Neowin.net

Few games have changed gaming as much as the original Doom did. The game opened up the world of pulse-pounding first-person action to a huge audience, and it also helped establish multiplayer play, thanks to its network multiplayer deathmatch options. The series' creator, id Software, seems to have every expectation that Doom III will make just as indelible a mark on gaming, in large part because of the incredibly high-definition visuals and dramatic real-time shadows made possible by the developer's latest 3D technology. But while the technology and game design have long been complete, the pressure is on for id's 18-person team to finish the game this year and deliver the sort of deep, atmospheric single-player experience we've only seen hints of in the game's few public appearances over the last two years.

Doom III won't have a major presence at next month's E3, but there will be a new trailer at the show. Fortunately, you don't have to wait until the convention doors open on May 14 to finally get some real news on the game, because we managed to track down id's lead designer, Tim Willits, to discuss this highly anticipated game. Read on for the first details on Doom III's multiplayer, an account of a recent memorable single-player experience, and his explanation of why Doom III really will live up to fans' high expectations.

View: Doom III Interview @ GameSpot

Whatever its originality, early numbers from qSearch, which include data collected since the beginning of the year, confirm what industry watchers have suspected for some time: Google leads the pack among search sites, with Yahoo -- which uses Google's engine to produce search results for Yahoo sites -- close behind.

Google.com accounts for 33 percent of all queries by English-speaking searchers, ComScore said. In the United States alone, Yahoo leads with 26 percent of the approximately 790 million searches performed in the states during the time covered by the qSearch report.

"We've seen (Google) move up to the No. 1 position in the last 12 months, based on worldwide activity," said James Lamberti, vice president of ComScore Entertainment and Media Solutions. "But Yahoo is much stronger domestically than people understood before our data became available."

ComScore attributed Yahoo's strength in the United States to its specialised sites like Yahoo Finance and Yahoo Yellow Pages, where more than half of Yahoo queries took place.

ComScore's first report offered good news for second- and third-tier search sites. Dogpile, a "meta search engine" that queries a range of other engines, had a "visitor-to-searcher" conversion rate -- or the percentage of people who visit a site and then end up searching there -- of 83 percent. Ask Jeeves, a so-called natural language query engine, scored a 75 percent conversion rate.