Journal AngryUndead's Journal: The Deffinitave Doom3 Review
I have been reading a few forum posts on how Doom3 "t0t411y sUxz0rs" and how HL2 will "sizeriously phizown" it. I've also read some about how HL2 "si sucky!" and how Doom3 "is teh best gamesss of teh ALlztimeSSS1!".
After all of that mindless dribble I can feel my IQ droping like the Hindenburgh. I need to get some of that stuff off of my chest. So I'm gonna give a review of Doom3 along with some comments and some hope for HL2 and futre Doom/HL2 Mods and such... as well as any hope for Quake IV.
Graphics: 10/10
I ran Doom3(D3) on an AMD 2700+ XP with 1GB of Kingston Hyperion 333FSB RAM and an NVIDIA FX 5600 with 128MB of RAM. I did a few optimizations and found that I could (for the most part) run it in Ultra Quality @ 1024x768 with all the options on except AFiltering and AA. I played most of the game on Medium quality before this and I settled on High for a good balance.
What did I find... the graphics are SHIT HOT... real time projected shadows, light sources, speculars... all are amazing. I have a screenshot of a zombie soilder shooting at me and his muzzle flash is throwing a shadow. That makes me a happy happy boy. The textures are sharp and I love the atmosphere created by the graphics.
Now for those of you (morons) who say "oh emmm geee, teh AtI is for teh suckz!!!11". You're wrong. John Carmack himself has said that the Lookup Tables for the Shading were implemented a long time back; during the first stages of development. There was no way for them to know that this implementation would be slower that doing the actual math on ATI cards. There is a simple fix involving changing one of the shader files that you can find on the net. It makes it "all better". So there, shut up about that.
Sound: 10/10
I know that by now you think I'm really biased... well sorta. Anyway I belive the sounds have drawn me into the game in a way that I havn't felt since HL. I play most games with the sound OFF. The effect of the fully 3d sound in Doom3 is AMAZING. I can't describe it any other way. Even the door sounds are sinister. The steel on concrete sounds for the doors later in the game is spot-on. The music is also incredible. Think way back to Quake for that one.
Gameplay: 8/10
The first thing that I would like to discuss is that grenades can't be thrown or toggled unless you download a mod... I hate that.
Some people complain that the gameplay is repetitive. Hmmn... have you ever played a game before? Tetris, arguably the most adictive game of all time, is highly repetitive. Of course, Myst, the best-selling game (last I checked) isn't. So who knows. Anyway... if you're complaining that this game is repetitive I have several questions for you:
1) Are you retarded?
2) Did you play Doom?
3) Again... are you retarded?
This about sums up my take on that. This game IS Doom! I shiver down the the core of my geekdom every time I'm forced to realize that. For those of you complaining of lacks of enemy waves... move faster pussy... you'll get plenty of waves. I've had as many as 10 monsters at once; and plenty of 8 way imp crossfire. And now, later, with the Hell-Knights... I've just fought like 4 in a row and they take impressive firepower to take down. Unless you can play 8-on-1 GODLIKE bots in UT2K4 I don't belive that you can do this easily on NIGHTMARE or HELL or whatever you forum people claim.
It is slightly repetitive though.
Story: 9/10
So... back to being biased. In any case the story is really really nice. The voice-acting is way above average; even great. If you don't belive me... go play Spellforce and Sacred.
I love, and I mean LOVE, the PDA's in the game. They're a little window into the mars base and the sinster activity going on here and there. Plus they give you happy fun codes of fun. Some people complain about the spurious (funny) emails. Face it, these people are Techs (Dorks) and Scientists (Geeks). These ARE the kinds of emails they would have. Get a grip... plus ID always provides the extras. (And if you really want to think about it the extra emails give us some insight into the bland and mundane existance that they lived on the base. Nobody downloads My Bonzai Buddy on purpose. Mymartianbuddy would be the same. They need that for entertainment. I'm sure you art and english majors can put down your makeup long enough to come up with other reasons for them too.)
Final Score: 9.25
Now, in conclusion, I would like to say that this game goes back to the hard-core old-school days of gamming. I love that. It is also a firm basis on which to build awesome mods. I can't wait to see a They Hunger (Hungry for... brains?) type mod for this game. I could also see the original Doom and Doom2 maps being ported for it as a mission. Good stuff. It seems to me that ID just told Valve (a little late mind you) "This is how you do Half-Life" and Valve said "L34v3 Uz 4lon3!11". Seriously, I like it, and it was worth every penny.
The Future 10/10
Now Doom3 has set the graphical standard... nobody can argue that. From the screens I've seen HL2 will have to step it up a notch but they may already have. HL2 has more of a "Big Open Space" thing going for it and thats awesome. I'm also hoping that the variety of weapons will be what we saw in HL and that they will add in the tactical AI of the Marines and kick it up a notch. Neither one of these games, however, will win out over the other. They both will have their ups and downs; unless you ride the shortbus to school and your mommy makes you wear a helmet for some reason.
