Death's advocate approaches ... (Doom 3)

[Cryptic]

Does anyone have it yet? First impressions? Half-Life 2 destroyer, or just eye candy dolloped over the same-old same-old?
B)

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5581318/

[TaiDaishar]

After I save for a couple of years in order to buy a computer that can play it I will tell you how it is!

[pakman]

I do not plan on getting Doom III. MY sights are set on Half Life 2. At least Half LIfe has a semblance of a story with plot twists. I think it's just another eye candy game. Don't get me wrong, Half Life 2 will be eye candy, but it is completely different than the remake that Doom III is. Doom III also costs more.

[Wiccan]

Doom 3 does have a storyline this time around, unlike the other installments.... this one does actually have story to follow, if you kill a certain monster you cant finish the game becasue you killed the creature to soon or it did not do what was supposed to do at right time, they did alot work on this .. i played it and i am on the first map and it seems to scream play me single player to get my story and if you want to take a break go kill some people in multi ....

But you cant say doom3 dont have a storyline or even a semblance of story compared to halflife if your not going to even play it now can you?


But i am not going to say doom3 will kick half life's storyline becasue, i dont plan on getting half life comparing them both is time consuming and money consuming

[Nystul]

My local Electronics Boutique should have Doom 3 in stock starting today. I'm still undecided on whether to rush over and buy it, or wait for a future year when the game is cheaper and I have a computer that can handle it better. My current computer is almost verbatim the "minimum required" system to play this game. It is funny to think that back when I built this computer, which seems like eons ago, the game everyone was anticipating and building computers for was.... Doom 3! Thinking back a couple years, Doom 3 is probably the game I bought my GeForce 3 for instead of getting a <$50 budget card. So perhaps I ought to get the game and see if that card is up to the challenge.

Given the lack of anything particularly interesting in the CRPG (not MMOG) genre since Morrowind and Neverwinter Nights, this is really the only new game I've been looking forward to for quite some time. I am a bit of a Carmack fanboy, and I still play GLQuake from time to time. Even if this game is mostly eye candy, it will probably be the "eye candy flagship" for 2 or 3 years to come.

If Doom 3 is able to improve on Doom as much as RTCW improved on Wolfenstein 3D, it would be quite a game.

[Urza-DSF]

Feh.

Just another over-hyped FPS. All pretty graphics and no meat to the actual storyline. I'll pass.

[vor_lord]

I installed it last night and played just a bit. It certainly starts off as if there will be a real story/plotline, but I don't know how far they will take it. I'd love for it to have an engrossing storyline all the way through, but something tells me this is a 'horror movie made into a video game', not a 'suspense/action thriller made into a video game'. By that I mean that the plot may not hold up throughout. But it's all speculation, I'm barely into combat.

Tons of effort is given into the atmosphere (sound, lighting, and textures are very impressive).

Performance-wise, my machine is:

AMD Mobile Athlon XP running at 2.4GHz (a 3200+ Barton runs at 2.2 GHz, so it probably could be called a 3500+)
1 GHz RAM (dual channel, 400 MHz)
GeForce 5900XT, 128Meg O/C by about 10%

At 'Ultra Detail' which is the highest, I get occasional hitches during gameplay. The game indicates that 'Ultra' takes over 500 Meg of texture memory, so maybe
that 256Meg card is worth it for this game. I'm speculating my hitches are when loading new textures in particular.

Note that even 'Ultra' is just 1024x768. My machine runs UT2k4 at 1600x1200, full detail, flawlessly. The difference in texture complexity is astounding between the two games.

[Bolty]

At some point far in the future when I upgrade my comp, I'll pick it up in the bargain bins. $55 for a FPS that you'd be done with in 10 hours of play (most FPS's last about that long single-player)? Nah...

-Bolty

[Artega]

I bought and played it today, and you are very wrong. While it's not going to win awards for storylines, and it won't beat HL2's storyline, it DOES have a decent storyline.

