Doom 3 was NEVER "impressive" graphically, or even above-average graphically.

[Mogul]

Akira1364 said:

title

Moron alert. D3's art direction remains a high water mark of the industry.

[Shane]

Mogul said:

Moron alert. D3's art direction remains a high water mark of the industry.

If there's anything Id have shown us, it's that they know how to make some impressive engines.

[Mogul]

You're right, but it's the engines' power combined with incredible art and design that makes the image sing. As far as sci-fi settings go, nobody even comes close to Kenneth Scott's work. His best work to date is probably Rage, but he did an incredible job with D3 as well. Every few years, I play through it purely for its visual style.

He even managed to make a Halo game look cool, after over a decade of the series displaying some of the blandest art direction in the AAA industry.

[Mogul]

Akira1364 said:

I ... owned a PC at the time that was easily able to play it at max settings.

Fucking lies. Get off my lawn.

[Koko Ricky]

Keep in mind that art direction and powerful engine are two different concepts. Doom 3 didn't fully succeed in either category. Its engine was extremely restrictive, but produced some very specifically beautiful results. The art direction was sometimes bland or downright goofy (such as the cacodemon, yuck!), but much of it--in particular the environments and the designs of some of the more ghoulish enemies--is visually arresting and still stands out today.

[Orchid87]

Mogul said:

You're right, but it's the engines' power combined with incredible art and design that makes the image sing. As far as sci-fi settings go, nobody even comes close to Kenneth Scott's work. His best work to date is probably Rage, but he did an incredible job with D3 as well. Every few years, I play through it purely for its visual style.

He even managed to make a Halo game look cool, after over a decade of the series displaying some of the blandest art direction in the AAA industry.

LOL exactly my thoughts about Kenneth Scott and Halo games! I believe Mr. Scott is inspired by japanese manga artists somewhat. His marine armor design was a bit pared back in the actual game but still impressive.


As on the topic - Half-Life 2 had some impressive character models and a couple of pretty shaders but the environments themselves were very boxy and undetailed. Even Quake 3 maps had more pretty curves. Doom 3 on the other hand was 1) extremely detailed 2) had impressive lighting. There were couple of rough edges on the models and some textures were lower res but that's it. Also Doom 3 had more realistic looking ragdolls than Half-Life 2. Just watch any of "that" videos online where an actual killing is happening. You'll see. Too bad id made the corpses desintegrate fast.

[Average]

I remember drooling over the screenshots in the PC mags during the development and imminent release of the game. I just couldn't believe that a game could look that good and run on a real-world computer. Though I hoped and prayed that it would run on my machine I felt like it was all pre-sales hype and that it would make my computer explode. Then the spec requirements were announced. I was agog. Still, couldn't bring myself to believe it though...

Then, when it came out, I bought it, installed it and played it. I can't remember my specs but they were certainly pretty average for the time. The frame rate was as smooth as butter, ran at 1024x768 with high settings. I was stunned. Never before or since have I played a game that impressed me so much with its graphics. Those shadows... *slurp*

[Astral-Doomer]

The game looked stunning to me, even with sub-par settings. I know it gets flake for not being as revolutionary as people make it out to be(Graphics-wise). I remember people comparing it to half-life 2 at the time & people would drag on about how it's graphics engine isn't as sophisticated as doom's, yet it looks way better. ;-/

I say, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Doom 3 to me, looked dark & gritty with a realistic touch. It conveyed a very eerie feeling, that not many games can execute very well. Yeah, the game wasn't perfect, but it did a damn good job with it's overall presentation. :-)

Perfected doom 3, is a lovely mod which addresses a lot in terms of game-play & graphics. V7, which is on the horizon, will include a better use for stamina(FEAR-like, adrenaline-rush), extra levels probably(Mastermind), support for multi-player & a slew of other stuff(http://www.moddb.com/mods/perfected-doom-3-version-500). B-)

[VGames]

Hey hey thanks for the publicity. Version 7 is gonna rock but the adrenaline slow mo idea has been axed since I'll be expanding PD3 to ROE. I didn't want to take away from the features that are in ROE for the sake of adding a gimmick to Doom 3 that was never really intended gameplay wise. But yeah everything else will be there. The spider mastermind boss battle will be epic. Thank u for the kind words and support.

I think Doom 3 was beautiful and still is. It did and still looked better then HL2. HL2 wasn't sorry looking by any means. It just had a color scheme that was less attractive to me and the use of light and shadow didn't blow me away like Doom 3. It did have more outdoor daytime scenes but it was designed for that. Had the idtech 4 engine been designed for that too it would have looked much better. Doom 3 was gorgeous.

