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Phoenix
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Both Doom 3 and Half-Life 2 now. So what did I think of both games?
Doom 3
After much tweaking so I could get the game to be tolerable with my system settings, it was a pretty good game. I played it a second time through with a modified shotgun that has a tighter spread and reduced damage, as well as changing the machinegun, shotgun, and pistol to fire from the gun's muzzle instead of directly on the crosshair. I also sped the plasma rounds up to Doom's original projectile velocity. The second time through, with the modified weapons, and the game felt solid. The shotgun was effective but not overly-powerful, and was useful at medium ranges. It felt more like a classic Doom shotgun should feel, and the other weapons felt much better. The plasma no longer felt sluggish.
For all the criticism leveled at it, Doom 3 does what it sets out to do. I did not find it excessively dark when adjusted to the proper brightness values. Turning off any ambient room lighting helps - the game was meant to be played in a pitch black environment so what's on the screen can stand out. Maybe some people are just really afraid of the dark, I don't know. I have no problems playing a game in a pitch black setting. I wished the hell sequence was longer, and that there were more puzzles besides the usual "read PDA/open storage locker with code". So did I think it was scary? I think it could be scary. Having seen what I've seen in my own life it's rather hard for a video game to frighten me, but I think it could scare the bejeezes out of some people.
Gameplay-wise the monsters are fewer, though at some points you get rushed by several monsters at once - usually in an area just small enough to make fighting them uncomfortable and claustrophobic. I do think the "imp-in-a-box" was used too often, and the Trites, except for scripted spawns, seemed to follow the same ground-limited walk paths as humanoid foes would as opposed to climbing on any available surface. I think they could have been much more manacing and unnerving if they were able to actively climb on any surface in the game.
Half-Life 2
Again, some tweaking was required, especially in my SLI settings. I'm using the old 84 series drivers right now due to an SLI quirk with certain graphics cards video bios (I'll flash the cards eventually) so I'm not sure if this has changed since then, but the default SLI profile for HL2 is for "SLI Antialiasing". I modified the file containing the profiles so I could change this and found that setting it to Alternate Frame Rendering 2 doubled my framerate. Why this was not the default setting I do not know, but it helped greatly.
The Havok physics engine allowed HL2 to do some things you couldn't do in a FPS before, and the water reflections and character rendering were very well done. The physics, beyond the vehicle sequences and some obvious physics puzzles, seemed to play less of a role later in the game where it progressed more into a standup firefight in a lot of places. The gravity gun was pretty much "pull in item/propel it at high speed as a missile" so physics there was mostly bouncing stuff off things or watching them break apart/get knocked over. Physics did play much more of a role than in Doom 3, but it seemed to me there were actually fewer puzzles that required thought in HL2 than in the original. The Source engine is solid and does what it's designed to do every bit, if not better, than what the Doom 3 engine sets out to do. Now if only someone will make Trespasser 2 using the Source engine and let you play as one of the raptors...
Gameplay-wise I was really not as impressed with Half-Life 2 as I thought I would be. It felt a bit disjointed, and I had plenty of gripes. The vehicle sequences seemed overly long and the paths were laughably contrived with a lot of gimmicks. The weapons, except for the pistol and SMG, had terribly low ammo capacities, so you end up either running out at a very bad moment, or else not using certain weapons at critical times for fear of running out at a very bad moment. I did not use the crossbow or .357 in places I should have in retrospect because of the ammo scarcity. Some of the firefights in the middle of the game seemed much harder than they should have been, while some later firefights seemed far too easy. I did not like the fact that the Tau cannon - one of the iconic, most powerful guns from the original Half-Life, was unable to shoot down a certain annoying airborne foe when in the original you could blow the Apache assault choppers out of the sky with it. The hand grenades were "toss and forget" as opposed to being able to vary the throw distance easily and time the explosions. Yes, I found that you could roll the grenades with the secondary fire, but it seemed the soldiers were always smart enough to get out of the way when you threw one, so I usually relegated them to room-clearing tools when I suspected an ambush was close by. I also felt the last chapter felt way too short, and I would have liked to have seen more freaky stuff than what I did. Hopefully without spoiling anything important, I will say that disintegration pinball was absurdly fun and was a welcome payback to those bastards after some of the earlier firefights.
This is not to say I disliked everything in the game. I did like the game to a large degree. I think my favorite part was after "Sand Traps" where you get to have fun with the Antlions. I wanted more of that, and to be honest the Antlions seemed to be much more effective against the Combine soldiers than the citizen resistance forces did later. Maybe I'm just no good at keeping a squad alive, but it seemed like the resistance fighters had a very bad tendency to stand in the open, merrily gunning away at things while getting shot repeatedly, whereas the Combine troops knew how to duck for cover and fight with as low a presentably profile as possible in places.
