England invented Football but we didn't even qualify for this years European cup. :(

If you ask me ID are still at the top of their game and doing what they do best, but what they do isn't necessarily what the general public want anymore. HL1 changed the direction of the FPS, and HL2 improved upon that direction. Doom 3 made some halfhearted attempts to live up to new expectations, but obviously HL2 was always going to do that better because Valve have a head start on that front. 

You mean "UT had it's Q3A", right?? Since you seemed to be talking about major games (former) that had pale imitations (latter)... 

http://crackle.com/c/Jace_Hall/Jace_Hall_Ep_13_SEASON_FINALE_/2366278#ml=o%3d12%26fpl%3d297045%26fx%3d

Jace Hall Show - Doom 4 sneak peak 

Doom 3 had a terrible story, that's true, but I didn't think the level design was as terrible as people say, it was just very logical, tight and cramped, and militaristic in the way that Tim Willits has always liked it. I would have preferred a faster paced, hectic, manic crazy out of your mind kind of gaming experience like the first two, but what we got was still very immersive, and some of my favorite parts was listening to the PDA recordings. It also really helped that I used a good CRT to play it on, because I think with LCD you cannot get darkness looking right, and I had turned down the brightness setting all the way. 

I guess I was disappointed in Doom 3 because I wanted a sequel to Doom.

...

Disappointed, but in no way surprised. (See Quake "sequels"). 

You are "ranking" UT above Q3A? 

get Shambler start on Q3A. 

yeah 

The names of their games only matter so much. Quake II was supposed to be a different game entirely, but for legal and commercial reasons the same name was chosen again. Nonetheless I fear Doom 4 will just be a lot like Doom 3. I don't think they have much creativity at id anymore, what with Tom Hall and Romero and McGee and others long since gone. 

UT was the better game, Q3 had the better engine. QED! 

I would like to be an art director there and work on my own game for them which would be a revitalization of the Space Harrier / Night Striker genre, but for the Nintendo DS. It would use both screens in simulatenously 2:1 aspect ratio action ( a lot of flying room). I think a modification of the ORCS & ElVES engine would do just fine, and I *would* want it to be sprite-based, because that is more exciting, coming at choo, than is like seeing smoothly-scaled and rotated polygons. 

Epic has never managed to rub me the right way (although I haven't played any of their UE3 stuff). 

I would probably prefer UT gameplay, if push came to shove though. 

And why were the brown inducing commandos from the alpha replaced with crappy z-tek soldiers, basically cloned from any other FPS. 

is completely spot on regarding the UT vs Q3A debate.

While Q3A engine allowed for better mods and other custom content, if you compare stock game vs stock game, UT beats Q3A hands down. 

Had better default maps too, mind you, both games had their fair share of really average maps, but Quake3 just didn't have many good ones at all in my opinion.

Quake3 engine is the best though! 

doom3 isn't so bad but IT is flawed. 

and I mean "not flawed" not in the sense of "it is not perfect" but "it has some pretty severe flaws, while managing barely to not be 100% shit" 

 

That was deliberate. To show my contempt. 

but only in the same way that it's fun to dive in to Quake progs and make the rocket launcher fire a gazillion homing missiles every time you fire and change the axe to do 8078798 dmg. It was OTT fun that's best enjoyed at a LAN where you can shake your fist angrily at the guy next to you.

Q3A was a more balanced approach to competitive play and in that regard I think it succeeded. It takes a much better developer to create a considered, if slightly 'minimalistic' game than it does to just shove every single weapon/powerup/level gimmick/graphical feature you possibly can in to one box and hope for the best, which is what Epic did.

The original Q3A levels varied in quality, but most of the lesser ones were improved considerably with Team Arena, I think. 

 

To show my contempt.

your contempt seems more like a pose throughout the years. If you can't be arsed to read some console cmd page and make a proper config: ok, but y the h8 homie ?

if you compare stock game vs stock game, UT beats Q3A hands down.

I completely agree with your argumentation, good points there...

Q3A was a more balanced approach to competitive play and in that regard I think it succeeded.

spot on, just look where the real good players play today, before stating opinions as fact. 

It was shit. The feel was shit. The player visibility was shit. The bouncing arcade bollox were shit. Yes I had a proper config, a proper config that allowed me to adequately control it and feel the shitness.

I tried the demo and it was shit. Against my better judgement and in the interest of giving it a fair go and appeasing any people who would accuse my contempt for being a "pose", I bought the full game and it was shit. I gave it away.

UT I kept playing for quite a while. Sure it was a different feel to the classic Quake style of deathmatch but it at least it was a good game in both gameplay and overall. 

How was the feel shit? If you ask me, one of the things ID have always done better than anybody else is make the player and weapon physics feel weighty, whereas UT has always felt to me like I'm walking on air and shooting feathers rather than bullets.

If I were to level one complaint against Q3A it would be aimed specifically at the aesthetic design. The levels all looked very nice in their respective themes, but that was compromised by the stupid day-glo Nintendo-wannabe powerup art.