What do you think of Doom 3?

[OldDoomer]

I did not enjoy it much when it first came out on PC but years ago revisited it with the BFG Edition on PS3. The flashlight 'feature' on the PC was one of the most ridiculous design choices ever. Having it as a selectable feature on your combat armor made more sense. I also have to echo a lot of what was said about the levels. The 'tech' levels early on are a lot of recycling and "whooo look at this cool machine" -type game play. It's very impressive but a tremendous amount of redundancy. The Hell levels are extraordinary and did everything in terms of aesthetic that 'old' Doom never could do - there just wasn't anywhere near enough Hell-related material. I also liked the later grungy UAC levels that showed a lot of the "old UAC". You got the feeling in game that they're the type of places that maybe only a few people worked around for decades.

 

I feel the biggest issue that stymies people that play Doom 3 is their reliance on the shotgun. You have to pull yourself away from using it too much. It's okay to use it frequently in the early Alpha Labs levels, but after you've past that point you should really be switching weapons more periodically and using the shotgun less. Keeping in mind that once you make it to the Hell level you lose your equipment anyways and have to re-acquire everything, so there's no reason to conserve ammunition. Use that plasma rifle and machine gun!

 

I actually liked a lot of the bestiary and particularly the former soldiers you fight. It's nice when you come across former soldiers that are turned that they use tactics ingrained such as taking cover and assaulting you as a unit. The boss fights however are all really meh.

[Arl]

It's my favorite Doom game.

[Tony_Danza_the_boss]

I like Doom 3 but the shotgun is abysmal and the camera wobble from getting hit is literally headache inducing

[Labryx]

It's been a long time since I last played Doom 3 but from what I remember; it's a good game in it's own right but compared to the previous entries that came before it, it's pretty much beaten in every aspect except for graphics ofc. The classic doom games have it beat in gameplay due to having more open-ended battle situations compared to Doom 3 where it just feels like 90% of the time the enemies just teleport in front of you in a narrow corridor.

 

I would even argue that Doom 64 has Doom 3 beat in the horror aspect since Doom 64 had a way more haunting soundtrack and creepy AF environments. Doom 3 just takes the lazy route of horror of just pitch darkness and sudden jump scares. During my first playthrough, Doom 3 never felt like an actual scary game until I reached the hell levels and by then, the game was already close to being done.

[Sergeant G]

Disclaimer: Everything that follows are merely my opinions. 

Well what can I say about DOOM 3? 

It was hugely anticipated. 

I really liked the look. They got the UAC right, they got Hell right. Hands down imho, the game looks great.

I especially enjoyed the Alpha Labs, the Enpro Plant and Hell. The Alpha labs were creepy and really channeled E1M5 and E2M6 from DOOM. The Enpro plant, especially the sequence at the end when it's flying apart and you're shooting your way out of it with the battle bots helping you, that was on par with a Hollywood film. 

I wish they'd kept it on Phobos and Deimos. I understand that consolidating everything onto the Martian surface simplified and streamlined a great many things from the development end, but I'd have preferred it if they'd kept DOOM on the moons. 

I liked the plasma rifle. I sorta liked the shotgun, as it's still a leveler, if you can actually hit anything with it. I don't like the chain gun or the rocket launcher. The chain gun takes too long to spin up and has no accuracy. The rocket launcher is similarly inaccurate and seems lacking in splash damage relative to its predecessor. The pistol seems like an intentionally bad joke of a pea shooter. I enjoyed going berserk, that was fun, I wish we'd been allowed to do so more than twice. 

The chainsaw is fun, I love the noises it makes. I found the BFG to be kinda unwieldy. The characters were a bit flat, but I liked that a lot of the story is told through the PDA, that was a nice touch in the style of System Shock 2. 

The soul cube was goofy. Uuuuussseee Usss!!!! Thanks I'll pass. 

The cyberdemon was kind of a pulled punch. You're not really fighting him, you're running in circles killing imps, they took the real battle away from us. The Mancubus was handled really well, so were the imps and all former humans. The Revenants, Cacodemons, and Lost Souls didn't quite work for me. The jumping spiders were pretty kick ass, those worked. The awful evil babies were kind of just a what the hell...

The spider demon was different, again we needed to see more of it then we did. The Archvile was interesting but not quite the original. The pinkie demons were ridiculous, out of any proportion and over wrought. 

But I liked the disembodied ghost voices, that added a new element. 

