Everyone loves an underdog – but Doom 3 is in the curious position of being an underdog whilst simultaneously being big enough to be widely loathed. Arguably, only Bioshock has stolen its crown as king of the PC FPS whipping boys – both being heavily-trumpeted games that didn’t live up to their own enormous hype, and suffered a disproportionately vicious backlash as a result.
Doom 3 -which I found bland and repetitive but often fun and certainly atmospheric, its major crime being stretching its few ideas over too many hours – however, has managed to enjoy a huge and enthusiastic modding scene nonetheless. There’s everything from extensive co-op versions to an infinite array of flashlight tweaks and assorted mini-campaigns, maps and graphical upgrades. It may not enjoy the profile of the big Half-Life 2 mods, but its scene remains alive. Hoping to throw this underdog a bone (I have no idea why – these cursed whims of mine), I’ve spent today wading through a few of them.
Unfortunately, I haven’t been terribly impressed by what I’ve found. Granted, any game with a large mod community is absolutely knee-deep in dead-end ideas or pointlessly samey drek, but it seemed especially hard to find true highlights amongst D3’s hundreds of modifications. Is it something about the nature of the game – a very specific look, bound to very specific geometry and geography – or about the nature of the game’s fans? An ‘orrible sweeping generalisation would be that a game solely about shooting monsters from hell in the dark to the accompaniement of a heavy rawk soundtrack might not attract quite as, ah, diverse a range of fans as Half-Life 2’s intermittently more thoughtful content (relatively speaking, of course). In other words, they’re probably going to make mods about shooting monsters from hell in the dark to the accompaniment of a heavy rawk soundtrack. This is not something I can back up in any way, and saying it makes me afraid I’m one step away from becoming a Daily Mail reader. Perhaps I’ve taken too much from Jim’s fearful tales of the crowd at the Quakecon he attended a few years back.
Elements I have seen repeated throughout a worrying number of the mods I tried include:
- a heavy rawk soundtrack on permanent loop
- Mumbly German men intoning a largely incoherent and over-long voiceover in broken English.
- Incredibly ugly menus, containing a surfeit of silly webnames in an I_will_kill_joo vein
- Level design that consists of traipsing down maze-like, oddly featureless corridors until I had to reach for Alt-F4 before I threw up or passed out.
- More positively, a clear emphasis on trying to make a faster, more adrenalised game than Doom 3 Vanilla’s often ponderous wandering around.
The clear stand-out was the long-running Classic Doom 3 mod, which has diligently recreated Doom 1’s maps and general crazy-ass feel in the gloomy D3 engine. The metallic murkiness doesn’t look quite right, but the increased player movement speed, decreased beastie hit points, omni-present health and armour pickups and that music is a proper ear-to-ear-grin-time carnival of carnage. It’s Doom, and all the speed and fun and violence and silliness that entails. Even in the new engine, the maps feel as comfortingly familiar as a hug from your mother. In some ways it looks a little worse due to lose of bright colours, but in others genuinely better – in particular, there’s a meatily visceral feel to shotgunning an imp in the face that their semi-intangible 2D predecessors have always lacked. The fan-acted intro sequence is rather less impressive, but hey: I defy anyone not to enjoy this.
Visual mods seem a little hit and miss. There’s a bunch to improve the muzzle flare and suchlike, but the one I ended up using for a while was multi-mod collection Dentonmod3. It sparkles stuff up quite a bit, especially the otherwise block-headed character models, and generally makes for a game that looks a couple of years younger than it really is. Usefully, it also corrects some of the annoyances id have never bothered to patch, such as the inability to select widescreen modes without editing configuration files, and automatically restarting the video renderer upon a settings change rather than unhelpfully demanding you exit and reload the game manually. Unfortunately, it required a patch made by someone else entirely to save the screen from being largely black on my system, and even then the picture was distractingly washed-out. Definitely work a look if you’re considering tackling D3’s singleplayer again, though.
