Doom 3 - 16 Years Later: A Retrospective

erek

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"Reevaluating Doom 3 sixteen years later, released by id Software and Activision on August 3rd, 2004! Looking back at the hype and history of its development, its entirely new style of horror FPS gameplay compared to its predecessors, and of course that darned flashlight."

 
It was a very different experience than the first two games. I enjoyed it well enough at the time, but it relied too much on jump scares and super tight corridor shooting. It was very confined and you fought few enemies at once. Seemed out of place for a Doom game. However, it had amazing graphics and atmosphere for the day. I think Doom 2016 is the best effort since Doom II. I didn't care for Doom Eternal and its over reliance on platforming and ammunition economy which forces you into being very careful with your shots.
 
I remember desperatly trying to find a way to increase the brightness when it was first released lol.
 
This was the game that pushed me to upgrade from my lousy GeForce FX to a 6600GT. This game looked amazing for the time and still looks decent today despite its age.
 
The thing that disappointed me the most about the game was the fact that monsters just teleported right next to you rather than exist organically in the environment. I went into the game thinking I was going to have to hunt or be hunted and thought it would place more emphasis on exploration. I enjoyed it more than HL2 though for some reason and still play it now and then.
 
And yet, 16 years later, we're still getting new Doom games, not very good ones but the IP is still kicking...

I think Doom 2016 was a solid entry and closer to the original in feel and concept than Doom 3 was. That said, I've got pretty serious issues with virtually all of them past the original two games. Not to say they are perfect. They are merely products of their time.
 
It is a game that got owned by Half-Life 2 in every metric by which one can measure a game.

I loved HL2 when I played it the first time. I came back to it a couple of times, but never felt like finishing it again. I still play Doom 3 every couple of years. HL2 had its good points, and I would say some of it may even be better than some of Doom 3. However, after all these years, I still find Doom 3 entirely entertaining. HL2 is more like a good memory.
 
I replayed it last year (the BFG edition) and I was thoroughly compelled from start to finish. It's still my favorite Doom game to date (although I haven't played Eternal yet.) The environmental storytelling is second to none IMO
 
This is one of those games that got so overhyped that it turned me away completely, I don't think I even played it, except a very short demo version.
 
I didn't like it at all. Everything looked like it was made of shiny clay, there were unrealistically dark shadows everywhere, and it kept trying to scare you with the same imp behind a door over and over. The DLC was a little more action focused (and brighter), but I still didn't like it much.
 
Doom 3 is a great game that I very much enjoyed. My memory is that it did become predictable with the jump scares; enter a room, baddies jump out, kill them all, move on to the next room, rinse and repeat. What a great time tho. Doom 3 pushed me to spend all my cash on an evga 6800 ultra (256mb). This and HL2 really cemented my walk away from consoles for PC gaming.
 
I think people put WAY too much emphasis on the jump-scare thing. Sure, there are some "monster closets". (there were in the original DOS games too) However, there are plenty of encounters where things crawl out of vents, burst through floors, out of walls, etc. The sound of the spiders clicking away in the vents while you crawl through them, etc. There is a TON of variety in how you get attacked in this game. Yes, there are some canned jump scares, but it's not the entire game. It's kind of ridiculous that people get so stuck on that, because it's really NOT as prevalent. People would have you believe that this is the ONLY mechanic in the game. I think a lot of people haven't actually played through the entire game.

On the shadow thing, yes, they are dark. I think it probably comes down to the limitations of the dynamic lighting that could be done on the hardware of the time. They were already pushing the hardware as it was, so one can hardly fault them on that. There are ways to mitigate it. Grab a flashlight mod. Turn the light-halos on in the definition file for the plasma gun and BFG, etc. Fire a shot down a hall, and you can see things just fine. It's actually quite atmospheric. I think they probably disabled that setting by default due to performance at the time, because it actually works great.

