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Author Topic: Doom 3 Impressions (I played the Demo today)  (Read 23668 times)
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Footman
 

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« Reply #40 on: 2004-12-05, 00:01 »

Lord_Malchia, I'm under the impression that you're immune to fear. Slipgate - Tongue
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lord_malchia
 
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« Reply #41 on: 2004-12-05, 00:41 »

I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and around me. And when my fear is gone I will turn and face fears path, and only I will remian.
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Phoenix
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« Reply #42 on: 2004-12-05, 01:05 »

Nice litany, but you're not the Mahdi. Slipgate - Laugh

Foot:  From what I played in the demo I didn't really find it scary at all.  It's dark, and things are going to jump out at you and surprise you.  We know this going into it because Id kept touting how much of a "horror" game it was going to be.  To me it sounds more like the average haunted house at Halloween:  You know what to expect

If you really want to freak someone out you package something as a standard action game and throw creepy stuff in to spook the player when they least expect it.  Little things, like going down a brightly lit hallway and seeing some bloody handprints on the walls, or marks where someone was dragged INTO a dark room is a lot more disturbing to the psyche than just "all shadows all the time".  Once you're in the darkness you know what to expect, but I guarantee that you would NOT want to go through that door.  Does seeing a pair of red glowing eyes in a pitch black maintenence area really scare you?  To me it makes for a handy target.  How about walking into a medical lab where everything is in its place and there's about a half dozen tables with corpses covered by sheets on them.  Then after walking halfway across to the other side they all very slowly and quietly sit up at the same time while still under the sheets?  How about going through a room with dead bodies on the floor, and after coming back that way from retrieving a keycard you notice they're GONE?  See it's things like that that really screw with the mind.  The conscious mind picks up easily on certain things, but the subconscious mind locks onto "small things that are out of place", and THAT is what triggers one's danger sense the strongest.  Fear is psychological.  One can be afraid of a danger that is not real, the same as one can not be afraid of a danger that is very real.  It all depends on the psyche.

See I think the original Doom had freaky bits in it because everyone expected an action game, and then when you'd open a door from a technological looking area and the room behind the door is completely RED it throws the mind for a loop.  We biological creatures are programmed to expect consistency.  Throw in a few evil altars, gibbed bodies, and you have a neat formula that throws that sense completely off.
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Footman
 

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« Reply #43 on: 2004-12-05, 01:24 »

Consistancy starts to die a bit by the time you reach the Alpha and Delta labs in the full. Though seeing the blood, dead people, demonicly warped and influenced technology and stuff starts to become second nature. :/
And Hell... I'll leave that to your discretion... But I will say, it'll throw you in for a loop. Slipgate - Wink
« Last Edit: 2004-12-05, 01:26 by Footman » Logged
lord_malchia
 
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« Reply #44 on: 2004-12-05, 03:30 »

I agree fully with what you have said Phoenix... I do think that there are a few games that take psychological horror seriously. Eternal Darkness is a great example of such. It was heavily based upon H.P. Lovecraft's work though, so it's hard not to expect such (unless we're talking about Quake 1, heh). As you sanity slipped the statues and paintings would begin to subtly watch you as you cowered from hearing soft footsteps or laughing off in the distance of your cerebrum. Of course even this wore thin after a while as you became used to it.

Silent Hill has always presented pretty good scares as well, I think. Of course, I have only ever played the first one and even that's been years ago.
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ROADKILL
 

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« Reply #45 on: 2004-12-05, 03:47 »

I played the d3 demo
didn't think d3 or hl2 was worth getting.
don't get me wrong d3 and hl2 are good
just not good enough to want to play more than once or twice.
q4 from raven will be using the d3 engine and should
be a good sp and mp game.
that's what my $$ will go for when it comes out.
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lord_malchia
 
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« Reply #46 on: 2004-12-05, 03:56 »

I'm very iffy about Raven doing Quake IV. I've absolutely hated their more recent games like Soldier of Fortune II and the various Star Wars crap. The first Soldier of Fortune and the Hexen series were awsome, but I don't find them to be that talented anymore. Just my opinion of course. Also, as fun as Quake II was for multiplayer purposes, I liked the first Quake's storyline much more (see previous post for indications of Lovecraft fan-mania, heh)
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Phoenix
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« Reply #47 on: 2004-12-05, 07:28 »

Raven did a good job with Heretic and Hexen, and Elite Force was decent even if the Q3 engine limits made the map size too bloody small.  Could have had some more inspired maps, but how creative can you really get with a Borg cube?  Doom - Huh?

