Slashdot Mirror
Marine Finds Duct Tape on Mars
mhore writes "It seems that one of the biggest complaints about Doom 3 has been resolved. Thanks to Glen Murphy, you may now use your flashlight and weapon at the same time, thanks to the ingenious 'Duct Tape' mod! While some may think this ruins the game play, I disagree and think it is worth noting." There's plenty of other Doom 3-related coverage over at PlanetDoom, including a pointer to a new IGN review, which PlanetDoom considers "a lot more fair and balanced than some of the reviews we've seen so far", with an overall 8.9/10 score.
I kept wondering why, why why why, that marines in the year 2195 didn't have flashlights standard on their helmets.... or why for that matter our hero in this game didn't have a helmet. =/
MacGuyver. That prick. Incidentally, Duct tape makes a fine prophilactic.
"In anticipation of a slashdotting due in 10 minutes (god bless being a /. subscriber), the images have been removed from the front page. You may still view them here, if you're interested: screenshot 1, screenshot 2 (image quality has also been reduced)."
So has anyone benchmarked this against the linux version? Infact have the linux binary's been released?
Note.. this mod only gives you the flashlight with the machine gun, nothing else. Useless IMHO, since I use all the other weapons due to the low ammo and power of the MG.
:)
Guess it's realistic tho, he does only have 1 flashlight
These text mods are great, but I can't wait until id releases the game dll source - then the REAL fun starts.
-Hentai [in vita non pacem est]
This is the first time I have ever heard of a small site that was able to sucessfully defend itself from a slashdotting, due to an early warning.
running around in the dark was only fun for like 30mins then it became annoying. I've used this mod and it is great, it works on the machine gun so you'll still be in the dark if you switch guns. Increased accuracy, less wasted ammo and a more enjoyable game.
With the flash light if you tried to shoot while using it, it just used the flashlight as a stick instead of switching to your guns.
did you forget to take your meds?
There is another mod that gives just your pistol a flashlight.
6 8. html
http://dlx.gamespot.com/pc/doom3/moreinfo_61041
$ whatis themeaningoflife
themeaningoflife: not found
There's nothing wrong with using a flashlight at the same time. You could do it in Eternal Darkness (not an FPS) as the fireman. Also, look at military rifles. P90's and such have rails so that you can add accessories like flashlights to your weapon.
again, sorry, wrong game. but while he is a marine, he also has entered into a fight in truly hellish conditions, where said marines are not likly to be properly equiped.
" I kept wondering why, why why why, that marines in the year 2195 didn't have flashlights standard on their helmets.... or why for that matter our hero in this game didn't have a helmet. =/"
Flashlight on helmet==target.
Helmet==messes up hero's hair.
Now how about:
1. Modding all the weapons to have this feature, and...
2. Modding all the models so they look like they have the flashlight strapped on 'em with duct tape.
--
# Canmephians for a better Linux Kernel
$Stalag99{"URL"}="http://stalag99.net";
I've found that by playing only at night, in pitch black, so that my eyes start to adjust to the dark, the extreme darkness of this game isn't that annoying.
:)
If I play in the morning before work, when the sun has risen, my eyes can't dynamically adjust from the light room to the dark screen, and I can't see anything. Maybe I need to eat more carrots or something.
In any case, the bonus about doing it this way is that the game is way scarier at night.
I was able to get a few more frames by toying around with some settings. Open your DoomConfig.cfg file and look for:
seta image_cacheMegs "32"
If you have a newer video card you can move the number up. I have a 9800XT and got it up to 96. Anything more than that and I start loosing preformance. The beta Radeon driver also helped a little bit.
I was anticipating this game since it was first announced, and now that I've seen the trailer and all the IGS vids, I don't want it.
I bought RTCW, and I hated walking through a morg with monsters coming after me. It wouldn't been way cooler if Carmak and his crew designed something more realistic (but not 100%) like the Bourne identity. It freeks me out walking around in dark corridors not knowing what the heck is beside me.
Good job ID, you made it so scary I don't want it!
There was nothing scary about the firt Doom, the graphics were so bad that it didn't matter. Boy how that's changed.
Apparently the only fair reviews are those that are proportionally positive in respect to the square or the hype+publisher's net-rep. Oh wait, it's an IGN review (rolls eyes).
I have to honestly disagree that Doom 3 is a "good game" in any respects other than graphics technology. I can check out how well my current video card will run with entertaining benchmarks for free kthx.
Often wrong but never in doubt.
I am Jack9.
Everyone knows me.
I disagree.
Doom 1 was seminal because it popularized FPSes. Doom 3 isn't innovative. Yes it uses some technology, but who remembers technical achievements? They're the minor awards at the academy awards.
People remember Mario 64 for having to chase baby penguins, because it was the first game to popularize the 3D platformer.
Doom 3 doesn't change the formula. Maybe, as a console gamer I'm biased, but Doom 3 is certainly the belle of the ball now, unless the mod community really takes off I don't seeing it being a watermark for gaming.
"There is no time, sir, at which ties do not matter," Jeeves, (Jeeves and the Impending Doom)
Anybody who runs a web site has to be a subscriber, or else they won't know when to remove high-bandwidth content.
This must is the real reason they don't do any caching or advance warning...
It works OK with winex. Here is a page on how to get it to work but most of what he has written is pretty kludgy to put it nicely. A little tinkering will have it working in no time.
t ml
http://www.linux-militia.net/howtos/doom3/doom3.h
I know more than you drink.
While this mod is not for everyone, I've tried to maintain a certain level of paranoia by making the flashlight only attach to your smaller guns (but not the pistol - that would spoil the early early game), and making the cone of projection much smaller than the hand-held flashlight. This leads to situations where you're in a pitch black room, but can only see a very small area, which for some is much more claustrophobic than holding the default wide-angle flashlight. This especially applies when swinging your view around, and catching a glimpse of an enemy, who you are then unable to find as they've run off into the abundant darkness.
Granted, as you can still use the current flashlight it does make things slightly less scary, but Doom3 has plentiful amounts of scariness to spare. Like playing the marine in Alien vs. Predator, I know of several people who still can't play it even using this mod, due to fear.
I can get a light for my handgun, shotgun, rifle, and so on. They are plentful. When weapons are used tactically, they are common, some even have them built in. I can see that maybe not EVERY gun would have a light, but SOME of them should.
There's plenty of other Doom 3-related coverage over at PlanetDoom, including a pointer to a new IGN review, which PlanetDoom considers "a lot more fair and balanced than some of the reviews we've seen so far", with an overall 8.9/10 score. And yet PlanetDoom is a member of "the GameSpy network." Didn't GameSpy and IGN have a merger? Isn't this basically GameSpy/IGN praising its own review...?