I'm optimistic and the Mod scene is about to explode after UT2k4 and BF:1942 have been dominating it for so long. It is a bright, bright futre.
After all of that mindless dribble I can feel my IQ droping like the Hindenburgh. I need to get some of that stuff off of my chest. So I'm gonna give a review of Doom3 along with some comments and some hope for HL2 and futre Doom/HL2 Mods and such... as well as any hope for Quake IV.
Graphics: 10/10
I ran Doom3(D3) on an AMD 2700+ XP with 1GB of Kingston Hyperion 333FSB RAM and an NVIDIA FX 5600 with 128MB of RAM. I did a few optimizations and found that I could (for the most part) run it in Ultra Quality @ 1024x768 with all the options on except AFiltering and AA. I played most of the game on Medium quality before this and I settled on High for a good balance.
What did I find... the graphics are SHIT HOT... real time projected shadows, light sources, speculars... all are amazing. I have a screenshot of a zombie soilder shooting at me and his muzzle flash is throwing a shadow. That makes me a happy happy boy. The textures are sharp and I love the atmosphere created by the graphics.
Now for those of you (morons) who say "oh emmm geee, teh AtI is for teh suckz!!!11". You're wrong. John Carmack himself has said that the Lookup Tables for the Shading were implemented a long time back; during the first stages of development. There was no way for them to know that this implementation would be slower that doing the actual math on ATI cards. There is a simple fix involving changing one of the shader files that you can find on the net. It makes it "all better". So there, shut up about that.
Sound: 10/10
I know that by now you think I'm really biased... well sorta. Anyway I belive the sounds have drawn me into the game in a way that I havn't felt since HL. I play most games with the sound OFF. The effect of the fully 3d sound in Doom3 is AMAZING. I can't describe it any other way. Even the door sounds are sinister. The steel on concrete sounds for the doors later in the game is spot-on. The music is also incredible. Think way back to Quake for that one.
Gameplay: 8/10
The first thing that I would like to discuss is that grenades can't be thrown or toggled unless you download a mod... I hate that.
Some people complain that the gameplay is repetitive. Hmmn... have you ever played a game before? Tetris, arguably the most adictive game of all time, is highly repetitive. Of course, Myst, the best-selling game (last I checked) isn't. So who knows. Anyway... if you're complaining that this game is repetitive I have several questions for you:
1) Are you retarded?
2) Did you play Doom?
3) Again... are you retarded?
This about sums up my take on that. This game IS Doom! I shiver down the the core of my geekdom every time I'm forced to realize that. For those of you complaining of lacks of enemy waves... move faster pussy... you'll get plenty of waves. I've had as many as 10 monsters at once; and plenty of 8 way imp crossfire. And now, later, with the Hell-Knights... I've just fought like 4 in a row and they take impressive firepower to take down. Unless you can play 8-on-1 GODLIKE bots in UT2K4 I don't belive that you can do this easily on NIGHTMARE or HELL or whatever you forum people claim.
It is slightly repetitive though.
Story: 9/10
So... back to being biased. In any case the story is really really nice. The voice-acting is way above average; even great. If you don't belive me... go play Spellforce and Sacred.
I love, and I mean LOVE, the PDA's in the game. They're a little window into the mars base and the sinster activity going on here and there. Plus they give you happy fun codes of fun. Some people complain about the spurious (funny) emails. Face it, these people are Techs (Dorks) and Scientists (Geeks). These ARE the kinds of emails they would have. Get a grip... plus ID always provides the extras. (And if you really want to think about it the extra emails give us some insight into the bland and mundane existance that they lived on the base. Nobody downloads My Bonzai Buddy on purpose. Mymartianbuddy would be the same. They need that for entertainment. I'm sure you art and english majors can put down your makeup long enough to come up with other reasons for them too.)
Final Score: 9.25
Now, in conclusion, I would like to say that this game goes back to the hard-core old-school days of gamming. I love that. It is also a firm basis on which to build awesome mods. I can't wait to see a They Hunger (Hungry for... brains?) type mod for this game. I could also see the original Doom and Doom2 maps being ported for it as a mission. Good stuff. It seems to me that ID just told Valve (a little late mind you) "This is how you do Half-Life" and Valve said "L34v3 Uz 4lon3!11". Seriously, I like it, and it was worth every penny.
The Future 10/10
Now Doom3 has set the graphical standard... nobody can argue that. From the screens I've seen HL2 will have to step it up a notch but they may already have. HL2 has more of a "Big Open Space" thing going for it and thats awesome. I'm also hoping that the variety of weapons will be what we saw in HL and that they will add in the tactical AI of the Marines and kick it up a notch. Neither one of these games, however, will win out over the other. They both will have their ups and downs; unless you ride the shortbus to school and your mommy makes you wear a helmet for some reason.
I'm optimistic and the Mod scene is about to explode after UT2k4 and BF:1942 have been dominating it for so long. It is a bright, bright futre.
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