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Insane Quaker
Insane Quaker
Joined: 05 Nov 2010
Posts: 449
PostPosted: 07-02-2015 11:39 AM           Profile Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote




A buddy of mine sent me this gameplay footage of the new doom and asked for my thoughts, by the time I was done I had more to say than I realized and I wanted to get people's thoughts here.

From my message, cleaned up a bit:

They've clearly accomplished something amazing....if that thing is doom or not, I'm still not sure.

What made Doom great was (in one regard) that some parts were so frenzied and so fast paced you had to handle certain areas like a high speed chess game...constantly checking the locations of enemies, projectiles, trajectories , explosion radiuses, etc, it was about covering your ass as fast as you could...and with a pretty good deal of precision. The other thing about it was unending lovecraftian hellscapes and a real strong focus on biblical hell-type stuff even where it barely made any sense.

Doom 4 looks like they overhauled the brutal doom mod and wrapped it around an up-to-date engine - which is awesome...but it's still not doom 1 or 2 based on this footage. As far as I've seen horror games go, the more techy crap there is floating around in the game's world, the less they can artistically focus on moody, dark demons/devils, torment, dread, etc. There's a pure sense of awe at some points in Doom 2 especially where they really went out of their way to make the environment uncomfortable in a way that fit right in with what you'd expect hell to be like...or at least a NIN music video set and that'd be close enough. The environment needs grit in a...wooden/marble/classical statues/filthy kind of way not at all present in a solid-steel space base that looks like something the apple store pooped out.

See : Dead Space, an amazing game series that accomplishes exactly what it set out to be, a sci-fi laden meaty murdery survival/shit your pants festival and it did so with techno whatever things everywhere as the design focus, but there was no mood other than "time to run because that thing with 3 heads and 7 arms wants to drink my spine". Doom ought not be this.

They also clearly replaced the Doom marine with master chief, so that's all wrong. Double-jumping is right out. The power suit thing is neat..but breaks tradition....broken doors should remain broken, broken staircases should require a work-around, and combat should be about out-maneuvering and running like hell and planning an attack as much as pumping bullets into everything, but not ONLY pumping bullets into everything. we've seen what happens when that's the only focus and it was called Serious Sam.

The power helmet/HUD/whatever is also on my shit list, the only tech the doom marine needs to rely on is the gun he's holding and possibly the automap.

We still don't get a plasma rifle nearly as cool as the original one...though that was a sin of doom 3 as well. no grenades showed up in the video that I noticed...which was always a little odd for doom having military tie-ins but they didn't show up until doom3 anyway...i'm pretty sure....either way, keeping them out is a nice throw-back to Doom1/2. I saw the pea-shooter from doom 3 made a comeback...looked like a P90 or something, that should go back to Black where it belongs - and where it was fun. The weapons need the texas twang the old ones had, where the sight of them spelled relief because of their muscle-car effect and gettin'-shit-done capability - provided you were cowboy enough to use them. The old weapons themselves didn't serve to feel like a security blanket, but more like a tool to kick more ass if you were quick enough. Applying skill through timing/weapon choice was a huge part of doom. This is exactly why they keep bringing back the double barrel shotgun, and exactly why the crowd literally cheers whenever they see it. We need more than just this weapon to make it through the series unchanged. You also calculated and budgeted double barrel shotgun blasts, because it spelled instant death for most lower level enemies. In this Doom 4 footage, this is almost entirely devalued by the ability to <insert Sam Rami here> your enemies a-la brutal doom, and they're auto-dead that way....which is neat, but I feel the gimmick detracts from the old magic of timing shots just right to barely survive. It's also hard to tell without playing, but it makes the game look painfully easy...but I may eat those words. I noticed they also changed the BFG once again...if it's anything like Doom 3's BFG I can't say I'll be too excited to see it.

The good news is they finally got a really good chunk of code to make a viable chainsaw. I approve of this chainsaw. I also liked that the monsters still bicker with each other.

Where the HELL are the red/blue/yellow keys? Wall switch-plates? Secret areas? Hidden weapons/event triggers? I think we got a single Red key in one level of doom 3, I feel we are owed more.

So far, this feels like the group of folks who played doom 3 and liked it without loving it said "we can fix it" by injecting Michael Bay's action serum into it. It's one step in the right direction away from what doom 3 was, but it's a few awkward steps away from what 1 and 2 were as well.

It'll be hard to bitch about the engine until I get my own hands on it, but I find it visually odd they periodically switch to some mode where everything looks like 1980s VHS fireworks footage....which is another cool thing that doesn't quite fit. Whatever the particle engine is doing, it feels more like the 4th of July than spawning hell beasts. I'd always thought a momentary wall of fire would accompany the arrival of a demon...but this did it with what appeared to be sparks from kindling.

That all being said, I'll be there to fork over the money to see what they did to my childhood because I swear to god if they went another game without including the spider mastermind I'll put it in there myself.


/rant




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Cool #9
Cool #9
Joined: 01 Dec 2000
Posts: 44131
PostPosted: 07-02-2015 08:46 PM           Profile   Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


tl;Dr

Sorry mate, you're 2 weeks late to the discussion. Not going through all of this again. Look up the threads in GD. It's all been said before.




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Insane Quaker
Insane Quaker
Joined: 05 Nov 2010
Posts: 449
PostPosted: 07-03-2015 07:56 AM           Profile Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


I didn't realize there was a thread, though I should have expected it. I see your thread and raise you my limitless bitching.




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