My first impressions

I just got the game and here's the first things I noticed (Minor spoilers, but you know you fight demons in the game by now, right?):

- There are many Asian people on Mars. All of them sound like Lo Wang from Shadow Warrior.
- There are, in fact, black people on Mars. I saw two of them!
- On that note, I was pleasantly surprised by the voice acting. A lot better than the two marines and scientist from alpha/E3 demo, which were probably temporary anyway.
- But unfortunately, none of other the sounds from the alpha/E3 demo (While Trent Reznor was working on it) made it into the game. To put it bluntly, the new sounds are complete and utter shit compared to the alpha. Particularly the weapons: the shotgun sounds incredibly weak and the pistol is just embarassing. I'm not too keen on the new zombie sounds, but they're so quiet that it's mostly drowned out. I suppose people who have not seen (heard) the alpha/E3 demo won't really care, but I for one was hoping those old sounds would make it into the game. It does bother me, though, that the game could have been full of the same quality sounds as the stuff from the alpha/E3 demo.
- The game is not quite as scary as I hoped it would. Mainly just "Boo! I jumped out of a wall/ceiling/vent/floor/from behind" stuff. The game definitely creates a good atmosphere, but don't expect a Silent Hill type moodiness.
- The no use key thing is a bit tricky to learn at first. You can talk to people, but you have to use the fire key to do that. I was afraid I might cap the next guy in the head that I tried to talk to.
- So far, the game is very, very linear. Even moreso than the original Doom, where at least you could choose whether you could something something like to head to the blue key door or the blue key itself. You're essentially following a very narrow, one-way path. I was pretty much expecting this since I knew there would be a lot of scripted events and such, but not to this extent.
- I have yet to see the huge outdoor Mars environment I've heard about. Yes, so far there's one part where you run on the Mars landscape real quick, but it's essentially just another faily large room with a skybox. You're very limited to how long you can stay out there, so I don't know where the large Martian landspace could fit in.
- The Z-Sector zombies with guns have perfect aim. Not that they do a lot of damage at normal difficulty (Which I'm playing at), but it seems odd to me.
- Demons dissapear as soon as they die. Zombies do not, but all zombies will instantly dissapear (Sort of melt, you hit them and they turn into a skeleton as if they're skin is destroyed) as soon as you shoot or punch them after they die. It really only takes one hit to do it.
- Unlike the alpha/E3 demo, ragdoll bodies do not obstruct your path.
- The shotgun gibs zombies in one or two shots, but like I mentioned before, they dissapear so fast it's hard to consider it gibbing (Maybe only explosive weapons have proper gibbibg?).
- The AI and fights in general aren't very noteworthy. Since the areas are very confined, enemies mainly just run at you in a straight line while you shoot them. In the case that you're in a room with cover, enemies will just run to the spot with the clearest shot at you they can get, so you can use the Wolf 3d strategy of just waiting for an enemy to round a corner and blast them in the face, unless they're scripted to not move around that much, though.
- The graphics are amazing, I had no doubt of that. There's plenty of dark rooms to make use of the flashlight.
- There's not much to interact with in the environment aside from certain control panels and PDA's. I was hoping they might use physics on everything, even meaningless items, so you could do dumb stuff like knock over soda cans and garbage cans (Hey, it couldn't hurt, and if I want to why not? :P), but only the very specific things like boxes you can push to reach ammo and such have physics.

And to conclude I'm pretty much pleased with the game. Frankly I find it mind-boggling to call this one of the greatest games of all time when it's not much more than the original with a prettier wrapping, but that's not a bad thing. Pointless, mindless blasting with nice graphics is all it really is.

What is wrong with asians and blacks on mars? There's no need to mention that.

Well I'm not saying anything is wrong with that or being racist or anything (Guh! :P), but considering that there haven't been many pictures of anyone outside of caucasian males, I was surprised. Just pointing out the variety and variations within the players. There weren't any Asian people in Half Life either. :P

ok.

Skeletor said:

What is wrong with asians and blacks on mars? There's no need to mention that.

Christ, yes there is when almost no games have any real racial mix, just because you mention ethnicities doesnt make you racist

I need MP info!

Linguica said:

Christ, yes there is when almost no games have any real racial mix, just because you mention ethnicities doesnt make you racist

I never called him a racist. I just said there was no need to mention that. I said that because I assumed he found something wrong with it, but seeing that he replied by saying he was surprised by the skin color variation in the game from a postive standpoint was a good observation.

Nah, I think we should bash the over-eager politcally correct guy some more! I mean who isn't sick of political correctness overkill by now?

If there ever was a movement that impaired humans ability to discuss and work out cultural differences, it's political correctness.

