GuyMcBrofist Posted August 3 Today, Doom 3 came out 20 years ago. Happy birthday, Doom 3! 12 Share this post Link to post
Caffeine Freak Posted August 3 Strap a party hat on and grab some popcorn. This guy's got the idea: Cuz it's time to pull up those sweet 2003-2004 trailers: 3 Share this post Link to post
Geniraul Posted August 3 Made a Doom 3 video right on D3's 20th anniversary: Happy 20th anniversary to Doom 3! 🎉🎊 1 Share this post Link to post
hexagonopus Posted August 3 happy birthday doom 3 <3 it's a shame that the id software twitter account hasn't posted anything. 1 Share this post Link to post
AmethystViper Posted August 5 This showed up on my YouTube recommendation feed since it was Doom 3's 20th Anniversary. 4 Share this post Link to post
Arl Posted August 8 Dwelling on this game for 20 years, what a while... (I don't regret it). 4 Share this post Link to post
Lippeth Posted August 9 I just purchased a 4k OLED monitor and I've got to say the darkness in Doom 3 has never looked so dark and I'm now excited to play it all over again. 2 Share this post Link to post
AtimZarr1 Posted August 9 Love the game for its pacing and oppressively dark atmosphere. Been trying to dip into mapping recently as well. Definitely recommend a campaign replay on VR if anyone gets the chance for it (Team Beef's version is very good). 3 Share this post Link to post
KenaiPhoenix Posted August 12 Happy (late) birthday to a beast. I really like it and remember trying to getting to run on my toaster for months, 26 fps was my best. Still I managed to finish it years later, it was really good. 0 Share this post Link to post
famicommander Posted August 17 That same year we got Far Cry, Half-Life 2, Counter-Strike: Source, Halo 2, Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, and Unreal Tournament 2004 among others. With that context in mind Doom 3 was truly an embarrassing effort, and it's no wonder its legacy within the greater Doom series has been brushed aside in favor of the real Doom 3 (also known as Doom 64). 0 Share this post Link to post
Gothic Posted August 18 Can we stop with this "Doom 64 is the real Doom 3" mentality? Doom 3 is fine, there's no need for this level of pettiness. 5 Share this post Link to post
Ozcar Posted August 18 (edited) On 8/16/2024 at 6:00 PM, famicommander said: That same year we got Far Cry, Half-Life 2, Counter-Strike: Source, Halo 2, Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, and Unreal Tournament 2004 among others. With that context in mind Doom 3 was truly an embarrassing effort, and it's no wonder its legacy within the greater Doom series has been brushed aside in favor of the real Doom 3 (also known as Doom 64). Dude, it's been several years and you're still throwing shit at doom 3 in any discussions of of that game, I get it, you hate doom 3 and nothing else. Stop throwing shit at doom 3 in some thread about that game. Edited August 18 by Ozcar 1 Share this post Link to post
Lippeth Posted August 18 The most embarrassing part is that Doom 4 through 63 were all pretty good too! 4 Share this post Link to post
famicommander Posted August 18 (edited) 15 minutes ago, Ozcar said: Dude, it's been several years and you're still throwing shit at doom 3, I get it, you hate doom 3 and nothing else. Stop throwing shit at doom 3 in any thread about that game. I have made like 10 posts in 5 years on the matter. Whenever I happen to notice discussion about the game I throw in my 2 cents. Live with it. It's completely appropriate to compare Doom 3 to other games from its release year in a topic looking back 20 years later. I do find it telling that for the 20th anniversary, id decided to completely ignore it and instead release Doom and Doom II again. Edited August 18 by famicommander 0 Share this post Link to post
Lippeth Posted August 18 (edited) @famicommander what is it that you dislike about Doom 3, anyway? Edit: I want to retroactively rephrase the question: What the hell did Doom 3 do to you, anyway? Edited September 20 by Lippeth 0 Share this post Link to post
famicommander Posted August 18 (edited) 31 minutes ago, Lippeth said: @famicommander what is it that you dislike about Doom 3, anyway? People say that it's a good survival horror game, but in my experience it relies far too heavily on jumpscares and health/ammo are very plentiful. Enemies in general are not threatening, but take too many hits to kill, so combat is tedious and repetitive. Every fight feels like trying to take down a cacodemon with just a pistol. You're not in any danger, but it ain't gonna be fun either. Add that to the poor gunplay in general and it's also a poor shooter. The constant switching between the light and the gun is a really poorly thought out mechanic. It seems like it was put in there to artificially create tension while you're switching back and forth, but there's just no coherent in-game reason why people that can handle space travel and teleportation can't figure out how to point a light and a gun in the same direction at the same time. And BFG Edition eliminating the switching doesn't particularly help because the levels were designed around the mechanic originally. It makes it less tedious, but it also makes an already easy game even easier. The story and cutscenes felt like an afterthought. I just don't think it compares favorably in a single or multiplayer sense to other games in the series, or other games released in the same year, or the many games released since. In 2004 we got first person shooters/adventure games the likes of Half-Life 2, Unreal Tournament 2004, Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, Halo 2, Far Cry, Counter-Strike: Source... compared to those I don't see what Doom 3 even does well, let alone well enough to set it above its contemporaries. The primary defense people make of Doom 3 is that "if it weren't a Doom game people wouldn't be so harsh on it," but I feel like the opposite is true. If it weren't a Doom game it wouldn't be remembered for anything at all. Graphically it holds up for a game of its age, but so do HL2 and Metroid Prime 2 (especially considering the latter was a Gamecube exclusive at the time). There's just nothing else there worth biting into. The story, the gunplay, the level design, the encounters... it all just comes off so flat and boring. Slow, tedious, repetitive, dull. Everything nobody asked for in a shooter, let alone a Doom game. 1 Share this post Link to post