Wraithchild sounded interesting on paper, as it was an attempt to create a vaguely Deus Exy game, with interactable objects and NPCs and whatnot, all within a custom-created Blade Runner-esque world. Unfortunately, one of those aforementioned German chaps droning and typoing away made it a little difficult to get into, and on top of that I lost interest after 15 minutes of frustrated failing to work out how to leave the first room. There may be stuff of interest later for more patient chaps than I, and the use of some of Vampire: Bloodline’s soundtrack lends it an agreeably maudlin/psychotic atmosphere.
Hell Island certainly got the first word right. Its key crimes are the single worst example of voice acting I have ever heard, and yet another case of bad and bewildering level design causing me to Alt-F4 out due to a miserable, aimless lack of progress. Fuggin’ locked doors.
Event Horizon XV is a curious project, as it’s an attempt to recreate the divisive sci-fi horror film inside Doom 3. In practice, this means an inadvertently comical frequency of spoooooky visions that appear and disappear within seconds, including a distressingly diligently-modelled naked lady. Well done, you. The first few minutes are like The Shining: The Theme Park Ride – but with a little more pacing it could be a genuinely unsettling, what-the-hell’s-going-on experience. Then it’s more of those maze-like identical corridors, a few zombies, confusion and tedium, and quit.
I’m sure there are many better examples of the scene out there, but I’d lost patience by this point (with a few apparently broken ones also nosed at) and had burned too many hours in this search for diamonds in the corridor-bound rough. Once my motivation’s restored, I wouldn’t mind a gander at the Co-Op mod Last Man Standing at some point, which I hear very good things about, and of course there’s the Thief remake/tribute The Dark Mod. From what I’ve seen so far, however, it seems as though Doom 3’s essential structure and aesthetic may be a little too limiting to achieve many truly surprising things. So what I’d hoped would be a woo! lookit this! post has ended up being a bit of a downer. Hopefully someone out there knows of a D3 mod that’ll cheer me right up, as I’ll fully admit to being overcome by the sheer amount of chaff I need to separate from the oh-so-rare wheat I’m positive does exist. Other than Doom 3 Classic, of course – that one’s certainly as fun as a campsite full of monkeys.
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Just an observation I never see made: the Hell levels and the expansion pack capture a lot more of the dueling-action feel from Doom 2 than endless levels in Lambda Labs or whatever.
Enjoy the scares, skip a few levels, enjoy the action, skip a few levels, and then beat it.
We gave serious thought to doing the Hidden with D3, but at the time it was pretty clear that relatively few people really had machines that could handle D3 particularly well and the general outlook for making a mod that would generate a sustaining community didn’t seem all that hot.
HL2 was like some vague promise at the time, so we were looking at everything!
The polishing and detail work in the Doom3 levels is insane!
You can never find a true straight wall – everything has decals, wires, protrusions, grills, sparks, steam etc. I always loved that.
Where as in HL2 for ex. you can stare at some really flat and straightforward walls/corridors. Granted HL2 is more about the open areas but still…
“Let me clarify on the subject of PC FPS whipping boys.
Bioshock: Surprisingly good.
Doom 3: Quite amazingly crappy.”
Actually Bioshock offers very much the same kind of ‘been there done that’ experience when it comes to it’s rather ’super simple’ gameplay. Aren’t the plasmids supposed to make things a tad more complicated and interesting? It’s fun to mess with, but is it just me or does it just feel wrong, sort of like cheating.
Anyways, these two games, although not entirely comparable, are more similar than you’d imagine if you really stop and think about it.
I think Bioshock is enjoyable yes, but it’s not much of a good game when it comes to keeping me playing. Dare I say I haven’t even finished it yet, I simply got way too bored!! The whole regeneration room thing ruined half of the fun for me as well. Especially the last few levels. I liked the overall Bioshock theme a lot, but even that barely changed enough throughout the parts I did play through.
