Doom 3 Is Dark

[kristus]

The Dark mod team have announced the first public beta release of their Thief-inspired TC for Doom 3. The mod that is aimed directly at the Thief/TTLG community is a resource pack for making your own maps and campaigns in a similar vein to the classic Thief games.

[iori]

Awesome, about bloody time too.

[pavera]

Haven't kept up with this mod very much, but those screenshots look pretty good. Might have to check it out.

[Creaphis]

Oooooooh.

[Reisal]

Doom with a stealth element? Naaah, can't be...that's turning it into Splinter Cell or Metal Gear. :P

[kristus]

It's a TC in every sense of the word. It's no longer an FPS. It's a Thief (2) clone.

[pavera]

Sold

[grutsch]

So has anyone played it yet?

[Snarboo]

It looks almost nothing like Doom 3, which is an achievement by itself. Being based on Thief is the delicious icing on the cake. :)

[Creaphis]

I'm surprised that they pulled so many things directly from Thief. Copying its gameplay is one thing, but Hammerites are very obviously part of the Thief franchise.

Voice acting is very fanny, and enemies spew their lines too often while fighting.

The swordfighting system is creative, but feels slow and clumsy. If attacking was faster one could chain some proper combos together.

Mantling up on things is a little bit too easy, actually, if I can climb up on burning wall torches with no issue.

It's a shame the rope physics aren't better than they were in the Half Life era.

See, overall, this is such an impressive production that I feel justified in focusing on the negative. This mod doesn't need me to pat it on the head and tell it that it's a good boy and is going to be an astronaut some day. It's very well made, it's confident in what it is, it has already come into its own, and now the team just needs to tweak and polish.

[kristus]

Creaphis said:

The swordfighting system is creative, but feels slow and clumsy. If attacking was faster one could chain some proper combos together.

Isn't that intentional though? The point of the game is that you're supposed to avoid detection as much as possible.

My favorit part is probably picking the locks of the game. :D

[Creaphis]

kristus said:

Isn't that intentional though? The point of the game is that you're supposed to avoid detection as much as possible.

Fair enough, but, heh, I fail at even fighting off a single guard...

I guess I really shouldn't criticize this mod for being a carbon copy of Thief if I then go on to complain about where it differs. Combat was fairly easy in Thief, but I always played on expert difficulty, which disallows violence, so my impression was that our protagonist could deal with opposition, but didn't want to, due to his standards. That's a mindset I expected to have while playing this as well.

kristus said:

My favorit part is probably picking the locks of the game. :D

When I heard they were turning lockpicking into a minigame I was a little leery, but I agree - this system actually works really well.

[kristus]

Creaphis said:

Combat was fairly easy in Thief, but I always played on expert difficulty, which disallows violence, so my impression was that our protagonist could deal with opposition, but didn't want to, due to his standards. That's a mindset I expected to have while playing this as well.

The combat is definitely harder in The Dark Mod. I almost managed to take down two at once in training. But that was just almost. :p They talk in the training about dealing with 3 at once. Which makes me think that they probably got people on the team that can deal with that kind of opposition. And just like in Thief, expert level disallows violence.

[ReFracture]

I don't know if I'll bother reinstalling Doom 3 for this.. I guess I might as well. I haven't really taken the time to play through the Thief games. I've played maybe half of the dark project.

[Ixnatifual]

Doom 3 isn't dark. It's illuminatingly challenged.