Some thoughts on Doom 3

[Thoth093]

At the urgings of many, I have finally gotten back into playing
Doom 3 and tried to examine it objectively.

It's a corridor shooter. Always will be. It does, indeed, still rely
far, far, FAR too much on the "secret door opens behind you
OHMIGODIT'SADEMON!" trick. Gets old and even predictable after a while.
Just watch for the flash of light, spin 'n' shoot.

But it's not a bad game at its deepest heart. By god, they tried to
tell a story, and in some cases they succeeded. The greatest tragedy
is, to me, that there's an absolutely fantastic game lurking deep in
the heart of Doom 3, and on occasion it even rears its demon-infested
head and bares its teeth.

I think a part of the problem, actually, is the over-reliance on the
original Doom 1+2 monsters and mythology. I realize that the plan was
to make Doom as it was originally meant to be, but I think that
actually hurt the overall design and story.

Doom 1 and 2 were corridor shooters, and we were happy to have them. We
had seen nothing of their like before in such splendor, and the
combination of the graphics and gameplay truly were revolutionary. We
all stood amazed, and justifiably so. That there was only the barest
thread of plot was acceptable because the action was so pure, so fun.

Flash forward to the modern era, and more is needed. We live in a Post
Half-Life world, and while that particular series has its own caveats
and even tremendous missteps, it taught us the value of story, parcing
and atmosphere in even what are at their hearts still run 'n' gun games.

I've come to realize that one of my problems with Doom 3 is that I
don't find its mechanized demons to be in any way frightening or
intimidating. I realize, again, that the designs hearken back to the
original games, but I feel that their zeal to bring back these classic
adversaries has actually hurt the overall design.

Doom 3 has within it the seed of an excellent science fiction horror
story. Soulless scientists, experimenting with ancient technologies
they barely understand, create a dimensional gateway to a world born of
nightmare, the very home of the demons of our darkest dreams. The
hubris of one grows to the extent that he can only see personal reward
without considering the consequences of his actions. His choices doom
(ha ha) the hapless inhabitants of the Mars station and threaten the
sanctity of Earth itself.

Fine, fine. The problem is that the story seed, while excellent, still
has much of the sophomoric side of the original Dooms integrated within
it. It seems iD realized that they should tell a story this time
around, and they had some good ideas about how to do it -- cut scenes,
PDAs, e-mails, audio logs, etc. The problem is that the story is still
a bit ... well ... amateurly handled.

Look at the designs of some of your demonic foes. Big skeletal guys
with rocket launchers come immediately to mind. So do half-man,
half-tank monstrosities. (Sarge's repeated, whispered psychic messages
about his desire to kill me really began to grate after a while, as is
Bertruger's endless "Muahahahaha!")

If this is indeed Hell we are meant to be facing, I for one would have
hoped that iD went back to the drawing board and examined each of the
original entities to see how well it fit within the new, in theory more
sophisticated and darker vision they were crafting. With its garish
colors and devil-may-care (ha!) shoot-em-up action, such entities would
be right at home in Doom 1 and 2. But not Doom 3, which purports, at
least, to try to tell a somewhat adult science fiction morality tale
about the dangers of science without the perspective of "morality." I
would have preferred to see designs drawn more from classical
demonology, perhaps with only a hint of cybernetics if at all. I
realize that was not my choice to make, but I think that alone would
have been a vast improvement.

I did enjoy the Hell level quite a bit, although I found it reminded me
much of some of the extradimensional spaces explored in Clive Barker's
Undying. After a while, the similarities become painfully obvious, so
in some ways another opportunity wasted.

The main story doesn't seem to know whether to take itself seriously or
not, and some of the story is obviously designed to explain certain
game mechanics -- the Soul Cube comes to mind. I find that games that
start with a story and then evolve the mechanics to tell that story are
somewhat more satisfying than those that create the bells 'n' whistles
first, then try to justify their existence.

You can fault the corridor shooter design for much of what is
disappointing about Doom 3, but I think the thing that bothers me is
that it could have actually told an excellent story within the confines
of its setting limitations. The fact that it stops short of this and
falls flat in many cases is, to me, the biggest dissappointment of all.

I could go on for some time, but work calls. Perhaps I'll post more
thoughts later. Reasoned responses are quite welcomed.

Regards,

Brian

 

[skace]

I don't necessarily believe we need more than what Doom1 and Doom2 offered. I honestly think they failed at recreating that experience because they lost sight of what made those 2 games come together so nicely. Yes monsters popping out was one thing, yes spooky setting was another, but neither of these concepts were "meat and potatoes" of the game. 2 underlying concepts that made Doom1 and Doom2 what they were: Maze-like illogical levels and rediculous hordes of monsters. On both accounts, Doom3 lost sight of that concept. The levels were logical instead of maze like, there was no fantasy concept to that, there wasn't weird paths, fake walls, hidden rooms, odd pillars, tricks and traps. There also was never any sign of a hoard of demons, surely not on the level of Doom1 and Doom2. There was never 40 bull demons chasing you, 15 hell knights or 2 cyberdemons. The ressurection demon was not nearly as deadly in reviving half the map. And, on top of all this, the game played slower.

So yea, FPS games may have involved and we may be looking for lots of different concepts, but I'd argue that if someone truely created a Doom2 sequel, they would have an extremely fun hit.

Having said all that, Doom3 was not bad, I'd argue that until I was blue in the face. It simply dissapointed. There is a difference between bad: ala Leisure Suit Larry Magna Cum Laude and dissapointing: ala Doom3. Doom3 did not crash, there were no overall glitches, the graphics were beautiful, the levels were perplexing, the darkness was incredible, but it just got lost when it came to gameplay. And that hurts.

 

[xboxist]

OP:

I would be interested to read your thoughts on HL2, in the same, epic fashion as this column. Not for any particular reason, but it would be interesting still. I loved HL2, and just couldn't get into Doom 3. It simply felt cheap, and I was not driven to find out where the game was headed.

 

[Thoth093]

I'm currently just past Nova Prospekt in HL2, and I'd like to finish the game properly before I comment on its overall effectiviness.

Because Gordon is a "silent" character, we learn about him only through interactions with other people. It is in these interactions that I feel HL2 shines particularly. But I promise I'll post an analysis of HL2 once I feel I have enough perspective on it as a whole.

Much could be made of Gordon's obviously significant name -- Freeman, especially the quasi-messianic references to "the free man" some of your alien allies are always making. But that will be for another post. HL2 does definitely have a "hero's journey" quality to it from a story perspective in many ways, which I find immensely positive.

 

[jjones]

I just finished Doom 3 and while it certainly wasn't the greatest game I've ever played, it was entertaining enough. I guess I had the advantage of having no expectations, having only ever played Doom 95 many years ago. The story kept me interested even while the simplicity of the corridor FPS aspect of the game did get a little boring after the first few hours of gameplay. My only complaints about the game is that they could have just as easily made the game without the need of a strict corridor path; it would have been nice to join up with Bravo team for a bit for some team killing; more outdoor gameplay with perhaps some vehicles to use. Still, all in all, it was fun enough and I'll probably play it again.