Doom3 on the other hand I did beat, thinking it’s difficulty was challenging enough for me to keep going. Point of critique and something the media totally seemed to ignore though; the game really did NOT scare me anymore after about the first 5min after the first monsters came.
It’s sort of an intense game, but that’s about the only thing positive about the rather simple shoot-till-you-drop FPS gameplay.
The graphics looked ‘good’ (read: if you dig the plastic-ness, geesh, iD what’s up with that?) and the gameplay was mainly alright, but all in all really basic, and almost too simplified. id software, if you read this, there’s more to a game than just it’s graphics.
Anyways, I never bothered to buy the expansion and I still think I’ve paid way too much for the short few hours of total gameplay D3 gave me and it’s really not a game I regularly reinstall.
In a way the intro part made me want more than the game ultimately provided though, more of the ‘Half-Life 2 meets the Doom’ universe kind of thing. I definitely think Doom might actually work without the monsters.
Dead Space is a whole different story. Ultimately I was disappointed about that game. I expected a bit more bullets to mess around with and a bit less simon-says kind of crap. It’s not so much wrong, but it did not feel like an FPS. Perhaps it shouldn’t, as I did ultimately like it. Kind of undecided on how good the game is though. Sort of a clone, sort of not. Sort of better than Doom3, sort of not.
“I never played Quake 4, I hate Quake after quake 1, Quake 2 sucked compared to Quake 1 and made all the bad guys aliens all of a sudden :( ”
Yeah, I very much agree. It’s why I disliked all games after Quake 1 (and it’s expansion) as well. There used to be something raw about Quake, something non-high tech. Something NOT ‘hey lets clone Unreal (Tournament)’. I don’t see them change their art direction anytime soon though.
Admit it, Quake 4 felt like Doom 3. If they’d switched titles we probably even would have missed the connection with the Quake universe altogether.
I bet with Quake 5 they probably will make the same mistake. They have been doing so since Quake 2.
Doom 3 was good fun when played co-op with friends, but otherwise the epitome of mediocre. Super Turbo Turkey Puncher was the shit, though.
Are there any graphics overhaul mod packs that don’t look so buggy and tweak a bunch of other shit?
@Scott Kevill: I’m glad someone spotted that
And on Quake IV: ugh.
I would love to see more articles of this type, basically mod roundups for a bunch of different games. Obviously it’s always more satisfying when there’s something to wholeheartedly recommend, but once you’ve done the research you might as well post what you’ve got.
I think my favorite Doom 3 mod is the one that puts a playable version of a previous Doom game on one of the computers. Pointless recursion FTW.
I liked Quake IV, should I feel shame?
At the risk of sounding like an inebriated troglodyte, I must defend Dead Space for the terrifying night I spent on it whilst quite far gone on greenish smoking paraphernalia. That was motherf**king intense.
Much agreement with the mm yes d3 was nice but repetitive sentiment. But seriously, if you have an extra curricular greenery lying around.. Dead Space a go-go.
Also, great post, more like this please. The Stalker:CS one was interesting as well.
Oh and also its worth mentioning that the dentonmod won’t work with ATI cards (sadface)
“Play The Dark Mod. Tears of St Lucia is quite a good mission, and the engine works great :)”
Looking at the site I can’t seem to find any demo’s, and there is a posting that implies a beta will hopefully be released in 2009.
Has there in fact been a demo level released? If so where might one aquire said demo?
“Unfortunately, it required a patch made by someone else entirely to save the screen from being largely black on my system”
Any chance of posting a link to that patch?
http://modetwo.net/darkmod/wiki/index.php?title=Saint_Lucia
It’s right at the bottom of the front page, it’s pretty old news. You could have looked at the forums as well, there’s a big ol’ link in the news section :)
Regards,
Storm
I really like’d Doom 3 and the expansion pack and it certainly scared the shit out of me. Other folks I know found it a dull blaster, but then thats how I felt about Fear and visa versa.
