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Doom 3 Gets Reviews, Piracy Questions, Exultation
Yeti Von Baseball writes "Now that Doom 3 has officially shipped to stores, Computer Gaming World just posted its Doom 3 review - they also posted about 100 or so new screens." Elsewhere, GameSpy has an in-progress weblog and first-look impressions on the "claustrophobic corridors" of the game, Telefragged posted one of the first reviews, praising "a grand slam of action, story, atmosphere, and pure terror", the BBC reports on how "potential sales could be hit by the extent of online piracy of the game", and Time Magazine has a feature on Doom 3 and id.
I'm going to buy Doom3 from id directly at the id Store. When there's a game I really get a lot out of (or plan to in this case), I try to buy directly from the developer to give them as big a cut of the pie as I can. They get full SRP instead of what's left from the middle man.
My way of thanking companies that still create good titles.
Perhaps I am being naive, but I really don't see the multiplayer support as being that big of an issue.
Unreal Tournament and others have filled the niche of playing head to head rather well. No one cares as much about the graphics quality, the omg lighting effects, the dark horror of the story...they care about fragging that bastard who just got the rocket pack you were headed for.
Doom 3 seems much more a single player game and well appreciated for it. I expect that in time, multiplayer will be beefed up some and become more viable. But for the time being, this is a single player game that seems to be kicking ass at showcasing great effects, great design and a good story-line.
I've always been curious as to how you can rate the technology down to a single percent. Same goes for all the other parts of the game (interface 92%, Grpahics 95%).
Most sites have (wisely) abandonned such an approach and rather go with a 1-5 scale or A,B,C,D,E ratings (with +/-).
I mean come on...
Thanks for sharing the good news. There aren't enough high quality games focused on the single player as it is. You want multiplayer, go play all the rest.
What FPS have you played that didn't involve primarily going from room to room and shooting things? Half-Life, the previous holder of the "best single player FPS" crown was exactly the same. Walk, shoot, repeat. It's all about presentation, which both games have done very well at.
How long till a Linux binary appears?
I tried running it under WineX (Cedega) and it just went into an infinite loop loading. I tried installing win2k on a partition to run it, and the installer BSoD'ed. Too afraid to try it on my laptop.
"Brand new console" is something of a misnomer here. Do you mean the 4-year-old console that was $300 when it came out (PS2) or the 3-year-old console that was also $300 (Xbox)?
Let's not forget that these consoles were sold *below* cost with the intention of making money on the games.
I'm not saying $55 isn't a lot for a video game, but comparing it to the price of 4-year-old consoles that were sold at a loss doesn't prove anything. What you should compare it to is console titles, because console titles are supposed to make up the loss on the consoles. OTOH, PC titles have no need to make up said loss, so why are they getting just as high as the console titles?
UT2004 was a nice exception, costing me only $25.
-Dan
In the US legal system, copying a copyrighted work without proper permission is a particular crime known as "copyright infringement".
It is legally distinct from theft... "the felonious
taking and removing of personal property, with an intent to deprive the rightful owner of the same".
In a case of illegal copying, no property is actually removed from the rightful owner.
I'm not saying that makes it any less illegal, or makes it morally justified, but the earlier poster was at least correct in that it is -not- theft.
I'd mod you up if I hadn't wanted to post.
The ID crew should load up Thief 3 and play "The Cradle". "The Cradle" is scary but interesting. Instead of a never ending stream of monsters, you have a limited amount, and they're not actually all out to get you per default. You can engage, or you can sneak past. One option more than in Doom 3 (as far as I can tell)
"The Cradle" is scary because you'll imagine the worst possible thing happening all the time, and even though the worst possible thing that you imagine doesn't happen, the game use sound, visual and story-telling to keep you on your toes throughout.
In Doom 3, the worst possible thing pretty much happens every turn. If there's a ledge with an item on it, the ledge will fall as you walk on it. If you're backing into a dark corner, there will be a zombie waiting for you This is a much less rewarding experience overall.
Take the place where you find the first shotgun. ID's design: Put a piece of ammo/armor on the floor off the given path. Player jumps over rail the grab item, floor falls out, player ends up in dark room with three/four zombies attacking.
I would probably have designed it thus for a first try: .. player jumps over rail to grab item, floor falls out revealing dark room, player+floor ends up falling on zombie, killing it (can use humor here). Lessons learned: 1) Be careful where you walk. 2) Dangerous creatures are lurking for you in the darkness. 3) They can be killed by dropping heavy things in their heads.
Both approaches would teach the player that exploration is rewarded and that it can be dangerous, one just isn't so obvious about it.
Doom 3 just made me realize how good a game Thief really is. Way underrated.
At least in Thief the lighting made sense most of the time.
Belief is the currency of delusion.
System Shock 2
(Well, it could be played other ways than just run and gun -- almost adventure game style instead of FPS.)
-Tom
I have to disagree with you; I've been playing with the gamma set to "normal" levels, so I can't see the baddies in the shadows unless I use the flashlight. In a darkened room, with the headphones up fairly loud, the game is overwhelmingly intense. The time it takes to switch the flashlight back to your weapon, shooting at vague shadows in the dark, realizing you've just run from a pack of imps into a pitch-black corridor, the whole lighting scheme (and/orlack thereof) is a huge part of the game.
