Doom3 has got the best technology without a doubt. John Carmack and company are the Gods when it comes to developing game engines and special effects. They are kings when it comes to deveoping an atmosphere in a game. The animation and level detail are astounding.
(I'll tell you what beats D3 hands down in a minute just bear with me...) ;-)
They don't know how to tell a story or build suspense though. They don't know how to build anticipation. In Doom3 when you see a monster, it's coming straight for you. You walk in a room, it spawns in front or behind you and boom, or it pops out of a recess in the wall and presto, you kill it, or it kills you. No suspense just intense. Nothing wrong with intense, I like it but suspense is a necessary ingredient to really building fear.
It is a very rare thing that you're in a room and a monster walks by looking for you, or, you can sneak up on them for a change. The player enters a trigger zone, monster pops out, end of story, very simple AI. The sneaking up on them or being in a situtation where they are actually having to LOOK for you just doesn't really happen that often. Sure, you can pop around a corner where you know a monster will be and blast them, but the point is, they are right in front of your face coming straight for you.
In the alpha, (and just let me make a point here please because I didn't get it as the "alpha") one thing situation that impressed me was when you were in a glass enclosed room with the door shut and the chaingun guy walks down the hall past the window that is in the room. The first thing you see is not him, but his shadow coming around the corner. You freak out, but you're in the shadows and he doesn't see you. He say's (and you can here him very clearly) "I Smell Human!" It freaked you out because you thought that any moment, he would burst through the door and you'd be dead. He walks down the hall towards the door..., but kept going. He didn't open it and you got the drop on him and put a shotgun to the back of his head.
Another example, when they are walking on the catwalk above you and you are in the shadows and they don't see you. They start to get agitated and say loudly "I Smell Fear!". They don't see you though, but they start looking around and you see them get excited and bent out of shape because they know you're around, they just don't know where you are. Suspense and anticipation.
The anticipation of them finding you and killing you really made you nervous. All these guys now say in the game now is "Die!" and you can barely understand them. They said all kinds of stuff in the Alpha and it really added to their characters a lot and made them much more frightening. Doom3 was supposed to be a very suspenseful and scary game and it could have been so much more than it is... they basically took the personality away from several of the characters by cutting out a lot of what they say.
You also never get to meet up and fight along side your marine buddies and that's a whole nother issue.
There are NO moments like these in Doom3, or they are VERY rare. I've played the game through 3 times. Twice on veteran, once on nightmare.
For me, (aside from the technology) the game that beats it is Aliens vs Predators 2 played as the marine.
Wondering around the dark base as the Marine in AVP2 is much more tense than being a marine in D3 on the Mars research facility. The games are similar and the stories of these two games have a lot of parallels. In AVP2, there are times as the marine in the base where it is pitch dark, it's quiet and it's creepy and you truly have some moments where the tension and fear are awesome.
I'm not saying D3 sucks or trying to start a flame war or anything like that and just want to have a mature discussion. I just thought that D3 would be more than a one trick pony. (BTW, I own every game that id has ever made and then some.)
AVP2 beats D3 hands down in that you know what your mission is and you know what you need to do and where you need to go to accomplish it. There are monsters everywhere, they're sneaky, they're cunning and don't just spawn in front or in back of you. You're seperated from your buddies and your Seargent is giving you orders on what you need to do. You're alone. You do have several chances to meet up with your sarge and fellow marines to move along to a different part of the base or complete a new objective. It adds a LOT to the game.
There are lot of similarities between these two games. In D3 you sometimes feel you're just wondering around aimlessly or lost.
I think D3 has some really intense moments, it has a lot of "OOOHH SHIT!" surprises, but I think AVP2 beats it in suspense and tension and the story is told much better and the game play less linear. AND, it is a really old game.
What boggles my mind is that I think D3 had a lot of things in it that they just took out plain and simple and I don't get it... why would they do this? Does anyone know?
D3 is worth the $$$ I paid for it simply because it is an awesome looking game and there is NOTHING like it. If you don't have it, you have to get it because I think you'll enjoy it. It is however, a one trick pony and I don't think I'll be playing it again. I played AVP2 many times and years ago, I played Quake I and Quake II many times. I hate to say it because I'm an id freak, but I'm a bit disapointed and don't understand why it took 4 years to churn this game out and I know a bit about what it takes to make a game.
