♫ Hey kids, here's a thing. This was gonna be a TNT video. Oh, yeah, the second half of Final Doom: TNT Evilution. There was controversy because it was supposed to be released for free but hours before that happened, John Romero offered a publishing deal and Team TNT took it and people called them sellouts. Which I don't think is fair. I mean, who can say no to that smile? I was ready man. I played all the way through it. I wrote up a script, recorded a voiceover, and I sent it over to Katie, and while she was doing her magic, she kept falling asleep, and they shocked her so much she started having seizures. And it was then that I realized that the main problem, I think, in creating a TNT video is the TNT is fucking BORING. Look, there was all this stuff ready to go: I was going over the story... One day a supply ship came out and- Oh God, It's a hell spaceship; a spaceship from hell! I'm not kidding! This is in the manual! And then you get into the maps, and the only ones I really like are, uh, Wormhole; R.I. Peace Ty Halderman. And then I got into Pharaoh and Caribbean
and it was like "Oh, some Casali (Dario) maps." Let's play the Gordon Ramsay clip. GORDON RAMSAY
Finally, some good fucking food. CIVVIE
But the combat is boring! A lot of zombie hordes that you can just cut right through for 32 levels. Map layouts that feel like they were done on the fly,
like they didn't plan it out. Probably an hours worth of dark caves. And all this was probably fine in 1996, but it does not hold up. And this is the very first time I've ever shit-canned a video mid production, because it was gonna be dull and boring and zero fun. Like, I can poop all over Habitat for having an awful, awful sewer section. [ding] And all the doors inside have lowering platforms
to get into them, and they're timed weird. There's water on the ceiling. There's water on the ceiling?! But I actually hate Administration Center more, and TNT's problems only get exacerbated as it goes on because the levels get longer, and, honestly, it'll be a boring video because of it. So all this "you can't hide from TNT forever, Civvie." You're right, and I didn't. However, we still have some Doom to go through, oh yes. Because Doom Eternal hits on March 20th, and we got two whole main series entries to get through. It's time... for DOOM 3. ♫ Doom 3 Theme ♫ Okay, Katie, the intro's not gonna work. It's- a- the game's too dark. AX3
The following game may be too terrifying for some audiences. AX3
It contains gore, jump scares, spooky noises, darkness, AX3
and the beginning of the temporary downfall of a gaming powerhouse. AX3
Viewer discretion is advised. The year is 2004, and I remember being hyped for Doom 3. Half-Life 2 would come out a few months later, but I didn't even care. This was a return at Doom. Eight years after Final Doom, Id'd been working on it for four years, which used to be an insane amount of time. To give you an idea, Daikatana
was in development for four years. I had the leaked D3 demo. "Only one man stands between Hell and Earth." CIVVIE
Oh, that walk. That is unfortunate. (valve falling noise) This is like a shitty Steam' Early access game, so just think of how ahead of their time Id was. "I smell fear!" CIVVIE
You see this? This owned the E3 2002. Graphically, it blew everything away. This was gonna be the modern Doom game. More horror focused. And back in 2004 when I was a lot younger, yeah, it was pretty impressive. I had a good time with it. It's the black sheep of the series now after Doom 2016. 'cause it had a slower pace, it took place mostly in the dark. It was probably easier than the other Doom games.
