08-08-2004, 06:08 AM
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.
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.