Doom III: Single-Player Comments by Kristan Reed

I never really liked the original doom. I just liked the engine and enjoy games like heretic and other that used the doom engine. Quake was the same.

Doom III has something more, yes the story is crap, but at least it has one this time. The controls are simple and the weapons sound pretty bad. But the engine creates an atmosphere that really scares the willies out of me. The gameplay doesn't really bring anything new to the genre but it really does what it set out to do well. Scare you!

And for those of you who don't like this game, wait until you start playing games that other developers have created using this engine and give a nod to id for being technical genius'. Buy this game anyway, even if you don't play it and make sure id keep going!

The flashlight (or torch, I'm English), I can't make up mind if I like it or hate it.

I think I found it really annoying to start with, consistantly changing between the 2, but after a while I seem to have got used to it. Occasionally still annoying though when your trying to shoot something that you can't see!

Looks like you should be visiting another site, if you hold such views.

"Reviewreader", so you find it entertaining to anonymously post personal, opinionated, critical comments?

I think ReviewReader displays about the same level of intelligence as the Zombies in Doom III are reputed to display.

If you don't agree with the review don't buy the game.

So you're saying EG is soft?

If anything they mark rather harshly sometimes.

But this game was supposed to redefine gaming - at least according to the hype

What are you talking about? There was hype that it'd redefine gaming? Someone was clearly taking the piss out of you.

As much as I was and still am looking forward to Doom, I never had the idea that it'd redefine gaming.

No wonder you're disappointed. :p

Well, Kristan, when it comes to FPS's, it seems you guys can't give 8's (too low!) nor 9's (too high!). How about a scale with half values?... ;)

Comments from the likes of ReviewReader are water off a duck's back, they really are. If I'd marked the game down for being not enough of a progression then there would have been even more people slagging me off for that.

I don't think standing up for Doom III was the easy option by any means. After a few hour's play, I was broadly in agreement with most of this review's detractors. It felt like a high 7, or an 8. Only seeing the game through to the end convinced me otherwise.

But then EG rarely toes the critical line in either direction, but that's life. It's unrealistic to ever expect anyone, whatever they're into to agree with one another. What you get with EG is honest, straight talking opinion, and ones that we will back up and believe in to the hilt.

Calling us apologists is a joke, and heralding the US sites as some sort of bastion of truth is even funnier. Most of the time they give even the lamest most generic games over 7, and anything vaguely good gets 8s or 9s. Lots of people WANT Doom III to be shit, and maybe in their minds it is. Good luck to them. I get the same thing with music or film all the time - people who are just desperate to believe that band X's new album or director Y's new movie is over-rated or under-rated. It's called opinion. We're not saying ours is right or wrong, but you can be sure it's what we believe, and that we go hell for leather to make sure that we've put the hours in to come to that conclusion. If you don't agree, we don't lose sleep over it. That's life. People disagree on whether Peanut Butter is, in fact, Mana from heaven. That goes to show how ludicrous life is!

Get over it. Seriously. Get over it. Spending ages reviewing a review and turning it into a personal diatribe under an anonymous post has to be one of the saddest things I've ever seen on this website. If you've got something to say to me, post me an email - it's on the site.

But peanut butter isn't Mana from Heaven! And anyone who says different is a liar and an arachid apologist! ;o)

Exactly. Reviewing a game isn't science, you know?

Though it became the rule to call it a "review" it should be called "opinion" instead.

(about random monsters popping up)
"This happened in Doom I and Doom II all the time as well. And we are talking about a Doom game here. If you didnt like it before then your not going to like it now. Doom III is doing what we should expect to - giving us another Doom experience."

I'm not saying I didn't like it, it just IS cheesy. I finished all three Doom games, just like most of us here and enjoyed the whole experience aplenty. However, I'm pretty sure there is not one person who has had doubts about ambushes you can't stop in any way. I would just like the option to avoid 20 odd damage without having to reload and replay my game with foreknowledge.
I was expecting another Doom experience, but somehow new and refreshing at the same time. I based my expectations on anything in particular other than what I have done in the past in FPS games and what I would like to see done better or added in the future. What I would have liked too see, for instance, is more varied use of the physics engine. Being able to push the occasional table over for cover, and the implementation of physics on part of the level design would have already made it more immersive (I'm no technical wiz so correct me if I say the impossible, just my imagination).
I dunno, I just feel it should have had more varied things to do.

"I think the limited running will be a bit annoying in DM.. other than that it does feel a lot like Quake2. It's sort of slow, the weapons fire slowly, the projectiles are slow -- hehe, you get the picture."

It causes you to think more about your next move, IMO. Makes the battles more intense, and the frags more gratifying. I've got an arrangement to do a Doom 3 LAN sometime soon :D
BTW, didn't Carmack say the engine was capable of handling more mthan four players, but that they consciously decided to start Doom 3 off on a smaller scale, or something like that?

And what, pray tell, did you expect from a DOOM game ? Did you actually play Doom I and II ?

there were about 50 games better than doom since then

In Doom's genre, I can only think of about 2 games better actually. What are the other 48 you are thinking of ?