And, of course, it looks a lot better than Halo 2 does (take THAT, Xbox-lovers!) ^_^

It took me about two hours to go from the opening sequence (non-combat/tutorial) to the Administration area, at which point I decided to take a break and go play War3. id is saying that it's supposed to be 20+ hours long, so maybe it will be worth your while, Bolty. Then again, Neverwinter Nights' OC promised 25+, and I completed it in seven, so it's probably YMMV.

[Nystul]

Then again, Neverwinter Nights' OC promised 25+, and I completed it in seven, so it's probably YMMV.

Hang on, are you saying you finished the entire NWN campaign in seven hours? The first time through? Seven hours into the official campaign, I was still rolling my character! I really don't remember how long I spent on the campaign, but I think it was on the order of 50-80 hours for the first run through. I can't imagine playing through it in less than 25 hours, even knowing where everything is and skipping some of the dialog.

Back on topic, right now I'm leaning towards getting Doom 3. I understand from what I've read that it has pretty basic, straightforward gameplay, but then I think about the games that I keep coming back to (Double Dribble, Super Mario Bros., Quake) and I conclude that perhaps 'straightforward' is what I'm in the mood for right now. If I do get it, I'll let you all know how it runs on a minimum spec computer.

[[wcip]Angel]

The game will hit the shelves in Europe in August, Friday 13th. I've gotten a copy of it to see if it's worth the money. The graphics is quite impressive, even at medium settings (and 800*600 resolution.) I own a 2ghz 512MB RAM, GeForce4 ti 4600, and the only time I notice any drop in performance is when I open doors to new areas. A lag of about a quarter of a second is not worth upgrading for. I'll wait for HL2 until buying a new PC. Some more RAM would help a lot, but the few hick-ups here and there are not enough to detract from the overall experience.

I haven't made up my mind about this game yet. The one thing that I find a tad annoying is the scripted events. It seems every room has a pattern, just like in the original Doom. You step beyond a certain point and the wall opens up behind you with monsters jumping you from behind.

[kandrathe]

I borrowed a friends copy to try-before-I-buy, which I installed and played single player for about 1.5 hours last night.

If you like a game that makes you wet yourself every 5 minutes, then this is your game. id is the master of mood, so the lights go out and you have to shoulder your weapon to use the flashlight, there are lots of twisty passages and hiding places where ghoulish bad guys pop up. Later they start ripping through the walls, and up through the floor. It was an hour of sheer terror. There are puzzles to solve, and things you must do to progress. Dead civilians and grunts have dropped their PDA's with reports and e-mails you can glean for security codes and where things might be. You find video discs with information on how to use or do certain things.

Visually, yeah, its definate eye candy. So far, the plot has not entirely engrossed me, and the normal FPS motion sickness is augmented by the typical id gore.

But, so far, I have not puked. I think this is the porn of graphically violent video games.

[NiteFox]

At some point far in the future when I upgrade my comp, I'll pick it up in the bargain bins.&nbsp; $55 for a FPS that you'd be done with in 10 hours of play (most FPS's last about that long single-player)?&nbsp; Nah...

Hmm, good philosophy to have really. One I apply myself for most games.

I have, to my right, a DVD rack loaded with about £100 worth of software, or to be more specific, about 22 budget games at about £5 a pop. I dread to think what it would have cost to buy all these titles at full price.

Some good things in there too. Stuff such as Deus Ex (Which my computer can't run, think of it as a future investment), Thief 1 and 2, Aliens vs. Predator, Arcanum (A real bitch to find these days, in fact the budget version I have vanished off general sale within about two months - I had to go to an outlet store and pick it up), Homeworld and Homeworld Cataclysm (Again, Cataclysm is an absolute 'mare to find these days).

[yangman]

"The" tweak for Doom3?

