Looking back: Doom 3

Gerard

Gerard

Gerard

Caporegime
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Reinstalled this last night and got me thinking about the game some. Just looking for some comments on what id software did right or wrong with this game. It seemed to sell (and download) by the bucketload by name alone, even though the game itself caused a lot of online debate as to if it was a worthwhile game or not.


Things i liked:

Arguably the best graphics of the time.
Dark immersing atmosphere.



Things i disliked:

Though the graphics were good in terms of detail of the models, the game itself suffered from very smudgy low res looking textures. Humans in the game looked slightly off for some reason.

Trailers showed ragdoll physics in action but when the full game came out enemies just burned up. (strangely enough in the leaked version the bodies stayed on the ground as well and zombies could get up after being shot, why they didn't keep this in i'll never know).

Easy to get lost, if you take the darkness of the game and combine it with the fact enemies burned up leaving no trace it was pretty easy to run around in circles in some levels.

Some of the decisions about how demons spawned in were amazingly stupid, a military base on mars that had concealed closets for imps to come trotting out of just smacked of laziness. Might have been ok in the first game but this was 10 years later and people just expected more.

The suprises got old pretty fast, in the first couple of levels you never really knew what to expect, after that though it was a case of basically anything you pick up spawning an imp or two, usually one behind you.

Overuse of the imp character, then in the expansion they "remedied" this by replacing the imp and overusing that new character instead. :confused:

Multiplayer = archaic crap which seems to be a staple of id games.

Boss battles were also pretty bad, especially the cyberdemon.


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Theyve already mentioned doom 4 so be interesting to see what they can do with that. Can't see them going back to mars so maybe a "hell on earth" approach would work better with you fighting enemies in burning city streets. Possibly with others joining in the fight to change up the gameplay some.
 
I think i'm one of the few people who thought it was a great game. I can't also help but notice i played it before i started to get involved in online forums like this one. It was flawed yes, but because it was based purely on my opinion there were many flaws i would not have thought about unless i had read it elsewhere if you see what i mean. Before the rise of the internet my standards were much lower as things were picked apart only by me, the more eyes to look the more flaws you will find.
 
What I found was that the game didn't have a story...unless you wanted it to have a story.

There where the PDA's basically, if you didn't read them, you just ran around aimlessly shooting everything, but if you followed the PDA's, there was actually quite a decent story behind the thing.

But then that all depended on if people wanted to read the PDA's or not.

I enjoyed it, so hey.
 
Delvis said:
What I found was that the game didn't have a story...unless you wanted it to have a story.

There where the PDA's basically, if you didn't read them, you just ran around aimlessly shooting everything, but if you followed the PDA's, there was actually quite a decent story behind the thing.

But then that all depended on if people wanted to read the PDA's or not.

I enjoyed it, so hey.
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Very true, i remember finding the PDA with a web address on it, i exited out of the game and looked it up in firefox where it displayed a code. Later in the game i found a storage locker with the same emblem on it as the website, typed in the code, presto! Also liked the fact that it was possible to get the BFG surprisingly early on in the game if you followed a set of PDAs.
 
Delvis said:
What I found was that the game didn't have a story...unless you wanted it to have a story.

There where the PDA's basically, if you didn't read them, you just ran around aimlessly shooting everything, but if you followed the PDA's, there was actually quite a decent story behind the thing.

But then that all depended on if people wanted to read the PDA's or not.

I enjoyed it, so hey.
Click to expand...

I thought that was good really, if you didnt care about the story you just played it as a run and gun blaster. Personally i loved the story and wouldnt mind going through it again:)

Never finished the expansion pack, i got to the last boss, but never carried on.
 
doom 2 was the best one for me
doom 1 + simpsons mod was the most fun :D i want it back :(
all they need to do i recreate something like doom 2 with amped up graphics (with an optional simpsons mod :p) and they have a perfect game... online play would be a big +++ too.
 
What would people like to see from Doom 4? Its been in production from may this year, im hoping for an apocolyptic hell on earth kinda scenario, burning streets demons everywhere, day and night cycles. Tons of enemies and having a squad of marines from time to time.
 
I thought it was brilliant. I started playing at 11pm the night I got it and couldn't put it down until 9am.

I read all the PDAs..it was a REALLY atmospheric game, especially with the lights out. A few pants crapping moments too :D
 
Found it quite enjoyable & undemanding to play. Just an enhanced version of the earlier games with better gfx + sound and slightly better level design.

I can see why some people might dislike it as vs HL2 which arrived around the same time it fails but on its own merits pretty decent game.

ROE expansion pack is actually much better graphically & gameplay wise from Doom3 so worth getting if you have not yet got it.

These mods make the gfx much better as well and even bring recent cards to their knees when you pile on the AA + Ultra textures.

http://www.xtreme-lab.net/GTX/gtxd3.htm

Bring on Doom4 which is due within the next 12-18 months.
 
That Gamespot video review summed it up for me. It was a really enjoyable blast and that's all. Of course it's not Half-Life in terms of story, but it was never meant to be. No lights for the guns? So what - it was much more atmospheric with the flashlight, and that's more important than "realism" in a Doom game. Multiplayer never concerned me as it was obvious early on that it wouldn't be a big part of the game. Basically, it did what I expected very well and nothing more.
 
I thought and still do think it is a superb title even now. It was the first game in many, many years to scare me witless. The last PC title to do that was Nocturne and Undying.

Sure the endless corridoors and being jumped from behind by imps became tiresome but the atmosphere was brilliant thanks to the ambient sounds and that stupidly underpowered torch.

Replayability was where it fell apart. Like Biochoc, I just couldn't go through the game a second time.

The dead flesh derived bodies hanging from the ceiling, that weird flesh tentacle formation that ran through the complex and those weird flashpoint visions just made the game a joy to play. I remember playing it on a 6800GT on medium or so and it was rather fine.

Immersion/Atmosphere/Sound was superb. Level design wasn't all that.
 
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Almost forgot. Official Patch 1.3 is essential as it:

1: Removes the disc check.

2: Gives much better sound.

If you have installed ROE then it gets updated automatically otherwise make sure you download it.
 
Gerard said:
Doubt it, as usual with id it'll be out "when its done". Only stated production 4 months ago.
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Still think it will be end of 2009 at the latest as Carmack is usually on the money with his game engines and ID Tech5 is good to go so they are just building the content & artwork now. Because it will be a multiplatform title they will have a much bigger team doing it and I understand they only need to build 1 version as their new engine takes care of the different hardware layers.
 
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