As a continuation from the posts I was reading in the GA thread, I'd like to give my own opinion on the sounds in the game.

Although I was blown away by the sound in the old e3 shakycam footage I saw a couple of years ago, the guys that redid the sound impressed me nearly as much. Generally I thought the sound was excellent.

From all the previews which discussed sound, I was expecting an ambient music tracks something like that of Quake, just slightly more reactive to events in the game. Instead, the sound was almost entirely environmental, and so was more relevant to what was actually happening around me. Only occasionally did I hear anything resembling music - and most of the time even that was just a steady bass pulse or something.

As someone mentioned in the GA thread, the whirs and clanks of doors and machinery were well implemented, and worked wonders at keeping me on edge. A couple of times, the metallic thump of some kind of piston was so intrusive that I was worried because I thought I wouldn't hear monsters appearing. Most of the time, I was concerned the machinery sound was monsters.

And yes, that armour pickup sound is eerie. Since I was always expecting imps to appear when I picked up armour, the sound often made me jump - even once I had heard it a lot of times and knew what it was :) Can't say I noticed the health pickup sound was from Q3, I just pretend Q3 doesn't exist.

I didn't have a particular problem with the weapon sounds, although I did find some of the weapons felt a bit weak (the SG was good close up, but seemed a lot worse than the original Doom shotgun at distance) - not sure if this had anything to do with the sounds.

I thought betruger's evil laugh was overused and corny. That was one element I really didn't like. Betruger was better off as some goofy genius who thinks he has a deal with Satan but then gets fucked in the ass once the portal is open (that was the impression I got from the old Doom 3 footage.) Mad scientists tend to suck outside of a comedic context.

Oh, the exposion sounds were not very meaty. Neither were the explosion effects - which I thought were pretty hideous. In fact, whilst I'm on the subject, there was this one cutscene where an explosion is supposed to be tearing down a duct from somewhere (I can't remember why this is all happening) and it just looked like a bunch of small crappy sprite exposions, no better than the Q3 explosion effect. I was also really dissapointed with the glass breaking effect. (I played on low detail, so perhaps on max detail it looks good.) 

I didn't really spot any other than the following:

1. there was a magazine on the floor somewhere, which had the original doomguy screaming face graphic on it.
2. I found the id pda (wow, that was hard to spot)
3. I noticed that on one of the stone slabs found in Site 3 there was a picture of the doomguy using the soulcube against hells minions. It looked very much like the title screen graphic from the original Doom.

That's pretty much it. I suck.

Anyone find any really cool stuff? 

I forget exactly where or how I got it but there's the original romero head sprite from doom 2. 

Caverns1 pwnx0rz, just great. Good change of scenery, really big map, and lots of fun moments....and one, ah, ummm, "moment" where I was running around trying to tackle chaingunners with a shotgun at long range and a rocket launcher at long range....first time I've managed to get to 0 armour since starting the game. Anyway, favourite bit in that section was coming down the large lift to the cool first lava cavern, and facing 3 consecutive hell knights before realising there was an arch-vile spawning them hehehe.

The doors still sound well disturbing down here too...

Thanbler:

Agree about Betruger's laugh, worst effect so far, just cheesey. Some of the other deliberately eerie effects have been well bloody effective tho.

I noticed the DOOM artwork on the tablets. I also liked the PDA download file on "How To Perform Appropriate Sacrifices" lol. 

and facing 3 consecutive hell knights before realising there was an arch-vile spawning them

Indeed, except 5 :/ 

...I like Hell Knights!


(errrr, in a non-sexual platonic sorta trying to kill each other kinda way...) 

a very challenging monster. i'm glad they gave the thing explosive projectiles. makes dodging just that much more difficult, otherwise, it would have been a joke like imp fireballs. 

While you may not consider descriptions of explosion effects to be 'spoliers,' the graphic design - good or bad - is clearly a major part of the experience. Please don't spoil Q3 for me until I get off my lazy ass and play it. 

Just not very powerful. 

I really like how in some places, like say where there is a lot of machinery sounds going on, and clunks and bangs, as well as the general eerie stuff, it keeps you constantly on edge, as every little sound you hear has you spinning around looking for that monster that is about to strike you down. Even on my 3rd time through it still manages to get me.