It was kind of part of id's slump towards making tech demos. There's that, yeah. Uh-huh. Yep. Coincidentally, this is after Tom Hall, John Romero, and Sandy Petersen were gone. What was that one? Uhhh... Okay, I'm- I'm trying to remember. You were in the desert and you had cars and John Goodman for like a minute. I just... I cannot, for the life of me, remember this game. I don't know why. Except the Doom 3 engine didn't get licensed out like the Quake 2 engine did. Sure, Raven took a turn with it and made Quake 4 and Wolfenstein(2009). PREY happened. Other than that, I can't remember any games using id Tech 4. Part-time astrophysicist and our only insurance against their overwhelming alien incursion John Carmack sort of kinda invented a thing called "Carmack's Reverse", which was a method of rendering real-time world shadows, and that shit blew us away. When you can see what's happening in Doom 3, it's very pretty. "But how's the game Civvie, after all these years?" It's... Fine? It's a different take on Doom that didn't catch on, and it's super spooky - just absolutely pants shittingly terrifying. In theory. Doom 3 is about shooting demons on Mars. Yes, on Mars, not Phobos, or Earth, but honest-to-God Mars: the Red Planet. Not that you see much of it. You get an opening crawl saying the Union Aerospace Corporation is back on its bullshit. Experimenting on stuff it shouldn't. You know, at least Doom 2016
had 'em solving an energy crisis. Immediately you're in this immaculately detailed science base, full of people who wish they had Valve's facial animations. You know, I've actually never played on the 'Veteran' difficulty. Doom 3 was never much of a challenge before. RECEPTIONIST
I'm gonna need you to step on one of those red squares
on the floor for a bioscan. This will only take a second. RECEPTIONIST
Okay, let me get this started. RECEPTIONIST
You're gonna need to hold still. Moving around only makes the test take longer. RECEPTIONIST
Alright, bioscan looks good. You're cleared for entry. CIVVIE
You pick up your PDA from this guy... And then you creep. Play some 'Super Turbo Turkey Puncher'. ARCADE MACHINE
Super Turbo Turkey Puncher 3! CIVVIE
Over here, counselor Swann talking to doctor Palpatine. Who, if you can't tell, is evil. I don't know why he's evil, but he is, and the board sent counselor Swann to do a full inquiry about it. Surprisingly, this is ineffective. DR. MALCOLM BERTRUGER
The board authorized you? Hmm? DR. MALCOLM BERTRUGER
The board doesn't know the first thing about science. DR. MALCOLM BERTRUGER
All they want is something to make them
more money. Some product. DR. MALCOLM BERTRUGER
Don't worry. They'll get their product. CIVVIE
Sergeant Kelly, your CO, bitches at you for being late, then immediately puts you to work finding a missing scientist. MSgt. THOMAS KELLY
Took your sweet time, marine? MSgt. THOMAS KELLY
Now, here's a situation: another member of the science teams gone missing. MSgt. THOMAS KELLY
Since you're the ranking FNG you get to find him. MSgt. THOMAS KELLY
I want you to check out the old decommissioned communications facility. We've heard he might be heading that way. CIVVIE
You might recognize, like, every voice actor in this game. Right here is our old friend Steve Blum. MARINE 1
Heard about corporal Allen? MARINE 2
Yeah, they said he just lost it. MARINE 2
Shipped home this week. CIVVIE
And also minutes later. BROOKS
Welcome to the dungeon, Marine. Most unexcited place on Mars. BROOKS
Okay, you're all set. BROOKS
Oh yeah, keep in mind: civilians are working down here. Don't get excited and shoot any. RODGERS
Hey! RODGERS
You're looking for the scientist, right? RODGERS
I'm not sure you want to find him, you see... RODGERS
Uh, never mind. CIVVIE
Honestly, what's the worst that can happen? SINCLAIR
Jeez! SINCLAIR
Do you make a habit of sneaking up on people? Dr. JONATHAN ISHII
No! No! Please! You must let me get this communication out. Dr. JONATHAN ISHII
They have to be warned while there is still time! ISHII
I can't let you- I- (stutters) You do not know what I've seen! You can't possibly understand or comprehend! ISHII
The Devil is real. ISHII
I know. I built his cage. SCIENTIST
I'm getting abnormal readings here. CIVVIE
Huh, okay, well your cage sucked! I gotta say, this whole situation going tits up, the radio chatter, the chaos, is so well done. RADIO
Command HQ, this is Fireteam 2! Main power system down in sub level, backup and light support systems only! RADIO
We've got lots of civilian casualties! It's a mess! RADIO
Command HQ, attempting to secure the area. CIVVIE
You have Lost Souls flying around, zombies everywhere. And all you've got it's a shitty pistol that you won't see again after this level. Because we get a machine gun, and ammo for that is everywhere and also... (hard sigh) The shotgun. ♫ The Doom 3' shotgun is a travesty! I didn't think id was capable of making a weapon so bad, let alone a shotgun. They invented and perfected shotguns in FPS games, and you get this weird misshapen... thing. I don't even know where to start. No, wait, I do know where to start. YOU CAN'T FUCKING HIT ANYTHING WITH IT UNLESS YOU STICK IT UP A DEMON'S NOSE! LOOK AT THIS SPREAD! LOOK AT IT! THAT'S CRIMINAL! And it makes it completely unreliable, which might be the point. You know, to increase tension in your... "horror game". But there's plenty of other weapons in Doom 3 that don't suck, but you need to use the shotgun. A lot. And learn to do the dance with the Imps, which is: dodge fireball, run up until you can see it's fucking pores, aim for the center of mass, not the head, and fire, and maybe 80% of the time the imp will die. It's FUCKED!
