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Solver
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Apolyton Duke Of Something
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Latvia, Riga
Sep 2000
time: 07:34
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Well, chopinness at beggining is standard a syndrome. I'm very happy in the sense that I'm running it on a 1.8 GHz processor, playing on Medium, and got no slowdowns whatsoever, and probably can run it on High after some optimisations I did, gotta check that.
So far, I am reading the Gamespot review for Doom 3 with an abysmally low score of 8.5, and I got to say it's one of the dumbest reviews I've ever read. If anyone cares, comments below:
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So, while your enemies will materialize without notice, and may occasionally startle you as they leap out of the darkness, Doom 3 cannot easily be described as scary or suspenseful. The truth is, it's very predictable, and more or less it just goes through the same types of paces that you've probably gone through before in any number of other similar games. |
From what I have read at several forums so far, anyone who cared enough to pay attention to the game got scared or at least freaked out on numerous occasions. This is the first game ever to scare me on a level bigger than "I jumped on you from behind", and I'm hard to scare by these games. Predictable? Sure, as any other shooter. I am yet to see a shooter where you can't predict that there will be monsters to fight.
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Despite the game's cinematic trappings, it follows a formula that generally lacks drama or tension. Occasionally, the game presents to you a shocking or surprising scene--a hallucination or some hellish, otherworldly image. These moments are effective, but are too few and far between in the context of a single-player shooter that's of above-average length (somewhere between 15 to 20 hours). Fortunately, the campaign definitely picks up during the last several hours, once you finally reach (and keep going past) the point when you confront the enemy on its own turf. Getting to that point may be your primary motivation for trudging through some of the repetitive middle portions of the game, though. |
Actually, the hellish things were perfectly distributed during the game, not being too often to become repetitive, being absolutely unpredictable and freaky each time. Middle of the game repetetive? These levels never felt like just a series of connected rooms, they each were planned very well, with purpose and everything, feeling absolutely great. And since you'd almost never retrace your steps, taking a different route to get to the beggining, there was always some action. I did at no time during the game feel like wanting to stop playing.
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Part of the issue is that Doom 3's storyline and narrative technique are ineffectual. Since the main character has no identity whatsoever (for whatever reason), the game tries to get you interested in everyone else on the base. You'll frequently find voice recordings and e-mail from various characters, but not only is a lot of this stuff bone dry, having to stop and read or stand around and listen to a rambling monologue jarringly disrupts the flow of the action. Unfortunately, if you choose to focus on the action by ignoring the seemingly extraneous story elements, you'll find that some of them aren't optional--you'll need to sift through those e-mails and listen to some of those voice recordings to get passcodes for locked doors and storage chests. |
Pure absurd. First, being a nameless marine is a trademark of Doom, and you define who that character is, a careful soldier who disposes of enemies with as few shots as possible, or a crazy rambo who runs with guns blazing. Then, the emails and audio logs, I found them very good. What the GameSpot reviewer absolutely misses is the fact that the UAC base is amazingly alive. And the emails and audio logs help the fact, I so much enjoyed the occasional break to listen to descriptions of some events on base or checking correspondence. Oh, and many of emails/audio logs not simply give you security codes, but help complete the backstory.
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Since Doom 3 purports to have a plausible premise, suddenly, aspects of the game that you might not normally question will start to stick out as being annoyingly inconsistent. You'll undoubtedly find time to wonder about these logic gaps as you fight throughout the UAC base, especially if you've played other recent first-person shooters that do a better job of justifying their plots. Why would a 22nd-century space marine be sent into action in a darkly lit area without night vision goggles of some sort, or even a helmet? Why wouldn't any of his weapons have light-amplification modules built into them when even today's weapons frequently do? Why, instead, is he stuck carrying around a very weak flashlight with unlimited battery life? Why is he unable to hold a gun and the flashlight at the same time? Why are the UAC's small, spiderlike sentry drones so incredibly powerful? You'll see these helpful little guys rip through droves of hellspawn even faster than you can. If the base's defenses are so tough, then why is everyone so worried, and why is everyone getting killed? Doom 3's central gameplay conceit simply doesn't fit in with the premise of the game, and this is a problem only because Doom 3 chooses to try to make you feel like you're in a believable, fully realized world. |
What is that? If one is to be so worried about realism aspects, I'd first note that demons from hell are pretty unrealistic. And zombies aren't too realistic either, for that count. Apparently the reviewer has never heard about gameplay > realism formula, and isn't aware that making most games completely realistic would absolutely break the gameplay. If Doom3 was to be completely realistic, then the marine would be instantly dead by a short-range shotgun shot or two fireballs from an imp (which isn't a realistic guy himself).