And while I'm on the machinery, some of that stuff is really good. 

Quality game, really good. Brilliant atmosphere. Probably the most immersed I've been in a game. Great monsters too.

Still, some things could have been done better. Most of the base sections were pretty interchangable, and some of the best monsters were underused. Also there could have been a lot more scene setting stuff like the drones and other soldiers and shit, what little there was of that was great.

Best game ever?? Dunno....that remains to be seen... Best Playing Through Once In Single Player Game Ever?? Quite possibly...

Whichever way, it's class. 

The first in many rambling posts from me, I think...

Aliens - quite a lot.
Event Horizon - a lot, the blood and hell portals and shit.
The Thing - spider heads and general horror.
Total Recall - ancient Mars civilisations.
Hellraiser - Soul Cube style, Betruger monster at end.

Zerstorer - doh, the general horror stuff.
Half-Life - general feel of the game, Xen/Hell. 

Maybe it's just me, but I'm getting really tired of shotguns/chainguns/rocket launchers etc. I thought the weapons were done well, mind you, but only 1 new weapon was a disappointment for me. The Hell Cube is cool, but I really want some new weapons, something a bit more strategic perhaps. For example, and I know this is a different genre of FPS, but I think Hexen had a great idea with their weapons. One of the Cleric's weapons was a twin-headed snake staff that either shot these side-winding magic missiles at range or at close range could suck life out of monsters. The Xen weapons from Half-Life and expansions were pretty cool too, though I generally dislike Half-Life.

Does anyone here prefer the familiarity of the weapons? I'd just like something a bit more out-of-the-box, when the engine is so advanced a little more creativity wouldn't hurt I don't think. 

Chainsaw - cool but I never used it.

Fists - WTF?

Flashlight - should have been able to ducttape it onto one weapon only, more realistic. Still, the darkness aspect was well done.

Pistol - ballsac.

Shotgun - useful weapon but noticably shite at long range. Didn't like the feel of it much, didn't feel like it was pounding the enemy.

Machine Gun - really liked this, looked good, sounded good (I know some ppl didn't like the sound, but it sounded just right for me), good standard weapon earlier on.

Chaingun - good enough but usually not enough ammo to be really useful. Felt okay.

Grenades - effective, but felt / sounded weak.

Plasma Gun - the other favourite weapon even if it did seem slightly paintbally... All round usefulness.

Rocket Launcher - like the CG, perfectly adequate although explosions were weak.

BFG - okay, didn't get to use it much, didn't like the dying from charging bit. Prefer Q2 BFG.

Soul Cube - cool, very effective but I liked how you would never quite know when you'd get to use it. Love the voice too..."uusse ussss".


My overall take on the weapons is twofold - Firstly I found the arsenal to be adequate rather than really inspiring. It really was a case of the same old same old, with some weapons feeling less impressive than their ancestors. Secondly, however, I did like the "sane" and "military" feel to the weapons. It made the contrast between you as a marine and the demons as fucked up denizens of Hell more noticable. So I'd have liked a bit more interesting weapons but not anything too experimental, ya know?? Something like UT's Flak Cannon or ASMD would have been sweet and a good balance between being exotic but having some sense to it. 

what aspect did you like of the asmd? the primary hitscan, secondary projectile or that wierd combo explosive? 

I was happy with the weapons overall. I agree about the shotgun being flimsy at long range. The chaingun would have been great if it were a slick metallic like the shotgun, but as it is it kind of looks like a Nerf gun. 

Zombies - great, do exactly what they're supposed to. I like their mumbling and the headless ones were spooky.

ZSec - great, these dudes unnerved me because I felt betrayed by them, plus interesting to fight. Like the radio chatter too.

Imps - good but overused, do what they're supposed to but I got bored off them. Model a bit angular.

Maggots - okay, kinda, well neither here nor there. A bit freaky.

Wraiths - good, found their constant teleporting unnerving, good low-level monster.

Trites / ticks - great, really pretty spooky and appropriately weak invidually but a hassle in numbers. Slow moving meant a good look at the model.

Pinkies - great but very underused, again do what they are supposed to i.e. mash up close up.

