Rock, Paper, Shotgun

07/05/2008 at 18:47 Sideath says:

Probably not a good idea – I mean, if Doom III was anything to go by, then Doom is probably one of those licenses which should not have been updated.

Somehow, ever since Doom III, I can’t help but feel that my beloved id has gone downhill. I was looking forward to Quake Wars, but it ultimately disappointed. Maybe if the new Quake (the updated browser based Quake III) is good then I’ll actually follow Doom 4/IV(?) a little.

07/05/2008 at 18:49 Cooper says:

Where’s my Quake 4 expansion pack, clearly promised by the last scene of the game?

I much prefered QuakeII and 4′s game world to Doom3′s.

07/05/2008 at 18:54 Nick says:

I liked Doom 3.

I thought iD had given up on the PC though?

07/05/2008 at 19:00 CrashT says:

Id 1990 called, they’d like their stuff back.

07/05/2008 at 19:10 nihohit says:

OMG YES! Commander keen in IDtech 4\5\trillion, please!

07/05/2008 at 19:16 Acosta says:

I think my sarcasm meter is broken from this.

07/05/2008 at 19:18 Turin Turambar says:

I played Doom 3 three times. Good game :).
But still, i would prefer another Commander Keen! :P.

Doom3 sold 1.6 millions on PC, and 1.4 millions on Xbox, or so i read some time ago.

07/05/2008 at 19:29 Monkfish says:

I enjoyed Doom 3. Am I normal?

07/05/2008 at 19:36 brog says:

I quite liked the doom3 multiplayer. The campaign did trail off into tedium a bit, but I still finished it. The best part was a stretch where there’s no sudden monster attack for a few minutes, but you see creeping shadows out of the corner of your eye. It wasn’t a bad game, just not a pinnacle of greatity either.

07/05/2008 at 19:37 Pace says:

Here’s a debate I don’t remember seeing on RPS before. I loved Doom 3, and foo on all you kneebiters who say otherwise. It really was scary and intense, and you must be a heartless and cynical shrew to disagree. Id didn’t make Quake 4 or Quake Wars so I see no reason to doubt their abilities these days. Woohoo, Doom 4!!

07/05/2008 at 19:40 Noc says:

This game is NOTHING compared to Half-Life 3!

07/05/2008 at 19:41 Larington says:

Larington being cynical shocker!

I just really didn’t enjoy it, I liked the whole button pressing mechanic they had in it, but the combat was rather tedious… Maybe I’ve just moved on, having been spoiled by games like Deus Ex, Stalker, and story driven games like Beyond Good and Evil, Dreamfall, and such… My simple games desire is well sated by Peggle afterall.

Wait, did I just compare Peggle to the likes of Doom 2, etc?

07/05/2008 at 19:44 Theory says:

What the hell were people expecting it to be like?

Not mind-numbingly repetitive and unimaginative?

07/05/2008 at 19:52 Reverend Speed says:

Doom III! Ahh, Doom III.

The good:

1) Proper light and shadow, integrated lighting across entities and world geometry. I grant you the lack of masking tape is a little silly. But the experience of seeing an imp COME THROUGH THE METAL STAIRS IN FRONT OF YOU followed by a panicked swap from torch to shotgun was worth the price of admission alone. I’d never seen that happen in a game before. Should be in every game.

2) Per polygon collision detection. “But I clearly fired my shotgun inches to the side of that zombie’s head from close range! How could I have missed him?!” Per polygon collision detection. Should be in every game.

3) Your fire button is your use button. Walking up to consoles converts your vision control into pointer control on the screen. Videos and vector animation integrated into in-world computer interfaces? Should be in every game.

4) System Shock 2-style audio logs? Should be in every game. Especially if used to humorously justify chainsaws on Mars and produce “Over here…”-style vignettes.

5) Soul Cube was an interesting idea for a weapon.

6) Combat’s solid, with some interesting set-pieces. AI’s not great, but then these are DEMONS and ZOMBIES in an enclosed space. You didn’t buy an FPS set in a MENSA convention…

The Bad:

1) Trashing a perfectly serviceable (actually damn interesting) premise – at the pinnacle of human achievement (exploring the final frontier, indeed) we encounter demons and magic? What’s going on here? No, no, don’t explore that idea. Smash evil. That’ll do.

2) Idiot idiot idiot vision of hell. Hell as, literally, Sunday school hell. There are giant skulls. And lava. Materialising into this mess, one expects a camp latino Devil to *poomph* into existence and obsequiously enquire as to whether one is scared, no?

3) Betruger. What was his plan? Bring forth apocalypse, turn into flying thing, ???, profit? No sense. No. Sense. No sense at all. The guy’s obviously ageing – this was his retirement scheme?

all standard Doom III & monster closet critiques.

I really like playing Id’s games. And I think they actually have some IP with real potential for interesting narrative. And I know that due to their painfully efficient development process, so many of the more interesting ideas are going to get left on the cutting room floor and that breaks my heart.

Go on, Mrs. Carmack! Dogs in Doom for mobile phones. That’s a start. Let’s see some narrative development.

In other news, Doom bible-related news, any word on that new Tom Hall MMO? Anachronox was a wonderful place to live for a month or so. Can’t wait to see what he’s working on…

Please. Don’t use Beyond Good & Evil, Deus Ex and Dreamfall as examples of good story in games. Just. Just don’t. They’re as involved as Doom 3 (well, alright, Deus Ex is a bit more involved). Anachronox. Metal Gear Solid. Vampire Bloodlines. The Last Express. HL2:EP2. Bioshock (the backstory, not what you do in the game).

