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Vile1011

Episode 3

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I'm sure this has been asked before, but it's a question that has been plaguing me from my first dooming days.

Why does episode 3 suck so damn much?

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It doesn't, except maybe the fight with the Spiderdemon (it's more fun if you start on that map with nothing).

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Uh it doesn't. It may not look very nice but it has some great levels, like Pandemonium and Unholy Cathedral and Mt. Erebus. According to this Doom Survivor's guide it also contains some of the earliest Doom designs, that were mostly redone. Gameplay-wise Episode 3 is right on, I had a Doom-kick a few weeks ago and played through episode 3 in doom.exe and had a blast. Looks aren't everything.

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I think Episode 4 is what Episode 3 should of been. And I know that Thy Flesh Consumed was completed after the fact, but to me that is hell. I loved Perfect Hatred and Sever The Wicked. Awesome maps.

Episode 3 is still good though and has some classic gameplay moments.

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Ehh, what Dittohead...! Wood is more hellish than glowing rocks, blood and fire!? I believe id was influenced by all the classic views and interpretations of hell when they made episode 3.

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I played all the way through episode three again, too, with the secret level(always surprising!). It was pretty fun, but not amazing. Could have used more detail though. And the final battle took me five seconds, that needs some work.

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Chris Hansen said:

Ehh, what Dittohead...! Wood is more hellish than glowing rocks, blood and fire!? I believe id was influenced by all the classic views and interpretations of hell when they made episode 3.

Add the PSX Flaming sky and You've got a true Hell. Episode 4 is not so hellish as ep. 3. Anyway, I wouldn't really argue which episode is worse and which is cool. Everyone can have their opinion, right? My fave is ep.1 but I like the others too.

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I don't think you'll find a better episode in the doom games than Episode 1. So the rest are all "OK" but not that good. It sucks for you probably because your the kindof person who's more into the "almost believable" sci-fi theme. Whereas a complete conversion into Hell isn't too appealing. If I'm wrong than I have no idea what the problem is, I don't really care for it either, I just play Episode 1 over and over again on "Nightmare"

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I agree with Silent. When playing Episode one I feel almost like I'm in a movie. On Episode 3... It's more like I know I'm playing Doom.

Same goes for Doom 2. After the space based levels you get some weird levels that don't make sense and then some "earth" levels of places that just don't look like anything on earth. Take for example Suburbs, what the hell? That is like no area of any town I've ever seen. That's why I think Doom 2 was rushed. I know if they spent more time cooking up new textures instead of half assing it and using the old ones and had John Romero do EVERYTHING while listening to all of his favorite bands and just left him to his own devices Doom 2 would have owned so much ass...

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The levels themselves are ok, but they look like shit mostly. That's because Sandy Petersen's use of textures mostly sucks. Water for ceiling, animated walls here and there, wtf?! Many areas look like they were thrown together in 5 seconds... and they probably were. Look for example the starting room of E3M8, it's as simple as a room can be, yet it looks awful cos the textures are completely wrong and unaligned and the walls are too high and shit... He did pretty well playing levels, but he probably did them too quick and they look like that too.

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You're nuts.

I have to say I find Episode 3 to be the weakest episode, especially texture-wise. The problem is that Sandy has no fucking idea how to texture. Pandemonium and House of Pain are excellent examples. Episode 3 has some good levels that definately fit in with the Hell theme, but it also has some that simply don't. Slough of Despair, Unholy Cathedral, Mt. Erebus, and Gate to Limbo fit in, but the rest are just base levels retextured. NOT cool.

Sandy Peterson's guide to making a kick-ass end level:

Make a shape
Add four monsters
Now your level rocks!

And E2M9--good God, why didn't Romero step in and say, "Dude, that level is shit"?!

If you look at the link, you'll see that Episode 3 is mainly Sandy. Ergo, the mediocrity.

http://www.rome.ro/lee_killough/history/levels.shtml

The thing I don't understand about Sandy is how he can make an excellent level like "The Spirit World" and then make a poece of shit like "Nirvana". He would be kick-ass if he was consistent.

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Grimm said:

You're nuts.

Have You ever heard of "everyone can have their damn opinion?!" 'sides, You said Yourself that there are several levels with good texturing, i.e. Limbo, so Episode 3 is not a total shit.

Grimm said:

but the rest are just base levels retextured. NOT cool.

Well, if they would like put in more realism to Doom (heh) then levels in their sense and geometry would differ more.

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Hey! Don't knock Warrens! First time I played that map I thought the game messed up and I wanted to see what happened if I finished the level and then that Cyberdemon battle... :D

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I didn't really care for Episode 4. It was kinda cool and all, but it seemed out of place and didn't have the feel too it of where you were. In Episode 1 you knew you were in a base, in episode 2 and 3 you knew you were going in hell, but in episode 4, you don't know where you are.