It's RAW! You're in the thick of it now, and most monsters get an introductory cutscene. Except the Mars-Sec, who are some of the most dangerous
enemies because they're basically hit scanners. The shotgun ones really hurt, for some goddamn reason because M Y F U C K I N G S H O T G U N I S G A R B A G E ! ! ! But then one time, I one hit a Revenant with it. So we're not just dealing with insane spread, but wonky RNG damage. And why do you load four shells into it, but get eight? What is this!? I would have settled for a longer reload time, if the gun could hit something more than ten nanometers away from my face. HOW THE FUCK DID THIS HAPPEN, AND I GOTTA USE THIS PIECE OF SHIT FOR THE REST OF THE GAME?! No, it's fine not knowing if the shotgun will slightly annoy a monster or one hit it. It's great for the work horse weapon in like, every id game ever. This is a black mark on Id's reputation. You have to get back to Marine Command, killing imps, zombies, and I know we haven't addressed the elephant in the room I haven't done that because I can't see it because it's dark. Doom 3 is dark, you get it? Doom 3, dark and your only recourse in vanilla Doom 3 is a flashlight, which you can't hold at the same time as a gun. There were solutions and early one was a "duct tape" mod. When Doom 3: BFG Edition was released, they brightened everything up, let 'ya use a flashlight and a gun at the same time and also, for some reason, added 50% to every ammo pickup in the game. Now, at no time was I ever hurtin' for ammo in Doom 3, except for the chaingun, but we'll get back to that. The only upside to BFG Edition that can't be modded into vanilla Doom 3 is VR. Doom 3 kicks ass in VR. Like it was made for it or something? You should be flush with ammo for a long time. Even towards the start you can find a PDA with a code to the armory right outside Marine Command. You might notice that you're picking up armor, which is kind of a joke. Armor seems to take next to nothing in terms of damage. It's pretty useless. (game audio) Most enemies will take 15 points off you
each time they hit. Even on this, the Veteran skill, which is the equivalent of Ultra Violence. I expected Veteran to be harder than this. Might be the easiest game in the Doom series. It might even be as easy as Quake on Nightmare. Nightmare I don't want to touch: it removes medkits, it starts you with the Soul Cube. Which is a weapon you get down the line which one hits any monster and leeches health from them. It's important later. Oh, yeah, and your health is always ticking down to 25%. Where were we? Oh, yeah, second level is Administration and you're roughly following Swann and his enforcer who brought a BFG with him - smart move. You got like three opportunities in the whole game to pick up the BFG and the last one, a non secret, is about three maps before the end. Fuck that! I'm a stickler for reading these PDAs and listening to audio logs in order to get cabinet codes, so I can have as much ammo as possible. You'll come across Martian Buddy cabinets and how this used to work is that you'd go to the
Martian Buddy website and find the code. That site no longer exists, but Civvie's gonna spill it for you anyway. There's two Martian Buddy cabinets in the game, and the first one gives you the chaingun. The chaingun in this game fucking rules! Ammo for is pretty scarce in the first half of the game, until you start getting these buff zombie bastards, who carry them. Oh, yeah, you see the damage indicator? Nah, we won't make it just a red screen, It has to completely blind you. It looks like this with melee enemies. Good thing you can avoid a lot of damage, especially from imps. They'll teleport in at any time; and there's a game I like to play when this happens. It's kind of like Whack-a-Mole, except sometimes your mallet is a rubber chicken. You'll find hand grenades too, which, uh... CAN be useful,
but they bounce around constantly. I ended up tossing them towards the Mars-Sec guys to try and avoid getting shot, since they're the most difficult enemies to deal with, early game. They fire their shotguns faster than you can fire yours. And I'm not a 100% sure on this, but they *must* have better accuracy. Other than that it's zombies, Maggots,
imps, and Wraiths for a while. Oh, and Trites. They don't do a lot of damage, they just come in hordes. And when two or more of them corner you, you get stuck not being able to see anything because of the damage feedback instead of all the darkness and- Yea, they suck too. Fucking Trites. When you get to the end of the Alpha Labs, you get to the first boss who telekinetically throws shit at 'ya, but no matter how bumbling I am, the thing doesn't kill me. It's called a Vagary but it's kind of a stand-in for the spider demon. Hardest boss in the game! Sgt. Kelly tells you to make your way through the Alpha Labs to meet up with Bravo Team. This... doesn't happen. BRAVO TEAM MEMBER