Caffeine Freak Posted August 18 16 hours ago, famicommander said: the level design Gonna have to disagree there. If you don't like the gunplay or story I can understand, (I think the story is kinda meh and the gunplay is decent) but the level design in the game is more clever than people give it credit for. Many levels feature roundabout layouts---by which I mean, they allow you to get a glimpse of your final destination long before you can actually access it. This almost always useful from a design standpoint, because it can allow the player to get sense of where his goal is, and also provides him with a greater sense of the general layout of the gameworld, which is useful for getting your bearings. Sometimes such levels will even 'loop around' and take you back through or past the starting area on your way there. Take the level 'Delta Labs 3' for instance. At the start of the map, you step off the elevator, and directly below and to your left, you hear and see the passage of Betruger and the 2 Commandos, which draws your attention to the corridor below that leads to the level exit: Spoiler Now, there's nothing *particularly* special about this, especially since you can't physically see the exit from this vantage point. However, in one of the very next rooms, you can see the bridge which Betruger just had destroyed, which quite obviously leads to the same corridor you just viewed: Spoiler Thus, the bridge is established as a point of significance in the player's mind (why else would Betruger have it destroyed?), and it is visually distinct enough that the player will easily recognize it when he reaches it later on, near the end of the map, which gives him an easy way to re-establish his bearings. 'Oh, there's the destroyed bridge, and there's the window I saw it from earlier.' That's good level design, and a frequent hallmark of good maps all through out the Doom series. There's multiple instances of this and similar design methods throughout Doom 3. Take the first 3 levels of the game---Mars City 1, Mars City Underground and Mars City 2. The initial path you take through Mars City and subsequent path through Mars City Underground to reach the missing scientist is fairly linear and non-confusing. However, post-invasion your return path is obstructed by a malfunctioning door, and you are forced to take an entirely new route to reach the exit back to Mars City, which is the same elevator you arrived on. After re-entering Mars City, you again have to take a different route to reach Marine Command---a route which takes you through all sorts of areas in the level you didn't see on your first trip, but which *simultaneously* weaves in and out and close enough to your original path that you can easily recognize where you are, thus revealing much more worldspace whilst keeping the player familiarized with his surroundings as he makes his way back to an area he's already visited. Again, this is good and efficient level design. And there's other examples of this throughout the game. In no way am I saying the level design in Doom 3 is ground-breaking or whatnot, but it utilizes effective design principles that have been used throughout the Doom series, and even continue to be used in the most recent titles. Doom 3 has it's faults to be sure, but the level design is one area I think has never gotten enough credit. 4 Share this post Link to post
Daniel, the NCR Veteran Posted August 23 On 8/18/2024 at 5:59 AM, famicommander said: People say that it's a good survival horror game I think I'm one of the few people that don't attach "survival horror" to Doom 3, because it isn't a Survival Horror game... there's no inventory management or ammo scarcity like the kind you'd come across in Resident Evil or Silent Hill, for instance (looking through an old PDA for a newly found locker doesn't count as inventory management), it's very much a shooter once you get out of Mars City 2. Even on Nightmare with how you're dragged down to 25 HP but have the soul cube and medstations to heal, at that point you'll have completed the game once to know what's up so the jumpscares and encounters are familiar. I'd say it's more of an atmospheric horror type of deal: the environments, the way Hell and demonic entities/demonic forces/demons are portrayed are sublime imo. On 8/18/2024 at 5:59 AM, famicommander said: Enemies in general are not threatening, but take too many hits to kill, so combat is tedious and repetitive. Every fight feels like trying to take down a cacodemon with just a pistol. You're not in any danger, but it ain't gonna be fun either. Add that to the poor gunplay in general and it's also a poor shooter I disagree here. I've been playing Doom 3 on Veteran and Nightmare exclusively for years. I know that the game never explains it on its own, but actually landing headshots for that x2 multiplier AND utilizing your weapons correctly matters. Zombies, Imps, Maggots, and the Zombie Marines respectively (ehhh on the Wraiths) are very much "run up to and blast the face with a shotgun", Cacodemons and Lost Souls