Noclip Documentary: DOOM Resurrected

[TAPETRVE]

As much as they're hyping up the tongue-in-cheek angle in this video, in the game itself it is all relatively subdued. I mean, this isn't Saints Row's or Blood Dragon's "Everyone look, we did a funny!" kind of juvenile cheese. If anything, it has far more in common with the dry wit of the Portal series. Sadly, while the worldbuilding has said wit in spades, it doesn't really apply to the actual narrative, which is more dry than witty.

And yes, the Hell levels are disappointingly un-hellish in my opinion. I can live with the idea that Doomslayer's roaring rampage of revenge has turned Hell into a barren, postapocalyptic wasteland, but the cartoony shapes and proportions of Hell's architecture are more reminiscent of something like Darksiders, and imho clashing with the rest of the game.

Ironically, Portal 2 actually went on to hit some seriously surreal and downright unsettling notes in the middle. If DOOM's hell was anywhere near as creepy as Old Aperture (and had a similarly amazing opening theme), there would have been a nice and much-needed contrast to the precursory balls-to-the-wallness.

[MusicallyInspired]

DooM_RO said:

It's the most linear level in the game.

Nothing wrong with a little linearity. Argent Tower was also linear. That was a fun trip to the top.

bedbug182 said:

Again, I'm really liking this documentary.
What's being described in the second part about how they approached the story to be tongue in cheek and self aware is very reminiscent of how the likes of Duke Nukem plays out its story.
Duke's little one liners and his OTT appearance and attitude completely downplay any seriousness that the story has and makes the game a lot more laid back and fun.
I think this take on the events of DOOM make it what it is ,its almost the flip side of what DOOM 3 was.
Though DOOM 2016 is much more subtle in its approach than Duke , but this also allows ease to create those darker moments when they are called upon.
its a very good balance.

I don't 100% agree with the note about Duke. I look at Duke3D as mostly serious, but it's the character of Duke alone that makes it funny. Nothing else about the game is really funny save for the easter eggs. The story is plausible. That is, if aliens existed, the things they did in the game would make sense even for a serious movie. Sometimes they look a bit over the top, but they weren't meant to be funny looking. The humour comes in when you plop a larger-than-life hero with attitude taking them all on like it's nothing into the mix. I always looked at it as a serious world; a rated R action movie synopsis, where the stark contrast of Duke's character is what transforms it and gives weight to all his actions.

DNF is a completely different story. The whole world is a parody and I think the game suffered for it and downplayed Duke's contrast. They completely missed what made Duke3D great.

[PizzaGuy]

I don't 100% agree with the note about Duke. I look at Duke3D as mostly serious, but it's the character of Duke alone that makes it funny. Nothing else about the game is really funny save for the easter eggs. The story is plausible. That is, if aliens existed, the things they did in the game would make sense even for a serious movie. Sometimes they look a bit over the top, but they weren't meant to be funny looking. The humour comes in when you plop a larger-than-life hero with attitude taking them all on like it's nothing into the mix. I always looked at it as a serious world; a rated R action movie synopsis, where the stark contrast of Duke's character is what transforms it and gives weight to all his actions.

DNF is a completely different story. The whole world is a parody and I think the game suffered for it and downplayed . They completely missed what made Duke3D great.
[/quote]

I hadn't thought of it that way , Duke does give the game most of its comedy charm.
Though you could argue that Duke3D is a parody of DOOM in that respect.

DNF was the disappointment of 2011, no idea how they got it so wrong.

Totally messed up the 'quote' there , sorry folks

[Varis Alpha]

i dunno, the assault troopers in Duke Nukem 3D are pretty goofy looking (some of them being positioned on toilets and clearly doing their business there), the pig cops deliberately pokes fun at how corrupt the police force can be, and the fat commanders straight-up just shoots rockets from their assholes. that last one cannot have been designed without the team thinking it was a hilarious joke.

Duke 3D does have a surprisingly serious tone in some cases though, mostly thanks to how atmospheric the music is. songs like Space Storm, Sneaky Snake, Gloom and Plasma gives the game a much welcome douse of atmosphere alongside the witty oneliners and gibs flying everywhere. the reputation of the character, machoism and humor definitely overshadows a lot of those more serious elements though, like how Doom's tongue-in-cheek text crawls and difficulty setting names overshadows the bits that were meant to be scary.

[Bauul]

mammajamma said:

Given what albums Romero gave Prince to make the original Doom soundtrack with, Doom was probably meant to evoke a thrash metal mentality the whole time (e.g. Metallica, Slayer, S.O.D.) with some groove (Pantera) and grunge (Alice In Chains) thrown in, which was most likely in tune with the tastes of the average American metalhead in the early 90's.

That's exactly the point. Original Doom's badass Thrash vibes were tapered with a more subdued and melancholy Grunge and Groove vibe, whereas Doom 2016 doesn't.

I personally never found the original Doom as "hell yeah kick ass!" as I think many people do. For example, the soundtracks most burned into my memory are the ambient, moody ones, not the Thrash tracks.

