This week's Matt Chat is really something special--Scott Miller tells the exciting, spy-novel like strategy he had to use to recruit star talent John Romero, who was laboring under a contract with the militant Softdisk group. He then goes on to recount his falling out with Carmack over Rise of the Triad. But I know what you've really been waiting for--the story of The Duke! With no small emotion, Scott talks about how the character came about, why people loved Duke Nukem 3D so much (including the strippers), and how he feels about the publisher's decision to rip the game out of his hands and give it to Gearbox. Even though the game was finished (just lacking console ports), Gearbox will probably end up with the credit despite all the years of TLC put into it by Scott Miller and 3D Realms. You really don't want to miss this one.

You can download the mp4 here.

John RomeroHere it is, folks, the audio from my 2-hour long interview with superstar developer John Romero. Although you can't hear my side, you won't have any problem following the conversation. The bulk of the conversation concerns Romero's personal history from childhood through Daikatana. You'll hear about the development of Commander Keen, Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, and Quake. Romero also discusses World of Warcraft, Star Trek, women in gaming, and plenty of other topics. Enjoy!

Note: It's a 90 megabyte file, so you might want to right click above and save as. The videos are below for your convenience.

Here it is, the one you've all been waiting for! In this episode, we discuss the infamous Daikatana and the ill-fated ad campaign ("John Romero will make you his $@$@@"). If you've enjoyed the other Romero episodes, you definitely can't miss this one.

Here's part IV of my John Romero interview series, this time on Quake.

Here's the latest installment of my interview with John Romero. I need to decide now whether to dedicate a separate episode to Quake or just finish up with one last segment. Anyway, here's the video:

Hi, all. This week, I return to my extensive Romero footage to bring out the story of one of my favorite first-person shooters, Wolfenstein 3D. Many historians argue that this game was the first "modern" first-person shooter, though there were of course plenty of precedents. Romero points out that it was the first texture-mapped 3D game with a guy holding a gun (earlier ones tended to be tank turrets or flight sim-style games). We also talk here about Silar Warner's Apple II masterpiece Castle Wolfenstein, which inspired Romero and Carmack's game.

Here's the latest Matt Chat, this time with rockstar designer John Romero!

Today's casual iPhone photos, which are a real mixed bag (shown below): Konami's Nightmare Creatures II (2000) for the Sega Dreamcast, id's The Ultimate Doom (1995) with Episode IV: Thy Flesh Consumed for the Apple Macintosh, and Tandy's Monster Maze (1983) for the Radio Shack Color Computer.

"Willy Byte in the Digital Dimension" for the Apple III don't know if this'll show up on my profile page, but I felt like writing up a short history of me and gaming. (ed.: I bumped this to the front page of AA)

1978 - Mmm. Coding basic text games on our Apple II+. Plus I could make a cool string of wine goblets run up the side of the screen.

10 PRINT "Y"
20 PRINT "I"
30 GOTO 10

1980 - The folks bring home an Atari 2600. Love blooms. The games I remember most from this time are Pac Man, Space Invaders, Berzerk, Swordquest: Earthworld, and Combat. Like many people I've talked to, you always had to have one friend with an Intellivision and one with a ColecoVision so that everyone could play every system. :)