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Doom III Officially Announced
Jacek Fedorynski writes "The end is near. First, id Software's site is updated for the first time since the Quake II times and now they officially announce Doom III!" If you recall, there were some screenshots released last year, but I don't think there's been much since then - these are probably out of date.
but I'd rather see something new than yet another Doom game. Yeah the graphics will probably be impressive and all; but I just can't see the attraction to rehashing the same concepts over and over. I suppose I'm no better as I have Civilization 1, 2, & now 3; but even though I've enjoyed each game in the series none was as good as the first there is just too much repetition in the series (and in any series really).
Seems like the resources that'll get dumped into Doom 3 could be put towards something new and exciting; although I guess in the economic climate the easy decision is to revisit what's been successful...
The mere thought of a new DOOM game is certainly exciting, but... RtCW ruined any joy I could possibly have replaying the old Wolf3D games - there's such a massive gap between high tech 1992 and high tech 2002.
I have many fond memories of playing DOOM late at night with the volume cranked way up, and it was the game that gave me my love for horror games (Silent Hill, etc) - but could DOOM 3 destroy the replay value of the original DOOM games?
I think the only saving grace is DOOM's atmosphere - I remember getting jumpy a few levels into episode 2. The graphics in Wolf3D couldn't really present an atmosphere like that.
What do you think?
Each id game is pretty much a tech demo for what we should expect to see in the intervening years between games- I don't expect much out of Doom III- but it's a harbinger of the next Half-Life.
What we call folk wisdom is often no more than a kind of expedient stupidity.-Edward Abbey
"What do you think?"
It was the *sound coupled with the dark graphics that makes the Doom atmosphere such a *killer*.
Try watching any horror movie with the sound off. Big difference huh?
Quake, to this day is still my favorite.
:)
Sure, I loved Doom 1 -- I first started playing on my 386sx25, postage stamp sized screen in low detail... i could tell when someone was shooting at me because the screen turned red. I would swivel in a circle until i saw flashing
Then, my upgrade to an SLC2/66 -- Still couldnt run full screen full detail, but it was much better...
Lots of late nights playing co-op over my v.fc zoom modem (sysop special)
Playing 4 player doom2 over modem (APCi add on, lotsa money, lotsa hardware needed) was awesome..
But, I'll never forget my first night playing doom. Sitting in my bedroom, sound going through my stereo, fire up the game and the first thing you hear is an awesome NIN song.... the ambient sounds were just awesome. The music couldnt have matched the maps better....
Monsters jumping out, sounds perfect... scare the hell out of you. I have never felt so immersed in my life while playing a game.
Thats just single player... multiplayer I spent more hours in that game then any other game ever. Alot of the mods kept it alive, especially TF before cheats became rampant.. If there was a cheat free version, I'd still be playing it today. Even the non GL version, since the "feel" was there, and it wasnt in the GL version.
I dont think id has ever come close to Quake as far as "feel" has come.. the mouse always feels not quite up to par, and the movement has been slightly 'off' since that engine... Just, nothing has ever felt right since then.
Its the small things that make all the difference.
Forum Foundry, Inc.
Aside from the original .plan update from Carmack, there's been at least one official press release announcing Doom III before. This is just one of those "it's getting closer to release date so let's announce it again to make sure people haven't forgotten about us" press releases.
-- If no truths are spoken then no lies can hide --
Don't tell me you weren't at least a little creeped out by the zombie soldiers breaking through the walls or rising up from the fog. I admit, I did the "late night, lights off, volume up" thing myself to try and enhance the atmosphere, but for at least one level the RtCW guys did pretty good by themselves.
Two words:
Serious Sam.
That game had TONS of enemies onscreen at once, all of them running straight for you. I guess there were 50-100 at most. If nothing else, it shows that even fully 3D games can have more than five enemies at once.
(but that doesn't mean Doom 3 will go for lots of enemies. And sometimes less is better. Remember Alien?)
To me, the defining features that make Doom are:
Dozens of monsters swarming you all at once
Monsters that can be tricked into killing each other
Light and music providing atmosphere
All this talk of how pretty Doom III will be, and how you will need a GeForce 4 or Radeon 8500 to play it, are making me worry that maybe you will only see a small handful of monsters at a time (like Quake). I'm not too worried about the other points.
By the way, the screenshots reminded me a lot of the movie Aliens (the James Cameron sequel to Alien). I hope someone does a total conversion, or maybe they use the Doom III engine for an Aliens Vs. Predator game.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
The Activision deal should not be a surprise since they also published RtCW.
..and Doom II, and Quake, and Quake II, and Quake III, and..
-- If no truths are spoken then no lies can hide --
Hmm... I'm not even sure it's so much "atmosphere" as it is originality. When games like Doom (or even Duke Nukem 3D) came out, they were so much fun because you never knew what was going to happen next. The weapons were mostly "never seen/done before", and the enemies would truly scare you as you kept running into more and more powerful ones with new tricks up their sleeves.
This whole 3D shooter genre has been done and re-done so many times now, I think we've gotten to the point where we've seen everything. Tricks like grenades you could toss and detonate with a second click of the mouse aren't "awesome" anymore. It's not exciting anymore when you push on a secret wall or walk over a sequence of buttons on the floor that open up a new room. All that's left is to keep incrementally improving the graphics resolution, and make good use of surround sound.
When they attempt to improve things by adding more storyline (movie sequences/intermissions), that's not even so great anymore. It is, after all, still supposed to be an action game. Those cut scenes just make for more B.S. to click past and slow down the loading of the next level. There was a time when people watched those in awe, just to see the "real-life" graphics quality of them. Nowdays, everyone's seen full-screen multimedia - and we just don't care anymore.
two things, 1, record the image of the screen before the game starts. When the user hits the panic button, the image would be displayed in the game. Then minimize the game, that way the boss won't see a flash of the game, and the computer would still be useable if the boss does more then just walk by.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Okay, the guy that wrote this couldn't possibly have anything more than a grade 8 writing level. I think the term he was actually looking for was "projections".
"forward looking statements"... sheesh... I almost physically cringed when I read that.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
I'll have to disagree wrt Half-Life. Though it had one of the best overall FPS storylines ever, the end-game was pretty disappointing. Once I was tossed into that gooey giant microbe dimension, I pretty much lost interest, pulled out the cheat codes, and rushed to finish up the game.
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