What makes Doom 3 so different from the rest?

[ReeseJamPiece]

All other mainline and spinoff Doom games are all pretty decent. (Even the mobile RPGs are cool)

So lets set the scene, all the Dooms are having a family reunion and everyone's enjoying themselves.

But then Doom 3 arrives drunk and starts projectile vomiting on the pizza.

 

So what makes Doom 3 so...out of place?

Personally I think that if Doom 3 was a person he would be Trevor Philips.

[cambreaKer]

maybe you should post this in the doom 3 section

 

https://www.doomworld.com/forum/8-doom-3/

[MeetyourUnmaker]

 

 

 

[D4NUK1]

2 hours ago, ReeseJamPiece said:

All other mainline and spinoff Doom games are all pretty decent. (Even the mobile RPGs are cool)

So lets set the scene, all the Dooms are having a family reunion and everyone's enjoying themselves.

But then Doom 3 arrives drunk and starts projectile vomiting on the pizza.

 

So what makes Doom 3 so...out of place?

Personally I think that if Doom 3 was a person he would be Trevor Philips.

If all doom had different personas, DOOM 3 guy it's you awkward cousin that's don't talk too much and ignores everyone.

[OniriA]

2 hours ago, ReeseJamPiece said:

So what make me.. 

 

2 hours ago, ReeseJamPiece said:

 and Doom 3..

 

2 hours ago, ReeseJamPiece said:

so different..

 

2 hours ago, ReeseJamPiece said:

..from the rest?

 

 

[RichardDS90]

Reloading, stamina bar and a nice slow walk.

[MadGuy]

Trying to have a plot (instead of just KILL DEMONS RAWWR), exploring a more horror side of the original plot (demon invasion), interactive computers (not just press a switch and done) and so far one of the IMO best villains in the franchise (with his creepy laugh)

[Loud Silence]

OP, you talking like this about Doom 3 makes you look out of place to me.

[reflex17]

3 hours ago, ReeseJamPiece said:

what makes Doom 3

 

He a sneaky boi

 

 

 

 

 

 

Spoiler

 

 

The Book of Doom - Chapter 3 Verse 5 Junction 2: 

 

"Upon this day, the holy light cast its most divine rays far and wide, across the length and breadth of the land,

causing all naughty things to be utterly surprised and slightly annoyed in its sight. And there was much rejoicing. "

 

 

 

[Rastrelly]

Doom 3 is absolutely okay. The problem of Doom 3 is that this is the series for which absolutely okay is not enough.

[Cynical]

Doom 3 is better than Doom 4 if we're not talking about BFG edition.  Fite me IRL if you disagree.

[geo]

Fully 3D, dark, most everything is short range and in your face. Zombies are melee rather than ranged. There are head spiders and child insects.

[𝕲𝖗𝖊𝖊𝖓𝖙𝖎𝖌𝖊𝖗1]

For me Doom and Doom2 were more about exploring the maps (mazes) and arcade game play. I love how movement is a big part of the combat, dodging rockets, plasma, etc. Trying to dodge hitscanners.

 

Doom3 would have been better if I could see more of the environment, it seemed to emphasize horror and gore more so than the original games. I wanted to like Doom3, I really did, but the weapon reloading, the flashlight restriction, the overall slower pace of gameplay -- it just comes across as a slightly shooty horror game rather than a kill-all-monsters arcade game.

 

I like having lots of monsters to engage with, I like trying to figure out where to go (without having it be too ridiculous or having a lot of pain floors), and I like adrenaline rush the first few games had. Doom3 was just slower overall.

 

Personally I thought Quake2 would have been a great engine to make a more original Doom style sequel in--with the lower system requirements you could've put more enemies in the levels (but the poly explosions look silly to me, 2D artwork can still work in a fully 3D game. I thought Quake3 did a great job of mixing 2D and 3D artwork where appropriate).

 

Edited October 7, 2019 by 𝕲𝖗𝖊𝖊𝖓𝖙𝖎𝖌𝖊𝖗1 : grammar

[TheNoob_Gamer]

The theme and the gunplay of Doom 3 just don't fit with the mainline Doom series. 

