Reloaded Doom 3 shoots onto shelves this autumn
Big F**kin' Game?
iD Software's Doom 3 is to be rereleased as an "enhanced version" this autumn, bringing the classic first-person shooter to PS3 "for the first time", and once again to the Xbox 360 and PC.
Dubbed the Doom 3 BFG Edition, the game comes bundled with two previously released expansion packs, Resurrection of Evil and The Lost Mission, as well as the original Doom and Doom 2: Hell on Earth.
Promised Doom 3 enhancements include 3D optimisation, 5.1 surround sound, and improved rendering and lighting. There is also a new checkpoint system, an armour-mounted flashlight and achievements to keep the stat-hungry gamer happy.
Check out the debut trailer for the game below:
Doom 3 BFG Edition shoots onto shelves on 16 October.
The PC version will cost £20, while console editions - covering both PS3 and Xbox 360 - have been set at £30. Either way, that's some big 'effin guntastic bang for your buck right there. ®
COMMENTS
Was Doom 3 any good? A good part of my youth was spent playing the originals, but Doom3 just looks a bit generic.
(Cue blood-tinted spectacled memories, especially the sound of the shotgun reloading and the rib-splitting gut-spilling that ensued if you blew up an oil drum next to an enemy.... IDSPISPOPD, a brace of 486DXs with a null-modem cable, native support for the Gravis Ultrasound etc. )
Crap game
Doom 3 looked great but the levels were almost linear and the process of advancing was exactly the same - creep forward, trigger hidden trap, lights out, flash light, gun, shoot, shoot, lights on, repeat. Literally that was it all the way through. There was no way to predict what would trigger an attack, just that there was probably an invisible pressure plate around the corner that would.
One of the most popular patches for the game was a gun with a flashlight on it since it seems a space marine fighting through an abandoned Mars colony never thought of using duct tape. Doom 3 might have been a good tech demo but it was a bad game.
Far Cry on the other hand which appeared around the same time was an awesome game. The cutscenes and plot were a bit generic but the open worlds demonstrated what a FPS *should* be. It's too bad so many games still think that linear levels with a few arenas are still acceptable game design.
"Was Doom 3 any good?"
Put it this way. It was the first one (and still one of the very few) that I found had to be played with the lights on first time through. It all got a shade too atmospheric in the dark, too many things deliberately put in to fuck with one's head and cause the screaming heebie-geebies[1]. It was the first I played where trouser-soiling moments were caused due to hearing something horribly unpleasant behind me, courtesy of 5.1 sound. Other games had had surround sound, but none had exploited it to the extent that Doom 3 did in my experience.
Fairly typical Doom-y plot (you're on your own, it's nasty, shoot stuff before it kills you), loads to get through, lots of serious gory mess and liberally stuffed with ohshitohshitohshit back-to-the-wall-and-hope-the-ammo-doesn't-run-out moments. It scores over earlier Doom versions with the interactive kit all over the shop (I can play a video game in a video game - WTF?), decent NPCs, smarter bad guys and..........that atmosphere.
Probably the only thing that lets it down is that the ending is a shade too easy. I think that Id knew that and overcompensated in "Resurrection of Evil", by putting in a final sequence that's perishingly close to impossible to beat. Having said that I aced the ending of the original DOOM first time through without a scratch (and a repeatable technique too - quite the coup at the time it was), so maybe they were deliberately going for nostalgia in 3.....
All-in-all it still ranks as one of my all-time favourites, so going back to the original question, I have to say yes.
[1] E.g. <Tortured voice in left ear> "Saaaavvvvveeeee Meeeeeee" </Tortured voice in left ear> - and it means it too. Amusing after the fact, when the gag becomes apparent, but more "Wtf was that? Oooooooohhhhhhh Shiiiiiiittttttt" at the time.
Re: Peasants
Wrong - I had a DX
DX 2 was clock doubled, DX wasn't
DX is better than DX2 for same speed
DX50 better than DX2 50 or DX2 66
Re: Peasants
Sorry--but I was a proud owner of the fastest 486 ever sold:
AMD 486DX4/120 (yes, that's a 40 MHz bus when the best Intel had on offer was 33 MHz).
Beat the crap out of anything Intel released, even their Pentium 75, which was released to staunch the bleeding this chip was causing them.
