So I played XBox Doom 3

[dsm]

Shaviro said:

A second opinion
A third opinion

Hm, I get the impression that they're just trying to make the game seem cooler than it is (this time I am serious), but I'd best wait and see for myself when I get to play the actual game.

"A third opinion" said:
When you fire a shotgun, the gun reacts appropriately, and the sound conveyed by the shotgun blast just sounds powerful. It’s a shotgun and when you fire this beast you’re unloading one big-ass cartridge, which means a lot of gunpowder is going off. The sound effect for the shotgun blast makes it seem like you’re really handling one heavy piece of machinery, instead of a little water pistol that magically hurts the enemies through telekinesis or some other non-visible means of damage.

This I like to read - I hope it's true. I've seen (and heard) the trailers so I have a faint idea of how the shotgun sounds, but trailers are rarely accurate in the sound department.

[Ichor]

What was the intro like?

Did you get to shoot the enemies immediately, or do you have to perform some tasks first like in Half-Life?

What is the savegame feature like? Could you save anywhere at anytime, or is it more limited somehow?

What was the StC time of the map you played?

[Holering]

Deathmatcher said:

Is there a lefthanded-weapon view in the options menu, like in Q2?

I second that question. I prefer to play with my left.

[Arioch]

Lord FlatHead said:

How hard is it to target and hit enemies on the xbox version ? People playing the game with a keyboard/mouse setup have complained about how the per-poly hit detection makes monsters way harder to hit, so I can imagine using an xbox controller is even harder.

I imagine that part of what Vicarious Visions did for the Xbox Doom 3 port is to put in some sort of autoaim system. They may have also greatly simplified the user interfaces on the control panels in-game.

Quoting Shaviro's "third opinion" link:

The levels aren’t quite as big

Sounds like VV has done quite a bit of bowdlerizing, possibly with co-op in mind.

Right now I'm really just looking for an estimation of how cool everything does look.

[Laguna]

Jeez, it's just Doom 3. Quit getting so worked up guys, it's the game we all love, and we all know we'll love it, even with its shortcomings, when it is released.

Relax.

[Deathmatcher]

Some more questions:

-Is there a monster count at the status bar? (Like in Q1/Q2)

-What about an automap?

-What are the control panels in the game like?

-Is there an intermission screen after a map, telling you about how much time it took you, how many enemies/secrets killed/found?

-What are the powerups like? What types of armor/health did you find?

-Are there any resemblances to Doom, concerning textures, architecture (you know what I mean.)?

[Wobbo]

gatewatcher said:

I think it's a bit premature to say Uh-oh at this point. Remember now, this game's been in development for 4 years by some of the best in the buisness. I'm sure they're saving all the surprises for the real game, you know?

Well, i see where your coming from, by Uh-oh i just mean that a lot of the problems people predicted with the game seem to be coming true (linearity, boring puzzles, typical combat etc.)

[Laguna]

Deathmatcher said:

Some more questions:

-Are there any resemblances to Doom, concerning textures, architecture (you know what I mean.)?

Hexagonal tiles.

[DaJuice]

Laguna said:

it's the game we all love, and we all know we'll love it, even with its shortcomings, when it is released.

Speak for yourself. If the game is only good it's not worth my time. It better be freaking amazing.

[Scabbed Angel]

Linguica, you magnificent bastard!

I'll throw in a question: if it was e3_3, I take it the bathroom scene was omitted?

Also, in regards to the gibbing, would you say it was, though not realistic, similar to that of the originals?

[Intel17]

do the shotgun and machine guns have 2 firing modes?

[Deathmatcher]

Laguna said:

Hexagonal tiles.

You're talking about the FLOOR5_3 behind the Cherub in the E3_2003 trailer. Tell me something, I don't know. :-)

[chilvence]

Hmm... was the chaingun pretty slow, like it seems in that trailer?

I personally would like it if it was, as a sort of homage to the original. As long as it rips through things nice and quick.

[Linguica]

Darkstalker said:

Is there a second function to the guns ?

no

Zoost said:

1. How would you rate gameplay from 1 to 10?
2. How scary was it?
3. How does the save system work?
4. How much damage can you take?
5. How doom is it?

