of God played, and came back only to cheer. Boo to them.

Autistic Youth:
Yeah. So it’s my kid — who said I had to be objective? Some comments, though, in the interest of semi-fairness: There was some dead air between the songs while #1 Son talked to Seve and Alex. It made me think that they didn’t know the set list. #1 Son — awesome guitar as always, but talk to the audience, dude! Nick — bass was great but you do a good statue impression. Move around a little! Autistic Youth was by far the best musicians technically. Seve was the only drummer we could really hear. (It reminded me of the very early Bakwash days. #1 Son kept telling me over and over, “I need a louder amp. Seve drowns me out.”) I wish we could have heard the lyrics. I wish the sound had been better. Truth to tell, punk is not to everyone’s liking. But they didn’t really want to win, so meh. I thought they were awesome.

Not That Ugly:
The winners. I give them three stars because they did a decent job. Their music was more approachable than either of the other two bands, although it did all start to sound the same towards the end. But there wasn’t anything to really hate about it, either. It was a drag that I couldn’t hear the lead guitar at all because it looked like he was a decent player. Good sound might have earned them another star. I also have to give them their props for being the only band to thank the other two bands. That shows some class.

Above: Autistic Youth competes in the Guitar Center Battle Of The Bands at Summerfest.
“Enhancing our sense of community through the arts.” (oh yeah!)
L-R: Adam Becker, Seve Sheldon, Alex (Alert) Tryon, Nick (Mayhem) Powell

Right: Seve’s little brother Levi shows his support for the Lost Boys! Alex made the killer vest.

Below: The Autistic Youth fan club.

So I figured out how to fix my master drive partition table and reinstall XP from backup. 3 hours. I reinstalled SuSE – several times because each time it didn’t install correctly, each time for a different reason. I kept thinking about that old saying about the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, each time expecting different results. I kept doing the same thing over and over, expecting the same results, and each time it was different. (This is not a Linux slam, as Windows will do the same thing.) I finally blew away those partitions, reformatted them — thank goodness for Partition Magic 8 — and reinstalled. Total time to install SuSE: 3 hours.

I had Mandrake CDs lying around also, so I thought I’d give Mandrake a try. A friend told me that it would probably be an easier install than SuSE, and definitely easier than Fedora. I booted to the install CD, and it complained that it didn’t understand my master drive partition table, but it would be happy to destroy all partitions on that drive and start over. I shut the computer off and unhooked the master drive (I can be taught). Then I tried again. This time it said that it didn’t understand the partition table on my slave drive, but it would be happy to blow that drive away and reformat it. Did I want it to do that? I shut the machine off, hooked the master drive back up, and threw the Mandrake CDs into my “software I’m not playing with anymore” drawer.

Maybe SuSE is enough for now, eh?

So I booted up into SuSE. I figured out how to change my screen resolution and refresh rate to something usable. Not bad so far. Popped an audio CD in the drive…