There's nothing here, Sam. (screams) BRAVO TEAM
What the hell?! BRAVO TEAM MEMBER
Noooo! When you do finally get close to Bravo Team, one of them shoots a pipe that causes a chain reaction that destroys cooling rod in the reactor, and you need to you know, deal with that before everything explodes. MSgt. KELLY
Marine, Bravo team is down. Their operational status is unknown. MSgt. KELLY
They were carrying a military transmission card. MSgt. KELLY
It's vital that you retrieve that card as it contains the coded data needed MSgt. KELLY
to send the distress signal to the fleet. CIVVIE
Little busy here Sarge! You meet Theresa Chasar, named for well, you know, you've seen the "Thy Flesh Consumed" episode. Anyway, she's voiced by other famous vocal performer Gray Griffin. Even if this game has no vocal credits I know that. THERESA
For security reasons, I've locked the Plasma Gun and the extra ammo in locker 063 THERESA
with door code 972. End of log. CIVVIE
Thaaanks. And she's here to introduce the Lost Soul. Ooooh, you kids know I've always hated the Lost Souls. That goes double in this game. They fly in weird patterns. They screw up your vision. I think they're a little weaker than in previous games. Still a goddamn nuisance; pain in the ass. Fortunately, I picked up a plasma rifle and would you believe this is my favorite Doom plasma rifle? I absolutely love it, even if I have to reload. It makes up for there not being any chaingun ammo around. 'cause there's hundreds of plasma cells scattered throughout the base. And they got a little blue lights on them, so you can always see 'em. There's another reason the plasma gun is my favorite and it kind of ties into the reappearance of the Revenant. He still shoots homing missiles, however, Doom 3 decided to make it so you could destroy enemy projectiles in the air, so... You can do this with bullets, but a plasma shot' hitboxes is wider, and if you aim anywhere around the Revenant's chest or head, his projectiles blow up in his face. So he got shafted in development along with the Cacodemon. More of a meatball than ever, whose projectile could also be shot out of the air. I like to use the chaingun on him, 'cause his projectiles are so wide you can't avoid hitting them. Honestly, you could pistol a Cacodemon to death, they get hosed in this game. UAC WORKER
And do we really need so much firepower layin' around? UAC WORKER
Well, a couple of us decided to lock up all of the unsecured plasma rounds we can find. UAC WORKER
The code is 734. CIVVIE
See if you get some chaingun ammo too, huh? This game goes so far to explain that the chainsaw happened because of an accidental shipment and the chainsaw will basically melt anything below the game- What the fuck? The chainsaw will basically melt anything below this game's version of the Pink demon. Who is not pink... and half metal. I haven't really talked about him because he appears maybe a dozen times throughout the entire game. Anyway, the chainsaw. Yeah, cool, great! When Doom 3 is done teleporting monsters in rooms with 'ya it likes to start teleporting them behind you, or in previous rooms, because the monster pathfinding in this game is actually really good; nothing like in Doom 2016. But what can you do? It took 12 years of cancellation and the digression in the form of RⒶGE to iron all that out. OH! OH, HOLY SHIT! That was the John Goodman car game! Sergeant Kelly, the asshole, wants you to get to Communications to send a message to Earth to warn them. You can choose not to, which Swann tells you to do, which ends up being the right decision, not that it matters. COUNSELOR ELLIOT SWANN
Back off from that console; do NOT call for reinforcements. COUNSELOR ELLIOT SWANN
We don't know what the hell is going on here. And until we do, this area remains under UAC control. COUNSELOR ELLIOT SWANN
Cancel that transmission. CIVVIE
Sergeant Kelly chews you out for not sending it, but then Dr. Palpatine just sends it later anyway. DR. BETRUGER
It's a pity you did not alert the fleet, but it is of no consequence. DR. BETRUGER
I'll alert them myself. DR. BETRUGER
They will come to the rescue and be consumed by my legion. DR. BETRUGER
We will use their ships to bring this hell to Earth. CIVVIE
Yeah yeah yeah. I know: scary voice, laughing. I get it, you're evil. He even repeats the same lines at you. BETRUGER
Making progress, are we? BETRUGER(over PA)
Making progress, marine? BETRUGER(over PA)
Your journey is futile. You will die, and your soul will be mine! (Evil, maniacal laughing) BETRUGER
There's nothing left for you, but the slow death, as you lungs fill with poison gasses. CIVVIE
Yeah, sure. It'd be weird if I had some kind of oxygen supply in my suit that I could use when the atmosphere was- Oh, never mind. You make your way into the Delta Labs via the monorail, and since there's a train you know how this ends. UAC ANNOUNCER
Engineering: please report to Delta Complex access ramp. Track sensor failure, detected. CIVVIE