AVP2 is shit scary and VERY tense. Havent played doom 3 (CMON AUGUST 13 TH), so not gonna comment which is better.
"Man may have been made in God's image, but human society was made in the image of His opposite number, and is always trying to get back home."-Stephen King-'The Stand'
well ill agree that avp2 is a freaking scary game but there are parts in d3 that are scary to and the creatures do say the things they said in the beta but not to often. there was the one part were i was around the corner and i heard one of the guys there say "i smell fear" and that scared the crap out of me so much i came around the corner blasted them quicksaved and turned off the game out of fear (thatll teach me to play the game the way its supposed to be played, with the lights off sound cranked doors locked and late at night)
kwick must use the shotty with one shot against imp demon
avp2 is quite good (REALLY GOOD)
but, its only scary when ur puny human :P
and then you get decapitated,
although...
if avp2 had d3 graphics = OMG!!!!!!!!
but d3 is pretty good also.
AVP2 is scary?
Lmao, you lot get scared easily. :lol:
I agree on that one. It did give me an odd jump (when i had a gut feeling an alien would be there) but actually fighting them wasn't scary. AvP (the original) is more scary in my opinion. The environment is scarier. Throwing flares and using motion tracker worked better in the first (in the 2nd i didn't use flares at all). The AI weren't too great in the first, i may be wrong, but i think they got stuck alot. Cos i'd find i'd hear them, my motion tracker going off like crazy, but they wouldn't come. maybe it was meant to be like that, who knows.
I played the demo for AVP 2, and I think you're right about the suspense, and then the actual combat in the game. When you're a Marine wandering down a dark corridor, and your motion tracker starts beeping like crazy, you get scared and try to look everywhere at once with your flashlight. When the Aliens actually showed up however, it would be a lot less scary, as it was pretty straightforward combat. But I only played the demo, so it must get creepier at one point. For the "personality" taken out of the Doom 3 characters, I don't find that completly true. If your enemies said something all the time, it would get old, and thus, less scary. If your enemies only occasionally say creepy things (using your examples as an example...), you wouldn't expect it, so it would be scarier, as long as they said diffrent things each time. I find zombies that can talk anyway kind of creepy though.
|My Gallery|"A true knight is fuller of bravery in the midst, than in the beginning of danger."|My Showcase|Johari|
Last edited by -Ghost-; August 22nd, 2004 at 08:36 PM.
eh, doom3 is the only game to ever get me freaked. Mostly because of the atomsphere and ambiance..... personally AVP2, altho a good game i think. Just doesn't cut it on the scare factor.. but that's just mo.
Altho i would have to agree, if AVP2 had doom3 graphics, atmosphere, and ambiance.. it deff would take the cake.
Graphics aren't everything... but when it comes to a "scarey" game... it's a very very important part of it.
Last edited by Ultima2x; August 22nd, 2004 at 10:36 PM.
dude your absolutly right. i was saying in another post that it would be WAY better if the monsters (specifically imps) could climb back up the walls. imagine an imp spawns behind you (like always) you whirl around, shoot, and take cover around a corner. the imp doesnt rush around the corner like an idiot... you wait and peak out and he isnt there. he could be climbing through ventilation shafts and sneakin behind you or he could be hanging from teh roof waiting to silently drop down as soon as you pass him. just that little thingy will raise the tension 1.2 gazillion percent. its a good game, but you can just sit around and say doom owns all because it doenst. graphically its amazing, story's pretty good, and mosters are designed ok, but gameplay couldve been a LOT more. fix then enemy ai, and spawn like 50 of em at once instead of just 2 or 3. i also played it through on veteran the first time, and i was pissed at the regular commandos cuz they were too freakin strong and accurate. those are the guys you should be able kill in one hit and should come in swarms. oh well. i miss the old doom.
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Doom 3 General Yib-Yab (Off Topic) 
This Game beats D3 hands down in suspense... 
Linear Mode