I love old Doom's more oppressive atmosphere, but I also wouldn't want that in Doom 2016. I genuinely don't think it would have been possible to try to create something oppressive and unsettling while maintaining the gameplay they did. Although it's not like Doom 2016 is a comedy: it's played perfectly straight.

[snapshot]

Part 3.

[JohnnyTheWolf]

Even though it might have ended up being Metro 2033/RAGE: Hell on Earth, Doom 4 looks like it could have been an interesting game. Post-apocalyptic settings may be fairly common in games nowadays, but it would have been something unique for the Doom franchise. Anything to get away from the hackneyed Martian setting... Also, that Imp model is so much cooler and creepier than its Doom 2016 counterpart.

[snapshot]

It looks like a Strogg, sorta.

[Gez]

Duke is also a very cheesy setting, especially if you remember the platform games before.

It's a setting where a mad scientist creates bunny bots, and where you get invaded by aliens calling themselves "Rigelatins". Duke himself is not just a big tough action hero, he's also a complete dork -- he worries about all these invasions making him too late to watch Oprah, and he constantly quotes from actions movies. Yeah, stuff like "hail to the king, baby" or "I'm here to kick ass and chew bubblegum, and I'm all out of bubblegum" are not Duke's own witticisms (resp. Army of Darkness and They Live).

Viscra Maelstrom said:

the pig cops deliberately pokes fun at how corrupt the police force can be

My favorite part is how their LAPD uniforms are mutated into LARD.

[MusicallyInspired]

But it's all completely serious and makes sense in the game world. And it treats it seriously (again, no DNF). I'd say Duke was largely reimagined for Duke3D, though. It was all cheese in 1 and 2 for sure, and there's no doubt they carried over his narcicism and self-worship from Duke Nukem 2 and dialed it up to eleven, but beyond that the game world of Duke3D is taken more seriously than either Duke 1 and 2.

[Touchdown]

40oz said:

That "atmosphere" you're referring to that Monster Condo and Phobos Lab evokes is all subjective interpretation. Show me a video of someone being spooked by those maps' dark oppressive ambience and I will show you three more videos of someone mercilessly plowing through the map with reckless abandon.

DooM_RO said:

I disagree, Doom 2016 still has plenty of quiet moments in nearly every level.

Quasar said:

I think there's still more of that in the new Doom than it's getting credit for. I found the destroyed Argent Facility pretty creepy looking and atmospheric. It looked like Hell on Mars, quite literally.

Also as far as Hell being undefeatable, while the Doom Slayer certainly wrecked havoc on it for an untold amount of time, they *did* drop a ceiling on him, and made a pretty big come-back while he was trapped and not able to kill.

It's not so much that I think DOOM should be spooky. But it should be atmospheric. Even an experiment I did with playing Catacombs music from Diablo in the background did a lot to help the vibe of the new game in my eyes. Sure DOOM4 has ambience when you're not fighting... but that's about it. The 'quiet' moments are just coffee breaks from the action, not something that builds the atmosphere. As for the Argent Facility reprise, I agree with the point but let's be honest - it's a lone exception.

It's interesting that now more people than ever buy into the idea that DOOM is all about being an unstoppable killing machine. Especially that both DOOM and DOOM2 had A TON of situations that were intimidating, basically saying 'fuck you' to the player. DOOM4 doesn't do that. You're looking for a fight whereas before you were looking to survive. "The only way out is through." You're not there because you like it, you're there because you have no choice.

I thought that the Fight Like Hell trailer really captured that: the Doomguy is badass but he's still getting his ass kicked in every single fight. He's not just breezing through it, rejoicing at the sight of demonic guts flying around. He's literally doing everything he possibly can to stay alive, including being relentless. He's aggressive... not because he enjoys slaughtering demons but because that's the only way he can survive. That fits with the gameplay but the lore pushes it too far.

Also, regarding the third video. Hugo Martin once again says a whole lot of stuff I completely disagree with but the one I want to mention is when he says that they want you to smile when something ridiculous happens. Funny because every time something ridiculous happens in DOOM4 I'm not smiling - those are the moments where I go like "seriously? why did you have to screw it up?" Apparently just me though.

[doom_is_great]

Bauul said:

That's exactly the point. Original Doom's badass Thrash vibes were tapered with a more subdued and melancholy Grunge and Groove vibe, whereas Doom 2016 doesn't.

I personally never found the original Doom as "hell yeah kick ass!" as I think many people do. For example, the soundtracks most burned into my memory are the ambient, moody ones, not the Thrash tracks.

Definitely. Sign of Evil is by far one of the more memorable tracks from the original Doom. To me, it's memorable because it gives off that sense and feeling of doom, that no matter what you do, the demons are going win, which is what happened at the end of episode one anyway. Even after defeating "the big badasses" or the hell barons, you die anyway and go to hell.

[MusicallyInspired]

Touchdown said:

Apparently just me though.

Yep. Well, you and a few others.

