Ah, life on the Internet. Ain't it grand? Where else can you find slick sheets for high-profile games which may or may not be telling you the truth?

The buzzing of thousands of rumor bees could be heard today when a scan of a supposed marketing sheet touting "Activision's biggest ever PC marketing campaign hits with the most hotly anticipated and terrifying game ever created. We said it will be out when it's done...it's done!" made its way around the Interwebamajigger. While at first we thought the "most hotly anticipated and terrifying game" reference was referring to Barbie's After Dark Adventures in Cracktown, the shotgun wielding space marine and large, metallic, pointy font reading "D-O-O-M-3" gave us a hint that the game in question was indeed the third in the series of id's demon-laden twitch-fest.

After seeing the full-page spread for ourselves, we contacted an Activision representative who told us simply, "id has made no announcement that DOOM 3 has gone gold." Activision also would not comment on the validity of the strange scan that caused such a hubbub with those of us eagerly awaiting DOOM 3.

While we could not confirm where the promotional sheet came from, given the focus of the piece we can assume it's either a slick sheet or marketing flyer or an ad designed for a trade magazine geared toward resellers and not toward hardcore gamers. Seeing as how the other magazines featured in the ad are all UK-based publications, we can also surmise that the ad/promotional flyer is being distributed in European. That is, of course, if it didn't come from the desktop of l'il Billy McFakerstein.

True or not, we know the big reason that DOOM 3 for the PC wasn't shown this year at E3 was because John Carmack and crew were busy trying to finish up the game and didn't want to be distracted by the hectic show. The timing of the sheet also lends some credence to the reports from major online retailers that the PC version of DOOM 3 is marked for an August 3rd release, with the Xbox release to follow soon after.

While validity of the promo is still up in the air, id has already officially announced that this year's QuakeCon will be host to the first ever DOOM 3 deathmatch tournament. Knowing id's dedication to perfection, their attention to detail and considering the game has to be pretty stable and near completion to be used for a tournament, we can only assume that the game is coming close to completion and will be released within a few weeks time.

Source: IGN.com