So, which game did I like better overall? The verdict must go to...
Doom 3. Overall I found the game more immersive, the flow felt much more logical and well-defined, and I always felt like I was moving with a purpose. The enemies were more interesting and the weapons all filled a different role, and I felt I could apply what weapon I wished to a situation as opposed to relying on the gun with the biggest ammo pool. Surprisingly the story in Doom 3 seemed to be much more clear cut than in Half-Life 2. HL2 I felt I was just being shuffled from one spot to another and it was run and gun without any real clear objective other than "don't let the Combine catch up to and kill you" and "find the level's exit trigger". Perhaps this is because the story arc is being stretched out over Episode 1 and Episode 2, which I've not played Ep 1 so I'm not sure.
Doom 3 is not much like the original Doom, but considering the age of the original Doom, and that there were three Quake games with advancing tech inbetween them, it's very understandable. The game does seem like "System Shock 3 by Id Software" in a sense, but after tweaking some of the guns to "not suck", and getting around the technical quirks (such as that blasted framerate cap), the game works and works well. HL2, to me, lost the magic that the original Half-Life had. There was an edginess to Black Mesa that City 17 just does not have. You catch some of it at the beginning when the APC's with the Civil Protection goons roll up and you have to make a mad dash for it without weapons, but half-way through the game it seems like you're creeping around and watching every corner for someone to pop out and shoot you in the back - something people complained about with Doom 3 ironically. Don't get me wrong, I think both are fantastic games, but I think blasting zombies and demons in the sinister, haunted halls of Mars just felt more fun than fighting Big Brother-esque thugs in a crumbling Eastern Bloc city.
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Tabun
Pixel Procrastinator
Team Member
Elite (3k+)
   
Posts: 3330
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Although I still find the whole idea of "picking sides between D3 and HL2" strange, I'll toss in my 2cts.
There's one thing in which I can and want to compare them, and that is looks. Doom 3 is creepy and dark, but it has the typical new-engine quirks. The normal mapping is a nice new gimmick, but it's typically overused and I can't help but feel like I'm running in a plasticy world with half-heartedly masked blurry pixels, and equally masked low-poly models. The way HL2 combines day-bright with underground-dark appeals to me and it really helps that they've been able to make very convincing skies and water effects. Between my old and new game rigs, I've found that D3 does not allow itself to be beautified much, as it are typically the new technical engine side-effects that cannot be smoothed over by high quality settings. HL2 on the other hand looks absolutely ravishing when it is given more to work with. So if I would have to pick, I would pick HL2, and wait for the D3 engine and game style to be taken beyond its experimental stages.
An unrelated bonus for D3 which is not to be sniffed at, is the EAX 4 system. It's wonderful and it really helps build atmosphere. HL2's sound is fine, but just not that immersive, in the sense that it does not do much to increase a kind of "environmental awareness".
I've also given S.T.A.L.K.E.R. a quick try, and I must say that looks quite fantastic too. Down side is that it is buggy and it takes some hard-core tweaking to even get the thing running without crashing perfectly stable systems. :]
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| Tabun |
?Morituri Nolumus Mori? |
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Lopson
Elite
Posts: 1133
Still Going In Circles
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Half Life 2 wins this round IMO. The environments are rich and varied, atmosphere goes from calm and beautiful to dark and intense. The weapons in both games are well-balanced, each one having a specific function. Sounds in both games are good, but the sound effects in HL2 P'OWN, bluntly speaking. The only thing HL2 is lacking of is EAX, like Tab said. Also, HL2 is a much more tolerant game than DooM3 with hardware components.
Haven't played STALKER, but it looks like a nice game.
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Kajet
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I'd side with Half life 2 but... steam... on the other hand... yeah i'll side with HL2, dispite steam sucking so much.
Speaking of witch was someone hacked a workaround so I don't have to deal with steam?
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Dr Sean
Ogre
Posts: 50
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Well, I have Half Life 2 on the Xbox (360 backwards compatable) and i have the original Half lifes and the expansions, and it just seemed like they dumbed it down and made it a lot more simple for HL2, it looked great, and was fun, but I agree with Pheonix about the ammo thing, throughout the entire game you use the pistol, smg and crowbar. And as for Doom 3, I dont have it, but my cousin does, and I played the deom, and a little at his house, HL2 seems better, but i would'nt know for sure.
And... i dont like steam.
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« Last Edit: 2007-07-01, 20:04 by Dr Sean »
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death_stalker
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Half-Life 2? I liked it a bit. It was fun for a while. I mess with Gary's mod now more than I play the game itself.