Before you can get into Delta you gotta go through the recycling plant or toxin refinery or whatever. It's like, the rest of this base is kind of brown, accept it. You'll meet the Revenants in here first along with Cherubs, who are like Trites. Except they hurt more and have a shitty lunge attack. The imp does that too; and the game likes to put them right behind doors so you can't avoid them unless you know they're gonna be there, and even then it's BULLSHIT. Fuck off, game! One monster that didn't get nerfed in the transition was the Mancubus who takes like five or six rockets to go down, and the rocket launcher only holds five. I want to mention that this area is where I took my first death. And second. The first one because of an explosive barrel, the second one because of a bunch of explosive barrels. I don't die very much in this game. Health is plentiful and enemy attacks can usually be avoided. Unless... Oh, Goddammit! The zombie commandos. Yeah. One of them has a chain gun, but the unarmed ones are worse. You see Dr. Palpatine creating one in a cutscene. They run up to you and whip you with a tentacle that is DAMN hard to avoid. Or if they get really close they kick you in the face. You have to hear them and know they're coming long before they get there in order to not get hit. I hate them, almost as much as lost souls. The chaingun one starts showing up in the Delta Labs and at least they drop chaingun ammo. I'm not talking a lot about the way the game progresses because there's not much to talk about? You go around unlocking doors with security clearances you get from PDAs or key cards? Which are usually easy to find and only once do you have to play a stupid fucking claw game to get one. The environmental design is fantastic. The base has a lived-in feel, or I mean, it has a "died-in feel." Ha, ha. Ah, you get it? Give me a cackle, CK! (Crypt Keeper laughing) I don't need your pity. Delta Labs are where some of the teleportation experiments were happening, along with some experiments on the demons themselves. See, they were sending people... into hell, and when they came back screaming about demon hordes, they were like "nah, its probably fine." The Archvile makes a return and, instead of his old attack, he shoots a line of fire at you that really, REALLY hurts. I don't know if he's as much of a problem in Doom 3 as he was in earlier games. He's still a pain. It's not like you can resurrect monsters in Doom 3: they're all fucking turn to ash. This scientist needs to me to get a Plasma Inducer to operate the teleporter, but you don't need him. Honestly, this game ends telling you that the Marine is the only survivor. So I've saved that dude from either becoming a zombie or being eaten alive by a demon. Same with this dude here. ROLAND
So I wasn't the only one who is still alive- CIVVIE
And this one, and this one, and this one, and this one, and this one. Spookie teleporter! You can finally pick up the BFG in the Delta Labs, too. It's like half a puzzle to figure this out. When you pick up a PDA earlier in the game from the head of Delta security, he's got an audio log talking about how he was testing the new BFG model and he locked it in a cabinet in his office and requested the IT to change the code. But there aren't any zeros in the number pad, so, he got an email saying that they replaced it with a '3', and then you get the legendary, Big Fucking Gun! Yeah, cool. It holds four shots and could be charged to use all of them. But hold it down too long and you'll get what happened to me. I caused death number three by trying it with these Hell Knights. They guard the portal to Hell like the Barons did in the original, except these guys are the most dangerous enemies in Doom 3. I'm sorry, I mean they're THE dangerous enemy in Doom 3. That must be why they're on the box. Those projectiles can one hit you and I never got close enough for a melee attack. Hmm... But why go to Hell? Why not just shut the portal down? Unfortunately, the Soul Cube is in Hell and it's important, or so I'm told from logs in this lab here- Oh, cabinet 666?! What is- OH, GOD DAMMIT! Now it's time for what everyone remembers Doom 3 for - Hell. And Hell don't fuck around. You lose all your weapons and one of the first things you have to do is kill a Hell Knight... with the shotgun! Oh, and did I mention you're in Hell? And not 2.5D colorful Hell; dark, fire and brimstone, punishing Hell. You get more of your weapons back pretty quickly and even a berserk powerup. One of the two that are in this game just because, why not? The punching is so lame, It sounds like you're slapping a salami around. (DoomGuy screaming, teleporters zapping, Imps screeching, fireballs whooshing and salami slapping) Why did they reject Trent Reznor's sound effects? Here we go, death number five, cornered by two Hell Knights, baby, yeah! Takes nearly a whole ammo belt from the chaingun to bring one down and they barely feel it up until then. This is pretty much the first time a monster has killed me, for real, so far. Meaning that the explosive barrels and the lack of regulatory oversight, are more dangerous than the monsters from Hell. Death number 6 goes to another Hell Knight hiding in a dark corner. And before you know it, you're at the end of the Hell section. Facing the Guardian: he's blind, 'ya got to shoot rockets at his blue ball, and then his seekers come out with the spotlights that find you, you kill them. And so the blue balls comes out, again. It's easy. I get him on the second cycle and leave with full health. SOUL CUBE