Who cares? The "old" Quake 3 engine still looks great (I've been playing RTCW on Linux lately), and it's smooth. I don't give a crap about super-spiffy graphics. I want fun gameplay.
Look at GTA3. That's much closer to being the "seminal game of our generation", because it's fun.
LOAD "SIG",8,1
Look at the flashlight from the viewpoint that it is a weapon. It shines light and lets you see shit. That's its purpose. This marine travelled to Mars, not expecting a hell intrusion. Instead he gets one, has few weapons, picks up a flashlight and some other weapons and starts kicking ass. Awesome.
Okay, it's the future. Dudes in the future should have high tech badass gear. I mean, nightvision, we have, but in the future, shit, man, there should be some crazy shit that looks through walls and sees DEMONS. And, it sees them in the dark! Damn, in the future, they might even have dogs that wear electric turbons that allow them to focus energy that allows them to make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. WOW.
This is a game. He went in without a weapon. Apparently, which is plainly obvious, there are idiots that work on Mars and do stupid shit. They're conjuring Hell and demons and crazy ass spiders. It's clear they care little for their own safety; and, therefore, they have not duct taped flashlights on their machineguns.
I'll continue playing without a pussy flashlight taped on. I'm in hell, and I'm kicking demon ass. F a flashlight, and F this mod.
Down with the DEMONS.
porp
"If the access logs prove to be interesting, I'll summarise and post them, as I was always curious what it was like to be slashdotted."
Well first the room lights dim to red, and a warning klaxon goes off. Then there can be heard the increasing sound of steam escaping, with the gagues on front registering overload. Then the server case starts bulging, rivets popping and flying across the room. There's a call for evacuation over the intercom, while solid steel pressure doors drop down. Standing outside five minutes latter, a muffled boom can be heard. A moment of silence, then a call is placed to Dell.
Does anyone think the flashlight is a little too harsh? It illumnates such a narrow angle and shoot out like a laserbeam at distances. In dark corners I have to scan the whole area just to see if anything is ther. I find myself using the muzzleflash of my weapon manytimes to get a clear view. How about a constant muzzleflash mod?
Things are not as they appear, nor are they otherwise
What?
:)
When you come back from hell, in d3... you do get another item that you must pull out & utilize at certain points. It's just another way of adding a layer of challenge to the game. The flashlight is no exception.
Although in the game, it is 2145..at a research facility on mars. I find it hard to believe that there isn't one piece of duct tape anywhere on the planet. Great game, play it how it was originally meant to be played. I'm not exactly sure if it's worth $60, but it is something the minimalist linux people will have to consider upgrading for.
Maybe now I'll stop shitting my pants every time I play DOOM 3.
John Carmack should have thought to include toilet paper with the game.
/dev/random
First off I've beaten Doom3 with no mods or outside info of any sort, it was awsome. Now about the flashlight....
Needing a seperate flashlight ADDS a LOT to the feeling of vulnerability, that something could jump out and attack you when you are most vulnerable!
Lets put it this way, How do you feel when you have your gun out with light, versus having no light? You can't see well, you're not sure about your surroundings...something may be over there...but it still provides a sence of security.
Taking away the gun takes away that sence of security. You can see better, but now you're vulneable, you'd feel better if you had that gun out wouldn't you?
So basically I think it's great game design. It greatly enhances the feeling of insecurity and vulnerability. I think even having this mod is great proof that id made a design that makes some people feel a little too insecure :)
I'm serious. I don't really like the game. Oh, it's pretty (well, the graphics are really nicely detailled, but what they depict ain't PRETTY) and all, but...well, dammit, it's YAFPS!
This mod might make it more interesting to play, because I keep finding myself under attack when I'm in the dark. Maybe if I ramp the gamma all the way up...
And does anyone have some fluffy bunny graphics to replace the nasty undead soldiers and scientists? Pretty please? With sugar on top?
You can mod the game if you want to (it's your time and money after all), but I am thoroughly enjoying the challenge presented by Doom's designers. I've had several encounters in pitch-black rooms that went like:
...and I've loved it every time!
flashlight: There they are!
shotgun: Boom!
flashlight: Next...
shotgun: Boom!
flashlight: Ne.. %#!+ guess I didn't kill that last one!!!
shotgun: Boom! Boom! Boom!
There were a million ways that id could have handled the light issue, but they chose to pick the one game mechanic that slaps the player in the face with the fact it's just a game. It's a game, it has rules, and I am ripped out of the immersion.
This really upsets me with Doom 3, for those moments when I can stop playing it. It's not quite the letdown that Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Crushing Disappointment turned out to be, but it's got the same sense of wasted potential.
I can see why gun-mounted lights got left out. It would take away a lot of the stress & fear that comes from playing the game. But here's just a few ways they could have accomplished the "Player's vision is severely restricted in the midst of a firefight" effect, without ripping the player out of the game:
1) Only the pistol can have the flashlight out. Think about it, modern-day cops have a flashlight and a pistol out simultaneously all the damn time (flashlight held high with the non-weapon hand, pistol in weapon hand). It wouldn't have been that hard, and then they could have stuck with the massive heavy mag-lite they modelled.
2) Helmet light. Make the flashlight bob a bit with the player movement, lead the camera on quick turns (Marine turns his head), jiggle with recoil, etc. Lots of opportunity to immerse.
3) Right-angle flashlight in a breast pocket, a la Silent Hill 3. This is my favorite of the ideas. Put the light a little bit lower, and then if the player moves to fire a two-handed weapon, the arms begin to obscure vision, casting massive shadows everywhere and bright light back from the Marine's pale white arm into the player's face. I mean, it's not like the marine gets much sun, he's pretty reflective.
I hope someone takes that last idea & runs with it, but I'm not optimistic.
On the other hand, for a game as deeply flawed as Doom 3 is turning out to be, it is undeniably stressful, entertaining, and has that "just one more corridor" hook to it. Much like a Renny Harlin film, I enjoy it in the moment, but take even greater pleasure in deriding it afterward to my friends.
Even Jesus hates listening to Creed.
holy shit, my prayer has been answered!
This Sig is removed due to factual inaccuracy
Comment removed based on user account deletion
just going by a definition of seminal from dictionary.com, I assume you mean
Of, relating to, or having the power to originate; creative.
or
Highly influential in an original way; constituting or providing a basis for further development: a seminal idea in the creation of a new theory.
The first definition I think best fits this game. Other games will grab this engine and put much more intricate stories behind it so frankly, doom III has changed how we see games, but I don`t think it has changed that much. They have continued to push a graphical envelope that many games have(farcry is the best example). I do not think doom III is highly influential in an innovative way yet. You can`t call it seminal until we actually see vast changes to at least part of the gaming landscape due to it.