I have to agree with ReviewReader here. I have been plaing for two hours and already it's repetative and insipid. AI seems to be a pathetic joke here.

@Errol

er Doom is a FPS so any FPS is in the same genre...why what type of game were you under the impression Doom was?

As for your 50 better games question can we say

Doom2
half life
serious sam
return to castle wolfenstein
call of duty (and all expansions)
medal of honor (and expansions)
farcry
Unreal
Unreal2
Quake
Quake2
battlefield 1942
ghost recon
delta force
soldier of fortune
soldier of fortune 2
quake 3
unreal tournament
unreal tournament 2003
unreal tournament 2004
quake3 team arena

I'm sure you can fill in the rest of the list yourself..heck why did I even answer your mail it was a clear I've spent 50 bucks ona tech demo and now need to justify it type mail anyway ;o)

@reviewreader

Sadly I agree with most of your points. Once people play doom3 (and there will be many) they will wonder why it was given such high scores. This in turn will start to errode their confidence in any site that simply praised doom3 because it was made by ID and therefore must be cool and new and exciting.

Doom3 is pretty much 60% repetition and 40% oh why were the rest of the levels not like this?!? I will not spoil it for you but, let us just say the last few levels are what the rest of the game should have been like.

Given this there isn't really any way to justify the scores it has recieved so far in the press. I would have given doom3 say 5 for tech innovation and (though you may not want to hear it) 2 for gameplay a total of just 7 out of 10.

My review summary would have been something like

Sadly after waiting for 4 years for this game, it is disappointing to see that ID have brought nothing new to the table apart from visual effects. The story is disjointed from the actual gameplay (your fellow marines can't bring down hellspawn with rockets while you kill em with a simply shotgun) and the AI is at pre 1995 level. It is this reviewers opinion that so much more time was spent on the technology than the gameplay and sadly with all the environmental polish this short coming shows all the more clearly.

Doom2
half life
serious sam
return to castle wolfenstein
call of duty (and all expansions)
medal of honor (and expansions)
farcry
Unreal
Unreal2
Quake
Quake2
battlefield 1942
ghost recon
delta force
soldier of fortune
soldier of fortune 2
quake 3
unreal tournament
unreal tournament 2003
unreal tournament 2004
quake3 team arena

In my opinion most of that list fail to better the original Doom. And games like BF1942, UT 2003/2004 et al are not in the same genre.

Just what is a 'carreer' anyway?

I simply want to be entertained by a game, being as it comes under the arm of 'Entertainment'. I've not played the game yet, and won't until it plops onto my doormat as I want the full experience .. ie ripping the cellophane off, jamming the CDs in the drive and pacing the room while it installs. For me, I'm not looking for any originality in the game, it's pretty clear that's not really going to happen. I just want a modern day version of the game that got me into PC gaming in the first place. If it turns out to be cack, then so be it.

My only critique of the review is lack of actual screenshots you took while you played! What ever happened to the bonus page of screenies EG used to do when I wrote here? :O)

And what, pray tell, did you expect from a DOOM game ? Did you actually play Doom I and II ?

But that's the problem - it isn't much like the old games, it's more like Half-life.

@ReviewReader
Say what you want about GameSpot or IGN, but at least they call them out as they see them. They demand the same degree of quality from ALL games, not just the ones that were supposed to be good games and not just some scary piece of shit.

Sorry ro break your credibility, but IGN gave the game a score of 8.9 and Gamespot wasn't that far with 8.5....

You were saying?

MaTTy_P

The reason is simple, you probably have a geforce card, am I correct ? Doom 3 is a Open GL game, geforce handles them better and Far Cry is a direct 3d game. It also might have to do with the smaller enviroments.

If the original Doom was groundbreaking in terms of gameplay then I don't see we shouldn't expect to see groundbreaking innovations in this new Doom. It just doesn't offer anything new. I don't see how it would have been that hard to make the game stick to its roots whilst still offering something new and innovative.

correct nause. :D cheers anyhow...bloody direct 3d :)

thread has become what shall be now known as 'the flaming grounds'

This thread is hell on earth.

It's even getting as repetitive as Doom 3 too... ;)

"StanleyPointLarge hit the nail on the head. Wait for the mods and/or the new games made with this engine.
Hell, I can't remember the last game I bought that WASN'T modable..."

Thats kinda frustating too when the best of multiplayer comes not from the developers but the modders.

No it IS like the old games thats what seems to be the problem for some people.

I've played it, and it feels nothing like the old games. The whole environment and level structure is completely different - its trying to be 'realistc', whereas the old games were more concerned with making the maps challenging and fun. Sure there's a few of the old tricks in there, but it's still more HL than Doom. Are there even any secret levels??!

My last word on Doom3 for all those claiming it is in the same mould as the original doom. To you all I have to say is "Knee deep in the dead"

In Doom3 there are no piles of corpses to follow, no mass of cackodemons to look at in satisfaction after a hectic few minutes of blasting. In fact no corpses at all they simply disintegrate!

