Doom 3, Your Opinion Of It

[Arnox]

Since everyone was talking about id in the RAGE thread, it brought up some thoughts of their past work, Doom 3. I'm just wondering what you guys' opinions are of this game.

Before I put out my opinion, I'd like to say that, yes, I've played through both Doom 3 and the original two games many times. (Also, not that it matters but I beat Doom 3's Hell on Nightmare mode. )

To me, Doom 3 is a great game that tried to go in the wrong direction. Specifically, it tried to mix equal parts horror and combat. While the original Doom did have horrific elements in it, that's not what the game really was. I would say the original was about 1/5 Horror and 4/5 combat.

In Doom 3, it focused on fewer, more powerful enemies than weaker, more numerous enemies in the original and also, small corridors, halls, rooms, etc.
IMO, if they had brightened the whole game, expanded the area, added more numerous weaker enemies, and perhaps beefed out the weapons, it would have been something truly awesome.

I guess the reason they didn't do this was because of the engine. It was one of the main goals from the start to build a revolutionary new engine to go with the game so they had to not only focus on graphical quality but they also had to work on performance. Unfortunately, however, they also had planned it for the Xbox from the start so they were limiting themselves in that way too. They had to work around the engine rather than through it.

And holy crap, I did not mean to write a college paper but oh well. That's my whole opinion on it.

[Jacks:SmirkingRevenge]

this thread was relevant in 2004.

[Arnox]

Originally Posted by Jacks:SmirkingRevenge

this thread was relevant in 2004.

Don't bust my balls.

[Zxanphorian]

Doom 3 was a pretty cool guy, eh fights cyberdemons in Hell and doesn't afraid of anything.

[Arnox]

Originally Posted by Zxanphorian

Doom 3 was a pretty cool guy, eh fights cyberdemons in Hell and doesn't afraid of anything.

[Sjosz]

Doom 3 was carried by the technology behind it more than the game itself. The Doom lore is not unique enough to make the setting/creatures stand out, the gameplay felt somewhat restrained movement, combat/weapon wise, and the not allowing you to have a gun and a flashlight out at the same time was poor in retrospect.
I enjoyed Doom3, and for a while it did genuinely scare me, but when you step back and look at how it's set up, it's really just 'unexpected monster closets' and 'open door to get imp jumping through jumpscare'.

[Al]

I liked it.

[haarg]

doom 3 was a bad game

[UBerserker]

Doom 3 sucked ass, kind of

[Capt.Toilet]

Originally Posted by haarg

doom 3 was a bad game

It is a bad game if you don't play past the opening sequence Haarg meat.

Doom 3 was billed as the scariest game out at the time, but really it was none of that. It's gameplay was archaic by 2004 standards, but really that is what ID excelled in. I wouldn't be surprised if Rage has a bit of the "old school" shooter in it as well, afterall ID did say the game won't be THAT open ended.

Doom 3 was perfectly fine, though a tad bit too long for its own good. Doom 3 haters may love the fact that Doom 4 is going to return to its roots of run and gun thousands of demons type stuff.

[dragonfliet]

Doom 3 suffered from trying to change the paradigm, but failing to go far enough. Those moments at the beginning when you are creeping through the dark with a flashlight and pulling it away to fire were scary as crap and amazing. But the game pretty quickly showed that it hadn't forgotten its roots and became more interested in monster closets and bigger fights, which were cool, but not scary. If it had gone farther into Amnesia: dark descent territory, it would have been my favorite game of all ever, but it didn't and the game was no longer about the fear of the unknown or relative helplessness, but about killing monsters and the dark and the flashlight went from a scary choice of necessity to an annoyance.

Of course, I was never a big fan of the previous doom games, so you can ignore my opinions. My hope is that they make Doom 4 more scary. No space marines, just a guy, no super baadassness, just survival, no mounted flashlights, but rather one the character holds with the gun, shaking a little, sometimes a little off the point, being helpful, but in a way that highlights the intensity of the fear. This will never happen, of course, as id is a company that knows a ****ton about shaders and gpu cycles and nothing about subtlety or finesse.

[Sir_Brizz]

Doom is about running around blasting alien scumbags in the face turning them into bloody messes all over Mars (and Earth, if you can call the levels in Doom 2 "Earth").

