The Third Coming of Doom

[JJ]

Well, I bought it today. I've been playing it for 5-6 hours since I got home from work, and my brain is completely fried -- I've been playing it in complete darkness like a classic geek. I actually can't be bothered to write the lengthy analysis that this game probably deserves, but suffice to say, it owns. ;D I'm finding it incredibly tough so far, and I just got to a point where all ammo seems to have dwindled down to zero and I'm running around taking potshots with my little handgun.

I suck.

Ah, well, this game is all about the atmosphere, really. It's got the tension and the pitch-black atmosphere of Aliens Versus Predator 2, and the story and NPCs of Half-Life. The zombies are pure Resident Evil, and the enormous Demons are terrifying. There's one incredible moment when you're locked in a small room, and a demon is bashing is way in. Oh, it's like that scene in the first Tremors movie when the gun-crazy couple lock themselves in their armoury and then just open fire on the worms as they dig in. It's cool. Weapons are average -- nothing new here people. Graphics are excellent with the odd bit of framerate jerkiness on my PC.

Oh, and I got the multiplayer to work! For some reason, my PC refuses to let me play Counter-Strike, AVP2, or Quake III over the Net, but it actually allows me to play Doom III!! There's A LOT of lag, which gives me a helluva disadvantage. When two guys are in the room at once, they appear to flicker around each other like they're in fast-forward or something. I still managed to kick a bit of a$$ in the process, though. It's all about reflexes. Sorry if I sound like a gibbering newbie, but it's all very confusing to me.

So, anyone else getting this game? If so, we can meet up for a deathmatch!

(edit) I need to lie down for a bit. I am so out of it.

[JC]

what are its tech specs?

[JJ]

You mean requirements? A decent 3D graphics card, the most recent version of Direct X if possible, Microsoft Windows 2000/XP, Pentium IV processor or higher, 384MB of RAM, 8x speed CD-ROM drive, 2.2GB of free space on your hard drive. And it comes with Direct X 9.0 if you don't already have it. Internet play requires a Broadband connection, sadly.

I don't know stuff like FPS, polygon count etc.

[antispamsoftware]

The specs are alot lower than everyone said they where going to be, people where saying we would need a 256mb graphics card.....i should of thought not to belive propergander

[madhair60]

So, does it play like old-school Doom and its sequel? I'm replaying Ultimate Doom with the jDoom expansion. It's stunning.

[JJ]

No, it doesn't play ANYTHING like the older Doom games. This is not the Doom you know. It's more on par with Aliens versus Predator (if you've ever played that). It has shades of Half-life, with the claustrophobia of Resident Evil. There aren't entire rooms full of imps to take on with a chaingun (you only fight one imp at a time because they're so fast and tough now), and most of it is about building up an atmosphere and letting you take on the enemies one at a time. It's also incredibly tough, even on easy mode.

The pinky demons are absolutely terrifying in this game. They charge at you like a speeding truck, and tear at you over and over, halving your health and disorientating you so you can't get a clear shot.

It annoys me that people are calling this a remake. It's more of a reimagining. The frantic, stadium-sized levels of Doom have been sacrificed for a much more horror, Resi-style game. It's nearly a first-person survival horror.

[supersonicjim]

* 3D hardware Accelerator Card Required 64MB
* English version of Microsoft Windows 2000 / XP
* Pentium IV 1.5 GHz or Athlon 1500+
* 384MB RAM
* 8x Speed CD-ROM drive (1200KB/sec sustained transfer rate) and latest drivers
* 2.2GB of uncompressed free hard disk space (plus 400MB for Windows swap file)
* 100% DirectX 9.0b compatible 16-bit sound card and latest drivers
* 100% Windows 2000 / XP compatible mouse, keyboard and latest drivers
* DirectX 9.0b (included)

Supported Chipsets:

* ATI Radeon 8500
* ATI Radeon 9000
* ATI Radeon 9200
* ATI Radeon 9500
* ATI Radeon 9600
* ATI Radeon 9700
* ATI Radeon 9800
* All nVidia GeForce 3/Ti series
* All nVidia GeForce 4/Ti series
* All nVidia GeForce FX series
* nVidia GeForce
you also need to be eightteen too.

[antispamsoftware]

Like I said above it has lowerspecs than anticipated

[madhair60]

Jamie said:

The frantic, stadium-sized levels of Doom have been sacrificed for a much more horror, Resi-style game. It's nearly a first-person survival horror.

Have you played original Doom on any console other than N64? The levels are far from Stadium sized. Claustrophobic is a more accurate word.

[JJ]

I've been playing the PC games to death since they came out...haven't played the N64 version. I guess I was thinking more of Doom II's massive outside levels like Suburbs, Downtown, The Factory or even Icon of Sin. Yeah, I guess the original Doom was more claustrophobic, but nowhere near as much as Doom 3.

At least Doom had levels like the enormous arenas where you fight the two Barons of Hell, or the Spider Mastermind at the end. Even the opening level of the Inferno chapter is pretty big.

[Shadic?]

Hmm, maybe ill pick this up.. to many games coming out.
Which ones to choose..

[Ashura]

same here

[JJ]

There's an excellent PS2 game coming out next month called Second Sight -- about a guy with telekinetic abilities. I've played the demo and it is absolutely superb. It's from Free Radical Design, the makers of Timesplitters.

[Yunni]

From how you discribe it - it doesn't really sound like the classic DOOM games anymore

atmosphere like alien vs preditor, zombies like resi... it now feels like a big uber horror cake with every ingredient added...

Does it feel like the old games or does it have its Title with shiny graphics?

[JJ]

I wish I could say that it feels like older games, but it just doesn't. It's more like Aliens versus Predator 2 or System Shock than anything else.

It's still a great game! It's just...there's zero nostalgia to be had here.

[Robert Frazer]

The processor speed ravenously devoured by a game mechanic as voracious and insatiable as the vile and reprehensible daemonic travesties that stalk the corridors of Doom III is one and a half Gigahertz... and my primitive Pentium III is only capable of struggling with the load of 810 Megahertz...

Unless I thieve a laser-cooling system from the National Physical Laboratory to overclock my exhausted motherboard's dilapidated components until they're emitting more heat than the Sun, then, I shall never be indulging in the delectable rapture derived from delivering both barrels of a twelve-bore dental reconstruction to a vile and satanic Imp.

However, as a substitute, I recently encountered an extraordinary piece of DOOM fan-fiction being scribed on the Arts and Crafts forum at Nuklear Power (the website that produces 8-Bit Theatre, which is indisputably the greatest and most hilarious sprite comic in Creation). I am not fond of thrillers (if a book is less than eighty years of age I'll arch my head and sneer at it disdainfully) but DOOM: Survivor, as the fiction is called, is utterly remarkable for an amateur work. The effort invested in it is marvellous - I estimate it to be at least eighty pages long, and increasing - and the action the text describes is relentless and quite appropriately explicit in its evocative descriptions of zombies being disintegrated by assault rifles

Read it here (not for younger Boomers!)

[JJ]

Wow, thanks for the link, Rob! I always find it real hard to read stories on the computer screen (especially when they're that long), but I might print it out so I can sit down and read it proper.

He's got to have real passion about the subject to be able to write like that...