D3? I loved it when I first got it. Played the crap out of it then it collected dust. Once again I play a mod for it more than the regular game. CDoom. Bug tested for a while. Well, almost a year actually. Very addictive and fun.
I really haven't played either game recently. I guess it's time to dust them both off lol
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Phoenix
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Although I still find the whole idea of "picking sides between D3 and HL2" strange, I'll toss in my 2cts. I'm only doing this because of the whole "Doom 3 is going to pwn!" "HL2 is going to pwn!" hype surrounding both games, and the whole ID/Quake vs Valve/CS warring that's gone on in the past, as well as the ATI/Nvidia rivalry that's been tied to it as well. Let's face it, they're also the two most expected sequels for any games ever, and I wanted to give my critique since I've played both of them well after the hype machines had shut down. What's wrong with a little comparing? I'm not really picking sides - I liked both games and I think they're both good games. I just enjoyed one more than the other.I've found that D3 does not allow itself to be beautified much, as it are typically the new technical engine side-effects that cannot be smoothed over by high quality settings. On this I must disagree. I was able to configure the game to run with all settings turned on (I did need texture compression) except FSAA. I just bumped the resolution to 1280x1024 to make up for the FSAA hit on FPS. With the proper tweakage it was smooth as polished butter. I did not get much on the lines of blurry pixels with the exception of Betruger's coat button, which I found kind of amusing. Everything else was very high-resolution and I was able to maintain a near constant 60FPS except for a few spots with some extremely complex lighting and shadow going on, such as the hangar bay for the Darkstar, and one scene later on with a LOT of light shadow and steam confined in a small area with some mechanical equipment.
Now perhaps I had a setting wrong in Half-Life 2, but I saw my share of blurred pixels. The word ASUS on the CD-Rom drives of the computers in Kleiner's lab and various other friendly localles comes to mind, as well as various posters and stuff tacked onto bulletin boards. I do agree that the Doom 3 characters looked kind of rubbery at times, and HL2 did a much better job on rendering humanoid characters to look a bit more realistic.
I'm rather not surprised that more people prefer Half-Life 2's gameplay over Doom 3. I kind of expected to be in the minority there. I will say that engine-wise Doom 3 is much harsher on the hardware, but I also think Doom 3 is a lot heavier effects-wise. There's always something glowing, beeping, moving, letting out steam, dripping, or doing something at any given moment in Doom 3. Half-Life 2 has a LOT of more static material as far as complex visual rendering effects are involved. I think one benefit I had playing both games that a lot of gamers did not is that I was able to play both with all the eye-candy enabled at a decent resolution without framerate degradation. I will say this - I tried the Doom 3 demo with mediocre to low settings on my old system and I hated it. With everything juiced up, and after fixing the damned shotgun, I liked it. I can see where hardware could have a huge impact on what people thought of the game. Without having all the effects in place, the game simply does not work. Light and shadow, along with sound, have to work together for Doom 3 to make sense. That's why I waited to play it until I had hardware that could handle it. I think the engine was too advanced for the hardware of the time, but unlike the Doom 1 and Quake era, there are other games to play and Id isn't the only game company for FPS games so trying to run the latest hardware boundary-pushing game is not going to be as desirable now as it was back then. Half-Life 2 you can get away with turning effects down and not really change the gameplay much. You don't need the high-level environmental effects to the degree you do in Doom 3.
Now, all that being said, I am looking forward to playing Episode 1, and like I said before, I did not dislike Half-Life 2, just was annoyed with certain elements of it, the same as I was annoyed with certain elements of Doom 3. I've also played Doom 3 through twice, and Half-Life 2 only through once. Sometimes I like a game better on the second go-round, so that might have a bit to do with it as well. |
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Tabun
Pixel Procrastinator
Team Member
Elite (3k+)
Posts: 3330
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I really enjoy replaying Doom 3 with higher quality settings, btw., but sadly very few areas are shocking now that were intensely creepifying the first time around. The same goes for HL2. There's nothing quite like being hunted with pumping music, or creeping through hideously deformed mars-base corridors without quite knowing what to expect.
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| Tabun |
?Morituri Nolumus Mori? |
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Lopson
Elite
Posts: 1133
Still Going In Circles
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I really enjoy replaying Doom 3 with higher quality settings, btw., but sadly very few areas are shocking now that were intensely creepifying the first time around. The same goes for HL2. There's nothing quite like being hunted with pumping music, or creeping through hideously deformed mars-base corridors without quite knowing what to expect. Sad, but true. There's nothing like the first time... |
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scalliano
Elite
Posts: 1095
Yup, that's me
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Haven't played HL2 yet (my mate says I'm being a knob and Steam isn't all that bad, the fool), but I'm still discovering the delights of RoE. and I'm also replaying D3 on my TV comp (256MB GfFX 5500, AMD 1.5GHz) using what are effectively XBox settings (trust me, it works on a TV). To be honest, I don't think D3 deserved half of the stick it got, though some things did irritate me, like the Imps' apparent invincibility when charging up a fireball (ever got up close with the shotty only for the Imp to shrug it off?) and, of course, the very fact that Cherubs were in the game at all ...
