Was it really that bad?

It wasn't great. It wasn't just this ad but this ad made it even more apparent that he was kind of testing on his laurels and didn't have the same artistic drive and vision on this project.

>>3083619
At best, it's incredibly mediocre. At worst it's a broken mess.
The gameboy port/spinoff is pretty fun, though, it's a totally different game.

>>3083678

I think that Episodes 2 and 3 are legit great.

Episode 1 is an abomination (except for Episode 1 DM, where it's fantastic), while Episode 4 is the definition of "mixed bag".

I'm currently going through it for the first time and I'm having trouble keeping my focus during the first episode. Expecting it to pick up as suggested by >>3083687

I hear things like >>3083687
but I couldn't make it past E1 though, the weapons were ass-backwards and the AI was too dumb to be protected.
A modern source port fixes a lot of issues but I still find the gameplay incredibly frustrating and tedious.
I really wanted to beat this, as I thought all the hate was just based off the ad.

>>3083619
The N64 version, absolutely

the PC original? it's meh

>>3083645
The ad wasn't done by him.

It was mediocre but not nearly as bad as some people made it out to be. It's more boring than bad to me.

I can't really add anything that hasn't been said, deathmatch was fun but it was overhyped before release and then was the butt of a thousand jokes in print publications at the time. Definitely not as bad as something like You Are Empty.

>>3083678
Had a blast with that GB game

>>3083704

>>3083687 here,

I actually really like DK and even I admit Episode 1 is utter dogshit for the most part. If you can't get past it on your first time playing, that's fine.

>>3083619
There have been much worse FPS games. It's mostly a combination of the years-long hype and ego/hubris involved in the project capped by the lackluster end product. The partner AI wasn't, the designs (area, enemy, level, weapon) were up and down (episodes 2 & 3 are, as already pointed out, the high point), and it just came across as kind of dated when Ion Storm's other big release of the year was Deus Ex. No One Lives Forever, Star Trek Voyager Elite Forces, and Thief 2 all came out in 2000, as well. (Along with Baldur's Gate 2, Icewind Dale, Diablo 2, The Sims, Shogun Total War... it was kind of a busy year)

So really just being kind of an average game let it get lost in the mix, which tends to curb nostalgia factors, too.

>>3083732
Obviously he want doing much on that project but he signed off on a proof of that ad, guaranteed. Even if he doesnt remember.

>>3083831
Romero claims he was approached by a female commercial artist at Ion Storm that proposed the ad. Romero originally rejected it saying that he doesn't use the word 'bitch' in his repertoire of trash talking.

But then he says the head of marketing convinced him to let it through.

>>3084132
Yes everything is someone else's fault

>>3084175
In all honesty, can you really see putting an add like that?
He's always been a total bro with his players. He'd play deatmatch tournements, have chats, you name it, hell, playing too much Doom with people was one of the main reasons of his downfall.

>>3084253
He's a notorious shit talker online that's literally the inspiration for the ad

>>3083619
Give it a play, it still runs on Windows 7 computers (at least the copy I pirated did).

>>3085427
He's just a notorious shittalker in general. Or was, at the time.

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>>3083645
>testing on his laurels

For its time, the game was just south of mediocre. If it'd been made by anyone else, it would've just been forgotten as late 90's shooter that came out 2 years too late.

But when they made John Romero's name such a huge part of the marketing - in fact, basically the entirety of the marketing - everyone knew that they were going to ship a piece of shit and hope that John's god-like status from Doom and Quake could carry it.

The only reason people got up in arms about that ad was because it was abundantly clear that the game was *not* going to make them John Romero's bitch. If it had been a good game, nobody would've said a thing about the ad. But it wasn't a good game, and so people didn't like being talked to like fools

>>3084132
>Romero claims he was approached by a female commercial artist at Ion Storm that proposed the ad. Romero originally rejected it saying that he doesn't use the word 'bitch' in his repertoire of trash talking.

I've always found this story of his to be dubious - partly because he didn't come out with it until many years later, and partly because Romero's in-game trash talking is in legendary.

Part of me wonders if he came up with this story when he started dating Brenda, who seems like a giant buzzkill and the sort of woman who'd take issue with such language.