John Romero

• • Name: John Romero

  • Notable creations and work: Wolfenstein 3D, Quake Series, Doom Series, Daikatana

  • Born: October 28, 1967

Biographical Summary

John Romero is most well known for the series of Quake, Doom, Commander Keen and Wolfenstein 3D alongside with John Carmack. They founded Softdisk, which originally made PC game. Notable own work of Romero's were Dangerous Dave and Daikatana.

Carmack and Romero made Commander Keen together where Romero basically did the graphics and levels, and Carmack did the programming.

Carmack and Romero started id Software together, they used 3D technology and made Catacombs 3D (1991) and Hovertank 3D (1991), afterward, by using concepts from Catacombs 3D and Hovertank 3D, they came up with Wolfenstein 3D (1992)

Even though Wolfenstein wasn't the first First Person Shooter, it established the genre. Each doing what they do best, Carmack as the programmer and Romero as the designer/artist, they then made Doom, one of the first multiple player FPS. It created a huge impact and heavily influenced the majority of today's online FPS games, such as counter-strike and team fortress.

The games they created together exists because of Romero's visions and Carmack's programming skills, without Carmack, no one would be able to see Romero's visions and without Romero, no one would probably notice Carmack's skill.

In 1996, they made Quake (1996), using true 3D technology (with polygons)

John Carmack and John Romero is considered the most successful game designers of all times, however, things went wrong and they went separate ways, Romero left id Software and founded ion storm, he focused on one game, Daikatana.

Daikatana is John Romero's dream vision, if quake had 7 weapons and 10 monsters, daikatana had to have 25 weapons and 64 monsters, and spreaded out in 4 different time zones. His advertising were also extremely aggressive: “John Romero's about to make you his bitch … Suck it down”, he wanted to release it at 1997 but ultimately delayed for 3 years.

During this time when Daikatana is being delayed, John Carmack continued to make great games like Quake II (1997) and Quake III (1999). Finally Daikatana came out at 2000, but Quake III made Daikatana look like an old game. With the advertising and delay on top, it made the public mad. Even if the game were the perfect game, it would still be bashed and hated. Since then Romero have been working here and there but haven't accomplished much big troughs like they have been before.

Work

John Carmack and John Romero, often called "The Two Johns" were basically the dream team, Carmack is the programmer and Romero is the one with the vision and ideas, together they have made revolutionary and influential games such as Wolfenstein 3D, Quake and Doom.

Project

Daikatana - John Romero's dream vision

References

• • http://www.quakeexpo.com/images/romero2.jpg

  • http://www.geeks.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/Daikatana.jpg