Comments on: Id to Revive Little Known Franchise

By: Miles

Miles — Fri, 09 May 2008 18:55:48 +0000

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

By: Man Raised By Puffins

Man Raised By Puffins — Fri, 09 May 2008 10:25:02 +0000

@ 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.

By: Saflo

Saflo — Fri, 09 May 2008 09:58:16 +0000

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.

By: Chaz

Chaz — Fri, 09 May 2008 07:10:33 +0000

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!

By: Alarik

Alarik — Thu, 08 May 2008 20:25:21 +0000

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 :-) ).

By: Reverend Speed

Reverend Speed — Thu, 08 May 2008 14:05:42 +0000

[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]

By: Radiant

Radiant — Thu, 08 May 2008 13:56:37 +0000

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.

By: Reverend Speed

Reverend Speed — Thu, 08 May 2008 13:41:05 +0000

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…

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]

[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]

By: MPK

MPK — Thu, 08 May 2008 13:14:01 +0000

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.

By: Paul Moloney

Paul Moloney — Thu, 08 May 2008 11:04:47 +0000

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.”

By: Man Raised By Puffins

Man Raised By Puffins — Thu, 08 May 2008 11:02:30 +0000

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]

By: Ian

Ian — Thu, 08 May 2008 09:34:34 +0000

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.