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So it's ironic that Doom 3's ambitions to be a story-driven game mostly just end up getting in the way and weakening the overall experience. |
On the contrary, a real story is one of the things that makes gameplay better than Doom2, it's no longer fighting some beasts in some place, but a perfectly credible place where everything and everyone has a background.
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As mentioned, Doom 3 is pervasively dark; there's rarely a moment when your entire field of vision isn't predominantly shrouded in thick, black shadow. This contributes heavily to Doom 3's creepy, claustrophobic feel and it does indeed give the gameplay a distinctive quality. However, the constant extremely dark settings conspire with the frequently repetitive level design to contribute to gameplay that can often feel monotonous, especially since the action itself is very straightforward. What's more, the game's levels will occasionally require you to backtrack through dark hallways without clear markings, so rather than constantly blasting monsters, you may end up spending an undue amount of time just trying to get your bearings. |
This makes me wonder if he has ever played the game, looks like he's just been told it's a dark shooter. Again, each level and even each room has a very distinct feeling, so level design is classic, not repetetive. Also, again, in Doom3 you don't need to go to one end of the level and then go all the way back to beggining using the same path, you'll be taking another path. There's little of simply running around here, and having to find my way around annoys me endlessly in other games, I have very poor orientation skills and frequently get lost in games. I have had many frustrating experiences where I dispose of all enemies and can't find my way for 15 minutes, but in Doom3, I've never been confused for more than 2-3 minutes, and even then just because I overlooked a button somewhere. Yes, this means that levels are linear, but brilliantly so.
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There's a sizable arsenal of weapons to be found here, but none of them are completely satisfying to use. Pretty much all the guns are direct-fire, point-and-shoot weapons with no alternate firing modes and no close-range melee attacks; they do look impressive onscreen, but they all sound surprisingly tinny and subdued, rather than loud and powerful. |
He doesn't get a thing, does he? These weapons are classics, among the first weapons ever in computer gaming. This is Doom. I would be extremely disappointed to see Unreal-style funky guns with 2-3 firing modes. I felt so at home with these weapons, agai good old shotgun with a great punch, the dangerous rocket launcher and amazing chainsaw. As for them sounding weak, he may have a point in that weapon sounds aren't too loud, but I find that contribute to the overall atmosphere fairly well.
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Meanwhile, the game's few melee weapons are mostly useless (though the chainsaw is at least fun to use). The grenades and the rocket launcher are liable to damage you just as much as they will damage your foes, since most of the game's battles occur at close range. |
You can also shoot yourself in the foot with a pistol, eh? Yes, most battles are in pretty close range, but I have nonetheless found some excellent uses for grenades and rocket launcher. You don't really have to wait for the enemies to get in your face. And chainsaw, as in Doom2, is a blessing once you know how to use it correctly. Ammo is scarce, and knowing when to use the chainsaw can save you ammo for when you really need it.
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This also isn't the kind of game in which you should expect to be fighting against ruthlessly intelligent foes. Some of the former human marines you'll face will use rudimentary tactics against you, and other foes at least do a fairly good job of giving chase if you try to flee from them. But, in general, your enemies follow the same sorts of predictable patterns that you may remember from previous Doom games. |
Demons are demons, and they're supposed to posess some basic intelligence, and not more! And I have had imps do very clever things nonetheless, and former marines are actually pretty good in their ability to hide behind a box, peek out, shoot a burst, and take cover again, leading to some interesting fire exchanges.
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Also, one of the drawbacks of Doom 3's richly detailed graphics is that you'll rarely face more than a few foes at a time, and as you kill them, their bodies instantly disintegrate into ash--which is a nice effect, but also the same effect for just about every foe you kill. It's disappointing that the colorful death animations and seas of monster corpses from past Doom games are nowhere to be found here (though, in exchange, you'll pass through countless corridors chock-full of smeared blood and human remains). |
And I can see this guy whining even more if bodies did remain. The game is resource-heavy enough as it is, and I don't fancy seeing dead bodies all around for that reason. Speaking of which, there's already a mod that makes bodies only dissolve after a minute or so. Very good if you want to have a look at them dead first. I have no doubt that in two years, when computers will be twice as powerful as they are now, we'll see Doom3 played with body-dissolving off.