What's the take away from all of this?

84/100, in my irrelevant opinion.

Edited September 4, 2021 by Sergeant G

[TheMagicMushroomMan]

Pros

-They made a movie based on it featuring The Rock

 

Cons

-They made a movie based on it featuring The Rock

[GuyMcBrofist]

I like Doom 3 a lot.

I like the weapons (even the shotgun).

I like the levels (I don't think they're all the same).

I like the Elemental Phase Deconstructor.

And I like the ambience:

 

[Gifty]

I think Doom 3 is a great game and history will look kindly on it. Unfortunately the level design is just really haphazard and as a result the pacing is caught somewhere between Resident Evil and Space Invaders, and I think this is the root of why it turns a lot of folks off--it's too slow and unwieldy for a lot of shooter fans, but still rushes through a lot of the survival horror elements. The systems are all good, the overall vibe is incredible, I think with more confident level design it could have come together with a clearer identity.

 

Tl;dr if the original Doom is Evil Dead 2, Doom 3 is closer to Evil Dead 1. And Doom Eternal is Army of Darkness.

Edited September 4, 2021 by Gifty

[Faceman2000]

I think someone should remake it in Doom 2 a la D64D2.

[Somniac]

It was absolutely terrifying at the time and the engine was cutting edge. It still holds up now IMO for the most part, but I do have to be in the right mood.

 

While I do like the level design and atmosphere the monster closets got old very fast. The plasma rifle has the coolest sound effects ever, especially the reload. Projectiles just moved a bit too slowly. The shotgun was also a massive disappointment at first, but I appreciate how it forces you to get toe-to-toe with whatever you're fighting for maximum effect.

 

I also thought the screens playing UAC propaganda and explanations of the various equipment were a nice touch.

[out_of_service]

LOVE Doom 3. I have fond memories of this take on Doom, it scared the bejesus out of me! It always reminded me of those haunted houses at an amusement park where things give you a good spook. I love the art design, the sound design and the overall atmosphere of the game. Being a fan of survival horror games, this was a welcome aspect. The Doom 3 interpretation of hell is one my favourites alongside Doom 64 hell. My only real criticisms of the game is the shotgun basically being a melee weapon. I don't understand why they went that route but it is what it is. My favourite monster from Doom 3 is the Bruiser, the cybernetic fiend with a monitor for a mouth! It's so crazy looking lol. I wish they'd bring the damn thing back in the next Doom game (should it ever happen).

[garu32]

On 9/3/2021 at 4:35 PM, Ofisil said:

it's not a Doom game.

it literally says "Doom" on the title but ok, I can live with that.

[Rudolph]

I would call it a flawed but interesting experiment. The arsenal is badly designed, the bestiary has too many redundant enemies in addition to having a pretty weak AI and the game is a bit too long (read: too many levels) for its own good. However, its sound and visual design, atmosphere, world building, lighting effects and immersion are generally excellent and in some cases still ahead of its time. I have said it before, but I would love to see a proper sequel to Doom 3 with Doom 2016's better balanced arsenal and more robust AI.

[Triangle Box Studio]

I like DOOM 3 but I like the classic DOOM a lot better.

[princetontiger]

It's an incredible game... and even better when you consider the release year was 2004.

 

Before Alien: Isolation, there was Doom 3. Both of those games are, in my opinion, the best horror survival games ever created.

[Yumheart]

It always looked a little boring to me, I always get impatient with slower shooters. But people should play whatever makes them happy.

If you like Doom 3, then that's great.

[QuaketallicA]

One of the best FPS games of the time, a great DOOM game, and it holds up extremely well. It really takes the immersion and the horror aspect of Doom to whole new level, while still keeping satisfying gunplay and non-linearish level design. Like someone mentioned above it's a bit like going through a haunted house at times, in all the best ways. A lot of people criticize the flashlight (duct tape mod and all that) but I think having a flashlight on your gun is rather self-defeating. Not knowing where the demons are till they throw fireballs or shoot adds to the horror and suspense. You can use a flashlight to see where they are, but that leaves you without any attack (except melee). Either way, you're a little bit naked and exposed to attack. That sense of vulnerability is an important part of the experience.

 

Also, the Doom 3 theme kicks ass. One of the first things I learned when I first tuned my guitar down to Drop D.