Many of the things I see people complain about with this game are actually present across the whole series. If you prefer the frenetic action of the others over the slower, survival style of D3, then cool. I can see that. The thing is, the complaints leveled at this game IMO are nitpicky at best. It plays like System Shock Lite, which is hardly a bad thing.

Visually, there aren't many games that can hold up after this much time. Maybe Far Cry and FEAR. Maybe Escape from Butcher Bay.
 
This is one of those games that got so overhyped that it turned me away completely, I don't think I even played it, except a very short demo version.

I wouldn't lose any sleep over it, you didn't miss much.
 
Only played Doom I and II, before that Wolfenstein and DukeNukem ;-) on a 486 those were fun days... mainly because I had time to play :(
 
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I actually think this game gets more hate than it deserves. And it’s obviously because of the fact that it’s a doom game. A couple of years back I finally played the first two dooms and then I finally “got it” about Doom 3. Very different than the first two games, and I can see why fans were upset. But hey, it ain’t a bad game and I think it’s still very fun.
 
Doom.

id creates a hellish feast where you are attacked by the realm of the demonic. The lights go out, the doors open and be prepared to be scared to death!

Doom II.

id returns to the pit of hell to bring you a more advanced view into the land of the demonic. The lights go out, the doors open and be prepared to be scared to death!!

Doom III.

At long last, in an attempt to bring the franchise back to life, you're about to enter hell you've never seen before. The lights go out, the doors open and be prepared to be scared to death!!!
 
Doom 3 is my favorite Doom game and one of my favorite games of all time. It was also the first game I bought a new videocard for.

Nice!

(while I had bought and upgraded video cards since the ISA bus days to play games, this was the first game I bought TWO cards for :D ) Got two 6800GTs for it. I had initially bought an X800 card for it because the Alpha leaked version ran better on my 9700Pro than my Ti4600. However, by release, it was leaning toward Nvidia, so I sold the X800, and went overboard for SLI. :D
 
I remember a friend of mine copied that for me... it was incredible. I also remember playing the leaked Half Life 2 stuff.

I was disappointed that they didn't have the same scene where the pinky pushes through the pipes in the wall. :D

I didn't get or try the leaked HL2 stuff. I did like the tech demo they did for their shaders though.
 
It was a very different experience than the first two games. I enjoyed it well enough at the time, but it relied too much on jump scares and super tight corridor shooting. It was very confined and you fought few enemies at once. Seemed out of place for a Doom game. However, it had amazing graphics and atmosphere for the day. I think Doom 2016 is the best effort since Doom II. I didn't care for Doom Eternal and its over reliance on platforming and ammunition economy which forces you into being very careful with your shots.
This sums it up for me as well. Also I got into modding doom 3 and had a blast with that.. Mostly graphical mods and running it on three screens at 5760x1080... finally someone bundled all the gread mods into one called Sikkmod.. with that enabled it was alotta wow!!.
 
I was disappointed that they didn't have the same scene where the pinky pushes through the pipes in the wall. :D

I didn't get or try the leaked HL2 stuff. I did like the tech demo they did for their shaders though.
Yeah everything they showed at E3 you can play through. All this stuff you can play:



I am sure you could probably still find it online. It's kind of interesting if you're a Half Life fan.
 
I remember a friend of mine copied that for me... it was incredible. I also remember playing the leaked Half Life 2 stuff.
I know this is going to sound insane, but I downloaded an alpha of Quake from a nasa.gov link posted in an obscure IRC chatroom a few months before quake came out. Sounds totally made up but I swear on my grandfather's grave it happened.
 
I know this is going to sound insane, but I downloaded an alpha of Quake from a nasa.gov link posted in an obscure IRC chatroom a few months before quake came out. Sounds totally made up but I swear on my grandfather's grave it happened.

Nah, plausible. Used to grab stuff off of university FTPs all the time from links on IRC. (among other things) Then upload to local BBSes. :D Fun days.
 
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