We are the Praeleanthor, you know us as the Soul Cube. SOUL CUBE
Free us from our eternal prison, and we will help you. SOUL CUBE
Vanquish our enemies and we grow stronger. CIVVIE
Oh, so that's why I came here? Okay? The Soul Cube uses demon souls as ammo, I guess, and once you kill five demons... SOUL CUBE
Use Us! ...that just sticky whip this motherfucker! And it'll tear through anything and then replenish your health. The designers put much less health in this part of the game because of that. Dr. Palpatine still isn't impressed, but he sounds like he's having a ball. BETRUGER
You are too late! Hell no longer needs that portal to access this world. BETRUGER
The invasion you saw was only the first wave. BETRUGER
That Hell Gate is capable of sending MILLIONS of my children into your world! BETRUGER
Soon, the fleet from Earth will be here BETRUGER(x2)
-and with their ships we will bring this hell to Earth! Only a few levels left now. Central Processing. I feel like this is mirroring episode one of Doom a little bit. Maybe I can get John Romero to sign my copy of Doom 3. Now the game is throwing everything at you, ready or not. This is closer to being a challenge, but I feel like I still didn't die enough. Chalk one more death up to Cherubs cornering me in an elevator and not being able to see what's happening. Oh, and one because I let an Archvile spawn a bunch of Wraiths to see how many it could do... Archviles get the fucking Soul Cube. I don't want to deal with them. I'm trying to get through this complex and I keep hearing: SWANN
Still alive? SWANN
Looks like you might be, (coughs) on your own. CIVVIE
Uh-huh. Hey, what happened to your friend with the BFG? JACK CAMPBELL
My gun. He's got my gun. (dies) CIVVIE
Oh! Really, a boss with the BFG? You never want to see that. I guess Doom bosses are usually a little too easy, but a BFG? You know how that thing works?! VIDEO DISK
Each projectile contains a small but very powerful computer core VIDEO DISK
that actively maintains targeting and delivers a streamed charge down each bead, VIDEO DISK
to soften targets before detonation. KELLY / SABAOTH
I killed that pathetic bodyguard. KELLY / SABAOTH
And now, I will kill you. CIVVIE
Is this 'cause I was late? Dude, that was hours ago. I had important turkey punch related business. Never mind. I got to prepare, get into the 'zone,' then deal with Sarge. Let me take my sweet time. SABAOTH
Welcome to the mess hall! CIVVIE
Uh-huh. I'll take that! On to the final section of the game, 'the Caverns' where they were diggin for artifacts like this one based off of Doom's box art. See, there used to be an ancient civilization on Mars that got ravaged by demons. And so they teleported to Earth and eventually became us, and yeah, that is a stupid plot. I assume that's why they used it for the Doom movie. The game isn't holding back anymore. It'll throw anything at you, but you're ready. You got a healthy supply of rockets, cells, chaingun ammo, BFG ammo. Nothing could touch you, until the game spawns two chaingunners out of nowhere - that's two more deaths. And the last level where I take one more death, because it sticks me in a room with an Archvile and two Hell Knights, and I'm like, a second away from being able
to heal with the Soul Cube, but that's how it is. This underground temple full of monsters,
and the game is still trying to kill you with imps. Even though they might be the least
threatening monster, next to the zombies. Honestly, on a higher skill, with all these monsters, it starts to feel like a classic Doom game. Just for a minute. Once you've killed everything the game can teleport in. It's time for the final battle. I'm gonna kick Palpatine's wrinkled old ass! But first I got to find the id brick and get the developer PDA with all the special thanks. Oh yeah, this is- This is all so wholesome. My hat's off to you, id Software. You pulled through. The end of Doom 3 is also easy. No Palpatine, instead you fight Hell's mightiest warrior; in part 1 of a new series I'm calling, 'Humiliating The Cyberdemon.' The Cyberdemon was a TOWERING intimidating foe in Doom, in 1993. Doom 3 tries to up the ante. He's HUGE. You walk under him you get an upskirt. Nope. That's... ...Not what I'm gonna call that.