But who knows, a game that takes graphics to such an unheard of level will open up a new level of gaming. I don:t know if I would call it seminal just yet though.
Anyways, I`m not the most knowledgable about FPS so maybe for this genre, this truly is a seminal leap. But maybe the creepiness of this game will draw me in, the idea of being scared shitless is what is attracting me to the game.
Do what I did. It works great. Map the Middle mouse button to the flashlight key (which toggles between last weapon and flashlight). Downloading a mod 4 days after release is for little-girlie-men
I guess it will be nice for spotting campers in multiplayer.
http://www.ati.com/support/infobase/4547.html
I tried them out of curiosity, and I am indeed seeing improvement in framerates in Doom 3. I wonder though, if these tweaks are designed for OpenGL, will they translate over to other OpenGL games like Call of Duty?
This game has been getting quite a few negative reviews, so I figured I'd add my mostly positive review. Yes, the game is dark. Yes, using the flashlight and a gun at the same time is not playing the game the way it was meant to be played (if it was they would have added it). Personally I have had NO PROBLEM finding the enemies and taking them out. When I do use the flashlight it's almost always to see if there are any goodies hidden in the dark corners. Yes, my lighting settings are unchanged from the defaults. This is Doom. It's supposed to be scary, so quit whining, bitches!
Secondly, this game delivers exactly what it promises to deliver: an old-school fps which is designed to be terrifying. It isn't a mistake that the maps are linear! I used to hate running around across a level trying to figure out what to do next in Quake 2. If you save partway through a level, you don't have to worry about being lost when you come back two months later to play again. You can't say the same for many games. When I pick up an FPS I'm not doing it to solve puzzles; I want to splatter some blood across the walls, and I don't want a learning curve.
As an adult, the more complex a game is, the more unlikely I am to play it. I've been waiting for a game to beat Half Life in its first person experience, and I can safely say that Doom 3 beats it hands down. If it makes you bored, stop complaining and find another game. No one is forcing you to play it, and it's a lot of fun for myself and many others.
Only complaint so far: memory requirements. When they said 384 megs min, they were being honest. I'm hitting the VM a lot with only 256 megs and it causes slowdown at inopportune times!
The whole point of the flashlight is having to choose between seeing where you want to shoot, and being able to shoot there. This mod simply eliminates one of the aspect of the game.
How about an aimbot mod for singleplayer, would that be "brilliant"?
Instead of a guy hauling all these weapons around, we need an Stargate weapons mod: P90 submachine gun (with the rail options being optical and laser sights, or a flashlight), 5-7 sidearm, Zat gun, a staff weapon, and some grenades. The Zat gun would be particularly fun to watch.
b oo k/database/weapons.html
http://planeta.terra.com.br/lazer/stargate/blue
Set your flashlight toggle to mouse 4 or alt (who needs a strafe toggle anyhow). I prefer mouse 4, if you have a mouse with the back/forward buttons it really is no sweat.
/.
Mod? Mod something useful, like
Wow... I can't beleive I just spent $1,700 on a new machine just to display all this damn darkness. My old video card displayed a screenful of black just fine.
I enjoy not being able to use my flashlight at the same time as my weapons... Although it is quite the pain in the ass, it is also a hell of a lot more frightening... and that's the reason I bought the game; that and the graphics... not for the stellar gameplay (although it's not bad :P)
Most were licensed by id. There were problems because their servers were supposedly hacked before they could license the game engine out to other developers. No matter, id licensed the Quake engine out to many companies. Many games were fighting against Quake yet they were using Quake's engine. Next everyone else got into the market - making their own engines.
This is what I hope happens with Doom III. In 6 months I want to see screen shots of other games using this engine. I love the game, it is pretty awesome, but wait till other artists get their hands on it. Competition always keeps things spicy.
Doom mods will be nice, but new games will rock.
Get your Unix fortune now!
The graphics aren't that good.
HAND.
is that everyone expects it to be something its not before it even comes out. taking into consideration what I have before me, and the entertainment its brought to me, and that my nerves are shot because of this game. I really dig it.
I know a guy named Sig.
Pull up the console (Ctrl + Alt + ~)
type "r_gamma 2" (max is 3, default 1)
Adjust brightness downward a notch or two; especially if you cranked it up while looking for the fucking gamma control like I did.
And here's a bonus hacking tip, the developer's own config files (keybindings, video settings, etc) are stored in one of the *.pk? files (in D3's case pak000.pk4). Usually you can pull out some interesting command usage, especially when one developer has binds to useful commands and functions as in-game editing menus. From the johnc.cfg file, a few lines out of many such as rebinding console to a normal "~" and Flashlight Batteries (MP option?), plus the fact that he doesn't mind his game dark. Jonah Hex (aka [TFO]DogMeat to my MOHAA old mod friends
Horror & SciFi Erotic Nudes
What happened to pistol in one hand, flashlight in the other?
Yeah it makes sense for something like an ak, shotgun or rocket launcher but I'd hope a space marine could fire that pistol one handed.
It would also be sweet if you could use the flash light like a club. I would think the lighting effects of doing that would rock.
can't sleep slashdot will eat me
Doom 3 Linux users are gathered in irc://irc.enterthegame.com/#doom3linux anxiously awaiting binaries. (I'd post that as a link but slashcode is losing the dots in the hostname.) A website with an RSS feed can be used to track developments.
I've got a great idea. Allow the flashlight with the gun, but make it realistic, and make it so battery life is short... Heh, nothing like adding to the feeling when your batteries run out in the dark to the "Oh crap im screwed" feeling.
I really doubt that in 2145 when some architect is designing a mars base that he will read this but...
CHOOSE YOUR GODDAM LIGHTING SUBCONTRACTERS CAREFULLY.
"Im dead, bitch" Anyways, Dosent this defeat the whole purpose of the game? I mean, the game really wouldn't be all that scary if you can see what your shooting at.
you think more people would be talking about REAL news, like the releas of SP2 for XP. Oh wait...nevermind.
Everyone has a photographic memory, some just don't have film.
In the originial doom, higher difficulty maent more monsters, which means more fun. But in Doom 3 what do the higher difficulties mean? More monsters? Doesn't seem like it. Tougher monsters? The manual says nothing, any idea?
Corporations: your universal scapegoat for all society's ills.
