Jump to content
Search In
  • More options...
Find results that contain...
Find results in...
Koko Ricky

Thoughts on "Doom 3" after much time has passed

Recommended Posts

GoatLord said:

• Slow player speed has become painfully apparent. Tried rushing past a baron only to get scratched to death. The ability to doge both enemy attacks and the enemies themselves was such a huge part of the original games.


This is the only way in which BFG Edition is anything resembling 'challenging', coupled with the claustrophonic environments. It's almost like the devs didn't want you to dodge.

Share this post


Link to post
GoatLord said:

What is up with the baron's fireball attack? Numerous times I've watched it go right past me--not nick me, but straight up go past my body--only to somehow be hit by it anyway, and lose mounds of health, despite being at nearly full armor.

Splash damage? Many projectile types in Doom 3 have splash damage, although the blast radius is often too small to notice straightaway. Hellknight's fireball is a notable exception: it really hurts to be too close when it detonates.

GoatLord said:

Medikits in hell? It's a good throwback element.

Human supplies were left there by science teams.

GoatLord said:

I've started to really notice how little gore there is in this game. When I shoot enemies, I never see any blood spraying or even blood decals. I don't know if it's too subtle or too dark, but I rarely feel like I'm really damaging baddies.

I remember there being a bug in BFG Edition involving decals. But it was fixed in a patch.

Blood spurts, on the other hand, always behaved a little weird. The particle effect itself is rather nice, but it works differently depending on its spawning cause. In short, when you're shooting a damageable object, an assigned special effect emits less particles than it should. I always thought it was a hack to increase performance during shootouts.

Share this post


Link to post

I finally made it to the Cyberdemon. I'm a little shocked at how short Hell was, despite already having known that it's a very small part of the game's length. I was having a bit of trouble and just as I started to figure out how to make some progress, I thought, "Fuck it, this sucks." Tiny little battleground and a boss that barely feels threatening. Totally underwhelming. I'm really disappointed and found the ROE boss to be a lot more fun.

Share this post


Link to post

still thumbs up to ID, ID-tech 4 is the only engine i have seen next to the source engine from valve that survives time in a way no other engine visually could.


Doom 3 did look better. I liked the grittier-realistic game-play of Doom 3. The PDA was a brilliant idea, except you didn't even need it. This made the game feel really rushed, like some development disaster had occurred or something. Many games have actually been copying Doom 3 when your character is near death (many other elements are copied too).

Think Half Life 2 was a fun game and it had a higher frame-rate. Still haven't beat it after all these years. It's the best game to accompany Doom 3.

Unfortunately Doom 3 was built for Geforce 3 hardware (DirectX 8-first card with shaders) and came out really late when DirectX 9 hardware had been out a while; it's only saving grace was its cinematic visuals (even the sound sucked). Don't think everyone liked the dry game-play.

Far Cry was a better game than both Half Life 2 and Doom 3 IMO, but it also looked on par with Doom 3 (maybe better) with DirectX 9 graphics (ran the same speed as Doom 3 on a Radeon 9700 Pro with max settings, no anti-aliasing and 2x anisotropic filtering).

Overall I think 2004 was still the best year of first person shooters. Then again I haven't played any FPS since Crysis; and for some reason I just didn't enjoy that game at all. Hopefully Half Life 3 will come out with Doom 4 next year (with Trent Reznor doing sound effects this time).

Share this post


Link to post

I hated Doom 3 when it first came out. I felt it was such an insult to the originals I didn't want to bother playing it at all. The artwork was bad, the engine was moody yet ugly (the plastic shine on everything), the map design was uninspired, the weapons had no character or feeling...

I finally finished it about a year ago. It's a good game on it's own merits. It should not have been called Doom though.

Share this post


Link to post

I disagree with everything you said. There's plenty of Doom in it, much more than in the likes of Serious Sam or Painkiller (which I despise)

Share this post


Link to post
Holering said:

The PDA was a brilliant idea, except you didn't even need it.


You need the PDA to get door codes and security clearance at several points in the game.

Share this post


Link to post

Although, i find the shotgun to be (especially throughout the first half) a great weapon that usually blows away all those idiotic "surprise" imps in one shot as well as can even kill a commando in one shot close enough.

The chainsaw is definitely too advantageous throughout the game and was my primary weapon of choice because i got to get upclose and can surf thru the game very fast, especially against non ranged enemies (pinky, spiders, cherubs, zombies, lost souls, blah blah)

Alot of the Hellish rendering was fairly dull and not brilliant like earlier doom, just seemed like alot of magma, oranges, and grays.

Monsters were cool in there own design, but alot of the new designs were not scary, like the hell knight and that spider "boss".. Where the fuck was the spider mastermind??? I guess the "Concept Art" shows it was designed, but unused.

Music definitely was not the awesome thrash, but rather yeah some lame repetitive nu-metal hahahaha. LET THE BODIES HIT THE FLOORRRRR hahahha.

Overall Doom 3 was way better in relation to Doom than the fucking Doom film, I think we can all agree there lololol.

Share this post


Link to post

The film, of which I've only seen segments, should have been the first truly great video-game-to-movie adaptation, but instead it was generic and boneheaded. So yeah, Doom 3 is miles ahead in terms of entertainment value if we're going to compare the two.

