Id Software have announced they’re at work on a fourth version of Doom. You may not be aware of Doom – it’s a relatively minor PC piece of obscura which is only rarely talked about, but it’s to Id’s credit that they’re willing to follow this very peripheral piece of PC history. Among its many unusual ideas, Doom is played from the first person perspective and allows you to shoot monsters. While claimed by aficionados to provide a more immersive experience, it’s never really caught on. Maybe it will now, eh? They’re currently recruiting staff for the project, including a Lead Designer, so it’s clearly early days. We wish Id the best of luck in the Sisyphean task of bringing this curio to a marketplace that often shies away from innovative thinking.
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Doom 3 was a wonderful game, and I’m sick of people banging on about how bad it was and how infinitely inferior it was to HL2. Doom 3 was a masterpiece of tension, and while it got a bit tired around the middle section, it didn’t spoil the magic of the rest of the game. It was tight, clean, fast and bristled with atmosphere.
Doom3 sucked BIG TIME. Part of it (namely, exploring old facility) reminded me of HL1 though, and it’s a compliment. I’d rather they played Doom 1/2 and gave it a thought for a while. some hints: MORE monsters at once with less HP. Original Dooms were all about serious to insane ass kicking. Do you remember you could kill FIVE zombies with one double barrel shot? I still play JDOOM once in awhile, with my legendary double barrel at hand.
I liked Doom 3 never really understood the hate from some quarters, the expansion pack was pretty good too.
It was neat as well to see some of the concepts from the original Doom design doc make their way into Doom 3. I hope they push it further.
For anyone interested go check out the Doom bible it was conceived as a way more ambitious game than actually what happened more action/rpg than just a simple shooter.
Loved the technology advances in the engine (see Reverend Speed earlier post), but the game left me cold, and I hated the empty room one minute, oh noes zombies behind you now moments. Great for cheap scares, but a step backwards in FPS game play. I heard the game got better once you got to Delta labs, but personally I never got that far as I just wasn’t enjoying it. Ambivalent about whether I’d buy a 4th game. I’m far more interested in RAGE which they showcased last year.
Quite liked Doom 3 at the time. Certainly repetitive and towards the end the monster closets were somewhat predictable, but the shooter mechanics were rock solid and the weapons were nicely meaty which made up for a lot. I can’t say I’m quivering with excitement at the news of Doom 4, however.
Doom 4: Now You Can Talk To The Monsters?
/coat
I’m with the people saying Doom 3 wasn’t that bad! I thought it was far better than everyone whined about and I didn’t even moan at PCG for giving it 91%! I rule!
need more doom rpg!
Meh, I thought the story in Dreamfall and Beyond Good and Evil unravelled quite well so I don’t quite get whats so bad about the story in those. Still, definately agree on Anachronox, maybe one day we’ll see a sequel… Ahh who am I kidding – Thats like hoping for a sequel to StarTopia.
I hope it’s not a load of PISS like Doom 3 was.
Oh wait, no, I don’t especially care.
Reverend Speed summed up similar feelings to my own much better than I could be arsed doing, so well done Sir/Madam.
It wasn’t superb, but it was solid enough and had some lovely little touches and sections (the pitch black escorting part was great fun for me), I liked the way they at least attempted story and didn’t botch it too badly. It added to the atmosphere even if it wasn’t top notch stuff. The part where all hell breaks loose at the beginning was great too.
I’d wish Id put *less* into Doom4 than they put into Doom3. What stood out for me in D3 was that Id somehow managed to put all the “new” FPS things in the game, but still completely miss the new gameplay. For example: in D3, you have to reload weapons (new), but you still have monster closets (old). It’s like someone at Id just wrote down a list of “ok, these things are in them thar eff-pee-esses kids play nowadays, we should have ‘em too” without understanding how the design elements.
(My first D3 Mod increased the chaingun ammo to 36K rounds and upped the firing rate to about 100/s. Much funnier.)
Thanks, id. Why keep pissing over our happy memories?. Can’t you really think of anything new?