1) I dunno, I didn't play it enough to really rate anything. I walked around and shot stuff.
2) Considering I was in a crowded convention center with bright lights and people everywhere and the sounds of bleeps and bloops everywhere, not very. But I can see how it would be very scary if played under the right conditions.
3) No idea
4) Uhh, 100 health points?
5) Hard question to answer, I am tempted to say not Doom at all, because I was playing a level in a detailed and realistic space station (not Doom) slowly moving through pitch black corridors (not Doom) fighting monsters which jump around and are a pain to hit (not Doom) and pressing switches to open doors (ok, Doom). That's not to say that the game won't have "Doomy" stuff in it but the level I played was obviously its own creation and not particularly beholden to the original.

Deathmatcher said:

Is there a lefthanded-weapon view in the options menu, like in Q2?
I mailed fred nilsson and he replied they would try to implement it.

Edit: Just another question: What does the status bar look like? Any resemblances to Doom? (Is there an old-school-head looking left and right?)

1) No idea
2) The status bar is a vaguely high tech thingy with numbers in the corner, nothing like Doom's big status bar with the face etc.

dsm said:

I can't believe you thought I was serious ;-)
Nah, I'd believe they presented a map of the game which is either incomplete (in the xbox version) or a map with few of the really cool features.
I don't like that the zombies gib that easily though - I really hope that it's only on the Xbox and because of performance issues.

Anyways, on to my dumb questions:

1.

Just curious, how do these instructions ...uhh.. work? Is it like Quake 2's field computer which makes a beep whenever you get a new incoming set of instructions and then you call up some device with a screen on it?
Do you see the guy's face as he instructs you or what?

2. Did you find any weapon pickups or are you equipped with all those guns from the start? If you did find weapon pickups, do these guns float in the typical rotating "Quake style"?

3. Any comments on sounds? Did you like the sounds (ambient sounds, monster sounds and weapon sounds)?

4. Are imps straightforward in their behavior (like, they just leap right at you without concern for their safety) or did they somehow seem "smart" in any ways? And a sub-question: were there situations in which they would descend from ceilings/walls to attack you?

5.

Sounds boring - anyway, what exactly did these nuisances do in terms of attack? Do they just leap at you and bite/slash you? How about the shape of their bodies? Did they have eyes? If yes, which colour/how did they look like?
Btw, weird name for a two-headed monster - and I never really expected much from this type of creature, because other descriptions I've read about it gave me the impression of it being pretty boring (we already have the new imp - we don't need another Fiend imitation!).

Edit:

6. Do enemies flinch/react when hit? I noticed in a certain illegal video that zombies seemed to flinch satisfyingly when hit by pistol shots (but they don't stop) - do they still do that?

1) When I was playing I would occasionally get a message over my headset from some guy who I assumed was "Sarge" or whatever, telling me "OK you're going to have to make it through the hyperbolic hygrometry lab and activate the nuclear dickrubber" or whatever. When I pressed the black button on the XBox pad the marine put his gun away and took out a PDA, which he brought up to the screen until it filled it. The PDA shows your "objectives" but other than that it's very simple.
2) Guns don't float and rotate, they just lie there.
3) The sounds seemed nice but it was so noisy around that it was hard to appreciate them.
4) The imps I fought were pretty straightforward in terms of "jump out at me and then throw fireballs and leap at me and scratch me until I shoot them dead." I would be very surprised if they showed any sort of advanced dodging AI, or if they used non-floor geometry non-scriptedly.
5) The weird new monster was kind of small, maybe 3 feet high or something, and it just ran around biting me or whatever until I died. They killed me so they couldn't have been too lame. They didn't really leap that I noticed. Think of them as smaller Demons, I suppose. They were kind of frumpy looking, just big grayish blobs with 2 heads, I didn't have a chance to examine them in depth.
6) Enemies flinch, yes. They don't flinch with every single shot, at least it didn't seem like it.

Vegeta said:

The imps, are they hard to hit? How much hp did they have?
How many ammo can you carry with each weapon?
What about the shotgun, does it suck?
Does the begining look like an hangar?

1) The imps were a fucking pain, especially with the XBox controller, since FPSes just don't work well without a mouse/kb. They didn't have many HP -- a little bit of spray-n-pray did the job, so I guess they're not tanks or anything.
2) The shotgun could hold like 9 or 10 shells at a time or something? I forget exactly. You have to put individual shells into the shotgun to reload it, like in Half-Life. The others I can't remember exactly, I think the machinegun can hold 60 bullets at a time with a max of 300 or something, who knows.
3) The shotgun didn't suck, but it wasn't OMG AWESOME either. It was just a shotgun, you know, weapon #3 that is nice at the beginning of the game but gets supplanted by the bigger guns later on.
4) No the demo level looked nothing like a hangar. But then it wasn't the "beginning" of the game either.