I'm hoping Q4 ends up being the mind-blowing action game it's being touted as in some of the preview articles I've read.  We shall see.
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Tabun
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« Reply #48 on: 2004-12-05, 21:54 »

So far, my assumptions have proven to be true. Both Doom3 and Half-Life 2 are games that any self-respecting pc-gamer should play sooner or later. Otherwise it'd be just like calling yourself a movie-enthusiast, but refusing to see 'The Godfather' and 'La Haine'.
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Tabun ?Morituri Nolumus Mori?
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« Reply #49 on: 2004-12-05, 23:05 »

I have decided to wait til christmas before trying HL2. I want to really get a good few hours alone to get into it.

On Doom3: I just got bored, and went back to deathmatching, and playing American McGees Alice. (never played it til this year)
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Phoenix
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« Reply #50 on: 2004-12-06, 00:30 »

I am still going to play both Doom 3 and Half-Life 2 eventually, but funds for new hardware and games are lacking.  I had to uninstall the Doom 3 demo to make hard drive room as well.
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ROADKILL
 

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« Reply #51 on: 2004-12-06, 02:14 »

right now I'll stick to ut2004.
it has the best mp and the best level editor's.
the online mp is way better than d3 or hl2 and no steam LOL.
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Gnam
 
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« Reply #52 on: 2004-12-06, 19:32 »

D3 deffinitely was not as good as it could have been, but that's not because of the darkness, it's because Id just didn't do a great job with the level design. The shadows and having to use the flashlight were not the problem.

The biggest problem by far with D3 SP is the poor placement of monsters. Durring the early part of the game, it's mostly haunted-house style scripted sequences that don't present much of a challenge, and got balatanly old enough after a while that id had to try something else. In the last half of the game, there's basically no scripted monster entries, but instead of being placed in ambush locations in 'monster cages' and hidden locations around the map, where the layout of the rooms and anticipating encounters comes into place (which was used in the original Doom games to great effect), basically the later portions of the game are 90% monsters (mostly imps and hell knights) just spawning into the middle of the room when you walk in with no thought put into it at all. If monster placement had been more like that of the old Doom games, atleast it would have been fun and challenging, and not a step BACKWARDS in design from Doom 1.

That said, D3 is a decent game and does exactly what it advertised it would do. It's not the best game ever, but it's worth playing. It's just not the end-all super-great successor to the original games that it could be if done properly. Then again, no games today are ever all they're hyped up to be, are rarely done "properly" and they allways have flaws, so there's not a lot to be surprised or worked up over about it.

Meanwhile, D3's MP scene has gotten somewhat better lately. The average FFA player on public servers is no uber-competative player, but isn't a complete n00b either and atleast knows how to pick up the rocket launcher. You still have lamers that just camp in the shadows getting killed, but usually if you wind up in a good server there are atleast 1 or 2 players actually moving around the map getting items and fragging like men, and usually only like 1 n00b that thinks he's playing splinter cell. The combat doesn't have the same skill/manuevering depth as Q3; it's still mainly just about getting the RL and raping everyone cause there's no room to dodge, but it's a fun novelty and change of pace on occasion due to the different tactics involved.
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Footman
 

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« Reply #53 on: 2004-12-09, 06:53 »

On a related note with the things-jumping-out-at-you stuff, however....
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
« Last Edit: 2004-12-09, 06:56 by Footman » Logged
Gnam
 
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« Reply #54 on: 2004-12-09, 07:59 »

Yeah, good point footman. I think that was the one part of the game where the level designs actually felt like old-school doom. At the same time, if it had been like that the whole time, with the monsters just attacking head on, it would have gotten repetative (it allready was starting to at the end) so I think a mix of head on + classic-style hidden monster cages would have been cool if the levels had continued to go in that directioo (the fact that they didn't is probably D3's biggest flaw).