Call of Duty 4 DOES NOT COUNT. That’s STORYTELLING, not story.

Oh, long time reader (disseminate information, etc), first time commenter, yada…

07/05/2008 at 20:03 Theory says:

2) Per polygon collision detection. “But I clearly fired my shotgun inches to the side of that zombie’s head from close range! How could I have missed him?!” Per polygon collision detection. Should be in every game.

Unfortunately it relies on the ultra-low-poly models 1) requires for playable framerates.

07/05/2008 at 20:13 Cargo Cult says:

Doom-3-style lighting gives me a headache – my brain just can’t parse where the light-sources are supposed to be.

Whatever the next engine is like, I hope it hasn’t the ultra-sharp shadow edges, limited range for light-sources and absolutely no bounced light, faked or otherwise…

07/05/2008 at 20:16 fluffy bunny says:

“What the hell were people expecting it to be like?”

I was hoping for something a bit like the earlier Doom-games. I.e. a bit like Serious Sam. Though I did enjoy Doom 3 for seven hours or so. After that it just became too repetitive.

07/05/2008 at 20:28 KingMob says:

Doom III was fun, looking forward to Doom IV with mild anticipation.

07/05/2008 at 20:34 Sam says:

The Reverend Speed makes a point about the potential interestingness of Id’s IP that I feel I have to express agreement with (if only because I thought I was the only person to believe in it). There’s a considerable amount of depth you could get out of the Doom, Quake and Quake 2 ip – of which only Quake 4 sort of tried to explore, ish.

But then, I’m the guy who wanted Quake III to have factions… and who is now hallucinating XCOM-meets-Doom (or Quake, for my personal setting preference).

07/05/2008 at 20:51 Not-a-bot says:

I thought they were trying to get away from corridor shooters with their new engine. I suppose that could tie in well with a ‘hell on Earth’ fighting through open ruined cities setting?

07/05/2008 at 21:05 James T says:

Nota: I remember being a bit disappointed that Doom 2 wasn’t more ‘Earthlike’ (despite a nice city level or two); I really wanted to see these horrible things infesting the abandoned suburbs and wilderness and so on. Actually, I don’t remember if that was even technically feasible at the time, but if they do it in Doom 4, it could ratchet up the ‘scary’ rather nicely; I’d hate to fight a Revenant on Earthly streets at night!

They’d still have to fix the ‘identikit corridor shooting gallery’ problem (could anyone tell the difference between Doom 3′s areas, Hell aside? “Wow, thank god I’m in Delta Labs, Alpha Labs were a real grind!”), but opening the world up a bit couldn’t hurt.

07/05/2008 at 21:07 dhex says:

i love fps games like someone who has serious emotional issues loves a celebrity they saw once on tv, and doom 3 left me kinda cold.

AMAZING sound design, though. and hell was pretty good too.

07/05/2008 at 21:25 James T says:

Turin, I love a good shooter, but even the simplest shooter of real quality — I’m thinking of Half-Life 2 and its episodes here — offers some variety of environment and, as such, playstyle (sniping, melee, siege/camp-assault, puzzles, enemies with specific weaknesses and strengths…). I recall Doom 3 as a very, very long blur of enclosed corridor (or hey, maybe a hub or two, oh boy), with occasional multi-minute diversions onto/into Martian rock, and a smidge of Hell towards the end. The monsters were distinct from each other only by hitpoints (and possession of projectiles, if that even merits mentioning), and the monster cupboards, blackouts and the like became a queasy chore, easily seen well ahead of time and prepared for, and as such, very ineffective as implements of atmosphere; once the procedure of these situations was established, I was no longer being ‘tormented by demons’, I was being harangued by developers. Every shooter comes down to point-and-click, but the good ones, even at their simplest, demand more of you than the old Warren Spector chestnut, “which gun am I going to kill you with?”

Lorc: Hey, that actually sounds pretty neat, wish I still had D3, heh.

07/05/2008 at 21:30 Inglorion says:

As long as they don’t cap the framerate to 60hz, I’ll be happy.

Anyone else want id to do another Quake with the dark, gritty, Lovecraft-esque Quake 1 setting?

07/05/2008 at 22:01 Paul S says:

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.

07/05/2008 at 22:08 Taxman says:

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.

07/05/2008 at 22:42 Man Raised By Puffins says:

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.

Of course, if they do make something totally different, that’s only a good thing – I’d be amused if this became Deus Ex With Demons…

Doom 4: Now You Can Talk To The Monsters?

/coat

07/05/2008 at 22:55 mystic sika says:

need more doom rpg!

07/05/2008 at 22:56 Meat Circus says:

I hope it’s not a load of PISS like Doom 3 was.

Oh wait, no, I don’t especially care.

08/05/2008 at 00:02 tcliu says:

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.)

08/05/2008 at 01:07 drawls says:

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. =/

08/05/2008 at 02:38 Eric says:

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.

08/05/2008 at 03:12 Reverend Speed says:

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.

08/05/2008 at 06:11 Dagda says:

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.

08/05/2008 at 09:50 James T says:

Ken shmen, GET ME DEREK SMART!

08/05/2008 at 12:02 Man Raised By Puffins says:

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.

[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]

08/05/2008 at 14:14 MPK says:

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.

08/05/2008 at 14:56 Radiant says:

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.

08/05/2008 at 21:25 Alarik says:

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 :-) ).

09/05/2008 at 10:58 Saflo says:

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.

09/05/2008 at 19:55 Miles says:

I like this Reverend Speed fellow. I don’t agree with him much but I certainly like him.