The GTA series is far more significant because it brought the roaming/point mission concept to gaming. Everything from The Simpsons Hit and Run to freakin' Jak II has knocked off of it in some manner. Doom 3 has great graphics and that's about it. If it wasn't called "Doom" it'd just be a great looking incredibly simple-structured shooter. Any game where you go from room to room shooting things and finding key cards isn't ground-breaking as a whole. It's essentially the same concept from 1993 with a few extra tidbits like PDAs and cool crap like skin falling off of skeletons and stuff. On a similar subject Duke Nukem Forever is the seminal vaporware of our generation, bar none.
a lot more fair and balanced than some of the reviews we've seen so far Gee whiz, I didn't know Fox News reviewed video games!
I always thought it would be cool to have a pistol in one hand and throw grenades with the other. How many times have I died in multiplayer when it would have been handy to shoot someone while holding a grenade.
A witty saying proves you are wittier than the next guy.
How about no Flashlight?
If they hadn't given us a flashlight at all would someone have complained about it just because other games have had one?
Also, you can adjust the brightness of the game. It's SUPPOSED to be dark, that's kind of the point. That is the entire point, even. SOME games put you in a room that is supposed to be dark, but you can still see everything just fine, which isn't like being in the dark for me. I know when I'm in the dark in the real world, I can't see the demons and stuff running around trying to eat me. I don't see why a good game should be any different.
I for one have been enjoying the hell out of Doom 3, and I'm pretty jaded about games in general because on the whole, most of them suck.
Is DOOM 3 perfect? Well, no, but then I'm kind of bias against first person shooters. BUT I still enjoy it, so that should say something alone.
Also, I don't use the flashlight ALL That often, unless I find myself in an unussually dark spot and want to take a better look around, but the areas that are so dark they require that are actually fairly few. Most of the rooms are are lit just well enough that you can make out everything, even if only vaguely.
In my opinion the whole flashlight thing was so unimportant it simply never even occured to me that some children might cry about it.
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.
Doom 3 is not any kind of Quake.
Doom 3 is not any kind of Half-Life.
Doom 3 is certainly not any kind of Tom Clancy game.
Doom 3 is the state of the art in interactive terror. If you want a simple FPS, don't buy it. If you want a shoot-through RPG, don't buy it. If you want something that accurately represents military weaponry, don't buy it.
If you like having to sleep with the light on after a gaming binge, by all means, buy Doom 3!
WARNING: there is a trojan on your
This highlights what was, for me, one of the biggest problems with Doom 3, namely the fact that iD confused "what's cool at first" with "what's cool for the entire 20+ hour game". Not being able to have a pistol and a weapon drawn is neat and scary at first, taking me right back to the original Silent Hill. After about 5 hours, it's started to get more annoying than scary because, of course, the combat is a much bigger and more frequent aspect of the game than it was in Silent Hill. When you get to and they take your flashlight away, it's back to playing "bump the wall to find the way forward", which took me right back to the old Eye of the Beholder games (in a bad way).
It's not just this trick that gets over-used. The first time an imp spawns behind you during a fight, it scares the hell out of you. By the 20th time, it's getting old. By the 200th time, you can turn around and shoot the imp with your eyes closed.
Doom 3 is a good game... probably the best actual game we've seen from iD since the original Doom. However, I also agree with the criticisms in the IGN review (8.9/10 strikes me as pretty much bang-on, as scores go).
actually, where is the 40 dollars i just spent on this shit is a better question.
it's a subpar system shock 2 knockoff without the rpg elements.
if you want to play doom3, i'd advise you to go and find a copy of serious sam.
1. I like the frantic pace. :] :]
2. I quite like the effect of seeing four glowing eyes before it pounces out at you from the darkness. If I wanted great looking monster designs/models, I wouldn't be looking in a FPS.
3. Not sure how you found shotgun useful for anything other than short range.
4. Kept me on my toes. You can usually hear them comng or spawning. Also, it made me think about how to approach each room.
5. Not sure what you're talking about here.
6. Don't see your point here. Are you complaining about the difficulty? Set it to 'Easy'.
7. Er... what?
8. What do you mean by puzzles? I'm not that far in, but all I've encountered so far that could be considered a puzzle was picking up a PDA and scanning through the emails to find access codes.
9. Haven't experienced this yet, so I can't address this.
10. I'm playing on Normal difficulty and I find myself unable to pick up alot of ammo because I'm constantly full. If you're on Hard or Nightmare and complaining about low ammo, that seems a bit silly. If you're on normal and still don't have enough, play on Easy. If you're on Easy... then I have no idea what to tell you.
I'm not sure if I'm alone here, but I don't think the FPS was ever meant to be a straight shooter. To me, FPS games were always about immersion into the environment, which involves exploration. With that in mind, I'm enjoying Doom 3 immensely. Perhaps you should be playing games like Time Crisis and/or Raiden instead.
Yep it only works on ONE weapon :(
abit annoying tbh that I gota switch to a crap weapon to see in the dark and fight
oh well better then nothing...
"WebTV: bringing the Internet into the shallow end of the gene pool since 1995" - Martin Bishop
If people would stop and think for a minute, they'd realise that taping the torch to the barrel of your gun means that you can only use that weapon with lighting. What if you want to quickly change weapons in a dark room? I admit, being able to use the torch with the pistol would have been good. Nethertheless, as it stands, playing Doom is a lot like playing the marine in Alien Vs Predator - which is one of the scariest damn games ever when you're alone at night.
The other key things to remember about Doom is that it's a dark game because it's dark where it's set - a sealed environment on Mars with no windows. When the power gets cut of course it's going to be dark. If you can't see even with the torch on, then make sure that your monitor is calibrated and there is little or preferably no ambient light - it's like taking a photo of something inside with a window visible - if the camera is set for outside (bright light around you) then the inside part of the scene will be underexposed (the monitor).
Show me an honest review and I'll show you someone who is not makeing any money.
Really, I know what I'm doing...Ohhhh, look at the shiny buttons!
http://www.geocities.com/cryect/pistolflashlight.h tml
This, and more via the excellent http://www.doomworld.com/
Hey Mr. Duct Tape modder, if you want to get into a wicked Doom 3 project, why not help us out?
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
No one appreciates a good Full Metal Jacket reference these days, huh?
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
I haven't played Doom 3 yet, but System Shock 2 was pretty damn scary even with the relatively primitive graphics and usually being able to see what I was shooting at...
At your first step pull down a console. Type "give all." Kill everyone and take their stuff. YOU become the demon from Hell!
From the URL you linked: "This combination offers tremendous synergies as GameSpy and IGN have very complementary strengths"
Dilbert Translation:
This combination offers tremendous GOLF TIME FOR ALL THE EXECUTIVES, as GameSpy and IGN have great combined GOLF SCORES.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
I agree, Mario 64 was breathtaking when it first came out and I have yet to find a game like it that makes me feel like that game made me feel. I played the japanese version the day it came out, so I got to see it way before anything was like it on the market
keanmarine.com
I predict that Doom 3 will make lots and lots of money for id. Via engine sales. And the mod community is already starting to take off. I'll probably be doing a Hellsing mod, for example, and if I don't others will.