[Doomkid]

The only issue I ever had was the blocky heads/lost souls and sometimes odd skin texturing. I didn't even notice those things my first time, though..

Buckshot said:

while Doom 3 didn't match the outdoor aspect... the indoor atmosphere and engine fx were just light years ahead of all 3 of them.

Pretty much this!

[LittleInferno]

Let's beat it; you just had high expectations. :p

[Avoozl]

Well it was on Mars and there probably wasn't much variation would could be done.

[SavageCorona]

Shane said:

If there's anything Id have shown us, it's that they know how to make some impressive engines.

Well only four of them.

[VGamingJunkie]

While Doom 3 had impressive shadow effects, Half-Life 2 certainly had impressive lighting effects in its own right such as refractions and reflections. I'd also consider Half-Life 2 as having the better art direction as well as having more relatively open environments as opposed to Doom 3 that was restricted to more corridor environments.

[Gzegzolka]

No, Doom3 was impressive graphically. Shooting was weak, but graphic was awesome. I used to play D3 just to watch how those giant machines works and try to watch and read every monitor in game.

[Avoozl]

Doom 3's shooting side was no where near as weak as the shooting side in Half Life 2 was.

[BaronOfStuff]

I thought the overall gunplay in Doom 3 was actually pretty good. The firing sounds were generally piss-poor though, I'll say that much.

[Tritnew]

DOOM 3 was Impressive back In the day, but compared to Half-Life 2 and other games nowadays, It makes It look like shit. I didn't like how the Jumpscares got repeated, the Weapons sounded piss-poor, and some of the Monster Designs and overall replayablity Isn't enough for Me to get back to It. Other then that, It was Impressive.

[SavageCorona]

The SSG and chaingun sounded pretty alright. I also like the big clunky sound of the regular SG.

[Tritnew]

Eh, the Chaingun didn't sound as heavy and the Shotgun didn't sound too beefy, the Super Shotgun on the other hand has to be the best sound for a Weapon In the game.

[Koko Ricky]

One thing I didn't like was that Doom 3's Martian facilities only hinted at the social aspect of things (such as the mess hall with the arcade cabinets) when I'm sure many of us were drooling for something more along the lines of "Total Recall." Doom 3: Phobos seems to be taking care of that.

[SavageCorona]

I'm not familiar with Total Recall. What would that be like?

[Tritnew]

SavageCorona said:

I'm not familiar with Total Recall. What would that be like?

It honestly probably wouldn't even fit, I don't see DOOM 3 being a Total Recall kinda thing.

EDIT: In a joking sense, that Girl who turns Into a Lost Soul most likely would have three breasts Instead of two, and shit like that.

[SavageCorona]

I think he meant the setting not the whole theme being mashed with the Doom theme.

[Tritnew]

SavageCorona said:

I think he meant the setting not the whole theme being mashed with the Doom theme.

Ah, Eitherway. I don't see the setting being related to Total Recall, It sort of gives off a Aliens setting WAY more.

[SavageCorona]

He means the way the buildings are laid out like a real place

[CapNapalm]

Are you kidding me? The lighting in DooM 3 was amaazing for its time. The entire beginning was highly atmospheric thanks in no small part to its graphics at the time.

The gameplay quickly revealed some flaws about a 1/4 into the game but it was still alot better than a lot of people like to pretend it was.

[Tritnew]

CapNapalm said:

Are you kidding me? The lighting in DooM 3 was amaazing for its time. The entire beginning was highly atmospheric thanks in no small part to its graphics at the time.

The gameplay quickly revealed some flaws about a 1/4 into the game but it was still alot better than a lot of people like to pretend it was.

Only problem was the fact If You got close to the object glowing It'll be completely blurry. But eitherway, I enjoyed DOOM 3 but... Just, Ugh.

[Orchid87]

Tritnew said:

DOOM 3 was Impressive back In the day, but compared to Half-Life 2 and other games nowadays, It makes It look like shit. I didn't like how the Jumpscares got repeated, the Weapons sounded piss-poor, and some of the Monster Designs and overall replayablity Isn't enough for Me to get back to It. Other then that, It was Impressive.

Half-Life 2 looked average ten years ago save for some nice facial animations and looks like complete shit nowadays. Doom 3 aged MUCH better.

[Orchid87]

Look for the detail on those alien things. Half-Life 2 couldn't do that. The Citadel was all boxy.

Also Doom 3 per-pixel lighting looks really impressive in motion while HL2 was all ancient quake 1 era lightmap stuff.