BTW, I agree with the people over me saying that Serious Sam was the TRUE Doom 3.
I enjoyed the atmosphere and music of doom 3. Yes it was repetitive, but still fun. The hell levels especially. Quake 4 on the other hand I never finished. There was just nothing in it that really made me want to get to the end. =/
The combat in Doom 3 was SHITE.
If I wanted to back peddle that much I’d get into an argument with Stephen Hawking.
Doom 1 and 2 had such fun combat; dodging fireballs and answering with a shotgun, just the rhythm of it all.
It also had fuckloads of enemies in a room and THAT is what scared you; not some emo goth schoolboy scribblings of demons [although they were better then the burns victims of Gears of War].
What pissed me off most about the back peddling combat was that it wasn’t the best way to fight; it was the only way you could fight.
Walk down a corridor, some beast runs at you and you can’t even strafe!
From a franchise that invented strafing ffs.
Id have evidently sat on their laurels for too long.
Yet now they think they can do a racing game… is it going to be better then Trackmania? Burnout? Ridge Racer? 4wheel Thunder? Of course not.
And if its not a racing game but a car combat game? Well how are they going to answer the question that EVERY car combat game ever made has been shit? [Yes including Interstate 76 and Twisted Metal Black]
How are they going to over come that?
With their vast knowledge of game dynamics?
Bollocks.
It will look nice and that’s about it.
The people stating that Serious Sam was what Doom 3 should have been are being ridiculous. SS was a game of parody and satire. While elements of Doom 1/2 may have been ridiculous, they were still hardcore, dirty and evil games that weren’t intended to be taken lightly in the sense SS is. You guys just want more monsters.
Anyway, Doom 3 always gets way more hate than it deserves. It was a solid game that did its thing well. Not perfect, but definitely good mindless entertainment with a brooding atmosphere.
With Doom 4, I really hope to see them push the environments, push the enemy count, and take us down to Hell on Earth.
(has only played demo, ooh burn him)
I cant see why people here are complaining about Doom 3, I thought it was a gloriously pretty if slightly slow paced survival horror FPS, that perhaps could have done with a bit more NPC interactivity. A bit more FEAR and a little less System Shock then, bizarrely.
I think people are just disappointed that Doom 3 wasn’t a COMPLETELY mindless blastfest. Understandable given its history, but do you honestly expect even mere ‘game engine designers’ to want to do the same thing every iteration?
A new Commander Keen would be fun. Though how you’d differentiate it from every other platformer out there, well, you’d have to talk to Tom Hall. Speaking of Tom Hall, I’m not sure I can reconcile the original Doom bible with anything I’ve seen in Doom II. Tom Hall is gloriously mad and outrageously forgotten.
Doom III sound design was fun. Weird to find that same emergent soundtrack trick in Zatoichi about a month later. Not every game should have this. But it’s a great effect and shouldn’t be forgotten.
Doom III was not scary. Very atmospheric and quite intense with some great set, costume and monster design. But, no, not scary. No fear. A little dread. The odd shock. Tacky hell, the redesigned Cyber Demon (Now THAT’S how you wreck a classic design) and upside down spider heads and wasp babies certainly didn’t help. And the baffling self-removing heads. Where were they when Silent Hill and Siren were happening?
A giga-fuckton (how many Peggles is that?) of copies does you okay when you’ve only got about thirty-five people in your company. Compare to Valve’s one hundred and sixty employees or Unreal’s ninety six. Not saying this makes their game beyond critique, but it does change the way you have to think about their economy. Course, that’s changing now. It’s certainly interesting that id are looking to further expand their internal staff. This makes it, what, three teams? Rage, Quake Live & D4?
Never played Quake 4. Looked dull as fuck. Aside from the one twist (You Can Be A Strogg!) which they shockingly, STUPIDLY spoiled in their first trailer, can anybody think of a reason I should try it? Majorly disappointed with how they handled their most successful franchise (Quake II is id’s best selling game).
