Well, I've played up to the EnPro Plant (which is
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| where you get my favorite gun, the Plasma Rifle |
) and here's my opinion of Doom 3.
I think that once the WOW effect from the graphics (which is pretty big) wears off, there's not a ton of amazing stuff in the game. The unarmed Zombies seem to be a direct rip from Resident Evil zombies (even up to how many pistol shots they take before they fall). The new Imp can crawl on walls (and yes, looks very much like a Licker from Resident Evil) and fires fireballs. Other than that, though, the enemies are very interesting. True, there's no Spider Mastermind, but there's
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| this thing called a Vagary which is like this spider chick... she creates these things called "Trites" which are smaller spiders. |
There are plenty of interesting things. Unfortunately, the enemies suffer from some problems...
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absolute predictability. Like the armed Zombies (Z-Sec Soldiers). They pop out from a column to fire at you, then exactly two seconds later they pop out again to fire, regardless if they can see you or not (that is, they'll fire down the hallway they last saw you in.) It's like ID Software spent NO time on AI. Most enemies just stand there and fire at you if they're ranged. Sure, they'll move around, but like before, the timing is very predictable. The AI on the melee monsters is even more idiotic. They'll just charge you as fast as they can. The AI code for those must be only three lines or so...
EDIT: Now that I think about it, the grunt code from Half-Life 1 was FAR SUPERIOR in every way to the soldier code (or any enemy for that matter) in Doom 3. Interesting.
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As for the level design, it's neat, but it contibutes to my biggest gripe with the game - cheap scares. They take monsters that aren't really that scary at all and try to enhance it by always making the areas dark. After a while, you just watch the shadows all the time and don't really pay attention to anything else (since there's very rarely an enemy out in the open). You'll often find rooms that are designed like rectangles, with a little dark recessed area with a pile of armor shards in front of it. You go to pick up the armor, bam, a zombie that was conveniently waiting there pops out Or you're fighting enemies down a hallway and some come up behind you. Yawn. And I'm serious - it's either of those. It never happens any other way, unless an enemy transports in at RANDOM (or should I say, heavily scripted). Now, they try to explain all this darkness -
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| that the already crappy power generators combined with huge power usage in Delta Labs creates |
intermittent power failures. Interesting how intermittent they are - they always seem to occur at just the right time to allow all the dead bodies on the floor rise up just as you walk in. This is an example of Doom3's HEAVY scripting. You think you've seen scripting before - then you play Doom3.
I've never, ever seen as much scripting in one game as Doom 3. You can almost sense the next trigger line as you walk through (you know, just randomly strolling down a hallway, and you pass over a trigger and some door with a monster behind it opens to your left).
The scripting is just about as scripted as the plot. You can pretty much predict anything. At about Alpha Labs Section 1 or 2, I was able to go into a room and say "A zombie will come out of that dark corner" or "An Imp will transport over there."
You know, Half-Life 2's big claim is that it contains no (or at least very few) scripted sequences, and the AI would be intelligent as hell. It seems like Doom 3 went exactly the opposite way on this, and I don't think it turned out that well...
Right, so, enough about that. The weapons.
Ah, the weapons. They're awesome. The best part about the game were the guns. You have all the guns of the original + several more. The Machine Gun looks suspiciously like the assault rifle of Halo... but they managed to make some really fun weapons (like the Plasma Rifle and BFG9000).
The ammo placement was very strange in this game. You find ammo in the most unlikely of places (like a box of shells in a scientist's office). They also tend to try to control your ammo more than most games. Like they'll load you up with a ton, then let you go until you're pretty low, then load you up again. Rinse and repeat.
The enviroments were also a bit uninspired. Anyone remember the facility in Resident Evil 2? Yeah, that's basically the UAC facility on Mars. Even down to the way doors look and the placement of lights. If someone took out all the Doom enemies and left just the zombies in Doom 3, I'd be hard pressed to tell if it's a Resident Evil game or a Doom game. There are some nice places in it, and interesting architecture, but it gets so repetative very quickly.
The story line is slightly better than average. It's greatly enhanced by the PDA aspect of it, which allows you to read other's email and get video disks, but other than that, it's sort of obvious the way things are going. It's too bad that the story line requires so much explaining to keep moving. The only times you get a good deal of development are in the PDAs, and it's kind of annoying to go for a while then have a bunch of stuff explained to you, then wait for the next PDA. Scientists you find rarely give you anything other than "I don't know what's going on." Cutscenes lack in content. Strange scenes where your vision turns red and stuff warps in are sort of tired after the first couple.
Well, overall, I'd say it's an above average game. Not far above average... just above average. If this was released with HL1 or Quake 3 graphics, people would be snoring by the third level. So it's only above average because of the spectacular graphics.
I run a 2.0ghz P4, 256MB RAM, 64MB GeForce 4MX. I run it on the lowest setting, and it still looks amazing, even with a setup that's under the minimum requirements.
Before this came out, I was hearing tons about how Doom 3 will be the scariest game ever and it will beat the pants of Half-Life 2. I don't really see how that will happen. After a while of playing, the repetative and uninventive play style of Doom 3 makes you just want to stop playing it. There's no real big objective other than take care of minor tasks - in fact, the objective you'll have most of the time is "Get to the next level." Half-Life 2, though, sounds far superior in terms of plot, gameplay and physics, and probably wiill be on-par for graphics. I can't wait until it comes out... I grew up with ID, but Valve makes a damn good game.
Doom 3 is a good re-telling of the first. I think it's a nice game, but certainly not amazing. It just bothers me that they could have done a lot more with this (like spent more time on AI code, or developing some way to scare people that's NOT a zombie hiding in a dark corner).
Out of 10, I'd rate Doom 3 a 6.5/10 if you're a new player to the Doom series,and 7/10 if you're a Doom fan already.
It's coming out August 3rd for PC, and the website is here. It looks pretty amazing to me. I'll probably end up getting it for XBox, but I might have to sit on a toilet the whole time I'm playing it. 
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