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As a result of all of the above--the predictable level design and enemies, and the simple-but-effective weapons arsenal--Doom 3 does not turn out to be particularly challenging, at least at the normal difficulty setting. Actually, the main reason for this is because, as in many other shooters, you can quicksave your progress virtually instantly and at any time. The creepy atmosphere and frequent ambushes will likely cause you to use this option more often than you need it, and as a result, the game's suspense and tension is further mitigated. Limited save systems in shooters often meet with great resistance from certain players, but Doom 3 is a game that probably would have benefited from one. As it stands, shooter veterans shouldn't have any problem blasting their way through the game at the middle difficulty setting (at least up until near the end, anyway), and they should therefore consider the hardest available setting for their first attempt. "Nightmare" difficulty is unlocked after you finish the game, and in it, your health constantly dwindles down toward a danger zone, which means most players aren't going to find it much fun. |
Of course, in any game, you get a worse impression if you're not challenged. Something that comes to mind is Hitman:Contracts, where at the normal difficulty, you could easily complete all missions by shooting everyone. If he felt the game is too easy, he should not have played it at normal. Normal is what it says, normal, inteded to give a fair challenge to most people, but for hardcore people, that's why there's a higher difficulty. Oh, and the last sentence of that paragraph has to get a place on Top10 of stupid things I've read on websites. I certainly find it much more fun when health is a concern and there is danger, not when I am running with 60+ health all the time, and most players would agree.
quote:
In the end, Doom 3's single-player portion is well worth the exertion necessary to get through it from start to finish. At this point, there's no clear-cut reason to revisit the campaign, since the action itself will have practically outlived its welcome by the bitter end of your first time through. |
Hmm. I have completed the game, and am going to do so again soon. Doom fans will be completing it several more times. I have, so far, completed all shooters I've played once (Half-Life being an exception, I did it twice) and then uninstalled. Doom and Doom2 are still on my hard drive, I played the often, and must have completed the original levels way too many times, but I can enjoy it every time. And I did it in 2004, too, when graphics were hopelessly behind. I predict that Doom3 will stay on my hard drive for a long time, as well.
That's my commentary on Gamespot review, not my own review, which is pending.
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Solver
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Apolyton Duke Of Something
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Latvia, Riga
Sep 2000
time: 07:34
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Yes, but I expected Gamespot to have more brains. I mean, this is Doom, not Half-Life 2. To review Half-Life 2, an average FPS player will do fine, as he has probably played Half-Life and CounterStrike, too. Fine. But to review Doom3, you better have someone of the old school FPS players, someone who has played Doom and Doom2 when those were state of the art games. Mind you, all long-time Doom fans gave Doom3 great feedback. Me too.
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vee4473
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New Jersey
Feb 2000
time: 00:34
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I just wanted to see what you all think about what just hit me about multiplayer for Doom3(which may have hit you already):
The game doom, to me, has always been about scaring players. It's the way the game is designed and the story presented by means of lighting, sound etc..that makes you scared.
Because of this, I really don't think Doom3 should even be judged as a MP game. It has nothing to offer in this area. Simply because if you agree that Doom is all about playing a scary horror type game first and providing some sort of tactical shooter second, then SP is where the heart of the game is. I don't think any MP match can compare to the level of tension that Doom should be all about. Going against a human isn't going to provide the tension that a demonic, foul creature climbing a wall will. And THAT is DOOM...
If you want a good FPS MP game, there are probably better contenders out there that are tailored for it. Serious Sam is a great game which did a decent job of scaring too!!, so is Chaser (all though never played chaser in MP). Chaser is probably my favorite in terms of weaponry and shootem up fun.
And to tell you the truth, I think that most who want Doom3 do not want it for any MP experience at all. It's the last thing in their minds.
Everyone I have talked to about the game, talks about how the previous doom's scared them and they can't wait to see how this one does...no one is buying it for the MP experience I don't think.
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05-08-2004 19:59
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