I mean, your opinion is valid. Maybe it's just because I had absolutely zero expectations for Doom 4 judging from its mid-development reboot, which I likened to DNF's development reboot(s) which ended horribly. I wasn't looking forward to anything. Right into the MP beta. The trailers were cool with all the violence and glory kills (both the ones you perform and the ones done to you) but I wasn't wowed. It wasn't until the release and the demo that I discovered something I really enjoyed. Actually playing it was my wow moment. I like the game the way it is. I don't have any dogs in the fight of what Doom should be, but I enjoyed what Doom 4 turned out to be and I wouldn't want anything about it as it is now to change. I do hope a sequel is not just a repeat without taking it further (in the same way that Doom II was).

[JohnnyTheWolf]

DMGUYDZ64 said:

It looks like a Strogg, sorta.

Stroggs are cool. I miss them. Especially their Quake II incarnation - I did not feel like Quake IV did them justice.

[Touchdown]

By the way, I would also like to say that I'm impressed by the fact that Bethesda has actually allowed those series, especially the first episode, to exist. I was sure they'd never let anyone from id talk about DOOM4 1.0. That was a huge episode in id's history that probably almost killed the company and the fact that id folks could reveal some of the events from that time is really surprising. Just wish we had more footage from the version - they teased it and delivered only like 30sec or so.

[Koko Ricky]

Doom 4 1.0 looked pretty awesome, but I can tell that it wasn't going to be the Hell on Earth that the fans want. I mean first of all, not all fans want Earth to be a setting for a Doom game, as many associate it primarily with Mars, even though the original game utilizes Phobos and Deimos. I liked how serious it looked, and those early demons had an interesting design. But yeah, as they said in the doc, it didn't really feel like Doom.

Despite that, I would really like to see id try their hand at an Earth-based setting again. They clearly need to go in a different direction than Doom 4 1.0, both tonally and architecturally, but dammit, it can work!

[Edward850]

Less arguing about "but it's not MY Doom", more 3rd episode posting:

Edit: Bah, DMGUYDZ64 already posted it. It's kind of hard to spot in the deluge (next time use an embed, not a URL? :V).

[snapshot]

Oops lol.

[Trycon]

I liked the chess segment.

[DooM_RO]

GoatLord said:

Doom 4 1.0 looked pretty awesome, but I can tell that it wasn't going to be the Hell on Earth that the fans want. I mean first of all, not all fans want Earth to be a setting for a Doom game, as many associate it primarily with Mars, even though the original game utilizes Phobos and Deimos. I liked how serious it looked, and those early demons had an interesting design. But yeah, as they said in the doc, it didn't really feel like Doom.

Despite that, I would really like to see id try their hand at an Earth-based setting again. They clearly need to go in a different direction than Doom 4 1.0, both tonally and architecturally, but dammit, it can work!

It can work if it's only for a few levels.

[JohnnyTheWolf]

GoatLord said:

But yeah, as they said in the doc, it didn't really feel like Doom.

That is such a weak reason to scrap an entire project though, as you could easily say the same about Doom 3 and even Doom 2016.

[Edward850]

JohnnyTheWolf said:

That is such a weak reason to scrap an entire project

Except for the part where it's the strongest reason to scrap a project.

[JohnnyTheWolf]

Then Id should have scrapped Doom 3 and Doom 2016, Raven should not have been allowed to make Quake IV and Wolfenstein 2009 either, etc.

All these games feel VERY different than the games they are based on.

[Edward850]

Doom 3 stayed entirely on track. They scrapped Doom 4 because they didn't feel it was on track. There is nothing more or less to that concept.

[JohnnyTheWolf]

I do not buy it. In addition to the examples I have previously given, a game like Return to Castle Wolfenstein did not feel like Wolfenstein in the sense that it was more of a Medal of Honor clone than a proper sequel to Wolfenstein 3d. So again, a Doom 4 set in a post-apocalyptic setting does not sound all that crazy.

And of course, there was Quake II, the sequel that has absolutely nothing to with its predecessor thematically speaking.

[Edward850]

JohnnyTheWolf said:

I do not buy it.

I take it you don't make a lot of games. :P

[TAPETRVE]

Well, Beth have just slapped the Prey license on a fucking System Shock descendant. 'Nuff said.

[Edward850]

You guys do realism that personal feeling of if a game is on track or not is not a black/white thing that can be defined with an absolute, right? That's why it's called a personal thing. The personally felt the game wasn't on track.

[JohnnyTheWolf]

TAPETRVE said:

Well, Beth have just slapped the Prey license on a fucking System Shock descendant. 'Nuff said.

That one, I do not even get. The original Prey is a forgettable and mostly forgotten idTech4 game; why would they want to link an unrelated game to a franchise nobody ever really cared about? It is just so bizarre... Why not call it "Catacombs" while we are at it?

[MusicallyInspired]

Prey was entirely a Bethesda decision. id wasn't involved. Doom's reboot was id's call and Beth just let them do it. That's entirely different.

The Quake example holds a bit of water. Except that the original Quake was already a mess thematically speaking. How would you make a sequel to THAT? Doom was always a more focused idea. I would argue that Doom 3 was not as far removed from the source material as Doom 4 1.0 was, though. Again, it was their call to make and they made it. At the end of the day they wanted something they felt felt like Doom and to them Doom 2016 was the answer. From the sounds and looks of things, and judging by what id has said, Doom 4 1.0 would not have made near the waves that Doom 2016 did.