I have to admit, the shotgun was handy for dispatching a few key enemies at point blank range. But it was also repetitive and lame, because so often gameplay is reduced to bum rushing imps and crowning them as they slowly spawn. Where's the element of surprise or threat in that?

Don't think I used the chainsaw but once or twice in the entire game. I'm not sure why, but I never had any desire to. It's like I forgot I even had it. I like the presence of chainsaw wielding zombies. That was actually kind of scary.

Really wish they had scaled back on the severe shaking, blurring and reddening of the screen when you're injured. Seems like half the time I was dying not because I was being overwhelmed by an enemy, but because the screen was so goddamn obscured by the effects that I lost my bearings instantly.

The fact that you arrive in Hell with no weapons kinda reminded me of starting a new episode in the original Doom. That was cool. Added an element of challenge. It's just too bad Hell looks so generic and had utterly no distinct architecture.

Can anyone shed some light on the fact that my armor very rarely dipped below 100%, even when being pummeled by massive attacks?

Share this post


Link to post
DooM_RO said:

It WAS advanced. At the time, it was the best-looking game ever made, and one of the most atmospheric too, much better than Half Life 2 in every regard except animations. In retrospect, I keep wondering why people thought HL2 was better than Doom 3. It sure had its fair share of flaws.

I know this is kind of an old post, but I must've missed it before. I have to say, I think you're wrong. Doom 3 might've been better technically, but HL2 was easily the more impressive game in 2004. Who cares if you have better graphics if you can't see shit and rarely design anything more complex than shitty corridor -> room -> corridor layouts? HL2 has actual environments, ones that were damn impressive at the time, and at least gave the illusion of freedom. The most interesting looking non-hell areas in Doom 3 require you to "run" through them like a madman because you have limited air, it's lame. All Doom 3 really had going for it were the shadows.

HL2's definitely the more atmospheric game to me, too. That setting just works for me, it's Earth post-dimensional invasion, and until magical hero scientist guy comes along to (kind of) save the world, it depicts it somewhat realistically. I love that it's a bright apocalyptic game, the contrast is awesome. Doom 3's storytelling was kind of cool with the PDAs, definitely better than locking you in a room with NPCs, except half of them just ramble on for too long in a way that doesn't build on the story at all and are just an excuse to give you locker codes (which were a horrible replacement for sticking weapons/ammos off the main path in levels).

Share this post


Link to post

I found HL2 to be quite duller though and the gunplay felt weak, the only thing I found good about it was the gimmicky ragdoll physics and puzzles which utilized it.

Share this post


Link to post
Dragonsbrethren said:

I know this is kind of an old post, but I must've missed it before. I have to say, I think you're wrong. Doom 3 might've been better technically, but HL2 was easily the more impressive game in 2004. Who cares if you have better graphics if you can't see shit and rarely design anything more complex than shitty corridor -> room -> corridor layouts? HL2 has actual environments, ones that were damn impressive at the time, and at least gave the illusion of freedom. The most interesting looking non-hell areas in Doom 3 require you to "run" through them like a madman because you have limited air, it's lame. All Doom 3 really had going for it were the shadows.

HL2's definitely the more atmospheric game to me, too. That setting just works for me, it's Earth post-dimensional invasion, and until magical hero scientist guy comes along to (kind of) save the world, it depicts it somewhat realistically. I love that it's a bright apocalyptic game, the contrast is awesome. Doom 3's storytelling was kind of cool with the PDAs, definitely better than locking you in a room with NPCs, except half of them just ramble on for too long in a way that doesn't build on the story at all and are just an excuse to give you locker codes (which were a horrible replacement for sticking weapons/ammos off the main path in levels).


Maybe you should play Doom 3 again. There is a lot more to it than meets the eye and there is a lot more Doom in it than you realize, especially when it comes to environment design which is still unmatched.

Share this post


Link to post
DooM_RO said:

Have fun with HL2's illusory freedom then.

Nah, I'm just gonna have fun playing Doom instead of a wanna-be scary corridor shooter that shares its name.

Share this post


Link to post

I can see how HL2 trumped Doom3 in many cases, but what really got to me was how awful a sequel it was to Half-Life 1. Gone was the imaginative monster cast with it's awesome variety. They were replaced with a wide array of face-hugging monsters. Even the mines flew in your face. Almost as bad was that they replaced the ominous and subtle storytelling of the first game with characters and story straight out of a disney picture written for 13 year olds.

"Hay I'm Alyx and I have built a deus ex mach...err I mean a dog robot. He will come about every time the writers don't know how to get us out of a jam!"

Share this post


Link to post
Shaviro said:

I can see how HL2 trumped Doom3 in many cases, but what really got to me was how awful a sequel it was to Half-Life 1. Gone was the imaginative monster cast with it's awesome variety. They were replaced with a wide array of face-hugging monsters. Even the mines flew in your face. Almost as bad was that they replaced the ominous and subtle storytelling of the first game with characters and story straight out of a disney picture written for 13 year olds.

"Hay I'm Alyx and I have built a deus ex mach...err I mean a dog robot. He will come about every time the writers don't know how to get us out of a jam!"


Yeah, I never understood why people liked Alyx. She's so god damn annoying. Black Mesa is far superior to HL2.

Share this post


Link to post

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×