I guess this state of the art engine couldn't cope with the load (though I would have used a speed tree type imposter system for that but hey what do I know ;o)

In my opinion Doom 1, though far less visual than doom3 is by far a the better game (I'm playing it now as I got fed up of trying to like Doom 3)

Face it, all comments after the 150th one are either a repeat of a previous point, irrelevant or simply not very interesting at all.

This one, for example, falls into the last two categories.

Doom3 is not complete crap, props for the technology and ambiance, but a 9 or god forbid a 10 it is no

Yeah, oly a 8.9 I recon....

yeah still havnt played it yet, but really i think whats important is how other devs are gona use that engine. D3 technology is so advanced, jus think of the cool stuff we'll be playin soon based on its code.

quake 2 was a dissapointment but Half life ran on a modified version of its engine.... :)

quake 2 was a dissapointment

What planet are you living on ? Quake II was, and still is, the finest example of DM/online gaming.

Perfect in every respect.

ReaderReview, your list of games is grasping a bit there, and falls well short of 20, let alone fifty. Although, considering that you must have some time-travel abilities to know that the Call of Duty expansion is better then Doom maybe I should just leave you alone.

Not meaning to be derogatory, just voicing an opinion: I think many who are not impressed with Doom 3 because it brings nothing ‘new’ or ‘original’ to the table are just the kind of people that are beloved of marketing people and salesmen. People who have been influenced into having a strong desire to only buy things that are new, where the newness is the only reason to buy the product. If something is not doing anything that hasn’t been done before yet it delivers so well on the job it has taken on it will be disregarded, if something comes along and offers, say a 1mega-pixel camera or polyphonic ringtones, then that is good and must be purchased.

Originality and newness is all well and good, but doing something different does not provide merit on its own. Hooligans may have been the first football violence game, but it was still a pile of shite. I’m sure we can all think of many other examples. Doom 3 has a groundbreaking engine and solid and highly enjoyable gameplay. I’d rather play Doom 3 as it is then a modern day equivalent to Trespasser.

Marketing people like the gamer who just buys the sequal, not the original title becuase that means having to invest in a risky project that may not sell verry well or is difficult to market.
Licencess and sequals, that's what they like.

" Every corridor, every office, every crawl space regardless of how bland has something going on inside it. A flickering light, a burst pipe pumping out steam, a PC monitor that you can actually read (and in many cases interact with), a smashed up fixture, a knocked over chair and discarded soft drink can. " Well, all that was there in Far Cry. For Gods's sake, give some credit where it is due. FC came up with the FIRST NEXT-GEN ENGINE, and for hell's sake it is their maiden effort!!! Look what they did to the FPS, and in my opinion, Doom III is all about taking the genre back to 1994, stellar graphics notwithstanding. My point is that it is a great game graphically, and THAT IS IT. You would expect that much from something four years in the making.

" Every corridor, every office, every crawl space regardless of how bland has something going on inside it. A flickering light, a burst pipe pumping out steam, a PC monitor that you can actually read (and in many cases interact with), a smashed up fixture, a knocked over chair and discarded soft drink can. " Well, all that was there in Far Cry. For Gods's sake, give some credit where it is due. FC came up with the FIRST NEXT-GEN ENGINE, and for hell's sake it is their maiden effort!!! Look what they did to the FPS, and in my opinion, Doom III is all about taking the genre back to 1994, stellar graphics notwithstanding. My point is that it is a great game graphically, and THAT IS IT. You would expect that much from something four years in the making.

Well there must be a lot of very unhappy shoppers in here, never seen so many people rush out to buy a game they knew was going to disappoint them.

Doom 3 eh? Well I love it, great fun. Thats all i want from any game.

Doom 3 is ok, but were it not for the jaw-dropping graphics engine would people still be praising it as much as they do? If this were produced on the same engine as say Return to Castle Wolfenstein (Quake 3 Arena?) I believe this would have scored a 6 or 7, simply because the gameplay is bland. Sorry to upset all you id whores.

so when's that demo out?

Face it guys, you love Doom 3 because it justifies the ridiculous amount of money you spent on a graphics card.

I don't consider 100 notes "ridiculous".

Almost any pc will get you better performance than an xbox.

A £100 card won't get you better performance than an Xbox. I'd rather spend the extra to get an Xbox personally.

And your point being?

640x480 from 2' on a 19" monitor looks like cack though.

"640x480 from 2' on a 19" monitor looks like cack though. "

640x480 on a 43" projection tv using video out looks stunning tho

martyngates: exactly!

Truthsayer: as long as people enjoy the game what does it matter? A simple slick shooter which can use the new abilities of the newer hardware is most welcome, but the engine development is more important, and it seems to be good.

Whole thing reminds me of Dragons Lair and Laserdisc players.

Yes. Because it's exactly the same situation with graphcis cards. They'll just work with Doom 3, and you'll never be able to use them for any other games. They're a doomed standard.

Besides, all reviews and forum posters who say the game runs well on old Geforce 3/4 cards which you can pick up nowadays for next to nothing are lying, lying, i tell you. :-D