John Carmack has finished work on the much-anticipated port of "DOOM" for the iPhone. Dubbed "DOOM Classic," it's available in the App Store for $7, and offers four full episodes from the classic FPS and local multiplayer support over the same WiFi network. I spoke to Carmack regarding the project, his follow-up to "Wolfenstein 3D Classic" on the iPhone.

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In today's somewhat delayed Lunchtime Twitter Poll we're taking a look back at classic PC final boss fights. My personal favorite, pictured above and agreed upon by many, featured a battle against Hitler in a mech suit. I guess it wasn't so much the battle as it was the aspect of him melting once you killed him...followed by an instant replay of said melting.

The folks over at GoG.com have been kind enough to offer five codes for downloading free classic PC games on their site, which I will direct message to the following winners. Thanks to everyone one who participated, and keep an eye out on the LTP as we'll continue to do giveaways from time to time.

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The 14th annual QuakeCon is off and running, and it appears there's going to be quite a bit to keep id Soft-lovers happy over the coming days. Just got in the official list of events and announcements, and it's packed to the gills with enjoyable stuff. Most interesting, though, is the amount of Bethesda stuff. Even though the ink is still fresh on Bethesda's purchase of id, there's still going to be a heavy presence from the publisher.

Check out the full list of events and announcements below:

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I spent some time this morning talking with Tom Mustaine of Escalation Studios and John Carmack of id Software regarding today's release of "DOOM Resurrection" on the iPhone. Unlike previous "DOOM" games, "Resurrection" takes control of the player's movements, leading you about the environment almost like an arcade light-gun game. Originally this style of gameplay was implimented simply because id wasn't sure if they could pull off a standard FPS on the iPhone. Carmack explains:

"At the beginning [of development] it wasn't clear that traditional first person shooter controls worked. None of the demo games that people had made were any good at all from an FPS standpoint. So we thought we'd look at the platform from scratch and say 'What type of gameplay would work here?' regardless of what we had done in the past."

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John Carmack of id Software spoke to Multiplayer over the phone today to talk about "DOOM Resurrection," (impressions coming shortly) but he couldn't help but talk about future iPhone projects that id is working on:

"There's no doubt that we'll go through 'Quake' and 'Quake 2.' I think that I can probably manage to do 'Quake 3' on the conventional iPhone platform, if Apple winds up addressing just a few things in their system software. When you start looking at the 3GS, ['Quake 3'] would not be a problem at all."

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In speaking with John Carmack about the recent acquisition of id Software by Zenimax, he talked a bit about his excitement for the iPhone as a gaming platform and that he's spoken to Todd Howard (executive producer at Bethesda Softworks) about opportunities there.

Carmack also mentioned that his pet project, "DOOM Classic" for the iPhone, is nearing completion, saying "I expect to finish DOOM Classic in the next couple weeks."

After the fantastic job id did on the port of "Wolfenstein 3D" to the iPhone, it's definitely something I eager to check out. Good to hear that it's definitely close to release.

Huge news in the world of video game publishing today, Zenimax Media has acquired id Software, bringing id's forthcoming publisher-less titles (i.e. not "RAGE," since EA already called that one) into the same family as Bethesda (publisher of "Fallout 3," "Oblivion," and the upcoming "Brink"). Zenimax will publish future id games under the Bethesda Softworks label.

We've already reached out to both parties to get a statement, but in the meantime, here's the release that Zenimax put out:
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A few weeks back, John Carmack revealed that he's been working on a port of the classic "DOOM" for iPhone. Since he already released an excellent port of "Wolfenstein 3D" for the platform, I was pretty pumped about the classic demon-ridden shooter getting the same treatment.

While that game is still in the works, it looks like it's not the only iPhone "DOOM" we'll be seeing in the near future. "DOOM Resurrection" is a completely new game which appears to take inspiration from the story and visuals of "DOOM 3." Note the graphics for the Imp above, as well as the assault rifle. Lower rez, sure, but "DOOM 3” nonetheless.
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And you thought you were busy! John Carmack of id Software is frighteningly clever, and has been working on bringing "DOOM" to the iPhone over the last few weeks. Apparently the game is already in beta and will be released to the App Store sometime next month.

John talks at length about the process of bringing "DOOM" to the iPhone, debating whether to update the art (as he did with "Wolfenstein 3D"), but in the end it looks like we'll be getting a classic-looking "DOOM," which is fine by me.

The most exciting aspect about the release, though, is the inclusion of multiplayer over WiFi. There haven't been too many iPhone games that support this kind of feature (especially not shooters), and the prospect of getting one of the earliest multiplayer shooters up and running on the iPhone gets me pretty giddy inside. After launch the game will be updated with the iPhone's 3.0 firmware to allow for Bluetooth multiplayer, as well, which means you won't even need a net connection to play nearby friends.

I've spent a good 6 hours with "Wolf 3D" on my iPhone, and I'm sure "DOOM" will follow suit.