Theory: “Unfortunately it relies on the ultra-low-poly models 1) requires for playable framerates.” Hell with it. They looked good for their time. I really appreciated my new found ability to miss things right in front of me. =)
Just to raise a cheer for an id satellite, who doesn’t love SD? Who doesn’t love Quake Wars? You don’t? Then you’re mad. Or are understandably unwilling to deal with the substandard tutorials and unfriendly UI. I can’t wait to see what SD does post Team Fortress 2.
There’s no getting away from the argument that there’s practically no tactical variety presented in Doom III compared to (ooh, pick a game I grudgingly, grudgingly admire) Halo, but one has to admit that id matched their scenario to the most likely combat (given the engine) perfectly. The first bases on Mars are likely to contain corridors. Though they’re also likely to look a little more homely than D3’s universal gunmetal grey, another major problem with the game. Hell comes to the Mars base and you really, really have to squint to tell the difference. If anything, it looks slightly more cheery.
I’d disagree with James T on the differences between monsters. Multiple emergence points, movement paths, swarms of the fuckers, some could walk on ceilings, some would walk on walls, some would charge, etc. Some even carried riot shields, which surprised me. Close to HL2 variety (with the exception of the attack copters and Striders). Again, they’re being forced down corridors at you, so that limits their potential usage (see Classic Doom mod). My main problem is, once again, there’s so little contrast for ‘em to stand out against. Everywhere looks grim, grim, and you barely get to know a character before they’re crushed by the forces of hell. Give me something to fight for or empathise with and the monsters are going to stand out a lot more. That’d even improve the combat and pacing. Backpeddling means a lot more when you’re retreating to something you care about.
Blackouts and monster closets that make no sense make no sense, though.
There’s nothing wrong with narrative in games. Just shite, non-interactive narrative. Well, that said, I loves me a good cutscene. What would the SoulReaver games have been without those glorious cinematics, eh? Nada. Null. Niente. Short, informative and snappy cutscenes are a vital part of game pacing and long may they prosper.
If id ever cared they could easily tie their FPS games into a… well, I hesitate to say ‘coherent’, but vaguely related universe. But despite weak protests to the contrary, one suspects that the Carmack rule of “games need a story in exactly the same way porn does” persists…
If Quake 1 was Lovecraft, then those cuddly Elder Gods people insist on making are Lovecraft. No. Quake had a rubbish, cobbled-together premise with, as a friend so memorably described, “a melted snowcone at the end”.
Larrington: Well. Maybe I’ve misjudged Beyond Good and Evil. I stopped playing when the OBVIOUSLY EVIL POLICE / ALIENS took your SIDEKICK PIG to their space base. It’s possible that that idiot story with moronic characters told in clod-handed pre-schoolers cartoon fashion was going to develop into something I couldn’t predict with flair, drama and depth. But I don’t think so. And it’s got a massive cult following. I dunno. I prefer the Rabbids.
Actually, I’m mixing up Dreamfall with The Longest Journey. Can’t really comment on that, so sorry. But if Gabriel Knight 3 was the adventure game’s suicide note, then The Longest Journey was an overdose of sleeping pills.
I should point out that the two paragraphs above are nothing personal. TLJ and BG&E just frustrate and confuse the hell out of me.
MEAT CIRCUS: “I hope it’s not a load of PISS like Doom 3 was. Oh wait, no, I don’t especially care.” A round of applause for Meat Circus. Meat Circus, everybody, Meat Circus.
Re arguments along the lines of ‘I wanted it to be Serious Sam’, well, come on, it’s not like you didn’t get advance warning from id. Has anybody here tried Serious Sam recently by the way? Talk about a game that’s aged. Badly. Even on release the physics were rudimentary, the monsters generic and the weapons (barring the cannon, natch) bland. What an engine, though. Honestly, multiple monsters are a device like any other. You’d get bored of it soon enough. Top marks to id for trying something different.
Radient! Car combat games are rubbish? Oh well. I quite like Wipeout myself. And Roadkill. Go for the Jackpot… GO FOR THE SUPER JACKPOT.