Lost Souls - good even though I kept getting twatted by them, looked pretty good, would have prefered proper skulls.

Cacodemon - good, useful airbourne enemy with cool attack effect, challenging later on.

Cherub - great, just full on weird and disturbing. I mean you end up shooting a flying baby in the head....lol.

Tentacle commando - good, especially if you remember to duck. Kinda bad ass dudes.

Chaingunner commando - okay, properly challenging monster but a little bland.

Revenant - excellent, one of my favourite monsters, looks cool, good attack, and somehow managed to seem a lot more dignified than the other monsters, they got my respect.

Mancubi - excellent and totally underused. Fat, ugly, slow and tough as fuck, loved 'em.

Arch Vile - good, would have been great but the model didn't do it for me somehow. Suitably pain in the arse to fight.

Hell Knight - hell yeah, excellent, everything it should be.


Overall a very fine collection of beasties although it's a pity you mostly seem to face imps through 90% of the game. The latter bits with loads of Hell Knights and shit were cool. Hurrah for proper monsters!! 

Necros, all of it really, just an interesting weapon without being too weird.

Lun: agreed about the CG. 

Some bits I really liked.

- The whole pre-disaster intro was good. All the speech and stuff was pretty natural and got me immersed, a good start.

- Finding random scientists still working around the base was fucking weird. Like, hello, wake the fuck up, the entire base is overrun by hell and you're still dicking around with the quantral code metralyzer?? Found that pretty freaky.

- Yeah in fact the human interaction stuff was good, probably the most immersive parts, whether it's with living scientists or your traitorously zombified colleagues. A useful thing to note, that.

- Scariest moment by a long way: When you go into a small corridor and this voice whispers "Follow me..." and the bloody footsteps appear....I actually just stopped there and wondered if I really wanted to continue playing that night. Awesome!

- The eerie voices were generally great, loved the one trying to lure you into a lift shaft too....and you never found out what they were??

- The computer screens and stuff that just had a vague hellish background, they were cool. Also the bits of the base with organic shit hidden behind panels and stuff....not when it was obviously breaking through, but more subtly when there'd be a missing wall panel with some hellish shit behind, like the base was already partly in hell. The "Appropriate Sacrifice Technique" thing was cool as well.

- Music and sounds, just great. There was music but it was so subtle it could be mistaken for just ambient noises. Nevertheless, Vondur and I know the truth - the music was very much in the dark ambient genre and obviously worked great =).

- Pretty much all the random eerie shit was great, particularly the more subtle stuff. Like the UAC promotional videos and monster museum and stuff, with the voiceover dood's casual and cheery way of describing things. Some of the blatant stuff i.e. Betrugers and Sarge's deranged rambling sucked, too cheesey. All about the subtle little things adding up to unnerve you. 

The Mancubi were completely underused. They're my favorite enemy in the game, the look is inventive and just freakishly wierd, a good challenge, and when you first run into them I nearly shit myself with excitement it was so cool. I can understand the reason behind not using them though, because they're pretty big and bulky.

Worst enemy was the Wraith. Maybe with Lun's modification it would be cooler (it sounds a lot funner) but currently I think they should have left it out.

I think Trites/ticks and Cherubs are tied for my favorite new monsters, they're similar in purpose and are just really cool/wierd.

Overall, I feel Doom3 would have benefitted from a lot more Hellraiser and a little less Total Recall.

The chaingun was OK. It did look kind of lame, but I really got the feeling that it was some sort of helicopter chaingun that could leave an exit wound the size of one of Scampie's abs. 

and monster museum

jesus. that imp scared the shit out of me. i was thinking "cool, now i can see what they look like up close" and as i approached the imp, i got to thinking "heh, would be kind of clich� if it mov-- HOLY FUCK!"

i was too scared to approach the other monsters.

that's what doom3 is all about. d3 owns me. 

I thought the info you could download about the monsters to your PDA was a nice touch. I didn't know, for example, that the Revenant has a semi-translucent skin and organs. Neat. 

I'm gone all weekend to come back and find lots of interesting opinions floating around in here. Cool.