Lord FlatHead said:

How hard is it to target and hit enemies on the xbox version ? People playing the game with a keyboard/mouse setup have complained about how the per-poly hit detection makes monsters way harder to hit, so I can imagine using an xbox controller is even harder.

Real pain in the dick, but then I have never played a console FPS extensively. People say the control is like Halo's, so whatever that means. I didn't really notice the per-poly stuff, it's not something you focus on when you're trying to kill stuff.

Ichor said:

What was the intro like?

Did you get to shoot the enemies immediately, or do you have to perform some tasks first like in Half-Life?

What is the savegame feature like? Could you save anywhere at anytime, or is it more limited somehow?

What was the StC time of the map you played?

1) No intro, just a demo level.
2) Again, it's not the beginning of the game, it plunks you down in some early level.
3) Didn't see the save menu

Deathmatcher said:

Some more questions:

-Is there a monster count at the status bar? (Like in Q1/Q2)

-What about an automap?

-What are the control panels in the game like?

-Is there an intermission screen after a map, telling you about how much time it took you, how many enemies/secrets killed/found?

-What are the powerups like? What types of armor/health did you find?

-Are there any resemblances to Doom, concerning textures, architecture (you know what I mean.)?

1) Doubtful
2) Didn't see anything about a map, so probably no map.
3) The control panels are little screens you walk up to and your crosshair turns into a mouse pointer when it's pointing at the panel. Your gun drops away and you press fire to activate the panel. None of the panels in the demo level were anything more in-depth than "press me and move on" but the potential is there.
4) Didn't see an intermission level but I understand it's supposed to be one long unbroken game like Half-Life.
5) No powerups. There were health packs of course, they looked like health packs. I got some green armor but then all the armor is probably green. OH OH there was a health station like the ones in Half-Life where you go up to it and press use to regain health. I also picked up some "armor shards" which kind of sucked since I wanted more little helmets. Didn't see any blue potions :(

Scabbed Angel said:

Linguica, you magnificent bastard!

I'll throw in a question: if it was e3_3, I take it the bathroom scene was omitted?

Also, in regards to the gibbing, would you say it was, though not realistic, similar to that of the originals?

1) Well I forget what level it is from the leaked alpha, it's the one where there's the room with the weird contraption in the middle... and you go up some stairs and through some passages and down a ramp and through more doors and shoot a ragdoll zombie down stairs...
2) Not really, no. In the original Doom, you gibbed a trooper and you got this wonderful animation of the body just coming apart into slop and settling in a big smooshy pile. In Doom 3 you gib an enemy and the flesh just kind of vaporizes, a few small organ bits fly out, and the skeleton collapses. It's an impressive effect but not as viscerally satisfying.

chilvence said:

Hmm... was the chaingun pretty slow, like it seems in that trailer?

I personally would like it if it was, as a sort of homage to the original. As long as it rips through things nice and quick.

Yes the chaingun was pretty slow, it didn't fire immediately but instead has to "wind up" like the Q2 chaingun. Once it gets going it seems pretty speedy though.

[Alientank]

Did you see any cacodemons :) I really wanna see what the new cacos look like.

[Arioch]

Doubtful. It's a demo, and it was only a portion of one level early on in the game.

[Scabbed Angel]

Alientank said:

Did you see any cacodemons :) I really wanna see what the new cacos look like.

I'm pretty sure he said he only saw imps, zombies, and an anonymous gray blob, the later shortly before his untimely demise.

[Job]

Did you see any trites, either when you were playing or if someoen else was? I've always wondered if they would be an effective (read: not stupid) enemy.

[Scabbed Angel]

Scabbed Angel said:

I'm pretty sure he said he only saw imps, zombies, and an anonymous gray blob, the later shortly before his untimely demise.

[S1lent]

Ya, I can't wait to see what all the new monsters look like. I saw teh scetch of the new MasterMind and it looks pretty awesome. That and I want to see the CyberDemon....or at least I HOPE they added it in there.

