The Making of Doom(r) III: The Official Guide (2025)

Rated 4.6/5 based on 18 customer reviews

The Making of Doom(r) III: The Official Guide

Giid Job Guys

By John Matlock on Nov 23, 2004

Steven Kent was given extraordinary access to the creative team doing Doom 3 while the project was under develoment. In this book he charts that development from early conception and the development of details like a new graphics engine that would do the actual on screen graphics. He then moves on to the development of characters, locations, and sounds that make the game what it is. One by one the developers are introduced, often by interview. And the developers get to say their prospective on the game and their part in it. The book is profusely illustrated showing the characters in the sceens where they belong.It is surprising, no incredible to me that the game of Doom 3 was created in total by a team of some 22 peop.le.

small problem

By Michael D. Furger on Jul 20, 2005

Great book by the writer Mr. Kent! The only problem that I came across was the that the pages fall out with minimal use. Warnig!!! Don not treat this book as a standard book!

No meat romp

By Eric Rayl on May 28, 2005

This book was an utter let-down. I was pumped up ready to dive into this book after reading the previous reviews here on Amazon. The reviews made it sound like it was a solid book with a lot of detailed information regarding the actual "making of doom 3". This book in reality is a half-assed, piece-mailed collage of hype and fluff. There is no meat here. Steven Kent is not David Kushner, and this is not "The Masters of Doom" (part 2)... very unfortunately.What I was expecting from this book was stuff about how the team created what they created (which the book does, to some extent), but more importantly, WHY. What were the reasons for making certain decisions, what were the challenges they had to overcome, what technological barriers did they break, and how did they persevere together, as a team? I also wanted to know about the personal stories and the inner happenings of the game in production. I wanted to learn about the conflicts between the developers and the motivations for doing things they way they did. I wanted to know what kind of pizza they ordered after working 80+ hours a week, and how many liters of Mountain Dew they consumed as a whole. None of this was even pretended to be addressed.What the book does is a cheap, glossed-over summary of doom 3. It talks about the doom story mostly and tells some basic information about how things were created. (Anyone already in game development will surely recognize the provided information as elementary and immediately self-evident.)About the only good thing in this book is the Question and Answer Section with John Carmack. As always, John provides a real treat by articulating his knowledge of technical issues and world view opinion in the most elegant way. The author, Steven Kent, gets one point here for not editing Carmack's dialogue; for Carmack, on a number of occasions, seems to poke fun at the interviewer's most obvious lack of game development knowledge.Get this book if you are interested in game design (but have no previous knowledge) and/or if you are a die-hard id fanboy.

DOOM

By Mike on Dec 31, 2013

as described and even better. AWESOME gameplay pics and some real cool early artist renderings. lots of info about the who, what and whys of the game. if you love the game then you will love this book.

The Books is amazing and reveals the back stages of this amazing production

By Julio Cesar on Oct 24, 2014

The Books is amazing and reveals the back stages of this amazing production. It covers all aspects of production and has lots of pictures, in game and the Id offices crew. It has a good looking finish on the front and back cover and the paper inside is high qlality but of course not a glossy type. The only "problem" I see is that a bog part of the book is dedicated to transcript some sort of "diary" of a guy that was on Mars. Many pages could have been saved to write interesting stuff rather than those facts that were meant to complement the game narrative. It also has an interesting chapter the modeling side of things and another (no so interesting one) about the Engine.

Excellent book

By Behitchslapped on Mar 11, 2009

Great book with impressive quality pictures and great information. Any Doom buff will love it.

Great insight into ID software

By Jim on Jan 02, 2005

This book gives a great insight on the inner workings of ID software. The paper used in the publication of this seems to be extremely high quality. My only gripe is the book is not hardcover. Overall Steven Kent does a great job as usual. If you want to understand how ID works this book will explain alot.

Game/Visual Design Students and FPS fans will LOVE this!

By Jake Stollery on Apr 03, 2005

I purchased both this book and the Half-Life 2 'Raising the Bar' book together for a discounted price. Both are exceptional and both I HIGHLY recommend owning.The Doom 3 book is far heavier on word count and focuses on the entire production of Doom 3 as opposed to the sporadic comments and captions grouped with pictures in 'Raising The Bar'. Having said that both are different and will appeal to everyone interested regardless.Both are printed on very high quality paper, 'Raising The Bar' even having a hard cover, a sore omission from The Making Doom 3. The content is brilliant with hundreds of images gracing throughout and insights into the making of these games. I particularly liked reading about the ideas, monsters and objects that were cut from the final games. Seriously, every gamer or visual artist/designer should own these, awesome and inspirational 'picture' books to have laying around.SO! If you are a fan-boy or girl of either game, get both, they are EXCEPTIONAL READING and I cannot recommend them highly enough.

Finally got this book, wanted it so badly when ...