You walk under him. He's got fire in his mouth. He shoots rockets. He's a pushover. I was walking in to the fight with a charged Soul Cube because none of the other weapons hurt him. The Hellmouth pumps out one demon at a time, and you can kill them to recharge the Soul Cube so you can hit the Cyberdemon again. And then it's over. Congratulations, you're the only survivor on the base, and Palpatine... is THIS... Cue the awesome music! ♫ Doom 3 Theme - Chris Vrenna ♫ ♫ "Rip and tear, until it is done."
Recently went through Doom 3, so this was nicely timed for me.
Doom 3 is such an odd little duckling, from a modern perspective. Nearly everything Doom 3 does is done better by games that not only came after it, like FEAR, but also before it. It wants to feel more like System Shock, while inserting none of its cleverness. It's a game that feels both true but also somewhat ashamed of its roots.
Even in the game it feels a bit like a paradox. The sound design, barring the pitiful weapon sounds, is impeccable at building an atmosphere, but it also drowns out all the audio logs you're meant to be listening to. You're meant to be scared of these monsters but the game is so terribly easy they feel more annoying than anything.
I see its place in gaming history, but after going back to it, I'd be hard pressed to ever recommend anyone to go back and check it out.
It’s hard to think of a game as deliberately compromised as Doom 3. Ironically I found Prey to be a better Doom 3 than Doom 3 itself in almost every respect. The engine alone proved to be capable of so much more (particularly the spatial manipulation) that its baffling the final vision for Doom 3 was so conservative.
I grew up playing Doom, I was psyched for this one. My 15 year old mind was too excited for the blood and gore that I didn't mind it wasn't like the old Dooms. I was just happy that we had a modern one at the time.
Also it was on Xbox at the time, and I didn't even know what Half Life 2 was. Til I saw it at my friends house at lunch and waited to get a PC for about 12 years.
I liked and enjoyed Doom 3 for what it was - but it went on for a bit too long and played the monster closet trap too often. I don’t consider it a bad game but it’s the weakest of the Doom series. It had some good moments but also some absolute slogs. I replay it every so often but it’s more out of nostalgia.
Plus that real-time lighting was really taxing on 2004 systems, it was absolutely stunning but needed high end systems to run it properly. Also there was no true ambient lighting that didn’t completely break shadows, so much of the lighting suffered from “shadow = black” making it way too dark.
I remember enjoying DOOM 3 a lot when it came out, but I played it fairly recently and boy that game did not age well at all from a gameplay perspective. The zombie soldiers are literally a nightmare, worse than even traditional demons. I'd rather face 3 Hellknights in the same room than a single armed zombie.
You just can't defeat one without losing health due to the ridiculous auto-aim unless you save-scum and cheese the whole encounter. Not only that, but the enemy spawns are downright cheap. Good god, just stop spawning behind me all the time. It's not even scary, it's predictable and cheap. The less said about the gunplay the better.
Edit: I forgot that Id made armor pretty much useless in DOOM 3.
I honestly don't know what I originally saw in DOOM 3 that made me enjoy it that much. The original Soldier of Fortune has aged better than this. To DOOM 3's credit, the visuals (the atmosphere in particular) and the design of the demons remain top notch to this day. Anyway, I can't wait to see Civvie's take on this.
Doom 3 for me is better than the new doom
The new doom you are just a god, in doom 3 you are just a human with weapons
I like 3 the most. It isn't switch hunting in nausea inducing mazes like first two ones (if you don't think Doom is a switch hunt I assume you only played "Knee-Deep in the Dead", the only episode in shareware Doom) and it doesn't have "clear all enemies to lift the lockdown" on every single room like the new one. It has its own problems like lack of duct tape and tight spaces but compared to others' these are nothing.