I was pretty much a blithering retard when I got to that set up at the bottom of the cavern elevator with the hell knights, cacodemons, + revenent. I think I killed probably 5 or 6 hell knights and 7 or 8 cacos while standing directly under the damn revenent before my brain kicked in and I thought "Damn, that's a lot of monsters and I'm about out of ammo and health" and then promptly died.

Scary moments: Yeah, there were quite a few, both of the atmospheric/chilling variety and the "booga-booga" shit flying at your face type. I agree that the bloody footprints moment was probably the best of the former. Of the latter, the one that damn near made me shit my pants was when you were inspecting some monitor display toward the end of the game with quite a bit of fairly small-print info/buttons on it, and one of those damn spiders came crawling up over the top of it about six inches from your face. Awesome.

In general, I could have used quite a bit more Cavern-y bits and a bit less Alpha/Delta labs. Also, did this game seem unusually long to anyone else? Not that I'm complaining, just surprised.

I found the Soul Cube guardian to be Really Fucking Difficult, even though I knew what to do. Certainly the hardest moment in the game for me. I think I died and restarted that bit about ten times, and was really wishing for a run-toggle. In fact, Hell in general was fairly difficult when compared with the rest of the game, before and after.

Sarge was kinda lame. Just soul-cubed him and hit him with a couple of rockets and it was done...

End Boss? Eh. It was okay. The "Oh wow he's really really big" thing has been kinda beaten to death in a bunch of games though. 

You could actually use your fists (and the chainsaw) to kill the Lost Souls, which was kinda cool. I used the chainsaw a lot on zombies and wraiths to conserve ammo (even though I probably didn't need to).

In fact, I don't think there's a single weapon that I didn't find to be at least useful at times. I used the pistol a lot on the spiders.

Oh, except for the grenades, which I thought sucked audibly and with gusto. They were *WAY* too elastic IMO, and I just stopped using them completely about the time one bounced off a wall 40 feet away and came right back to my feet, or bounced off the floor below and *back up into* the ventilation duct where I was crouched. Bleh.

I didn't mind the weapon familiarity, but thought the Soul Cube made a nice addition and wouldn't have minded a little more innovation either. I was probably way to conservative with the Soul Cube, and held off using it quite a bit until faced with a Revenent or Hell Knight or such.

It's really a crying shame that the Pinkies and Mancubi didn't get used more. Yeah, they need more space, so build some bigger spaces, damn it!

The sound, as I remarked elsewhere, I thought was pure awesomeness.

Like Lun, I wish some more creative use could have been made of the PDA. The whole martianbuddy.com thing + locker combos + background/atmosphere stuff really pretty much covers it. They could have done more with it.

They could have done more with the random folks you find hiding here and there too, but I supposed I should just be grateful there weren't any shitty escort/protect the suicidal scientist bits . . .

I loved the little bots. I want one. :) 

Shambler briefly mentioned this, but it was one of my favourite parts of the game. I LOVED the security bots. The section where you are following one along in relative darkness and it as a flashlight. The two of you are fighting side by side, protecting each others backs. I was sad when the little guy stopped and went to sleep :( Even though they were only robots, it was a nice change to feeling so alone and isolated all the damn time.

As for the weapons, I totally agree with PJW about the awful grenades. If I wanted something that came back to me every time I threw it I would buy a fucking boomerang. It was almost as if there was an invisible golden retriever bringing them back to me. On top of that, actually judging the angle and distance was very tough. One of the WORST implementations of grenades I've seen (the best being the grenades in Vietcong.)

I missed that footprints moment. I remember the follow me shit, but I didn't see the footprints :( Same with the trite coming over the computer :( :( Sounds cool.

The end of the game became too easy because almost every time I came to a big monster, I had the soulcube ready to do some damage. The big monsters were really underused - I agree with most of you about that.

Having arch-viles all over the place was all well and good, but I knew what they were capable of so always wasted them first, so they never really got a good chance to spawn much stuff. Their attack in Doom 2 was much more effective (they would look at you and set you on fire. If you didn't get behind cover, you took damage after a couple of seconds.

Actually, I thought the red hallucination effects early in the game were an early sign of the archviles, I thought that would be their new replacement attack for the fire. I was actually bloody scared at the thought of meeting one. Until I met one and promtly obliterated it.