It's a good game, but many Doom 4 and Doom 1/2 fans dislike it for obvious reasons.

[Andromeda]

1 hour ago, Cynical said:

Doom 3 is better than Doom 4 if we're not talking about BFG edition.  Fite me IRL if you disagree.

Considering that the BFG Edition comes with No Rest for the Living, it can be argued that it's also better than Doom 4.

[Maximum Matt]

I'll always say this - Doom 3 blew my goddamn mind when I first saw it.  I remember watching my brother's friend play it in a darkened room and physically flinching the first time an imp jumped at the screen.  The lighting, shadow effects and sound design were unbelievable at the time.  

Too dark? Too cramped? Ripped on Half-Life too much?  Sure.  

Too repetitive?  What, a Doom game?? The one where you walk around, shoot badguys, then shoot more badguys?  That one??

They were leaning into the horror aspect of the Doom lore, and I loved how it expanded on the story and fleshed it out, going for that realism with it's revolutionary lighting effects (they even explained why there would be chainsaws on a Martian base:) The Hell parts are stunning and being chased by a Hell Knight when you're out of ammo is very freaky.  

Is it different to Doom/DoomII?  Um, yeah?  I believe that was, like, the point.  

[Gerardo194]

6 hours ago, Cynical said:

Doom 3 is better than Doom 4 if we're not talking about BFG edition.  Fite me IRL if you disagree.

Yes, Doom 3 is better than Doom 4 and Doom 2016. But I don't hate Doom 2016.

[[McD] James]

I'd say the main difference between Doom 3 and previous entries is that Doom 3 simply isn't very good. 

[ReeseJamPiece]

13 hours ago, Loud Silence said:

OP, you talking like this about Doom 3 makes you look out of place to me.

 

Doom 3 is the black sheep though no doubt, it's a solid game but man it just does not fit in whatsoever.

[ReaperAA]

IMHO, Doom 3 should have been more like Doom 64 (having the dark atmosphere but retaining the classic style fast-paced gameplay)

[Szuran]

I'd say that everything makes it different from the rest. Apart from the setting and the hellish theme, it's basically a different genre of game. A slow paced cinematic story-heavy shooter.

[Matthias]

Well, old games like Doom 1 and 2 were more abstract due to lack of technology, so you have some textures indicating you're in a lab, but you had to more IMAGINE it, than actually see it.

 

So in 2003 ID Software needed to interpret the abstract concept of Doom to something more specific and they decided the Doom is actually a survival horror and it's always been that way.

 

But for some reason it didn't really work for many people.

 

DOOM 2016 interpreted the Doom more like very action almost Serious Sam style game and it worked much better.

[snapshot]

Doom in it's edgy emo phase.

 

It makes sense that Doom would eventually grow up to be Doom 3, because at one point he was young and full of life but grew up to be sad and depressing despite being the same person.

 

It's also why the multiplayer is dead, because he's all alone, by himself. Fear not however, because Doom 2016 brought back some of its old-school glory with self-aware and self-referential / less-serious plot and and fun fast paced action.

Edited November 2, 2019 by tempdecal.wad

[Avoozl]

Honestly I don't like how they handled 2016 despite bringing back some parts of Doom, it felt too much like Serious Sam or Shadow Warrior 2013, it was too arena like for my tastes, I also didn't like some of the new mechanics and the far too limited map editor, not to mention no mod support.

Edited October 8, 2019 by Avoozl

[snapshot]

Yeah..... it's not a perfect game, can get repetitive, then again Doom 3 also got repetitive but for different reasons. but at least D3 didn't lock you into a room and tell you to kill everything before you continue. maybe just twice, first time with the first Pinky encounter and the second time while you wait for that ladder to come out in that room that keeps throwing spiders at you, but I thought these were okay to build some tension.

Edited October 8, 2019 by tempdecal.wad

[Doom_Dude]

 

21 hours ago, ReeseJamPiece said:

But then Doom 3 arrives drunk and starts projectile vomiting on the pizza.

haha. Is the vomit like a dark cloud and nobody can see the pizza except the guy with the flashlight?