Doom 3 was a solid 78% shooter. It installed. It looked attractive and sounded great. Gameplay wasn’t sparkling, but was very playable. Technically very impressive. Gameplay innovations lacking (restricted by new tech and the fact it was a remake). It had side innovations up the wazoo. Not going to set the world on fire, but well worth remembering. 78%.
In my opinion the game fell down in one area in particular – tools and support for the mod community. No engine offered such support out of the box for noir stories, but using Radient is like driving a five-wheeled tractor by talking to a sheep on the moon. Is kerrazy. Is powerful, but compared to UnrealEd and Hammer and the Sandbox Editor (shiny) is kerrazy. Just read up on how you make terrain in Quake Wars. Tech 4 was an awful missed opportunity and I can only hope they seek to rectify their tool situation for Tech 5.
Oh, god, what have I wrought? Wrote? Returning to lurk mode.
@Radiant:
People have been saying Id have ‘lost it’ since Spear of Destiny. (Seriously, dig out the PC Zone review, officially the least prophetic piece of games journalism of all time.) It’s folly to try to gauge the form of a developer that hasn’t put out an in-house game for five years.
Points for not using the phrase “glorified tech demo” though – idiot shorthand for “I have never played Doom or Quake, and furthermore do not know what ‘tech demo’ means”.
And Interstate 76 was pretty good. Lovely atmosphere.
You guys can put them down all you want, but Id deserves credit for stepping outside the norm. Not all of us want yet another story-driven adventure game set in a bright, colorful world where everyone’s brimming with witty dialogue, and for once it’ll be nice to see the words “first person game” not come before “developer Gabe Newell” and after “starving”. Poor guy’s going to break in half if he gets any thinner.
You know who should be the Lead Designer? Ken Levine:D
Ken shmen, GET ME DEREK SMART!
I got bored of Doom 3. “Hm, I wonder what could possibly happen as soon as I get past that suspicious looking cupboard? That’ll be empty, that’s why there’s no option to riddle it with bullets right now. Mhmm.”
I did, however, very much enjoy Quake 4. The stroggification sequence is one of my favourites in gaming.
[off topic]BG&E gets pointed out for its story as it’s a fairly charming affair which has one of those rare finales that leave you feeling satisfied while still leaving itself open for sequels, although obviously it’s not to everyones tastes.
Fair play for calling out TLJ for being a tad drawn out though, although I don’t know how the equally charming Anachronox avoids similar criticism when it contains almost as much padding.[/off topic]
iD is stuck in the past. Carmack is a coding genius in many way, but his influence on design in his company are malign. His tastes are frozen in time; he admits the last game he enjoyed playing was his own company’s Quake III in 1999. Adrian Carmack, who wants to make a new type of game rather than rehash old ideas, was frozen out of the company, after JC insisted they remake it. I wrote about this before: “Honestly, if you haven’t found a single new game in nearly a decade that you enjoy, it’s obvious that your tastes are completely frozen in time. While iD’s games push the envelope technologically, story and design-wise they’re stuck in arcade-era juvenilia, with no strategic, gameplay or emotional depth. And perhaps he should realize his strengths and weaknesses, stick to engine design, and not push his game ideas on his company.”
There was something oddly soulless about Doom 3, like it was put together by robots. It ticked all the right boxes for the feature list and was very slick and all that…but it was just cold, emotionless. There was no love in it, beyond Carmack’s love of numbers. I can’t see Doom IV being any different.
I dunno that Carmack’s apparent influence on design is entirely malign, but he does tend to build for speed. In turn, that’s likely to create a blisteringly fast car but one which is somewhat cramped and single-purpose.
Ahem.
That is to say, Quake 3 had only one objective. And it achieved it magnificently (plenty of tactical and gameplay depth). Doom 3 was trying for story-based survival horror with (for an id game) an enormous cast. And, well, results were mixed – there was absolutely no follow through on anything not tied directly into atmosphere and gameplay.
Speaking as somebody who likes their technology and quite a few of their games, I think I’d argue that they could do with a new lead designer. Tim Willits seems like a lovely guy but it’s pretty clear in his Spector Lecture that he’s far too close to the company he loves to take a knife to their design philosophy.