Revenant100 said:

- There's not much to interact with in the environment aside from certain control panels and PDA's. I was hoping they might use physics on everything, even meaningless items, so you could do dumb stuff like knock over soda cans and garbage cans (Hey, it couldn't hurt, and if I want to why not? :P), but only the very specific things like boxes you can push to reach ammo and such have physics.

I punched soda cans and cheeseburgers around, and smacked trash cans around. If you take the time to attempt some of these things, it is possible, but it's not like Postal 2 craziness.

oh, revenant100, what is your pc specs? Does it run pretty smoothly/look good on your comp?

AMD Athlon XP 2500+ 1.84 GHz
NVIDIA GeForce FX 5900
1024MB of ram

I run the game in medium detail at 800x600 and no AA. The game runs beautifully with no slow-downs or choppiness regardless of what's on screen. I could probably run the game at high detail with a few tweaks but I prefer performance. Maps load in less than 10 seconds and the only pauses during the game are right when the next map loads, but that goes away quickly. Anyway here's a few more things I noticed during the last few hours:

- I recognize a lot of areas from the alpha/E3 demo, but obviously they've been changed and used differently. I don't know of the cut scenes from the alpha/E3 demo are still in the game, though. The one part where the soul skull goes through the Z-Sector's guard's face and turns him into a zombie is still in the game, but it's used as a video on a monitor when all hell breaks loose.
- I found a puzzle where you have to exit the game and check a website for a code. I'm not sure if this is the exact same thing PC Gamer mentioned, but it's not a needed thing to progress through the game, just to get some extra ammo.
- Remember the traps in Doom 1 and 2 where you'd walk over something and a wall would instantly lower and an enemy was inexpicably hiding in a small square room with no detail with no other purpose than for them to ambush you? There are plenty of them in Doom 3. And they're still just square rooms with no detail.
- The health pickup sounds are from Quake 2 and 3. The key card pickup sound is from Doom, of course.
- I haven't been able to get enemies to infight. Mostly you fight one type of enemy at a time or in groups and then try to avoid shooting each other by getting the best shot at you.
- The plasma rifle sounds like a cartoon laser gun. I don't know what they were thinking.
- I've listened and read all the PDA messages so far, but nothing I've come across in them so far is required to progress. They just provide hints and codes to open locked doors and storage containers.
- I just beat Vagary, and it wasn't a very fun boss fight.
- The way lost souls are formed is cool and has to be see for yourself. ;)

I'm going to try multiplayer tomorrow. I want to see how far I can get into singleplayer tonight.

Based on what I found out from another post, the thing that happens to the woman in the newest official (most movie-ad-like) trailer where her skull breaks open is when a lost soul is dying to get out!

you DO realize that the guy who made that comment in the other forum thread is the guy your talking to don't you.

Plus he put a warning next to that spoiler when he revealed it, you could at least do the same. <.<

Based from what I've seen thus far:
I've seen the vids/live feed, which look fuzzy but OK. I KNOW how awesome it looks because of the Alpha I've played.

That said. The sounds (weapons) are somewhat dissapointing, especially for a 'blockbuster' of a game. I reckon mod developers will find better sounds. PDA email samples are great.

The levels seem big, much bigger than I expected, which is a good, very good =), makes up for the linearity. Flashlights aren't square shaped. The Toilet bit from the Aplha better be in the game, would be stupid to leave out. I expected more gibbing ala Quake 3. Killing first boss is easy. Levels load relatively fast =). Laser scan seems to go 'through' the character? A lot of shooting, and shooting.

I'm curious about Multiplayer. I hope it'll be good, I expect a lot of beautiful and interesting 3rd party MP maps.

Not sure, it looks as if the shadow disappears when an enemy is dissolving?

Overall, I'm pleased with it (still, nothing beats the Halflife-experience. Maybe Halflife 2?), happy that it's done, and I'm looking forward to play the game.

My 2 cents.

Are there any jews on mars, that is the question of the day.

Well there's no nudity in the game unlike previously reported, so there's one way of checking out the window. :P

Heh. Good call.

So far I've pretty much read only positive rants about Doom 3 from people who played it themselves. I'm disappointed to hear that the sounds are a bit disappointing though, although maybe I might like them.

Disorder said:

So far I've pretty much read only positive rants about Doom 3 from people who played it themselves. I'm disappointed to hear that the sounds are a bit disappointing though, although maybe I might like them.

There's been some impressions posted on shacknews, they've all been on the negative side (although there seemed to be a competition to have the worst take on the game).

The main gripes were the weapons and their sounds, very weak. And the tasks you get are very repetative. :(

DeAdLy_cOoKiE said:

Flashlights aren't square shaped.

Are you referring to the flashlight from the alpha ? The reason you were getting a big white square outline was because one of the textures was missing, so it defaulted to a 8x8 white placeholder.