[Scabbed Angel]

I'm sure its been mentioned somewhere that it definately is. I recall reading that it may be a boss though.

[Linguica]

Of course there's a Cyberdemon, how could they make Doom 3 and not have a Cyberdemon. That would be heresy.

[cloud4me]

I'm a little bit disappointed with the comments of Linguica though he played very little portion of full game. I hope full game will turn out to be a really awesome experience and PC version much better than Xbox version.

[SirTimberWolf]

just like you cant have doom w/o teh caco =p

[Holering]

Whoa I didn't think you were really gonna answer so many questions. I'm truly grateful. Thanks (even though they weren't my questions I would've asked the same questions anyways).

[iori]

cloud4me said:

I'm a little bit disappointed with the comments of Linguica though he played very little portion of full game. I hope full game will turn out to be a really awesome experience and PC version much better than Xbox version.

I think he looked at it with an objective point of view, something one wouldnt expect from a member of the games community. Not 'OMG it RoXXorZ beCuZ 1tS do0m' or some shit.

heh, no questions from me..

[outrrealm]

"Blade II" style gibbing sounds horrible. I want the gory mess!!

[dsm]

4. How much damage can you take?

4) Uhh, 100 health points?

I think he was curious as to how damaging to your health attacks are - like can a zombie kill you in seconds flat if you let it or...?

1) When I was playing I would occasionally get a message over my headset from some guy who I assumed was "Sarge" or whatever, telling me "OK you're going to have to make it through the hyperbolic hygrometry lab and activate the nuclear dickrubber" or whatever. When I pressed the black button on the XBox pad the marine put his gun away and took out a PDA, which he brought up to the screen until it filled it. The PDA shows your "objectives" but other than that it's very simple.
2) Guns don't float and rotate, they just lie there.
3) The sounds seemed nice but it was so noisy around that it was hard to appreciate them.
4) The imps I fought were pretty straightforward in terms of "jump out at me and then throw fireballs and leap at me and scratch me until I shoot them dead." I would be very surprised if they showed any sort of advanced dodging AI, or if they used non-floor geometry non-scriptedly.
5) The weird new monster was kind of small, maybe 3 feet high or something, and it just ran around biting me or whatever until I died. They killed me so they couldn't have been too lame. They didn't really leap that I noticed. Think of them as smaller Demons, I suppose. They were kind of frumpy looking, just big grayish blobs with 2 heads, I didn't have a chance to examine them in depth.
6) Enemies flinch, yes. They don't flinch with every single shot, at least it didn't seem like it.

1. Hm, sounds annoying that you just get the message showed down your throat. I'd have appreciated that there would be a soft, discreet beep and then you'd just have to call up the PDA at the press of a key and hear the instructions.
It'd be a pain in the ass if instructions came in during a firefight - you would be too concerned with gunning down nasties to hear a word "Sarge" would say to you.

2. Ah, that's nice to hear. Apparently, they only do the floating thing in MP.

4. In the 2003 trailer, I saw a scene in which an imp leapt sideways as if to dodge machinegun fire - this let me to believe that they would do some dodging, but apparently, that was just some sort of scripted event, or it's just the current version of the Xbox game that hasn' fully implemented the ai/general behavior scripting yet.

1) Well I forget what level it is from the leaked alpha, it's the one where there's the room with the weird contraption in the middle... and you go up some stairs and through some passages and down a ramp and through more doors and shoot a ragdoll zombie down stairs...
2) Not really, no. In the original Doom, you gibbed a trooper and you got this wonderful animation of the body just coming apart into slop and settling in a big smooshy pile. In Doom 3 you gib an enemy and the flesh just kind of vaporizes, a few small organ bits fly out, and the skeleton collapses. It's an impressive effect but not as viscerally satisfying.

1. Hmm, that sounds like the level with the "I smell fear" cutscene. Was that cutscene removed? Were there any Commandos? (Yes I know you only said "zombies and imps" - but the damnest thing is that people keep calling possessed soldiers "zombies" so that half the time when people say "zombies", I don't have a fucking clue what exactly they're talking about).

2. So I gathered from the trailer. I hope it looks meatier in the PC version.

[Zoost]

Some pictures here http://www.planetdoom.com/misc/e32004.shtml

I like this one with the chaingun (i think). Nice.

[Lectrix]

DSM, just think of metal gear solid and sarge is on your codec. ;D