But, hey, I thoroughly enjoyed it and, yes, CDoom is sheer class.
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PSN ID: scalliano
The Arena knows no gender, colour or creed, only skill.
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Phoenix
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Invulnerable imps? If you land a killing shot while they're winding up a fireball they can't throw it, but it does have to be a killing shot.
While I'm at it, I might as well repost my file with the modifications to the Doom weapons:http://www.wireheadstudios.org/phoenix/mis..._shotgunmod.pk4
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Visimar
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I'm going to have to side with the majority here and say that I thought Half-Life 2 was better. I'm not real too keen on being startled a lot, which is exactly what Doom 3 did. I also didn't like the ragdoll physics in Doom 3, as they were too stiff for my tastes. There are some other key differences, but I could go on forever so I'll spare you the details. As for your grenade problem, Pho...have you tried using the Gravity Gun in tandem with the hand grenade's secondary 'function'? This can give you much greater control over it, as then you can time it correctly and chuck it at some Combine. If you do it right they'll never have a chance to dodge. This also applies to Half Life 2: Deathmatch. Roll the grenade, pick it up with the Gravity Gun then chuck it at a random player. You can also turn your enemies' grenades into your own this way, and I always do it to the Combine in single-player. All the carnage without the price of precious ammo!  |
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scalliano
Elite
Posts: 1095
Yup, that's me
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That must be why. It seems to happen when they leap at you too, but as long as there's an alcove nearby, you're in with a shout of them actually missing you.
Since my last post I've finished RoE. The end sequence of the Doom movie was longer, and that's saying something. Would have been nice even to see myself waking up in the infirmary back on Mars with Dr. McNeill looking down at me. White screen? Oh, please ...
In these days of games being bigger than the hard drives of old, GIVE US SOMETHING WORTH FINISHING A GAME FOR!!! NNNNNGH!!!
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PSN ID: scalliano
The Arena knows no gender, colour or creed, only skill.
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Phoenix
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This should probably all be spoiler tagged, but oh well. The white screen is an ambiguity - you don't know if you've lived or died, if you're in heaven or hell, or in a medical ward. If you're alive, how did you get out of hell? Ending didn't bother me so much. Let's face it, Doom 1 had what, a field with a bunny that scrolled over to some burned up buildings. Doom 2 had, um, text. I don't need a fancy ending, just give me a good fight and let me kick the bad guy's tail.
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Kajet
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I don't need a fancy ending, just give me a good fight and let me kick the bad guy's tail. I disagree, if the story of a game is enthralling enough the worst thing to do is end a game with a short > 1 min. cut scene that hardly gives you any kind of closure, just a want of a sequel. |
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Dr Sean
Ogre
Posts: 50
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I think its alright if it kind of leaves you hanging, but i dont like it when i can Really tell their just trying to get you to play the sequel.
But if it just doesnt give you all the details and lets you use your imagination, i think i like that better... somtimes.
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scalliano
Elite
Posts: 1095
Yup, that's me
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I was under the impression that spoiler tags weren't needed in this case, so apologies to anyone ready to lynch me over revealing RoE's ending  I still reckon the game's worth playing. I don't mind cliffhangers, and let's be honest, before Q2 all you got from an id game was a text message and not much else, but when you consider the effort that's ploughed into the opening sequences and cutscenes of most games these days (let alone D3) it can leave one feeling a bit empty. And, yeah, D4 or a second MP for D3 would be very nice right about now. :rules:  None for Q4 yet, I've noticed. What gives? |
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PSN ID: scalliano
The Arena knows no gender, colour or creed, only skill.
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Kajet
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None for Q4 yet, I've noticed. What gives? Maybe cause it wasn't made by id? Kinda sucks cause Q4 ended on a cliff hanger... Lemme think of other game endings I didn't like... VQ3 - well lets face it Vanilla Q3 sucks anyway Oblivion - wasn't very memorable I thought HL/HL2 - both half life games endings were a little abrupt I thought Q2 - well you knew what happens to the marine but... that's it? Tribes Vengeance - No seriously that's it? Fear - Kinda sucked, can't say much more though since spoiler tags don't seem to be working. |
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« Last Edit: 2007-07-03, 01:47 by Kajet »
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