Not a sentence!
While I completely understand the logic behind having a torch attached to the gun, or being able to hold the gun in one hand and the pistol in the other , I'd have to say that I think this is a dumb mod - at least for single player.
The whole apeal of the game is ruined if you're able to have the flashlight on all the time. Less things 'jump out' at you. The game would be much less suspenseful, and, IMO, less entertaining as a result of such a mod. Doom 3 doesn't offer much gameplay value (not to be confused with graphic quality or the engine, oh ye pedantics) without the creepyness/darkness, IMO, as FPS games are truly pretty run-of-the-mill now, and Doom 3 doesn't bring anything to that table in terms of gameplay. Removing the suspense that arrives from having to switch back and forth from a gun and the flashlight in a dark room in order to see what you're shooting at is foolish - even though it would be realistic in real life to be able to shoot and hold a light, it is not practical for the game. Suspension of disbelief is key in this game, just as it would be in film.
Hell, if anyone complains about the 'default' game state with the claim of "reality", step back from your monitor and brain yourself with your keyboard. You're on Mars killing demons in a scientific lab which has, essentially, created an entropy engine/infinite supply of energy, FFS. Oh, and of course, there's the whole "portal to hell" bit.
Multiplayer is another story entirely. Doom 3 has introduced an entirely new form of camping - the "stand in the dark spot in the middle of the hall and just shoot" camp. It necessitates that a person turn on the barrel flare and projectile light features in DoomConfig.cfg - without doing so, you can't even see the person shooting you.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
I sent an earlier version of this to Glen but he hasn't replied. This is my initial attempt to add more flashlights. The Pistol (heh) Chaingun, Plasma Rifle, and BFG 9000 now come with the flashlight attachment. The Rocket Launcher has it, but for some reason it shoots out sideways. (You can only see it when you reload)
.pk4 file he provided and using a diff program to compare his files to the original files, and then simply made similar changes to the other weapons. Then I included the changed files in with his files, zipped them back up, and named the zip file pak005.pk4. It works like a charm.
http://www.acspedia.com/files/pak005.zip
I want to be clear about this - this is derived directly and immediately from Glenn's work, all credit to him, though mistakes (like the rocket launcher) are purely my own. Hopefully he'll further modify his version.
Incidentally, I did this by unzipping the
The flashlight intensity and pattern of this mod is controlled by a .tga file that acts as an alpha channel. I opened it in photoshop and used the circle gradient to make the spot larger with a softer edge (the one in the mod is way too small and hard edged). Add it back to the pk4 and make sure it retains the /lights path.
On a sidenote, this mod seems to screw up screenshots. I took 4 to show people and they were solid blue.
You can also have some fun with the .tga and have like 2 flashlights or give it a wide/narrow shape, etc.
"On a similar subject Duke Nukem Forever is the seminal vaporware of our generation, bar none."
And, I predict, it will be the seminal vaporware of many generations -- perhaps all generations.
...this was called a cheat :P
press f1 for unlimited amo, f2 for flashlight always on, f3 for unlimited health, right mouse button to continue...
On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.
Yes it uses some technology, but who remembers technical achievements?
Well, I for one will never forget the first time I saw GLQuake, or the first few games that I patched to use my new 3D accelerator card.
Broadly speaking, I agree with you - but don't be too quick to write-off new technology. Sometimes it does have quite an impact for those around to see the transition.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
All displays within the game (computer terminals, etc) displayed static for me. Then I realized I was running at 16bpp. Going to 24bpp worked great.
BTW, I find it funny that I'm getting better performance from winex+cvs in linux than I am on the same hardware in Windows.
One of the things any real soldier knows is that once you give your position away you MOVE. So a sniper never stays in one place after a shot (make note snipers who are suprised that after they shoot me I kill them in computer games). With night fighting the flash of your weapon means that after you fire a round you move since the enemy now knows exactly were you are.
Same deal really with search lights. Sure they make it easier to see but the poor guy operating it will probably be the first to die as he is the easiest to target.
Putting lights on your body or weapon is a big NO-NO. Why not just paint your self a big fluorescent target on your chest and be done with it?
The only ones who use lights on their guns are special forces like swat teams. They operate at such speed and with such overwhelming force that the enemy doesn't have time to respond. A swat team could go in with sirens on their head since they are not supposed to stay still and engage a heavily armed enemy.
Watch the movie ET and the opening scene where all the cops are walking with their flashlights shining. Now imagine they are soldiers and you are the enemy waiting in ambush. Who do you think is going to win?
There is also an other reason why not to use a flashlight at night. Your eyes can adjust to the dark and make use of what little light there is available. Start shining a flashlight around however and your eyes won't adjust. You will see very good in the small cone of the flashlight and be blind outside. Not good.
So lights on weapons or worse the body are a clear sign you are watching a movie. They can only really be used when you are reasonably certain that you are operating at such speed against a less prepared enemy that the giving away your position and presenting a brightly lit target makes up for you being able to see.
How does this relate to doom3? Well what happened is pretty realistic. The marine realises he is not in a normal combat scenario so he uses duct tape to adjust to the situation. So the question is not why the marins do not have lights on their weapons or body pre-fitted. The question is why ID did not give their soldier some duct-tape after he learned of the changed situation. Then again how many FPS have you seen where the hero tapes clips together for faster reload, tapes two guns together for extra fire power? We seen it in the movies, gotta be sound tactics or they wouldn't use it.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Duck tape is what you want DUCT tape is that foil for patching DUCT work... DUCK tape is for sealing ammo cans or taping shit together.
Actually I find ut2004 more fun. Espically with the great mods out there for it.
The GFX in doom3 are great, but gameplay does not seem to be any different than Unreal2... walk into room, shoot things that move, move into next room/corridor, shoot everything that moves and a few things that dont move, continue...
I look at doom3 right now as a dev platform. Waiting for the mod crews to get their hands on it. I just hope the Urban terror mod people get ahold of it and update their Q3 mod for it.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Carmack and his crew are kids. In fact, they're a certain type of kid. --Still locked in that Tod McFarlane brand of, "Like, there's this Fuckin' Demon, and he's like, Really Tuff!", state. I played D&D with guys like that in highschool. Friendly enough, but. . . Hooo boy. Hang out with guys like that for long enough, and your brain will either start shutting down core functions in order to prevent itself from going insane with boredom, or you'll become fed up and start getting snide and bitter with people who are simply not in the same place as you and neither can nor need to comprehend the shit you're trying to come to terms with.
