Doom 3 Mission Pack Previews

BBG said:

Oh shut the fuck up. God forbid they use ideas that have been done before.

The grabber gun is pathetic no matter how much of a fanboy you are

It doesnt matter to me whether or not HL2 stole the gravity gun. What is significant is that a gravity gun is being included in a Doom3 addon pack, so soon after HL2 was released. It isnt that theyre big uncreative, or if HL2 had ripped off older games with it, but that it comes off as more of a bandwagon thing.

However what is nifty is that they at least apparently allow you to grab projectiles with their gravity gun, which makes it more functional for gameplay. I mean sure, in HL2 you could throw grenades back at the Combine, but they rarely chucked them at me, so it was an unlikely opportunity. Imps however, are known for their fire laden mucus projectiles.

As far as games with half decent physics... well you can have a good physics system, but you may not use it much. In fact, Painkiller, uses the exact same physics engine as HL2 (the one so many people incorrectly credit Valve with, Havok), however I think People Can Fly acquired it simply for the sake of pinning people to walls, and letting bodies pile up, not for me mastering the art of crate balancing.

However, Valve loses massive points for not giving corpses a "grabbable mass". If I can pick up a bucket, a gun I have full ammo on, a chunk of a crate... then why I cant I pickup a dead headcrab or a Combine soldier ? I want to beat a squad to death with its spent ammunition, or its own teammate.

All I know is... I'll give the addon a look for the simple addition of the double barreled shotgun. I just hope something more can come of Doom3 from the user community, cause it doesnt look like were going to see much ingenuity from the incorporated teams.

Wobbo said:

The grabber gun is pathetic no matter how much of a fanboy you are

It's not like you're biased at all :P

scar3crow said:

However, Valve loses massive points for not giving corpses a "grabbable mass".

Did you play to the end?

I havent had the opportunity to do so, but regardless, a headcrab cant weigh much and I dont see why I cant throw them at any point in the game, at least as long as theyre dead.

Hooray, I can't wait to play this is ten years (note I don't have the technology yet).

scar3crow: I hate you.*

*Note my screen name.

heh, Ive had scar3crow for 9 years now (it was going to be scarecrow, but on DALnet at the time someone had scarecrow, so I temporarily substituted the 3, and it stuck)

As far as tech goes... well, visually, youre missing out. Gameplay wise, youre not missing much at all.

scar3crow said:

However, Valve loses massive points for not giving corpses a "grabbable mass". If I can pick up a bucket, a gun I have full ammo on, a chunk of a crate... then why I cant I pickup a dead headcrab or a Combine soldier ?

Later in the game your gravity gun is upgraded, which allows you to pick up corpses with it.

Personally, I think that ragdoll physics add to the gameplay in that it makes it more satisfying to watch the enemy die. It is especially great when it's implemeted in such a way that you can get the enemies to fall over in a myriad of cool ways.

Imo it never gets old when in HL2 you get a combine soldier to fall over a railing somewhere high aboce the ground and then plummet to the ground underneath, or when in Doom 3, you blast an imp up close with the shotgun and hit it *just right* so that the imp is hurled back in a fashion that looks and feels awesome.

Don't care much for the grav gun (except when you use it to hurl sawblades at zombies in Ravenholm) or this "Grabber", unless the Grabber thingy will be capable of picking up live enemies and allowing you to thrust them into walls with it. Being able to pick up enemies and throw them at the end of HL2 was very cool and neat, but it sucked that the simple act of picking them up killed them. I'd have preferred to kill them simply by propelling them into a wall with great force after having picked up a wriggling victim.

If the Grabber is capable of doing that, then it will own the HL2 grav gun's soul imo - sadly, I don't think it will be able to do that and therefore I'm less-than mildly interested in it.

I'm sure one of the "new" monsters appeared in shots predating the release of Doom3. I wonder why they held it out of the original game.

Shaviro said:

It's not like you're biased at all :P

Biased? I ve bought every id game and add on since doom 1 (except for the quake 2 add on packs), and am one of the hundred people on the east coast who plays doom3 multiplayer

plus i didnt like HL2 all that much

I think this add-on might be great, ill check it out, however the grabber gun is pretty pathetic if you think about it, with all the ideas and designs possible with doom3s engine they rip off that.

If the add-on has good gameplay its a winner regardless