Spoiler (click to show/hide)
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Woolie Wool
 
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« Reply #55 on: 2004-12-15, 00:06 »

Quote from: JLMode
You guys just complain too much. As a near-future psycologist i?ll tell ya dat, one of the most common mistakes we humans do, is dat, expect. Because we learn from childhood to ?expect?, many people later on ends up messed up emotionaly because they always ?expect? almost every time dat, what ever is happenin it is good, no matter how catastrophic things may be, dis actually is related to the fact dat we have a psychic protection with us dat all the times does not allow us to assimilate somethin dat in all cases its very recomendable to do: just accept, accept dar somethin we think dat could not be, like ?dis is not happenin to me!!!? when you crash yer dad car dat ya borrow from him, and things like it that can get worse to ?he or she cant be dead!!!? and dat thinking will take ya to look forth psycological attention.

So after all dis crap, guys, accept what ya have, start thinkin less and lesser the ?why dis or dat, didnt happen dis way!!!? and you will have an edge and feel not ass bad as if you choose not to accept somethin, as far as i?m concern, DOOM3 is just great!!!! and i?m in a way like pho, DOOM is my favorite game of all time, when i get to play the DOOM64 series, i realize dat the original Doom could be implemented with a bit more ?cinematic? or ambient music dat makes ya more unconfortable, like you really are in hell, and of course Doom almost did dat, since i have downloaded some mp3s from the original, or single mixes or songs based on the first one, you can say that im really a fan of the game, not to mention i get more into it since ill get to play it with JDoom and the 3D models.

All the people I know told me that at least they jump from their seats like 10 times per map, and for me it was i think the same as they, since it is the game that has freak me out more than Undying, that was complicated but was also a good game, not to mention that also features a very well dynamic shadows as well, so DOOM3 is awesome!!! and ill tell ya since my machine is an Athlon Thunderbird 1.2Ghz, 378Mb ram, and a 64Mb GForce3 video card and using the lowest of all settings it really scares ya!!! so finish DOOM3, then play Halo2 and Half Life2, then try to be the most objective as you can be, and decide for yerselfs if DOOM is the best, no matter how much different it is from the original one, since the old school feeling is dat, ?old? and i think its not only me, buy all the guys dat use to play games from dat time when the Ultimate Doom was the king and other like Duke Nukem and Blood came behind, get a feel of greatness, of something different from the ones we play now, that feel cool, intense but deep inside ya know its not the same but in a way ya cant compare them because a number of differences in criteria.

So recieve a nice warm salutation from me, stop the forces of hell (we already know dat theyre goin to reach the earth) and stay sharp, beat the game in the hardest mode and try the mods, specially the ?duct tape mod? and the ?cooperative mod?. See ya around...
Please write normally. Writing in ebonics drives me apeshit.

Quote from: Phoenix
It costs money, and that is something I do not have at present.

Look, I can deal with some gripes like the shotgun patterning, but the 60FPS limit MUST GO, period, end of story.  I'll do it myself.  I do WANT to play the game, don't get me wrong.  I just don't want to play it on outdated hardware with FPS caps causing visual annoyance the whole time.  If it doesn't bother you, that's great.  I can't help it if my eyes/brain are more sensitive to these things.

JLMode:  Would it hurt you too much to use proper English?  I can guarantee you that you have at least a 500% better chance of being taken seriously and not having your entire post skipped over if you would do that.  Games Keeper keeps his posts short, which is why he's not completely ignored.  Nobody can stand reading three large paragraphs of Games Keeper Speak?.