Ah. Highschool. Where everybody is immature and overbearing in their own special ways.
The best option, of course, is to just find the people you ARE supposed to fit with. Water finds its own level, as they say, and everybody needs to explore the things they need to explore. Including the John Carmacks of the world.
Halflife was a bit more mature. They hired an actual writer. When you realized those marines were not there to rescue you, but were actually on a 'clean up' mission. . , THAT was an exciting bit of interactive game-play! --At least for where my head was at the time. "Now THIS is what the X-Files is trying to be!" I thought.
Bloody monsters on Mars and stuff that jumps out of the shadows? id games are for kids who still have boogey-man issues.
To be fair, though. . . We can all appreciate the cool-value of id. It took a long time and a lot of work to train my subconscious to allow me access to a light-saber on demand in my dreams.
Shotguns provided through a good user interface are a nice way to reclaim power over the Dark!
-FL
(well, I guess in order to get the reference, you'd have to be seriously old-school...)
As a state gets corrupt, its laws multiply; the most corrupt states have the most numerous laws. (Tacitus, Annales 3:27)
This is how it was MEANT to be. A little more thinking rather than just rushing in and blasting away. If all you want is a blastfest, then just flip on godmode and gimme all and knock yourself out. I particularly don't care for the teamplay type games, so I DON'T BUY THEM. The graphics etc on them are great, but I don't care for that style of game. That doesn't mean they're bad games, just not for me. I've seen the "hide in closet" comments before. Hey, we're talking about the forces of Hell. Bossdevil say "wait in closet" Imp wait in closet. Probably a nice break for them after all those eons in Hell. (hey, it's dark and quiet. I can take a nap) I wasn't too keen on the darkness to start, but it does work, and is RIGHT when you think about it. All those explosions etc, will have knocked out power and lights. Most everyone is dead. The UNdead of course do not like the light. The badguys aren't going to turn on all the lights just so I can see better to kill them. (nowthen, an OPTION to brighten things up for those with weak hearts or minds, would have been fine, but this mod helps with that, and the gamma changes as well) It's a shooter still, but one much closer to real than previous ones. (btw, for those who haven't tried it, play the reactor level in multi and jump down the core. You get a funky teleport and squirt out with the berserk powerup on. The effect of THAT is incredible. (and freaky if it's the first time you've seen/heard it)
IMHO, the same people who bitch about needing the flashlight are close to (or are) the same people looking for godmode or ammo cheats. Pussies.
Trolls lurk everywhere. Mod them down.
What do you mean don't do it?
I've already played the game for several hours and I don't find it that fun. In fact, I'd only give the game a 7/10 or an 8/10 if best. And most of that number comes from the graphics (which are good but not revolutionary).
You might like the game as is. But I don't like it that much and am going to try this because I don't like the pace of the game; always having to switch back and forth between my flashlight and my weapons. It's like the games in the 22nd century and my marine's tech is from 1984. And the gameplay is like 1995 meets DirectX9. Nothing wrong with old-school play, but it's not worth all the mega-hype.
I think your advice would be better stated as "try the game a bit to see if you like it as is or if you want to use the mod".
I think it's interesting you bring that up.
I was thinking about writing my user review of Doom 3 for gamerankings.
While I won't trash the game, it certainly isn't revolutionary in regards to graphics and Mario 64 was the game the came to mind when I thought about what "revolutionary" really means.
I think my catch phrase I'm using to describe Doom 3 is "1995 meets DirectX9". I don't think the game is anything more then that. There's nothing wrong with old-school game play, but don't pretend that it's revolutionary or anything.
... being something which praises their little adopted baby ;-)
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
I think that in 2145 the Bush Machine is still in power... and thanks to soaring defecits such "combat luxuries" as Duct Tape are no longer afforable... after all I hear it costs the DoD like 5 grand to buy one roll of Duct Tape these days.... just think of the inflation on that by 2145!!
Who cares? The "old" Quake 3 engine still looks great (I've been playing RTCW on Linux lately), and it's smooth. I don't give a crap about super-spiffy graphics
"looks great" is of course fairly subjective, but i think Q3 looks better than D3 which is mostly drab gray on gray in darkness.
I want fun gameplay.
Agreed.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
Why must it be innovative? Why must every game made create a new genre, or push the medium forward? What's wrong with having a game that gives us nothing new (except for that whole lighting thing that hasn't been done like this before), and is simply an absolute blast to play?
I guess as a gamer, I should be ashamed for enjoying a game that isn't revolutionary.
We're geeks... We're the sorcerers of the modern-day world. --
Oh don't start on that "its realistic" spiel, it can't be defended on that. They thought it would be cool (and perhaps to hide the deficiencies of the engine), but there is nothing realistic about the game. You fire a rocket launcher at a wall and nothing happens?! Except it blacken a bit, but it doesn't break down, hell there are no dents. Some realism.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
I'm wondering since both the flashlight and pistol are one handed objects, you didn't have the option to weild both? The pistol is nice but it's the basic weapon so having the flashlight with it would have been a nice feature and not overkill I think.
~~ Behold the flying cow with a rail gun! ~~
Does it creep her out because you're now hopping on all fours like a rabbit?
just what people wanted: A game you can only play at night.
Well at least it shuts up the people who were bitching about the original Game Boy Advance's display...
An interesting way of solving the problem may have been with atmospheric effects like fog.
Except that in the past, fog has earned a bad reputation of being used to mask PVS switches[1] in order to reduce polygon count on PS1/N64 era 3D games. Play Turok: Dinosaur Hunter or Buck Bumble for N64 and then recommend fog again.
[1] In real-time computer graphics, a "PVS" is a potentially visible set, an approximation of the set of polygons that can be viewed from a given sector of the map.
Two things: "DUCK" is one brand of duct tape. More importantly for this article, duct tape is not for hot air ducts or anything else that'll heat up rapidly. How hot does a firearm get?
Is this really such a slow news day that a trivial change to a popular game made it onto /.?
Oh no. It's anything but trivial. From the very first level onwards the player dreams of having this solution - many traps are designed on the premise that you don't see your enemy/enemies and have to shoot where you think they might be or escape in panic to some light place. Ability to have a gun AND a flashlight (in stock game, it's either this or that) in your hands makes it a completely different game.
Id mod you up, but I already posted in this story elsewhere.
I put my flashlight toggle on the back button of my mouse (whatever mouse# it is), since that forward is not easily reachable (Logitech MX500. Theres a busload of buttons on that mouse, but looks like you need giant's hands to hold it correctly.) But since forward isnt quikly reachable, i put Run on it.
