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Doom 3 Xbox Previewed, PC Version No-Show At E3
Thanks to IGN Xbox for its hands on preview of the E3 demo for the Xbox version of Doom 3, Vicarious Visions' conversion of id's long-awaited FPS title. They comment: "The atmosphere is dark, the pacing of the demo somewhat slow, and every aspect more fitting of a survival horror game than a run and gun shooter", but praise the results: "That's not a bad thing at all, in fact, it makes for a more intriguing title... The hard part for fans is going to be looking past expectations of what a DOOM game should be and embracing what DOOM 3 is." Elsewhere, GameSpot has a preview confirming that the PC version will not be shown at E3, since id "is locked in 'completion phase' at the company's Mesquite, Texas, offices", and both previews also reference the previously revealed, not yet playable Xbox-exclusive co-operative mode.
i don't like the notion of a specific platform getting an exclusive feature of the game, especially something as fundamental as co-op. the original doom co-op was awesome, i don't know why they have to screw the pc users...again. *cough*HALO*cough*
Let's see, Doom with 3D rendering, dark, horrific atmosphere, and a slower pace? Yeah, we've seen it, it was called Doom 64. I thought it was a decent game, but many didn't like it because it was so different.
I love ID as a company, but I don't think the new Doom deserves all the empty hype and massive system upgrades.
Besides, what made ID, Doom and Quake popular in the first place was mindless, bloody, fast paced carnage. That's what ID needs to focus on, IMHO.
vi ~/.emacs
but the original DOOM was more of a survival horror than just pure run and shoot.
sure, it got into a run and shoot after you played it through couple of times or in a deathmatch, but the first time it was pretty horrorish, lights going out, monsters breathing and stuff like that.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
DOOM 3 . . is not a sequel to DOOM II. Instead, it's a retelling of the original. "What if DOOM were made today, with today's technology and with everything learned about gaming in the past decade?"
I'm not sure why everyone's spoiling their pants over this one. Ok, I do. Gamers go wacky over screenshots and pixels. But we're not only living in a post-DirectX9 world here, we're living in a post Half Life, post Halo, post Call to Duty, post Deus Ex etc FPS world. What I mean is that we're living in a gaming world where games tell stories. Sure, they're not always great (Far Cry comes immediately to mind). But sometimes they are (Deus Ex 1, or the FPS-esque Max Payne). Doom, redone in today's gaming environment, would not only be pretty but not be Doom anymore because it would actually have a legitimate story. As far as I can tell, there is none in Doom III (zombies on a space station sums it up). This isn't surprising, as Carmack has often evangelized that games are as much about story as pornography is.
Doom III is a tech demo to sell the engine off to more competant storytellers. There's a whole other audience besides gamers that no one has really mentioned, and that's the developing community. Doom III is as much about licensing the new engine out, if not more so, than making a fun game to play.
To the PC fanboys who have been whining about the Xbox version, you need to realize that you're not the only one Carmack is making this game for. It's not just developers for the PC, which are becoming rarer and rarer. It's developers for consoles, which are quickly becoming much more numerous. I would venture to say that Microsoft probably did not pay much, if anything at all, to get Doom III on the XBox. It's doubtful they could replicate a reasonable facsimile on the PS2, and (sadly) why bother on the GC? Rather, if iD and Vicarious can port the D3 engine over to the Xbox, it opens far more doors in this market than the PC version does. So why the exclusive co-op? Because I think that although iD might be afraid to say it out loud for fear of alienating their PC fanboys, there is more money to be had both on the consumer and especially on the developer side with the consoles (represented by the xbox in this case).
*Of course, it could be duly noted that Doom III may be instrumental in turning the tables in the cycle and perhaps making the PC more prominent than it has been with this generation of consoles. That, though, is only temporary (a year at best) if the next generation of consoles starts to come out 2005.
And for sanity's sake someone should ban the term "when it's done" in an interview, gamers are traumatized with Duke Nukem Forever.
Hmmm, you must not be familiar with the trauma of waiting six months for a patch to make a game that you've already paid for playable. That, my friend, sucks far more and that's a fact.
I think Id saying "when it's done" is just fine. It's them being arrogant and realistic at the same time. Good for them.
Don't blame companies like Id and Valve for being in control of their own destiny.