“Masters of Doom gives the reader a glimpse of the roller coaster ride that was the 1990's PC gaming boom. Anyone who has played an id title will get a kick out of knowing what exactly went into making their favorite games, and how oversized egos nearly destroyed the company time and time again.
MoD is written like an overly long magazine article, belying Kushner's day-job. Some parts of the book blew by, while others drug on, going into too much detail—especially for those of us who are already familiar with computer gaming.
Personally, this book brought me back to my teenage years. Seeing Doom for the first time at a friend's house—the only one who had a computer. Finally getting my own copy of Quake and staying up all hours of the night playing it over and over again. And then to 1999, remembering the glossy ads for John Romero's Diakatana, and waiting (and waiting) for it to hit the streets.
Masters of Doom is a must read for gamers of all ages, the 20-40 somethings for the nostalgia, and those young whipper snappers so they realize how far we've come since the days when being able to jump in an FSP was a novel idea.
The only correction I'd like to note is towards the end when Kushner is talking about id's work on the then upcoming Doom 3. Kushner states that Carmack enlisted the aide of Trent Reznor to once again score an id game. It was actually former Nine Inch Nails drummer/programmer Chris Vrenna who scored Doom 3, not Trent Reznor. Vrenna had however also worked with Reznor to score Quake for id back in the day. An easy mistake to make, but something of note for a fan of both musicians.”