"...a generation of kids has grown up thinking Trance is the shittiest music since country and western." - Paul van Dyk
Or Painkiller.
Jaysyn
There is a war going on for your mind.
Ok, so logically he should be able to attach a flashlight to his gun. But then.. how far do you want to take logic in this game? He shouldn't be able to hold 10 weapons (some of which are quite large), in fact he doesn't appear to have any way to carry more than what he can hold in his arms. So, restrict him to one or two weapons with a flashlight duct taped to it, and maybe some grenades strapped to his belt. Oh, now we can complain that it's a Halo rip-off. Sweet! There's always something for people who want to complain.
Ahhh, that classic argument, "If you don't play the game the way I play it, you're a crying baby!"
:)
Great way to make friends and influence people.
12YODW.
Then again, the people who complain about doom3 are the same people who are pissed off that IDKFA doesn't work.
:-)
I dont know for you, but IDKFA works fine for me. Look at the console after typing it
"...a generation of kids has grown up thinking Trance is the shittiest music since country and western." - Paul van Dyk
But why use the flashlight as a weapon when you have fists, or chainsaw? :)
"...a generation of kids has grown up thinking Trance is the shittiest music since country and western." - Paul van Dyk
Before you go off into your world of Doom, just remember to get your daily windows patches. Oh, and I hope they work right without breaking anything. And do not worry about those other unfixed problems with windows, those apparently are not important enough to be fixed, because hey, if they were wouldn't they be already?
Either way, have fun. Seems to be the only thing windows is good for is gaming anyway.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Geoff -
I'll get on the horn and tell those jackasses to send another crate ASAP. You owe me one sheep!
- Tony
- - - - - - - - - - - -
From: Geoff Smiley
To: Tony Coolridge
Subject: Those Mixom Bastards!
Tony -
Those jerks at Mixom screwed up their shipping orders. *Again*! I still have my receipt for a container full of item #692-B on page twelve of their summer catalogue, "100m (approx) duct tape". What do they send me? 629-B, MartianBuddy Inflatable RealSheep. At least I can sell them to recoup my loss.
In other news, I'm really starting to hate the fact that this base seems to have a total of three women. I'm sure that's from the same brilliant planning committee that decided to decorate everything in industrial gothic. Talk about 150 years out of date! Anyways, I decided to take matters into my own hands (pun not intended), but when I made my way down to EnPron today to see that plain girl all I found was her torso. What turns my stomach isn't that she's dead - It's that somebody on this base is getting a little head even as we speak.
In conclusion, if you could give Mixom a little nudge for me, I'd really appreciate it.
Later,
- Geoff
Nah. I never went to college. Going into debt for a worthless degree constructed from propagandic, out-moded knowledge, and wasting some of my most energy-filled years to do it seemed rather like the polar opposite of, 'higher learning'. But who knows? Maybe it depends on the courses you pick.
But I DO sound a bit pretentious; that I'll give you. --Though, it's pretty hard not to when trying to come up with something interesting to say about a Carmack game.
Duct tape got old fast. --Which, btw, was just another way of saying, "Carmack is a goof".
-FL
Not to sound like the odd man out, but seriously, it takes about 20 minutes to get used to switching back and forth between the flashlight...
Did you know you can do it quickly with the F key?
I could see if the ONLY way to switch was to scroll through your weapons list, but it's pretty automatic. If you need to see, hit F. If something runs at you, hit F again to switch back to your normal weapon, shoot it.
It's not rocket science...
We have secretly replaced these Slashdot mods' sense of humor with a rusty nail. Let's see if they notice!!
I could find a secret area nicely without using the flashlight at all :)
If you wanna know where it is, check this link.
"Doom 3 doesn't change the formula. Maybe, as a console gamer I'm biased, but Doom 3 is certainly the belle of the ball now, unless the mod community really takes off I don't seeing it being a watermark for gaming."
This is exactly what people said when the various Quake issues emerged on the scene - "They forgot multiplayer, and multiplayer is where it's at" "Same old same old" "No innovation". I think it'd be interesting for a lot of the cynics to revisit the reviews of these old games some time.
The real power of Carmack's creations, though, is that he builds a tremendously flexible framework (usually with cutting edge graphics), and tosses it over to the mod community. As games themselves each of the Quake franchise games were okay, but nothing special, but by way of mods (Action Quake, Urban Terror, among others) I must have spent thousands of hours on each of those games. The entertainment value was extraordinary. Carmack basically has a habit of delivering solid foundations, usually with a half decent get-you-started game. The user community then takes that framework and makes something extraordinary.
The first time I heard that the Marine could use either the flashlight, or a weapon, but not both at the same time, I immediately thought of the Harries flashlight techinque.
Here's a page showing off the Harries technique, and a number of other methods of employing a light and a one-handed weapon at the same time.
www.themartialist.com/1203/fightwithlight.htm
Basically, you hold the flashlight in your 'weak' hand (the left, for most people), and the pistol in your strong hand. Cross your wrists and press the backs of your hands together, while holding the pistol up in a normal orientation.
Pressing the backs of your hands together makes the gun more stable. It's not quite as good as holding the gun in both hands (which you should do whenever possible); but better than just waving it around one-handed. As my instructor at Gunsite said "If you aren't pressing the backs of your hands together enough to hurt, you aren't doing it hard enough".
This works best with flashlights that have a pressure-switch on the tailcap, which you press with your thumb when you want light, and release when you want dark. (fastest on-off mechanism).
Light the target; shoot it, then *move*. Immediately be somewhere other than where your light came from. The FBI used to teach a method of holding your light way out at arm's length to the side, in the theory that the bad guy will shoot at the light and miss you. In practice, running around corners and through doors tends to bring the light near you anyway, so that theory didn't work out well in practice. Use both hands together for best effect, use your feet for what they were intended for (running away, if at all possible!)
Game companies should send FPS game designers off to Gunsite (www.gunsite.net) for a week of instruction with real firearms and real room-clearing techniques, before they come up with too many movie-esque notions of how guns work in the Real World.
--Redchrome
Note that the quoted bit does not contain a reference to defecation or urination. What else could one possibly use toilet paper for? ;)
HAND.
or something like that, people thought the BFG had a flashlight attached, also bind "q" give all, bind "1" killmonster
Hmmm, I have 5 mod pts, its time to metamod, and on top of that I have to meta-metamod? When do I get to read slashdot?
My father was in the military and he had rolls of tape called GUN tape. I didn't know what DUCT tape was until I realized it was the same stuff just silver and not green.
IMHO it should be called the Red Green Mod or RGM.
Is it really the belle. I think Far Cry deserves the title. It is close to perfect in both gaming and graphics.