Bring back Sandy Peterson.
Just don’t let him touch a level editor. =)
The Quake 4 Stroggification sequence is amazing. I’ve watched it Youtube. Fine example of first person storytelling. IS THERE ANYTHING ELSE WORTHWHILE IN THE GAME?
Ehh. Don’t know about Doom 3 being soulless. There’s a fair bit of humour and life squished into the odd corner and audio recording. There’s just no goddamn contrast. Hard to see the love when it’s all presented as fear, doom, gloom…
[off topic]Yyyyyyeahh, but… well. I’d rather see them as fascinating, beautifully built and charmingly funny digressions. I can’t tell you how much I loved the planet Democrates. And the frankly stunning follow-up. For an RPG, it’s a damn good adventure game.[/off topic]
Yeah I kind of lost my mind in the middle of my post.
Sorry about that.
But I said that car ‘combat’ games have a history of being crap.
Actually the majority of vehicle combat games have been poo.
Mainly because of the lack of variety in the combat; the lack of options about how to fight [cars = circle, circle, fire weapon and planes = loop, loop, fire weapon] which, as someone pointed out above, is one of the main problems with Doom 3; the lack of fighting options [even the enemies have a prescribed weapon to use on each of them] .
But don’t get it wrong!
I loves me a good arcade racer.
You guys’ Trackmania times are still making me cry.
[Off topic]Sorry, that last comment was a little unclear.
I’m not sure I can compare the writing and pacing between TLJ & Anachronox. Maybe I’ll give TLJ another go at some point in the future, but I’m rather intolerant of limp characters and worlds that assume my interest by the inclusion of a few token fantasy clichés. I gave up when I was pottering around the hollow tree in the magical kingdom and realised I had absolutely no interest in finding out what happened next. Anachronox, by contrast, jumped from one crazy idea to the next, filling my screen with well-defined and interesting characters and always made a point of highlighting my long-term mission(s).[/off topic]
Heh, Doom doesn’t need to revive. Lots of people are still playing Doom and Doom 2, lots of WADs and levels and mods and whatever were made and are being made. Heh, I have Doom collection on my HDD all the time and I don’t know how many times have I finished Doom, Doom 2, Final Doom and various WADs.
Check the various ports – for example Doomsday with its large fanbase and the high quality textures for Doom games.
That said, I quite liked Doom 3 – it wasn’t as good as previous titles, but it was fun. Btw Classic Doom (shareware episode of Doom in Doom 3 engine is pretty interesting) and I am still waiting for that Hexen in Doom 3 engine project to finish.
But Doom 4 from id could be good (hopefully they will push HW limits more than that puny Crysis, which is perfectly playable on todays hardware :-) ).
I really enjoyed Doom 3 and the expansion. I found it to be a very creepy and scary experience, with plenty of big guns to make me feel better.
I could never quite understand why people moaned about it. After all it had hoards of hell spawn jumping out from dark corners at you, and big guns to blast them with. Isn’t that what the Doom series is all about? What else were people expecting?
So Doom 4, yes please!
I’m not really sure I enjoyed Doom 3, but there was enough of interest to keep me plowing through it for a while. It was suitably scary, it had some great monster design (which Id is usually good for), I quite liked the plasticy look of everything, and there was something endearing about the stubborn way it stuck to its “haunted house” design philosophy. Overall more of a curiosity than a great game, but I’m fine with that.
I’ll also echo something that Sam and Inglorion said above and call for a return to the original Quake – maybe a sequel, maybe a remake, maybe something with an actual story and narrative and level design beyond “find the key in the spooky castle.” Maybe.
@ Reverend Speed: Whereas I found that TLJ generally made up for the plot dithering by having a great central character placed in a pair of fantastically well realised worlds with some memorable NPCs along the way. If the world the game presents isn’t to your tastes, then fair enough. I’m certainly in agreement with you on the awesome-ness of Anachronox though.
I like this Reverend Speed fellow. I don’t agree with him much but I certainly like him.