are introduced in the same level as the Plasma Gun so there's the counter. I do agree that the gunplay when it comes to things like the machine gun and chaingun against enemies like the Zombie Marines doesn't really do well (the stunning is inconsistent), but there's not often situations like this [I find these 2 weapons more useful for ambush attacks or enemies like the Trites). On 8/18/2024 at 5:59 AM, famicommander said: The constant switching between the light and the gun is a really poorly thought out mechanic. It seems like it was put in there to artificially create tension while you're switching back and forth, but there's just no coherent in-game reason why people that can handle space travel and teleportation can't figure out how to point a light and a gun in the same direction at the same time. And BFG Edition eliminating the switching doesn't particularly help because the levels were designed around the mechanic originally. It makes it less tedious, but it also makes an already easy game even easier. The flashlight mechanic that was in the OG was never meant to be there in the first place, Carmack himself has stated that it was done for performance reasons (keep in mind, Doom 3 was already a demanding game for many PCs at the time, unless you were an enthusiast), because the game being built around the flashlight constantly being on [and players actively keeping it on for convienence sake while holding a weapon even if not all areas are that dark] would drag on performance. So instead they've added the separate flashlight and built the game around it so that you know when you've gotta use it. BFG Edition finally adding the shoulder-mounted flashlight is an issue because there is no Carmack this time to re-build the game to facilitate this, so you're running around with a shoulder-mounted flashlight (with a very generous battery life) in a game meant for switchy/situational usage. So in reality, flashlights were gonna fit in-line with the in-game world, had it not been for performance issues. On 8/18/2024 at 5:59 AM, famicommander said: The story and cutscenes felt like an afterthought. In a Doom game?! How preposterous! But in all seriousness, the main story with its cutscenes is obviously an afterthought, it's as simple as you can possibly get. Super smart scientist works his way up the ladder (through achievements and hard work) to the point he gets to make many important decisions at UAC Mars, but oop, he's also a Satanist and wants Hell to come to Earth! Just as a pesky UAC Counselor, his bodyguard and an unnamed Marine board the City, he finally begins his plan, and it's up to you (and the Counselor + his bodyguard) to stop him! Then you go through the entire game with just one goal: stopping Bertruger from bringing Hell on Earth. This can hardly be seen as a criticism, especially in this franchise, all you have to know is "THIS IS AN EXCUSE. TO KILL DEMONS!". But in all seriousness, twice, the worldbuilding of how life goes (demonic influences aside) at UAC in 2145 is the real story in Doom 3. The majority of the time you spend in gameplay, you pick up video disks, PDAs with audio logs and emails, download various newsletters and reports to your PDA... They give you a glimpse of how life would work at this point in the future: the video disks often displaying how the UAC have managed to build and refine their current technologies... like the Elemental Phase Deconstructor or the Hydrocon (which is how they're gonna plan bringing in breathable oxygen onto Mars), or how they've managed to use the space in-between Molecules in order to compact fuel that can suppliment entire spaceships for easy storage... It's nothing revolutionary but it does help immerse you into what ID so far have called "an alternate timeline". On 8/17/2024 at 4:00 AM, famicommander said: and it's no wonder its legacy within the greater Doom series has been brushed aside in favor of the real Doom 3 (also known as Doom 64). The Steam release of Doom 64 as of right now is the equivalent of running Doom 1 or Doom 2 on the BFG Edition, it's bastardized at best. If you mean legacy as in its impact on the overall story (how Doom 1, 2, 64 and 2016 + Eternal are tied together), well, there's nothing you can do there. Doom 3 is a very clear indicator of an alternate timeline where the Marine and the Doomguy we know are two different entities from two different timelines, it wouldn't fit anywhere. Anyway, I do have to agree with others in this thread that you pretty much live to put this game on a burning pike for complaints that have been regurgitated by everyone who holds the same opinion that you do, man. The combat is repetitive, the ammo is too plentiful, the flashlight or inclusion of shoulder-mounted bothers you in some way, the game is ignored by the devs, yadda-yadda-yadda-yadda, bla-bla-bla. Your two cents have been the same cents you've thrown since the beginning of those 10 posts these past 5 years... and here they are thrown again, at the game's birthday no less. Are we trying to cosplay Butch DeLoria from Fallout 3 here, bullying the birthday kid at his own birthday party? So instead, I'll end my side of the argument with this: happy birthay Doom 3. Whether you're a game enjoyed by people, or hated by many... or simply a stepping stone in the IdTech development to pave ways for future games like Quake 4, Prey, Wolfenstein 2009 and subsequent IdTech iterations, you're a part of history. 2 Share this post Link to post
Maple_Leaf_Fall Posted August 23 I love Doom 3 The Lost Mission! It's my favorite campaign! Bravo/Meyers 2024 Make The UAC Great Again! 0 Share this post Link to post
Midway64 Posted August 24 The BFG Edition, nearing it's 15th anniversary: 1 Share this post Link to post