Author: Hoak <[email protected]>     Reply to Message
Date: 8/4/2004 4:32:03 PM
Subject: RE: My Little DOOM 3 Review...

Well, perhaps I should have qualified more of what I said and given more examples. I never expected to much like the DOOM 3's game or its game-play, but I rather hoped to be impressed by the engine. I thought that my low expectations, and hopefulness would leave my pleasantly surprised as a similar attitude to other media arts has left me -- it didn't.

I don't 'hate' DOOM 3; I don't think it sucks -- I am just not impressed. Think about it: id Software has had five years, millions $ U.S., the pick of top development talent, the pick of top contract development talent, all the support from the industry (Microsoft, ATi, Nvidia, IBM, AMD, Activision, atel) a development company could dream of or want, enormous grace that only their celebrity could grant them...

I don't think id Software's success, wealth, celebrity, and previous innovation should necessarily grant them more slack from criticism; in fact just the opposite. There are incredible, hard working developer talents that are starving and building better games and doing cutting edge engine development, while the id crew languish in wealth, comfort and the limelight of easy recognition. While I don't think this makes then beholden to anything, it certainly doesn't make put me under the onus to be their undying FanBoy. A lot of the strong positive reaction to DOOM 3 is almost certainly what I call the Emporer's New Clothes syndrome i.e. it ""Great!"" BECAUSE everyone says so, not necessarily because it so on a basis of fact.

Irrespective of how wrong you might think I am or with respect to 'popular' opinion; I still stand strong that DOOM 3 is seriously lacking in the 'atmosphere', 'scariness' that arguably so many seem to feel the game offers; and more importantly (to me) game design innovation and replayability... After the initial surprises the redundant affectation of what I call 'THEE SHOCKING SCRATCH ATTACK' is just plain monotonous and annoying -- and theres there is little variation beyond the 'THEE SHOCKING SCRATCH ATTACK' and 'THEE FURIOUS HAND-TOSSED FIRE-BALLS OF HELL". The monsters, their attacks, their premise -- just doesn't scare or even surprise me. If anything I feel sorry for their bizarre pathetic, lonely, helpless, lost, confused, hungry, and probably cold because they're so far from 'Hell' -- plight.

The engine is another story, and I suppose to really be fair to it, I need to see a game or mod developed on it that offers a game I find more inter sting and compelling. But I don't find the ridiculous high contrast, and incessantly strobing per-pixel lighting effects to be immersive and convincing in the least; quite the opposite in fact I find them just distracting, spastic, headache material. I mean really; if a kid (SquirrelZero) can create better looking, real-time, multiple source, soft-shadows for UT2004; why does Johnney's work have to look like stencil shadow crap that's poster work for the X-Box even though they are rendered with better technology? I just find the DOOM 3 light, bump-mapping and general aesthetic too histrionic and affected to be compelling and immersive -- you're welcome to love it, I don't...

The Sound, well you may like it or feel it sounds great on your little surround system but that doesn't make it technically good. I had rather hoped that the sound design and render was up to the spec of the engine, and I suppose from an aesthetic perspective it is -- but from technical perspective it's still stuck in the AM Radio-Land of the rest of game engine world. 'Best Of', well as a matter of your personal taste perhaps; but several Unreal Warfare games offer technically superior sub-mixing, less distortion, better HTRF and perspective effects (and I'm no UW fan, I like the look and feel of id Software BSP engine MUCH more).

The bottom line here for me is id Software had just about every resource, advantage, and opportunity the plant could offer them as individuals and a company -- and DOOM 3 is what they made. It's very unoriginal, is no real stunner as far as the quality of it's art assets, completely lacks any real game design innovation, and does not take the explicit technological lead other id Software games previously managed.

I haven't said or implied it's a horrible game or product, I just don't think it's ""GREAT!"", don't think it's worth $55 U.S., and certainly don't think it's worth the cost of upgrading a computer for those that might be contemplating it just to buy and play the game.

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