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S1lent said:

but in episode 4, you don't know where you are.

Yeah, it's hard to tell. It's possibly a dimension not far from hell (possibly one of the rings of hell, or something like that), a "fourth damnation" as the endtext was saying. However there is a different concept-look at the endpic of UDOOM. That burning place is ofcourse One of Earth's cities, we saw in Doom2, but look at the sky... Perhaps episode 4 is a fortress, or a similair location not far from the earth's city. Maybe with the arrival of the demons they have changed some ruins, or simply build a new place on earth (remember that the presence of demons changes the environment as well) where the gate in hell leads to. Or maybe it's just a dimension linking hell and earth? I guess we'll never know.

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i dont know where is ep4, but the fact i dont like it.

I like DooM levels, but the way DooM Snes was done.

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Yeah, what the fuck were they thinking when the made Episode 4. The insane fire and planks architechture and other bullshit like the names they came up with for it. Perfect hatred is also the biggest pain in the ass. The episode also doesn't fit anywhere in the plot.

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I know this isn't necessarily an episode comparison thread, but I'd first like to say that e2 was the best of the four, in my opinion. It had fairly large levels which had a sense of mystery to them, and exploring them to find all the secrets was very fun. The gameplay was good and, best of all, e2 had a wealth of Doom's good music tracks. As far as e3 goes, I think that it made as much as an impact on my Doom experienceâ„¢, if not more, than e1. By the time e4 came out, I'd already been there and done that, so the ability of the new Ultimate Doom episode to make any lasting impression on me was greatly decreased. I've never had any qualms with the levels in e3, I believe that the texture choices lended that episode a great deal of memorability and character. In contrast, e4 is a bit more polished but, as a result, loses some of the style that really produced any nostalgia with me.

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Episode 4 supposedly takes place on a badly corrupted Earth base, on Earth. Just so you know.

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DooMBoy said:

Episode 4 supposedly takes place on a badly corrupted Earth base, on Earth. Just so you know.


I don't know about that, I've never read anything official from id that says episode 4 is on Earth. Just because it uses the orange sky from the ending sequence people have drawn that conclusion.

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Episode 3 is certainly decent. Episode 2 will always be my favorite because it had atmosphere and didn't beat you over the head with its premise, but Episode 3 has some good points too.

The main problem I have with it is that there is a complete lack of flow and the levels are incosistent. Maybe the texture placement was strange in levels 3 and 4, but I think it contributed to a uniqueness and the good gameplay in those levels made up for it anyway. Level 2 and 5, on the other hand, have ok premises and themes that just end up irritating. Number 6 is fun but it doesn't really make sense in between a gloomy cathedral and the gate to limbo. Level 7 can be tedious, but it does establish an atmosphere and theme that is appealing, and I think it works. Finally, level 8 blows - I wish they actually put effort into the boss levels.

In the end, I think some of the levels might fit well together in an episode - 3 and 4 work well together, and 5 and 7 would work as well. Unfortunately, because they're all compiled into the same episode it seems like just a random collection of maps with varying degress of the "hell" theme.

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Grimm said:

Sandy Peterson's guide to making a kick-ass end level:

Make a shape
Add four monsters
Now your level rocks!

Yeah, it's like that in his Doom2 maps too. Crap!

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Wow! I just looked at this thing and realised I hated all of Sandy's maps and loved everyone elses! That's hillarious!

EDIT: On an off topic note I just realised that Carmack didn't get a song named after him but everyone else did (except Bobby, who made the songs). WTF?

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Really? What about D_INCIT.mid (map 09) - Into Sandy's City?!

DooMBoy said:

Episode 4 supposedly takes place on a badly corrupted Earth base, on Earth. Just so you know.

Yeah, have You noticed that "And Hell followed" and "Fear" are both malformed tech bases (a'la Episode 2-blend tech with hell), meaning the place must've been built by humans but was changed by the demons. 'Sides, the architecture itself in E4 is good. This means that the demons couldn't build it, because e3-the hell built by demons had strange, ugly architecture. Hmmm.

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Nmn said:

Really? What about D_INCIT.mid (map 09) - Into Sandy's City?!

Sandy Carmack?

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Nmn - Sandy Petersen got a song, and a damn good one. But John Carmack didn't.

Yeah, have You noticed that "And Hell followed" and "Fear" are both malformed tech bases (a'la Episode 2-blend tech with hell), meaning the place must've been built by humans but was changed by the demons. 'Sides, the architecture itself in E4 is good. This means that the demons couldn't build it, because e3-the hell built by demons had strange, ugly architecture. Hmmm.

That's because these maps weren't done by Sandy at all. They were all Romero, Tom, Shawn, American McGee, etc.

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