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Doom 3 vs. Half Life 2
Thanks to Laurie W, who writes "Sudhain.com has a great comparison of D3 vs. HL2 (funny, too)." From the article: "Since Half Life 2 was released this week, I thought it'd make a good time to take the two games head to head and see which came out on top. I've spent a few hours in the beginning of each, playing through the first few levels. Although I haven't completed either, I've spent enough time in each (I think) to develop a feel for what the later sections of each game will be like. Given that each has been fairly consistent thus far, it'd take a major shift for my opinion of either to change significantly."
Anyone who has played the later levels in D3, especially the Hell levels, will know that the game gets drastically better near the end. I found the first levels of D3 to be monotonous and boring. This article is like comparing apples and oranges with the added insult of not even removing the skins.
If you are going to review games, at least finish them. You never know how much an ending can ruin a game for you. It happens in movies too. Remember AI and the new Planet of the Apes? If AI ended earlier instead of the whole weird alien thing and if Planet of the Apes didn't end in such a ridiculous way, those would have been decent movies. This guy is just rushing off a review before they become irrelevant...which really, they already are.
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Doom = Fast and frantic shooter
Doom3 = slow and dark 'survival horror' game
so no, I don't think Carmack really delivered on Doom Redux.
Of course, he did deliver on a fantastic new graphics engine.
Yes, but H2 wins for multiplayer.
Doom 3 multiplayer: oldschool DM, nuttin' else
HL2 multiplayer: CS. Bleah.
Halo 2 multiplayer: The best Co-Op mode I've ever seen, plus the tried and true mix&match CTF/whatever with vehicles.
No contest - and I don't even have an X-Box.
Well, if we're gonna talk mods, then UT2k4 already won. Too bad it doesn't have any players. I thought we were discussing out-of-the-box gameplay.
I have to agree with anyone who read the article and felt like it was very poor journalism. First of all, right from the start the author mentions that he only played a little bit of each game. I think he said Alpha Labs 3 is as far as he played in Doom 3, that's what, 15% into the game? This is no more useful to me than the forum and comments flames from jaded gamers who spam their opinion all over the place after playing through just the intro to a game. If it was a good article, I think first of all he would have played through both games so that he could actually tell us which one he actually likes better than the other, not which one he thinks he may like better than the other, and instead of just saying one is better than the other, he could recommend one or the other to the reader based on their preferences. These are just some basics of writing review/opinion pieces. This guy makes himself sound like an ass.
What would I have said? Well, I think most people will enjoy both games. As for casual gamers or people who are new to FPS games, I would say Doom 3. HL2 has some puzzles and concepts that any FPS nut will breeze by, but someone who hasn't been playing these games all that long will find themselves frustrated. For instance, I was watching my girlfriend play HL2 and she couldn't get past the train yard, because she is not coordinated enough to time the jump from the train top over the fence to get to the next part, she would have been stuck there for ages if I wasn't there to take over and do the jump for her. Some of the puzzles will confuse people who didn't already have a good idea about how the game was going to work as far as physics puzzles go. Doom 3 is mostly just a pretty frag-fest, my girlfriend has gotten much farther in Doom 3 than she can get in HL2 without my help.
Hardcore gamers are going to choose one or the other based on what kind of game they like to play. HL2 has more variety in it's gameplay, with more puzzles and more ways to dispatch enemies (knocking out platforms they are standing on, using objects in the world, etc.) where as Doom 3 is point, click and kill and focuses on little else other than keeping the situation tense at all times. I really like both, and luckily I do not have to choose one or the other. If you like killing everything in sight and being a bad-ass, maybe Doom 3 is your cup of tea. If you like to explore and are looking for more than just brainless action, then maybe you will get your kicks out of HL2. I say get 'em both, and maybe toss in an Xbox and Halo 2 for good measure.
I think it's obvious to everyone that you should release a review until you've played the entire thing. However, it is a good idea to catalog your impressions during the game.
As someone who has played both games twice in about the same length of time, let me offer my "four" cents.
Instead of comparing "apples to oranges", I'll just compare individual feelings about each game.
It's okay, no spoilers.
oom 3 gave me a stronger and more consistent emotional response. I felt like I was going to die around every corner (except about an hour before you go to hell because the jump scenes started getting a little old). Half-Life gave me a wider range of emotions from excitement, fear, compation torwards NPCs, and that warm fuzzy feeling that you get when you open up a big 'ol can of ownage.
Doom 3 was very specific about gameplay; shoot, run, poop yourself. Half-Life 2 had a wider range of gameplay elements from squad/bug tactics, vehicular battles, puzzles, etc.
To me Doom 3 felt like it went deeper in the story than Half-Life 2 did. You pretty much got some dialog out of every important person on the Mars base while in Half-Life 2, even though the quality and entertainment value of each cutscene was better, it still left with gapping holes in the story. I had to go through every speach sample while talking to those 3 armed aliens to at least get an idea about what happened between Half-Life 1 to present. And at the end--again, more gapping holes left in the storry. Not to say that the story is flawed, because it is great, there's just some things that have not been explained that I really felt entitled to know. I can forgive cliffhanger endings, but not ever knowing what happened between the two games and not really knowing the connection kind of bugs me. I picked up a few more bits playing through the second time, but still the answers don't seem to be there.
HL2 had faster pacing but there was a portion of the game (late C17 stage) where there was about 2 hours of the same type of gameplay. That almost ruined the beautiful pacing up until that point but the last stage made it up to me. Doom 3 had pretty consistant pacing, or consistantly monotonous, but being able to get closer and closer to the horrible truth and understand more about what happened made it worth it. I never once got let down by a lack of scary scenes or wimpier monsters. It was consistent.
Overall, Doom 3 is more refined in what it tried to do. And for that it's worth even a third play. Half-Life 2 was more fun in that you got a wider range of gameplay. The physics engine was mainly eye candy and was used for puzzles, which was very successful.
And as far as graphics, who says that the Doom 3 engine can't do as good water as Half-Life 2? Are there any rivers or lakes on Mars? That's why there isn't any. Both engines are capable of it. It's just a fragment shader. The main difference I see is character AI in HL2 and shadowing in Doom 3.
Just play both games. Both are very good and are worth your time and money. HL2 might get more replay value out of me thanks to Counter-Strike:Source. Either way I'm not going to let baises or hatred for anti piracy measures to keep me from enjoying both of these titles.
...I immensely enjoyed Doom3. I think it's the best engine on earth. And even though this guy picks Half-Life 2 as his preferred game, I consider this article to be quite fair.
I still won't be purchasing Half-Life 2 because I dislike Valve's method of dealing with their community, and dislike Sierra's C&D letters. But I'm not going to try to stop anyone else from buying Half-Life 2 because in the end, video-games are all about entertainment. If HL2 entertains you more than D3 then you owe it to yourself to buy it.
You'd be a fool, however, if you didn't check back on Doom3 in a few months to a year when we've got our mods out.