 

There was some weirdness to Doom 3 that irked me a bit. It seemed weird to run through the few outside areas with air-tanks that had next to no air in them. There was an odd lack of windows to the outside, which were few and far between.

 

The whole darkness thing was overdone IMHO. Even the flashlight seemed to light stuff up in a weird way.. maybe that was just me.

 

As for the monsters, the cherub was kinda meh, but I liked the maggots, wraiths, trites and ticks.

 

After finishing it, I never went back to replay any of it. I think that is the main difference for me. I didn't find it all that re-playable. Maybe now would be a good time to play through it again.

[Nine Inch Heels]

What makes Doom 3 different? Uhh... maybe that it relies heavily on cramped spaces, darkness, jumpscares, corridors, and has added "let's slow players down for close to no actual gain mechanics" like reloading (only relevant sometimes, but ironically not so much during boss fights - which by the way are generally not very good, if even decent) and a stamina bar... The latter not being particularly impactful in combat. Peeking around a corner to snipe a Zombie isn't very exhausting, and most other combat is too short lived for stamina to even register as a mechanic. So the impact of stamina is perhaps limited to some outdoor sections, which make up like 3%-ish of the game or whatever. Otherwise it's merely annoying when doing exploration, while also being deactivated during some boss fights - in the ROE expansion anyway - or in hell, so it's really more of a pointless nuisance than anything else.

 

And don't even get me started on having to listen to those damn audiologs to gain access to cabinets... There are a few that I found entertaining (Steve Hammer, Service Technician...), or the guy who rants about how his co-workers are too retarded to even remember a code as simple as "1-2-3". Well, there's two that I found entertaining, but other than that it felt more like a tacked on gimmick to force exposition on people. Needless to say, I don't care much about exposition. And while I'm at it, I hate it when games constantly interrupt me with cutscenes and such. Now imagine having to interrupt yourself all the time, so you don't miss out on goodies, on top of actual cutscenes every now and then. Doesn't that sound amazing? Yes, it doesn't.

 

Doom 3 tried way too hard to bring something new to what was already a winning formula. It tried so hard, in fact, that it literally got in the way of itself on the gameplay side of things. Visually, Doom 3 does the spooky shit well. It's competent at being uncanny, but that's all the praise I'm willing to give, and that alone doesn't make it a good game for me personally.

[Cynical]

1 hour ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

(only relevant sometimes, but ironically not so much during boss fights - which by the way are generally not very good, if even decent)

Disagreed -- the Cyberdemon was a dud, but otherwise, the bosses were excellent.  Vagary's unique projectile mechanics create really unique and interesting strafing patterns, like a Pain Elemental where you can't shoot the Lost Souls; The Guardian's combination of stealth mechanics and fireball patterns was a fun change of pace for the change of pace level; Sarge was a wickedly good spacing and aiming test.  The bosses in the expansion are a bit less consistent, but Betruger/Maledict is fantastic (Ressurection of Evil is criminally underrated in general, an absolutely amazing expansion for a decent and generally underrated base game).

[Nine Inch Heels]

4 minutes ago, Cynical said:

Disagreed

Dude, let's be real here for a second, you disagree with me primarily out of principle. It's either that, or you play like a 90+ year old if you find any of the bosses in Doom 3 "excellent". Maledict, if anything, was one of the bosses that didn't totally suck, and the bosses in the base game were simply bad. Unique strafing patterns... Yeah, right... LMAO

[Cynical]

Vargary's strafing patterns are really unique, though.  The fact that the rocks originate from various points in the room rather than from the boss herself breaks up circle-strafing patterns in the same way that the Lost Souls from a PE do on their second and later charges, except you can't get rid of the rocks.  The result is a fight where you have to mentally track the position of multiple objects that aren't on screen (and aren't glowing in bright red to make them easy to find if you do lose track of them) and adjust your strafe patterns on the fly based on the mental map you have of the attack vectors the boss could have, because the rocks move faster than you by enough that you can't hope to dodge them on reaction.  It's a really unique and cool fight, the exact sort of thing I'd think a challenge mapper would be studying and itching to emulate.