I don't own the game, but from the posts there, and confirmed by a reliable source, the tweak contained above can significantly increase the performance of the game, namely reduce all the "pauses" caused by disk-scratching. There's a lot of discussion about what it actually does or even anything at all. AFAIK, no official word from id yet, and the built-in variable list help file isn't too specific about it.

Try it out. :ph34r:

[vor_lord]

"The" tweak for Doom3?

Try it out.&nbsp; :ph34r:

I tried it out. I couldn't see any difference. Although if I did set image_useCache to 1, the game would crash :blink:

[ldw]

A more reliable way to test this is to pull up the console (CTRL-ALT `) in the menu
and run the inbuilt demo by typing "timedemo demo1".
You'll then get some stats at the end.

[Nystul]

My first impression of Doom 3 is that it makes quite a first impression! This is a cinematic experience, which relies far more on lighting and sound than any of Id's previous titles. It's eye candy, and ear candy. It's Terminator vs. Night of the Living Dead. It's the monster in your closet and things that go bump in the night. It's turning your flashlight on to see what you just killed, hearing the wall shatter behind you, spinning around and shining your flashlight on a demon as it knocks you backwards with it's attack, swapping your flashlight for a shotgun, and firing at the beast from pointblank range. Then approaching the next door and hearing the screams of dying marines through your radio headset. And once the game gets in this mode, it seems to pretty much stay that way: B Horror Movie syndrome at it's best and worst.

If you are looking for a tactical single player experience where you can plot ahead, trying to outthink or outstealth a clever AI, catchings the enemy offguard with a backstab or knocking them off from a mile away with your scoped rifle, making crucial dialogue decisions on moral dilemmas that effect the outcome of the game, then this is totally the wrong game. If you are expecting something truly revolutionary that doesn't involve the words "sound" or "graphics", this will probably be a letdown. This is essentially Quake 2 level tactics: lightning fast reactions, mouselooking, crouching, circle strafing, dodging projectiles and backpedalling away from slashers, weapon/ammo management (a bit more involved here since you have limited clips and the flashlight to worry about), etc. The story line and character interaction do go beyond what Id has done with FPS games in the past (including the Return to Castle Wolfenstein collaboration), but it is mainly to set the mood, create immersion, and direct the game flow. As far as balance and replayability goes, it's way too early for me to comment. Multiplayer is something that will have to grow over time in order to be worthwhile. But I think the bottom line is that if you enjoyed the single player experience of the Doom/Quake/Wolfenstein lineage, you will enjoy this one too, and if not, not.

I mentioned before that my biggest concern about buying the game was whether I could even run it. So here is my report on that issue, for those of you with similar computers. My system specs: kt266A generation motherboard (133 Mhz FSB), Athlon XP 1700+, 512 MB DDR SDRAM, GeForce 3 Ti200 with 64 MB DDR video memory (slightly overclocked), Audigy 2 ZS, Windows XP Professional. In short tems, my rig is a hair above the official Minimum System Requirements in every category. It really grips me how smoothe the game seems. I mean, even if the FPS drops down into the 5-10 range, it only feels slightly unresponsive. I don't think I've had a moment so far that seems laggy or choppy (keep in mind that I'm talking only about the early part of the single player game here). I guess I am supposed used to the choppiness assosciated with dynamic area changing in Diablo 2 and WoW that I was expecting that kind of thing in this game. But in Doom3, the areas are small (by comparison to the entire World of Warcraft, anyway :P), level loads are done the old fashioned way, and so if you have the minimum required memory, the area transitions are not as bad as in those kind of games.

With LOW quality settings, resolution at 640x480, and specular lighting effects turned off, my FPS usually stays above 10, fluctuation through the teens and twenties in rough areas, and going up into the 60s in other areas. The game looks very good even with these minimal settings (these texture tricks at low resolution are just absolutely unbelievable), but aliasing is an issue with the low resolution and AA turned off. This game will change some conceptions about 640x480 resolution.