[DMPhobos]

I like it a lot, it's a very good game and has some terrific atmosphere, tho it's not without flaws

 

Biggest flaw i can think of is that doom 3 starts running out of steam by the middle part and it gets a bit too formulaic to the point you can start predicting where a monster is gonna spawn when you enter a room. Once you go to hell and come back the gameplay picks up a bit again, this time leaning more towards combat set pieces rather than the slow semi survival horror feel of the early game, spawning more monsters for a single encounter, more monster variety, more ammo and all that, but i feel even with this the game is held back a bit by limitations (doesn't uses a lot of monsters on a single encounter which i guess was due to performance issues) and by the game being balanced for a slower pace (such as the damage feedback and slow speed) which kinda fits the first part, but not so much the last quarter of the game. Some mods such as Classic Doom 3 and Doom 3 Phobos address some of this and imo it kinda proves how much base Doom 3 can change for the better by tweaking it a little

 

Another big flaw is that it suffers from techbase syndrome, a lot of the game feels very 'samey' (another gray base full of computers). Pretty much everyone agrees that DooM 3 Hell is easily the best part of the game, yet it's only a level. On the late game it starts to change things a bit with the cavern and excavation levels, but they go by so quickly it's easy to forget them. Imo this themes could had been stretched over more levels and the techbase stuff could had been reduced and it would had helped make a stronger impression

 

Other than that, it's a solid game, the flashlight mechanic ain't that bad, it has a strong identity and plays out exactly like i imagine the plot of the original doom would if it was more serious. It's flaws hold back the game a bit, but overall i think it's a very good game and i have a soft spot for it.

[snapshot]

23 hours ago, Artman2004 said:

A level/episode select screen would've helped.

D3EE now has an updated version of 6th Venom's HQ Menu, has level select screens for base, RoE and TLM.

[Rudolph]

If anything, now that Id Software went kind of overboard with the whole "Doom Slayer Rip And Tear" approach, it would be nice if they could do another game like Doom 3 or at the very least Doom 64. Kind of like what Capcom did with the Resident Evil franchise after Resident Evil 6.

[chungy]

6 hours ago, Rudolph said:

I would love to see a proper sequel to Doom 3 with Doom 2016's better balanced arsenal and more robust AI.

Doom 2016 is kind of that already. It's practically the Doom 3 story with a protagonist that couldn't care less about it.

[Gibbon]

I like the scripting for it for modding.  Back in the day I scripted all monitors to play a rick roll on a loop back when iodoom3 was still a thing.

[Widosm]

Ambitious, ended up straying away from classic doom, but not bad nonetheless

[lokbustam257]

5/10, cuz it force me to almost always holding down the sprint key

[Teo Slayer]

On 9/4/2021 at 1:09 AM, doomguykiller69 said:

I like it, and it's CANON

Yes, it's canon but it doesn't belong in the main DOOM timeline. It's its own universe and story but still, it's canon

[Plats]

8.5/10 It was actually the first Doom game i ever played. Enjoyed it very much!

[Rudolph]

9 hours ago, chungy said:

Doom 2016 is kind of that already. It's practically the Doom 3 story with a protagonist that couldn't care less about it.

And worse antagonist, worldbuilding, atmosphere and visual/sound design.

 

If anything, playing Doom 2016 made me appreciate Doom 3 so much more, even if the latter is technically a worse game. That is why I wish Id Software could revisit the survival horror genre and get it 100% right this time, i.e. what RE2make is to Resident Evil 2.

[Doomdude89]

Just made this for people who tell its too slow. The only thing moded here are the levels and some guns like having not to reload. Other than that this fast mobility can be easily achieved by writing the previous mentioned commands into the console. Now u playing Doom3 son.

[Grandeur]

On 9/4/2021 at 6:10 AM, Arl said:

It's my favorite Doom game.

 

You can't be serious. This forum wouldn't have existed if it hadn't been for classical Doom.

[TheMagicMushroomMan]

1 hour ago, Grandeur said:

 

You can't be serious. This forum wouldn't have existed if it hadn't been for classical Doom.

Thanks for the info, but what does "classical DOOM" have to do with the fact that someone prefers DOOM 3?

 

Also, have you ever stopped to consider that if the series would have ended with the magic "classical DOOM" games, there probably wouldn't be nearly as many members on this forum today? Many members here got into wadding and modding after 2016 and Eternal released. It's possible that those games wouldn't have come to fruition without DOOM 3.

Edited September 5, 2021 by TheMagicMushroomMan