Well not really, Mario 64 was named action adventure, like all 3d platformers in that time. But there were older 3d platformers. To my knowledge Pandemonium, Gex and other stuff by Crystal Dynamics was there before. Also Tomb Raider which also was/is a 3d platformer was released before Mario 64. I never really could understand the Mario 64 craze. It was a nice and good game, but I guess the marketing by BigN was the main reason why everbody thought it was so uníque.
He did have a flashlight on his helmet. His real goal throughout the whole game has been to find his helmet!
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
http://www.afrotechmods.com/groovy/review/d3rev
http://slashdot.org/~GuyFawkes/journal
Because it was unique. It was a 3d-platformer action arcade. From those you mention, Gex is the only one I consider close, but not in playability. Pandemonium was released Nov 1996 which is one month after Mario 64 and I'd say it was more of a 2.5D game a-la-Klonoa than a real 3D game. The cameras in those games were also awful, including the first Tomb Raiders (besides being absolutely boring).
Parent didn't claim "first 3d platformer" but "the game to popularize 3d platformers" which is quite true.
Mario 64 is one of my favs ever.
The original Gex was a hand-drawn 2-d game. It kicked ass. The 2nd and 3rd Gex games were 3-d, and some of the worst crap I have ever attempted to play. It seemed like after the vastly over-rated Mario 64 every platformer had to be a 3-d scavenger hunt, wher collecting random crap was the point of the game. If I felt like wandering around grabbing debris from the ground, I'd volunteer for highway clean-up and save myself the $50 for the game.
Check out my foes list to see who is so retarded that they can't use the signature line!!!
> You can also have some fun with the .tga and have like 2 flashlights or give it a wide/narrow shape, etc.
Or have a Hello Kitty flashlight. It's the perfect way to illuminate hideous demons!
Doom3's extensible engine is the evolution of quake series engines. It's modable and will see wide third party use... Consider it's pedigree, which includes half liife (q2 based and still the #1 online game). Doom3 will be the _benchmark_, perhaps even a _watershed_ of high quality, moddable and extensible engines. Unless the mod community really takes off? Aside from half life, what other vibrant mod community is there? It's about ID took up the standard again, HL is q2 engine based and showing its age.
It's a bit easier to setup if you use the supplied tools/wineinstall script (from the winex directory where cvs installs the files). I did it that way, and didn't have to mess with copying over .transgaming. Also had some problems with the manual configure, it was looking for a .transgaming directory in /usr/local/lib/winex-cvs/, but using the install script got it all setup fine.
I do have one question tho.. I had doom3 installed on my winxp partition and was trying to have winex run that... The best I could do was to get the doom console to pop up and it said unable to load "default.cfg". After I did a fresh install of the game to my home directory tho it worked fine.
I know more than you drink.
I agree, I disagree, I agree ...
I think you guys are just going to have to agree to disagree.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
If you read the info about the flashlight on your PDA, it explains why.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Well what Mario 64 really was was nothing more than a 2d mario and a third dimension added to it. The collection endless crap came straight out of the first mario jump and run from the eighties (excluding donkey kong) and hasnt changed until today. I can remember the comments there where everybody said they never have seen so beautiful and big 3d worlds. Once I got my hands on a N64 and saw it, I was pretty dissapointed, neither was the world beautiful nor big. There were much bigger 3d worlds out there on the PC at that time already and the game was not really that amazing. It was what it was, a usual Mario jump and run with a third dimension added to it. Btw. same goes for Zelda and Metroid I always thought those game series lost a lot with the third dimension. Especially metroid which is just another first person shooter anymore. Fans from the series might see it differently, but I am not a blind console follower and try to look a lot over the borders of games I play, just to see if there is something good across the pond.
C'mon. It's obvious. Say the game had a limitation like "You can't turn left, only right", or "Every time you use the minigun you have to sing a song first". Those would be just as intrusive and unrealistic as the flashlight thing.
Nobody is saying the game is realistic, in the sense that it might happen to you tomorrow. However, what they've done is set up a framework. It's the year 2145, you're a Marine in a base on Mars, and you're fighting demonic creatures. That's the world you have to accept. If you can't accept that framework, well the game won't be very interesting to you. Once you've accepted the framework, everything else should fit into that framework.
There are other unrealistic things in the game, like how you can sprint while carrying a minigun, shotgun, machine gun and pistol, along with tons of ammo and armor. That's a long-established convention of first person shooters though. Same with knowing with absolute precision how damaged you are, and being able to instantly heal by picking up some random medkit. But the whole "choose a flashlight or a weapon, but not both" convention really ruins your suspension of disbelief. Wy would it be that you can carry 10 weapons easily, but somehow can't manage to hold both a flashlight and a pistol at the same time?
Yeah, and besides, if you're not careful a torch is going to burn you. I mean, who would want something burning right close to your ammunition anyhow!? Wouldn't that be a recipe for suicide? I say carry your torch in your other hand, and be damn careful you don't burn yourself with it.
I know, I know, to silly people from England and possibly Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, a "torch" can mean one of them battery-operated lighting devices. But you gotta admit it sounds ridiculous to us North Americans. I can't help but picture a flaming torch strapped to a gun. Not the most safe way of doing things, if you ask me.
Actually, I'm one of those unfortunate people caught in the middle. A Canadian. We say "colour", "litre", "metre", "night", but we do say "tire" and "jail" (gaol? WTF?).
And yeah, we sometimes shorten gasoline to "gas", but you have to admit that "petrol" is odd. It seems to be a contraction for "petroleum", but is a very different thing.
thesolution to vcr blinking.0 .html
http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail3
The Blade Runner FAQ's answer for the "glowing eyes" is absurd. Haven't they ever shone a flashlight into the woods and seen an animal's eyes? They look exactly like that owl in the link's pic. Hell, I saw three racoons in my neighbour's tree just two nights ago. omg, we're surrounded by animaloids!! :)
> Another option would have been limited battery life for the flashlight
A mag lasts how long on plain, off-the-shelf alkaline D cells? 8 hours? 10? How much longer if it was some sophisticated led-based system?
That was one thing that pissed me off a lot in Halo - you have a micro-sized fusion reactor on your back that provides enough power for a suit of power armor that can flip a main battle tank over, as well as generate a shield strong enough to deflect plasma fire.. and your flashlight, about as bright as a three cell mag light light, runs out of batteries in five minutes.. (and it does recharge from the pack, too) Dammit!!
(And the damned marines have lights that last for the whole mission)
Anyways, a nice bright six cell mag with an upgraded bulb would quite easily blind some sort of creature with excellent night vision.. unless the system it uses for sight is more flexible than a human's, of course.