By T. Mcfarland on Jan 20, 2015

Finally got this book, wanted it so badly when it first came out, it wasn't that much, but my stingy mother wouldn't let me have it. Mine now! LOL

5.0 out of 5 stars

By mike on Dec 31, 2013

as described and even better. AWESOME gameplay pics and some real cool early artist renderings. lots of info about the who, what and whys of the game. if you love the game then you will love this book.

5.0 out of 5 stars

By T. Mcfarland on Jan 20, 2015

Finally got this book, wanted it so badly when it first came out, it wasn't that much, but my stingy mother wouldn't let me have it. Mine now! LOL

5.0 out of 5 stars

By Grant Just on Mar 05, 2021

Great quality and a fun look into DOOM’s history

4.0 out of 5 stars

By Julio Cesar on Oct 24, 2014

The Books is amazing and reveals the back stages of this amazing production. It covers all aspects of production and has lots of pictures, in game and the Id offices crew. It has a good looking finish on the front and back cover and the paper inside is high qlality but of course not a glossy type. The only "problem" I see is that a bog part of the book is dedicated to transcript some sort of "diary" of a guy that was on Mars. Many pages could have been saved to write interesting stuff rather than those facts that were meant to complement the game narrative. It also has an interesting chapter the modeling side of things and another (no so interesting one) about the Engine.

5.0 out of 5 stars

By John Matlock on Nov 24, 2004

Steven Kent was given extraordinary access to the creative team doing Doom 3 while the project was under develoment. In this book he charts that development from early conception and the development of details like a new graphics engine that would do the actual on screen graphics. He then moves on to the development of characters, locations, and sounds that make the game what it is. One by one the developers are introduced, often by interview. And the developers get to say their prospective on the game and their part in it. The book is profusely illustrated showing the characters in the sceens where they belong.It is surprising, no incredible to me that the game of Doom 3 was created in total by a team of some 22 peop.le.

5.0 out of 5 stars

By Jake Stollery on Apr 04, 2005

I purchased both this book and the Half-Life 2 'Raising the Bar' book together for a discounted price. Both are exceptional and both I HIGHLY recommend owning.The Doom 3 book is far heavier on word count and focuses on the entire production of Doom 3 as opposed to the sporadic comments and captions grouped with pictures in 'Raising The Bar'. Having said that both are different and will appeal to everyone interested regardless.Both are printed on very high quality paper, 'Raising The Bar' even having a hard cover, a sore omission from The Making Doom 3. The content is brilliant with hundreds of images gracing throughout and insights into the making of these games. I particularly liked reading about the ideas, monsters and objects that were cut from the final games. Seriously, every gamer or visual artist/designer should own these, awesome and inspirational 'picture' books to have laying around.SO! If you are a fan-boy or girl of either game, get both, they are EXCEPTIONAL READING and I cannot recommend them highly enough.

3.0 out of 5 stars

By Eric Rayl on May 29, 2005

This book was an utter let-down. I was pumped up ready to dive into this book after reading the previous reviews here on Amazon. The reviews made it sound like it was a solid book with a lot of detailed information regarding the actual "making of doom 3". This book in reality is a half-assed, piece-mailed collage of hype and fluff. There is no meat here. Steven Kent is not David Kushner, and this is not "The Masters of Doom" (part 2)... very unfortunately.What I was expecting from this book was stuff about how the team created what they created (which the book does, to some extent), but more importantly, WHY. What were the reasons for making certain decisions, what were the challenges they had to overcome, what technological barriers did they break, and how did they persevere together, as a team? I also wanted to know about the personal stories and the inner happenings of the game in production. I wanted to learn about the conflicts between the developers and the motivations for doing things they way they did. I wanted to know what kind of pizza they ordered after working 80+ hours a week, and how many liters of Mountain Dew they consumed as a whole. None of this was even pretended to be addressed.What the book does is a cheap, glossed-over summary of doom 3. It talks about the doom story mostly and tells some basic information about how things were created. (Anyone already in game development will surely recognize the provided information as elementary and immediately self-evident.)About the only good thing in this book is the Question and Answer Section with John Carmack. As always, John provides a real treat by articulating his knowledge of technical issues and world view opinion in the most elegant way. The author, Steven Kent, gets one point here for not editing Carmack's dialogue; for Carmack, on a number of occasions, seems to poke fun at the interviewer's most obvious lack of game development knowledge.Get this book if you are interested in game design (but have no previous knowledge) and/or if you are a die-hard id fanboy.

Great insight into ID software

By Jim on Jan 02, 2005

This book gives a great insight on the inner workings of ID software. The paper used in the publication of this seems to be extremely high quality. My only gripe is the book is not hardcover. Overall Steven Kent does a great job as usual. If you want to understand how ID works this book will explain alot.

4.0 out of 5 stars

By Michael D. Furger on Jul 20, 2005

Great book by the writer Mr. Kent! The only problem that I came across was the that the pages fall out with minimal use. Warnig!!! Don not treat this book as a standard book!