I have no problem with 60FPS. The original Doom games (except for ports like ZDoom and Doomsday) are locked at 35FPS, and i was never really a problem except for extremely intense maps. I'm lucky to crack 60FPS in Gen at 1024x768 with all of the the graphical features enabled. The difference between 60 and 120 FPS isn't really noticeable to me and seems a purely academic thing for people who beat off  to their system specs.
« Last Edit: 2004-12-15, 06:58 by Phoenix » Logged
Tabun
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« Reply #56 on: 2004-12-15, 02:07 »

60 Hz and 60 FPS are WAY below the average human limits of perception. If you cannot play with higher values, why always the utter conviction that differences are indetectable? Every single gamer I know that has played with higher framerates with higher monitor refreshrates agrees totally on one thing: higher is better. I have not yet found a true limit for which I cannot detect the differences, and in fact, for which it does not annoy me to have to go back.

I have played Quake 3 with 60 frames per second on an 85 hz screen, back when those framerates were quite hard to get. After that, I was able to switch to 125 fps, on a refreshrate of 140 and quite recently, 160. The smoothness with which the game runs at that is awe-inspiring, when compared to the previously mentioned 60 fps situation. The amount of information one takes in (and lacks at lower rates) is clearly noticeable and even has a noteworthy effect in fast paced combat.
After a system upgrade, even faster speeds are possible. Framerates as high as 333 (another useful quake3 setting) up to 500 are managable with relatively new desktop technology. Refreshrates for lower resolutions can exceed 200 hz. Playing with these values is very smooth indeed. Switching back and forth shows a distinct difference, a noticeable choppyness using the set of lower settings.
Grudgingly I switch back to 125 fps, since Quake3's netcode does not allow for higher rates without causing serious connection issues.

There is no refuting the above. The only reason for disbelieving this, is an inferior perception, hardware or both. If you are one of the diminishing amount of people that still claim to see no difference between 30 and 60 frames per second, I seriously advise you to go see a doctor -- I'm sure you'd be unfit to safely drive a car on a busy day.
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Tabun ?Morituri Nolumus Mori?
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« Reply #57 on: 2004-12-15, 05:40 »

I stopped playing Doom 3 myself because the lag was giving me headaches. Yes, it was mostly due to my hardware's limitations I'm sure, but still. Engine ports (like jDoom) of the original game did this too me as well. Maybe I'm just sensitive Slipgate - Sad
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Phoenix
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« Reply #58 on: 2004-12-15, 07:11 »

Woolie:  I made a minor edit to your post to correct your quote brackets.

I again have to, again, agree with Tab on this.  Remember also that the original Doom was pretty low-rez stuff compared to what's available now.  There was a LOT of moire effect, and combined with the size of the pixels it offset a lot of the FPS chop.  I cannot stand Quake 1 to this day because of the lack of model interpolation.  Sprites in Doom have some chop to them, but it's not the same as the animation on the Q1 models.  Now if I run something like Q2K4 or Phoenix Quake (No relation to me) then Q1 is playable since it's smooth.  When ZDoom started supporting high video refreshes I was VERY happy.

If you think slow refresh isn't annoying, try connecting your mouse to a PS/2 port and lowering the repeat rate down to 40.  (I'd say hook up a serial mouse, but most people use XP now and XP doesn't support serial mice I don't think.)  Now, compare that to the refresh rate of 200 (assuming your drivers support this).  Big difference.  By contrast, a USB port is fixed at an 8ms refresh, or 125Hz.  From 125 to 200 is a HUGE difference, and quite noticeable to me.

Therein lies the problem.  Not everyone is wired the same, and not everyone notices the same things.  My eyes pick up tremendous amounts of detail.  Tabun is graced with an outstanding level of visual accuity for a human, or perhaps all humans are capable of this and he's just one of the few who has realized his full potential here.  Why should we be punished for our differences?  Would you make an outstanding runner wear concrete boots?  Would you give a sharpshooter an inaccurate rifle and ask him to shoot 1,000 meters?  If you want to know what it looks like for us to play with a low refresh rate like that, try walking around with your shoes tied together.  Once you start feeling frustrated to where the back of your skull aches and you get tense, you'll understand completely.
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Woodsman
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« Reply #59 on: 2004-12-15, 17:06 »

I stopped playing doom 3 because i beat it in two days. wasnt a whole lot to do afterward.
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