Doom 3 is about creeping around in the dark while imps jump out of every darkest corner in the game, not making them into bloody anything and feeling like a weak pansy that can't survive the invasion of Hell.

Doom 1 and 2 were Serious Sam. Doom 3 is FEAR with less story.

[GreatEmerald]

Indeed. The original DOOMs were not scary at all. Unless a bunch of oversized pixels scare you, that is. I always found it comical instead. The only monster that would make you a little jumpy was the invisible demon, and that's just because it was invisible.

And this thread is relevant since iD is opensourcing the engine or something like that.

[haarg]

Originally Posted by Capt.Toilet

It is a bad game if you don't play past the opening sequence Haarg meat.

I played at least 1/3 of the way through it when it came out, and later played through the entire thing using a really buggy coop mod.

[Arnox]

Originally Posted by Sjosz

Doom 3 was carried by the technology behind it more than the game itself. The Doom lore is not unique enough to make the setting/creatures stand out, the gameplay felt somewhat restrained movement, combat/weapon wise, and the not allowing you to have a gun and a flashlight out at the same time was poor in retrospect.
I enjoyed Doom3, and for a while it did genuinely scare me, but when you step back and look at how it's set up, it's really just 'unexpected monster closets' and 'open door to get imp jumping through jumpscare'.

What kind of ticked me off about the stupid imp jumping through the doors is that even if you knew it was coming, it was almost impossible to avoid. BS.

[xMurphyx]

I liked Doom 3 a lot tbh, but not for the horror OR the combat, but for the sci-fi. The parts of the mars base you got to explore looked amazing and inspiring.

Hell looked amazing too, but it wasn't really my thing.

[Arnox]

Originally Posted by xMurphyx

I liked Doom 3 a lot tbh, but not for the horror OR the combat, but for the sci-fi. The parts of the mars base you got to explore looked amazing and inspiring.

Hell looked amazing too, but it wasn't really my thing.

You didn't like any of the weapons at all?

[Spiney]

Originally Posted by xMurphyx

I liked Doom 3 a lot tbh, but not for the horror OR the combat, but for the sci-fi. The parts of the mars base you got to explore looked amazing and inspiring.

Hell looked amazing too, but it wasn't really my thing.

I pretty much agree with this. The production value is truly outstanding, even when you play it today, it sort of has a timeless quality to it.

Gameplay wise it wasn't all that. It was too dark, too repetitive, too tedious.
My fav part was when there were no monsters around in the Delta complex.
You fought through endless waves of enemies to get there, and once you were, everything was dead silent. Another one was near the end of the game, you turn around a corner and there's an imp standing dead silent with a bright white light behind him. You're so used to them charging on to you that this little theatric event really gave me WTF moment. I really enjoyed moments like that, sadly it didn't have enough of them.

It's kind of a shame, that the best parts really are during the last third of the game, as the story unfolds and locations become more diverse.
If the first half was as good more people would have finished it I think.

People also say Doom 1 and 2 were better games, and I used to agree with them. However, after playing through Doom3 earlier this year, and then playing some Doom1 and 2 it just wasn't the same. And it's not the graphics, but I think the level design plays a major role in that.
Doom 3's maps, despite being highly linear oozed with atmosphere and had the z-axis the originals couldn't do. Even today I can really admire all the artistry that went into it.

Weapon wise, I thought the guns handled slow and heavy. Not too keen on the gunfight. I really liked the plasma gun though, that just felt right to me for some reason.

[Capt.Toilet]

Doom 64 was the first doom to try and go all horror route. The music was spooky and the ambient noises added to the fear factor. This carried over to the PSX version of Ultimate Doom with the rock midi exchanged for brooding sounds. In a way this seemed like the way they were going to continue going with it and I don't recall people ever bitching about it.

[Fuzzle]

I liked it. The plasma rifle was really satisfying to use, and I had fun managing light vs. firepower vs. ammo (since you can use the latter to combine the two former). Never felt that the darkness was a problem, and was genuinely surprised at how much others facepalmed at it.

Played through it 3 times. Twice in singleplayer on two different difficulties, once in coop using the LMS (I think?) mod.
There was a surprising amount of people playing it in coop. It was last year that we gave it a go, and we just did an open game cos "lol not like others will join anyway", and we ended up with 8 players after less than 10 minutes.