3rd February 2020, 12:13 PM
(This post was last modified: 19th October 2021, 2:45 PM by Dark Jaguar.)
Oh dear I had utterly forgotten the issues people had with the gaming industry back then. It almost seems quaint. I'd easily take a bunch of cookie cutter games flooding the market over the issues we have today.
In any case, I've been playing through Doom 3 a lot recently. I'd never actually played through the whole thing. I finished the original game and it's expansion just this month and am currently working through the "Lost Mission" campaign in the BFG edition. (I don't really like the BFG edition for the first two campaigns but it's the only way to play Lost Mission.)
I have to say I'd misjudged this game for a long time. Yes, the thought that any real sense of fear could be elicted by a skeleton with rocket launcher shoulder pads is laughable, the game's not truly scary, but it IS moody. You do find yourself dreading what's around the next corner because of that mood. That said, while the game seems to want me to creep forward with trepidation, I've found that in spite of the stamina meter and the addition of weapon reloading, it's still the best strategy to rush directly into every monster as they spawn in and blast them at point blank. I'm fine with that. Thanks to Doom 4, I have grown to love that style of play and even went through Dooms 1 and 2 to really experience it recently.
Now it's Doom 3's turn, and well, yeah it's fun! In fact, the graphics hold up surprisingly well. That's a rarity when it comes to "realistically styled" games from this particular era. I also enjoy the PDAs. Sure, their use is kind of overdone at this point, and frankly the concept needs a redo since you essentially end up standing completely still while listening to PDAs (and sometimes depending on the room's acoustics you need to wander somewhere else just to deal with the annoying echoes making their voices impossible to understand, this game REALLY needed subtitles), but it does add to that mood and a little of that tongue in cheek humor. I mean, at one point you download a message from a demonically possessed computer with a company wide memo about proper setup of sacrificial circles. (It turns out I guess that how a pentagram is arranged matters due to the influence of a gravity well on the summoning process, so make sure they're upside down or you'll end up with a seal instead!)
I do also enjoy the artifact items. One's basically an inverted blender you toss inside of a demon. It's stuffed full of angry martian souls getting revenge for their species' extinction. The other's a heart with a grenade handle on it. It's sill looking but it can slow down time, make you stronger, and eventually invincible. It's powered by souls too so- well yeah. It's kind of fun dashing all over the place and slaughtering an entire room of demons with your bare hands.
Oh yes, what else? Um- well mainly I'm playing this to prep for Doom Eternal's release. They've announced "No microtransactions!" but well, it's Bethesda now, so we'll see just how long that lasts.
Edit: It lasted until the very moment MS bought Bethesda. Now they're making those "time limited events" a two time only thing before they get locked in the Disney vault, but don't worry they have you covered because they did you a FAVOR by "Allowing" you to PURCHASE said unlockable for a small tiny nominal one time fee.... over and over again.
In any case, I've been playing through Doom 3 a lot recently. I'd never actually played through the whole thing. I finished the original game and it's expansion just this month and am currently working through the "Lost Mission" campaign in the BFG edition. (I don't really like the BFG edition for the first two campaigns but it's the only way to play Lost Mission.)
I have to say I'd misjudged this game for a long time. Yes, the thought that any real sense of fear could be elicted by a skeleton with rocket launcher shoulder pads is laughable, the game's not truly scary, but it IS moody. You do find yourself dreading what's around the next corner because of that mood. That said, while the game seems to want me to creep forward with trepidation, I've found that in spite of the stamina meter and the addition of weapon reloading, it's still the best strategy to rush directly into every monster as they spawn in and blast them at point blank. I'm fine with that. Thanks to Doom 4, I have grown to love that style of play and even went through Dooms 1 and 2 to really experience it recently.
Now it's Doom 3's turn, and well, yeah it's fun! In fact, the graphics hold up surprisingly well. That's a rarity when it comes to "realistically styled" games from this particular era. I also enjoy the PDAs. Sure, their use is kind of overdone at this point, and frankly the concept needs a redo since you essentially end up standing completely still while listening to PDAs (and sometimes depending on the room's acoustics you need to wander somewhere else just to deal with the annoying echoes making their voices impossible to understand, this game REALLY needed subtitles), but it does add to that mood and a little of that tongue in cheek humor. I mean, at one point you download a message from a demonically possessed computer with a company wide memo about proper setup of sacrificial circles. (It turns out I guess that how a pentagram is arranged matters due to the influence of a gravity well on the summoning process, so make sure they're upside down or you'll end up with a seal instead!)
I do also enjoy the artifact items. One's basically an inverted blender you toss inside of a demon. It's stuffed full of angry martian souls getting revenge for their species' extinction. The other's a heart with a grenade handle on it. It's sill looking but it can slow down time, make you stronger, and eventually invincible. It's powered by souls too so- well yeah. It's kind of fun dashing all over the place and slaughtering an entire room of demons with your bare hands.
Oh yes, what else? Um- well mainly I'm playing this to prep for Doom Eternal's release. They've announced "No microtransactions!" but well, it's Bethesda now, so we'll see just how long that lasts.
Edit: It lasted until the very moment MS bought Bethesda. Now they're making those "time limited events" a two time only thing before they get locked in the Disney vault, but don't worry they have you covered because they did you a FAVOR by "Allowing" you to PURCHASE said unlockable for a small tiny nominal one time fee.... over and over again.
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)