A few questions about Doom 3: BFG Edition on the PS3, specifically Doom and Doom 2

As the title says, I have a few questions regarding Doom and Doom 2. I was at a friend's house recently and was playing the Doom 3: BFG Edition that he had bought off of Steam and noticed that the game "felt" different from the PS3 version. On the PS3 version, it seems more difficult (especially on UV and Nightmare) and the BFG-9000 is flat-out broken (for me). I've shot my BFG (on multiple occasions) at Barons, Cacos, hell even at Imps before, and it doesn't kill them on the first shot, sometimes not even the second.

Does anyone have the technical know-how to explain why these versions would differ that wildly? Is there something hardcoded in the PS3 version to make it more difficult and the BFG more unwieldly? I've wondered this for a long time now and was hoping someone on this site/forum could offer some insight.

Are you saying that in the PS3 version you couldn't kill simple enemies like imps and cacos with one BFG shot?

VGA said:

Are you saying that in the PS3 version you couldn't kill simple enemies like imps and cacos with one BFG shot?

This has happened on occasion, yes. Not an "all the time" thing, but enough to where it would be frustrating and made you not want to fire your BFG all that often, even if I had plenty of ammo for it.

Didn't matter if it was a dead-on body shot or off to the side a bit or totally away from where I was shooting. Very annoying.

From what I know, Doom and Doom II were ported to the Rage PS3 engine.
Not sure if that would cause differences since the code itself is unchanged, but its possible that is why.

wheresthebeef said:

From what I know, Doom and Doom II were ported to the Rage PS3 engine.
Not sure if that would cause differences since the code itself is unchanged, but its possible that is why.

Do you know where I could find out more about this engine? I mean I can Google it, but I was wondering if you had somewhere specific I could look/check it out.

Ahem, fyi the Rage engine is ID Tech 5, even though the BFG edition uses an updated ID Tech 4 engine with some improvements from ID Tech 5, check the wiki for more info:http://doomwiki.org/wiki/Doom_3:_BFG_Edition
Just keep in mind that the BFG edition is worse in comparition to vanilla Doom games.

Chewyninja69 said:

I've shot my BFG (on multiple occasions) at Barons, Cacos, hell even at Imps before, and it doesn't kill them on the first shot, sometimes not even the second.

That can happen even in the PC version.

I don't believe there are actually any differences in the gameplay code, it would make no sense for them to do that. It's a slightly brushed up Linux Doom, they didn't do much aside from getting it up and running in an idTech 4 shell.

Sodaholic said:

That can happen even in the PC version.

I don't recall seeing it happen; at least not with any type of regularity and I watch videos of Doom on Youtube constantly. Could be a bad update/patch perhaps? Most likely not, though.

J.B.R said:

Just keep in mind that the BFG edition is worse in comparition to vanilla Doom games.

In what ways? The issue/s that I'm talking about or are there other problems? Because those were the two main issues I had, really, aside from some smaller stuff.

I, among many other people, can confirm that there is no actual difference gameplay wise from Doom Classic and Vanilla Doom (compare Chocolate to Classic), to the extent they are Demo compatible (not extensively, but enough to run the old attract demos).
Remember Doom uses a static PRNG table for all damage calculations, and the old blockmap code can cause tracers to outright miss a target. It is very possible to not successfully kill a cacodemon in Vanilla just as much as it is in Classic, assuming what you claim you saw actually happened.

Edward850 said:

I, among many other people, can confirm that there is no actual difference gameplay wise from Doom Classic and Vanilla Doom (compare Chocolate to Classic), to the extent they are Demo compatible (not extensively, but enough to run the old attract demos).
Remember Doom uses a static PRNG table for all damage calculations, and the old blockmap code can cause tracers to outright miss a target. It is very possible to not successfully kill a cacodemon in Vanilla just as much as it is in Classic, assuming what you claim you saw actually happened.

So, basically chalk it up to terrible RNGesus? My psyche wants to refuse to accept that.

He also mentioned the blockmap bug which results in hitscan attacks like the BFG tracers to not connect. In other words they didn't fix the bug in their "Doom Classic" port, which is used to play the old games inside Doom 3 BFG.

Blockmap bug is not a consequence of bad RNG luck, but rather an unlucky positioning of yourself and the monsters inside the map.

Also in case you're not fully familiar with the BFG behavior in general, for example the fact that BFG fireball itself deals 100-800 impact damage and then there are 40 BFG tracers fired upon the fireball's impact from the player's body towards the fireball's current position in a plus-minus 45° cone, see http://doomwiki.org/wiki/BFG9000 and http://www.gamers.org/docs/FAQ/bfgfaq/.

I'm familiar with the blockmap bug and the BFG behavior. I just find it difficult to believe that *every* time I play the game, the BFG is not the Big Fucking Gun like it's suppose to be, but more like the Barely Functioning Gun. I dunno, I guess I'm more disappointed than anything.

Chewyninja69 said:

I just find it difficult to believe that *every* time I play the game, the BFG is not the Big Fucking Gun like it's suppose to be

I call that "unusually bad luck" and no more than coincidence.

Sodaholic said:

I call that "unusually bad luck" and no more than coincidence.

Well, that just blows, then.

There's no sense bitching about it. It will change nothing, and has been a possible occurrence for 22 years. The stars aligned and your BFG ate shit, it can happen.

Edward850 said:

There's no sense bitching about it. It will change nothing, and has been a possible occurrence for 22 years. The stars aligned and your BFG ate shit, it can happen.

I wasn't "bitching" about anything. I voiced some concerns I had about the game and basically did an "Aw shucks". No need to be like that on someone else's thread.