Raising the quality setting to HIGH at 640x480 really kills the FPS. It is 5-10 in many areas and in the teens in most others. The single player game seems to be playable under these conditions (as I mentioned before, I have yet to notice any major choppiness even with FPS this low), and the HIGH quality texture sets are incredible, but it is not worth the performance hit since the major problems with low resolution and no AA I mentioned before are still present. So far I have not tried HIGH quality settings at higher resolutions. I'll probably try it just to see what the game looks like to people with new high-end systems, but I am already convinced that the uncompressed textures are not an efficient choice on my system.

I've taken MEDIUM quality up as high as 1280x1024 resolution. Again, FPS is hovering mostly in the 5-20 range here, but yet it is playable. This was the best I've seen the game, and to say it is the best graphics I've ever seen on a personal computer would be a major understatement. Of course, I haven't seen Farcry yet. Anyways, higher resolution of course improves everything, from texture details to aliasing. I'll continue tweaking and probably end up using either 800x600 or 1024x768 at either low or medium texture qualities. I'll also probably try the absolute minimum settings (the 640x480/LOW combo, but with important things like bumpmaps and shadows turned off), just to see how bad it looks and how well it runs :)

One attempted change to the config file prevented the game from running. Otherwise, the game has been perfectly stable with no crashes, errors, graphical/sound artifacts, or noticeable degrading of performance over time.

[Taem]

I really can't wait to play this game!

Yes, a short post, but my enthusiasm is overcoming me! I've been a doom fan since Doom first came out and this is truly a dream come true, for me at least!

[Haider]

Good game, great graphic, sound and atmosphere (the first game that was able to recreate the scary feeling I had when I played Diablo the first time). Unfortunatly the game is too long, and through this it get repetative: The same monsters, the same textures, the same triggers spawning the monsters - everything gets old too fast. If they had chopped off 1/3 of every major act the game would have been much better (Max Payne is also basically always the same, but since it is short and intensive it is a great experience, Doom III seems too much streched out).

[Artega]

I think I've made the most headway in Doom 3, excepting Archon and LegitMaan, who seemed to get it a day or two before me. I just recently restored power to the Delta Labs, and so have seen a large portion of the game, and seen pretty much every old Doom favorite except the Hellknight, Cyberdemon, and Archvile. I've also acquired every weapon except the lovely BFG 9000 (which Swan's bodyguard wields - I would assume that I have to kill him to get it.)

People that are getting (or downloading, you dirty pirates, you) Doom 3 and expecting an incredible well-thought-out plot and one hundred hours of gameplay are looking at the wrong game. Doom 3 lasts an expected 30 hours (it's taken me about 17 hours to reach the Delta Labs, which I think is about 60%-70% through the game), and the AI, while not stupid isn't ground-breaking. Much of the battles can be won by simply triggering the enemy, ducking around the nearest corner, and either pumping a shell into them at point-blank or butchering them with the Chainsaw (which is, IMO, the best weapon in the game, short-range notwithstanding.) Long-range battles are easily handled with the Machinegun or Plasma Rifle, Rockets can be used with reckless abandon if you feel like feeding that annoying Revenant some of its own medicine, Hand Grenades can be lobbed around corners for fun, and the Chaingun butchers just about anything at pretty much any range. The BFG, of course, redefines "wallpaper" - fire into a room and observe the new red paintjob. The Pistol is an excellent solution for long-range zombie-killing, the smaller Spider Demons, Lost Souls, and those freaky baby-flies.

Nystul is correct in mentioning sound - wearing headphones or using 5.1-or-better speakers is an absolute must. Playing in the dark isn't required, but given how dark the game is, it's hard to play during daylight hours due to glare (plus it's just not as fun.)

For people wanting more than four players in multiplayer, there's a small 1.6MB mod that allows up to 32, though this will completely wreck id's intended multiplayer style. There are also mods available that tape the flashlight to various weapons for people that don't want to be without a weapon at all times.