On the subject of Doom mods, Dungeon Doom always seems to get a lot of mentions, although I haven’t tried it myself. http://dungeondoom.planetdoom.gamespy.com/index.htm
Dark mod! Dark mod! Everything else is literally just the return of the zombies from mars from hell
I tried the Dark Mod, but I didn’t really dig it. They have a long way to go gameplay wise. Some of the assets are extremely polished — the level design, the 2d artwork, and, um, the main menu. The gameplay just doesn’t work right now. Shooting/knocking out enemies is a pain and the AI suddenly can detect you without reason. Yes, I have played every demo that has come out for the Dark mod. They’ve got a long way to go, and I doubt we will see a release candidate this year.
@Phemox:
Dead Space was an FPS? Was this on the PC? I got it for the console because there was less support for it on the PC and it came out on consoles first.
And by got I mean I borrowed it.
@Russ:
Dead Space was a TPS (third person shooter) just like on the console. It was pretty good on PC as long as you disabled VSync (pretty glitchy and laggy with Vsync enabled). It has mouse and keyboard controls, but the problem with the mouse controls is that your turn rate is limited. I didn’t have a real problem with this, but it meant I had to pick up and put down the mouse often due to dragging the mouse over to the side often to turn.
I would also like to note that the 360 pad works flawlessly with the game. Plug it in, and you have the exact XBox 360 controls straight away.
@Alec:
I sent you an email about my mod Zombie Slayer. I urge you to check it out if you enjoyed Classic Doom for Doom 3. Even though it’s a different mod, several team members from that project worked on it.
““What happened at the end of Doom 3?”
“Now what happened at the end of Quake 4?”
“What happened at the end of CoD4?””
1) Rather boring boss fight
2) Rather boring boss fight
3) Rather boring unwinnable boss fight with sudden anti-climatic finish for no reason, as though they ran out of ideas and just decided to throw in the towel.
The endings to games aren’t generally indicative of the rest of the game’s quality. Look no further than Half-Life and Elite Force, for example. Absolutely crap endings with crap uninventive bosses, but up to that point spectacular games.
I’ve read about a Pathways Into Darkness-based short called Pathways Redux and a Descent conversion called Into Cerberon. Are they any good?
There was a mention of In Hell: Directors cut?
http://doom3.filefront.com/file/Fixed_In_Hell_Directors_Cut;83607
It’s basically V1.1 of the In Hell mod. A full 21-level campaign, with the interesting gimmick that once you beat it, the levels reconfigure rather drastically – new areas open, new objectives given, etc.
There are some rather neat Doom 3 mods. They just tend to get buried under the crap.
Doom3 is still a firm favourite of mine. And still a great-looking game as far as I’m concerned. It was scary and very atmospheric but I grew weary of ‘monster closets’ as they just seemed both unfair and fairly lazy on the part of the game designers: I mean, really – these demons just hang about in tiny, concealed compartments waiting for someone to walk past before springing out for a quick surprise..?
Dead Space owes a lot to Doom3 (although you wouldn’t know it from the steadfast way most reviewers seemed to wilfully refuse to mention Doom3 in the same breath as Dead Space, despite the two games sharing so many obvious similarities). If you look carefully in Dead Space there’s a very inconspicuous sideways nod to Doom3 and it’s lead developer. It’s in one of the data files you have to read, and refers to a guy known as ‘Dr Carmack…’. I thought that was a nice touch from the guys at EA Redwood Shores.
I got the ID pack off Steam recently and just finished Doom 3. Maybe it’s because I missed all the pre-release hype or didn’t expect it to play like Doom 1/2 but I thought it was a really solid, fun game. I thought it was more fun and especially more focused than Half-Life 2, which at times seemed it couldn’t decide what kind of game it wanted to be. I did use a mod which added a small light to the shotgun/machine gun (Duct Tape mod), just because I hate having to switch constantly between essential item (flashlight/gravity gun) and weapon.
My only complaint is I didn’t feel the monsters hit hard enough (I was almost always at full health/armour on veteran), but the aforementioned “Perfected” mod looks like it fixes that.