I know some of my feelings for this game come from the excitement of playing the original, and seeing how well they've improved on it, but I think this game still calls for setting your own environment to "ultra-creepy" and immersing yourself.
John
Until game manufacturers make buying the game a higher quality experience than pirating it, piracy is going to continue to be a "problem". To illustrate my point, let's compare my experience buying the game with that of my friend who downloaded it.
.iso image in sequence using Daemon Tools to install each disc (at much faster speeds than loading from a CD). He has no problems reading some cheaply produced CD. He just installs the no CD patch from the beginning, rather than trying to work around iD's ineffective copy protection. He's up and running with the game before I've had a chance to buy it.
Here's my experience: I bought the game just after midnight last night. I waited in line for about 25 minutes to pay $54.99 for the game. I missed getting the free T-shirt because too many other people showed up before me and they ran out. I go home and start to install the game from the CD's. Disc 1 has a serious problem and keeps failing reading at about 98% of the way through. Eventually after trying 2 different CD-ROM drives and cleaning the brand-new disc several times, I am able to get it to read and continue the install. Now, after the game is installed, I try to run it. It won't let me start without disc 1 in the drive. Okay, I get out disc 1 again and put it in the drive. Now it tells me it won't run because I have CD emulation software running. Okay, I disable daemon tools. Still, Doom 3 refuses to load. At this point, I give up and download the NoCD patch. After that, everything works fine.
Compare this experience to that of my friend. My friend just clicked the download link on a Bittorrent site and waited a few hours. After that, he loads each
Obviously, I'm being the good moral person by purchasing the game. However, the fact remains that my experience is notably worse than that of my friend who just pirated it. I guess the game developers don't care.
My other first post is car post.
most gamer kids just don't have that
... please tell me where you get these numbers from. One of your own orifices will not suffice as a source, btw. The argument goes both ways as well ... if more people would buy the game then companies wouldn't have to hike the price up to maintain their profit margins. Additionally - assuming the price derives from greed is just that, an assumption. Have you considered the long development cycle, and that perhaps paying their programmers and support staff for the extra year or two ( in comparison to other games ) might be the reason for the increased price, in addition to the need to compensate for piracy?
Yet somehow these same gamer kids can afford the hardware needed to run Doom 3. There is a difference between not having the money, and simply not being willing to spend it.
If Id and Activision would sell it for $29.95, their sales would probably increase 500 to 700 percent. Overpricing because of greed will be the kiss of death.
And this gets modded up as insightful somehow
Give id credit for their work, guys. From every moment I'm in the game I see the considerable amount of work put into every square meter of the level. I got the game today, and I can say that this is the most complete, engrossing, and well-executed FPS I have ever played. Its lack of innovation, instead of making me dislike the game (new wheels don't have to be invented to make a great game!) makes me want to strangle all other FPSes to at least get them to the level of Doom 3. Judging from the more negative reviews of the game, the main cause of the feelings is more overly high expectations than anything else--did you really expect (Doom 3 > FPS > shooting at lots of AI bots) to return true? I didn't. But, in my opinion, iD has taken a very tired, though tried and true, formula and made it so the formula wasn't so easy to see. Repetitive play? When the individual elements that are being repetitive are greater than the sum of their parts, it gives you a high--a reason to go on to the next room, a reason to press the quick load key. It's like repeatedly doing very well in Counterstrike and proving time and time again to the rival clan memebr who thinks he owns you that he is t3h nub. Far Cry had a similar level of repetitiveness, but it didn't feel creative, it didn't give me the sense of chaos and unending mayhem that Doom 3 does. You scream repetition, but I gladly agree with you. Just not with "Doom 3 sucking."
A game can be hugely innovative, executing the most ambitious of design docs--but all of this falls flat without sufficient Little Things That Add Up (TM). It makes me feel as if people are bashing Doom 3 because when they are playing, they aren't really "playing" it--they spend so much time looking for the big picture (Doom 3 is just another FPS) that they miss those little things.
I can:
.com and .net versions of the site, he finally kicks off the download.
Mom, dad, I need this computer with a radeon 9800XT and a 3 Ghz HT P4 because I will be studying all the time and I have to do it to do good in class. I can even use it to run programs to help with stuff for college and all
"well, johnny, ok, if you will be using it to study and it will really help you get into a good college then I think it's a good 2500 dollars spent. *to store clerk* I don't know much about these computers but my son does and he has to have the top of the line for school so just get whatever he thinks is good."
3 months later, with no work ever being done on the computer, the parent realizes all the computer is now being used for is chatting online, reading email, and games that were bought ages ago. Doom III is released.
Dad, I want to get this oh so cool game dad. Everyone is buying it and it's the coolest thing ever.
Dad, while not knowing much about computers, knows about scams and suddenly realizes he was being completely played for a fool. He says "no" and Johnny still wants that game. Oh what ever does a young school boy do, who spends all his time doing nothing very productive(part time jobs are not an option for johnny, he isn't used to his parents seeing through his bullshit, but then, this is probably the first time it cost so much).
Part time jobs are not the option but his best buddy just told him about suprnova, a great sight that you can get anything for free. After misspelling the name several times and going to the
Yeah, this happens. I did it once, convincing my parents that a top of the line computer was needed for school. Unfortunately my uncle and aunt are computer engineers so they got calls first and my bull shit only had a slight effect. Not so many people have that uncle or aunt who can ruin those hard worked plans.