OK, so poeple seem to be dissapointed with the weapon sounds. Personally I think this is down to taste, but I'll find out for myself soon enough.
On the topic of sound, I must ask about the overall ambience of the game. In the G4Tech movie, Tim Willits talks about the atmospheric sound of the game being the 'music' in itself. I'm longing to find out, but I'd just like to know what people are think so far.

do u find out doomguy's name, just say u do or dont, i dont wanna know it yet

I'll see what is the truth when I play it myself but I had a feeling and still do that they fucked up on the weapons.
The shotgun to me has a stupid design, it looks like it does alot of damage and I like that aspect of it but the sound falls back from what Iv seen in videos seems to me they've used a standard shotgun sound found in pretty much everything from low grade movies to every other game and it is a compact shotgun and believe me I'v had plenty of experience with sawed off's. There extremly loud and there isent much of a carry it just sounds like a bomb one quick loud crack and then your ears ring for about an hour or so. The handgun has the standard sound to as far as I know, if its a 9mm which is most likly because of mass production of ammunition, good recoil and fairly high velocity it doesent sound very good they should of found a proper sound they have a very distict twang to them after the initial bang. The machine gun for such a compact weapon is no wear near loud enough and I'd prefer for it to sound somewhere around the lines of a Saw light machine gun with roughly or faster rate of fire.
I'm not sure what the plasma rifle sounds like as I only heard brief tid-bits but I hope it sounds badass.

DoomUK said:

On the topic of sound, I must ask about the overall ambience of the game. In the G4Tech movie, Tim Willits talks about the atmospheric sound of the game being the 'music' in itself.

There is music in the game, but it's mostly ambient stuff like what was in Quake 1. The Doom 3 theme only plays at the menu.

The music in the game tends to be very low and sort of blends in with the rest of the background noises, which is good if you only want ambience and not music that intrudes in the game. There were some points where non-ambient music started playing, and it changes dynamically depending on what's happening (Calmer when there's nothing around, speeds up when something scary happens, finally turns to action stuff once the enemies start attacking).

No you don't find out Doom guy's name, at least I haven't noticed it (Most people just refer to you as 'Marine'). You also don't talk either, but Doom guy still makes pain and death sounds.

Tyockell said:

The handgun has the standard sound to as far as I know, if its a 9mm which is most likly because of mass production of ammunition, good recoil and fairly high velocity it doesent sound very good they should of found a proper sound they have a very distict twang to them after the initial bang.

It's ********ly not a 9mm. It only holds 12 rounds. Today's 9mm's hold what? 20? 30? Just by the looks of the gun alone I assume it fires some sort of slug. And if that is the case, then yes, the sound is pretty weak.

-E

EDIT: I don't know why this board wants to censor that word.

Revenant100 said:

There is music in the game, but it's mostly ambient stuff like what was in Quake 1. The Doom 3 theme only plays at the menu.

The music in the game tends to be very low and sort of blends in with the rest of the background noises, which is good if you only want ambience and not music that intrudes in the game. There were some points where non-ambient music started playing, and it changes dynamically depending on what's happening (Calmer when there's nothing around, speeds up when something scary happens, finally turns to action stuff once the enemies start attacking).

Sounds great, but can you turn the 'action' music off so you just have the ambient stuff playing?

Endureth said:

It's ********ly not a 9mm. It only holds 12 rounds. Today's 9mm's hold what? 20? 30? Just by the looks of the gun alone I assume it fires some sort of slug. And if that is the case, then yes, the sound is pretty weak.

-E

EDIT: I don't know why this board wants to censor that word.

No todays 9mm's hold 10 rounds legaly, high capacity mags you need special permits and arnt used even in the military as there to bulky cop issue beretta 92f's hold 15. A slug is a solid piece of lead or copper plated lead so pretty much any squash head bullet found in handguns, or rifled and ball slugs in shotguns.

I just got my game about an hour ago and played one level cause I just keep looking at all the cool shit that keeps popping up. But I don't mind the sounds of the weapons at all in fact I like them alot. MAybe you guys don't have 5.1 cause the weapons seem to echo when I fire them off. But maybe that is just me. My system specs are 5700 LE 256mb 3.0 ghz and 1 gig of DDR and I play at 800*600 on medium. I can play on high but they don't seem that much better and the performance isn't really worth the better graphics. But despite what people are saying I really love the game and I find that it seems to give you more freedom as the game progresses. But like I said I havent played much.

cruddy weapon sounds! just like the first game!

sambobbilly said:

do u find out doomguy's name, just say u do or dont, i dont wanna know it yet

You are supposed to be the Doom guy. The Doomguy's name is Sambobbilly. Read a book, perhaps you'll exhibit some intelligence somewhere on this forum