» Wed Jul 30, 2014 9:56 am You know, it's kind of like the Star Wars prequels. All of a sudden I start hearing about how people hate something I like, but they are fans. I know people have made fun of people for being "nerdy" about star wars but I never knew people actually had all these seemingly objective complaints levied against the prequel trilogy. I mean we aren't here to talk about that, and the movies are not perfect, but much of what is complained about of the prequel is either equally prevalent in the "perfect original" trilogy or actually massively improved upon. And what is with the stigma against CGI? Practical effects are great when you can get them to work and when you have the money and talent to pull it off, and CGI can be really distracting, but either the prequel trilogy uses it so often that you get used to it, or it just does it so well that I don't care. I won't engage arguments too much about this since it's not the topic, but feel free to say why you disagree. Anyways;
Doom has always had pacing, and has always had horror mechanics. Perhaps Doom 3 took more of a horror route, but I think it was better for it. I don't think the jump scares were overdone, at some point the game realizes it has to back off and become action oriented, since the horror has overstayed it's welcome. I will not argue that certain things about the horror mechanics were not utter [censored], some of it is really forced and artificial, but for the most part it is well balanced and varied and even creative.
And is Doom 3 so different from Doom, in the sense of what it is supposedly done differently? I played GZDoom, and while it is utterly awesome, that's not Doom, it never was.
I'm concerned with developers taking criticism a little bit too much to heart regarding Doom 3, and how that affects Doom 4's design planning. Doom 3 has genuine moments of terror and contrasting triumph. "True" horror games as the hipster crowd likes to call them are not good games at heart. Don't get me wrong, disempowering the player is a genuine mechanic, and developers shouldn't shy away too much from using it, but overusing it causes extreme immersion break and conscious discontentment with the game. Dead Space 1 and 2 (on harder difficulties, especially iron man on the second game... holy [censored] that was intense. Made the story so much more intense even though I had already played through the game) did a really good job of finding that "sweet spot" where you seemed to barely have enough ammo to scraqe by. Of course, that depends on how skilled you are and the difficulty of the game. Doom 3 did this as well.
On a side note, stripping a horror game of it's mechanics makes it less stressful, making it less scary. Doom 3 would do well to take a game like alien isolation, which features combat in a form that's just conservative enough to entertain gameplay variation and horror, and combine that with what has been accomplished in Wolfenstein TNO.
On the issue of TNO, overall, the whole as a game is only decent. The perk system is [censored] (seriously, it didn't work in Bionic Commando, it didn't work in Bulletstorm, STAHP already) and breaks up the action. This isn't call of duty, screw off with that crap please. It is a decent shooter, and without the perk system massively detracting from normal gameplay flow (you feel obligated to do it, but indeed it is optional) but ultimately, it is very linear. Even if it is only the illusion of freedom, hub worlds that old school shooters like Halo 1 (well, sort of) where environments are reused a bit in interesting ways is the most cost effective method and even story and gameplay wise superior option. Short term nostalgia is a really good mechanic, revisiting familiar areas with more powerful equipment and/or different things going on there really reinforces world building. Nobody cares how many explosions you throw at the screen or flashy set pieces, people care about genuine world building, therein lies true immersion.
Doom 3 had horror, good world building through how it involved you through interaction through audio logs and it's hub world system which gave you a sense of real progress through contrast of nostalgia (revisiting areas, now able to do more, or do things easier). Wolfenstein TNO was a let down for me honestly, being far too linear, and while the story was surprisingly good acting writing and all, it fell short where some more world building mechanics that Doom 3 had would have benefited the game. It's stealth mechanic was very interesting, if ultimately a bit shallow, and should be expanded upon in Doom 4, which would address one of the gripes levied against Doom 3's contrast with it's initial gameplay reveal when it decided to go back on it's implications of stealth mechanics. A lot of tips should also be taken from GZDoom. While the game is saturated with action, it was surprisingly unrepetitive and enjoyable, with it's balanced weapon mechanics and extreme gore. GZDoom was a very tactical and fun challenging game, now if only it had pacing.
Doom 4 needs to take tips from Doom 3, TNO, and GZDoom. That's how I see it. On a side note, has anyone ever played Doom 3 with the "realistic weapons" mod? I can't stress enough how awesome that made the game. It made the game feel tight and balanced to the same degree as GZDoom. Why are developers so afraid of turning away from artificial mechanics? Shotguns are MEDIUM RANGE WEAPONS. A shotgun is extremely powerful, but a bit too redundant (overkill) and slow for conventional warfare, where combat can range from CQC to long range. That's why you don't see shotguns being used often. In a survival situation however, and in such an unconventional situation as fighting demons, a shotgun is very useful however. Make the shotgun spread realistic (hint, it's about 10 times tighter than most video game implementations) and then balance it out through other other means, such as ammo consumption, reload speed, or damage. Those can be cheesed a bit more convincingly, especially the ammo consumption part.
Hidden or arbitrary modifiers or rules to otherwise realistic mechanics are [censored]. Grenades are damage dealers. Period. I don't care if that's their conventional use, scenarios created in videogames are inherently unconventional in nature dammit. One grenade should do massive damage. Balance it out by making them more rare, not by watering them down so as to make an enemy only stagger at standing directly next to one dammit. Far Cry 2 especially got this right, especially with the realism mod (god that mod is awesome, no more combat padding, things just die, and so do you which makes things very interesting). Explosions are explosions, not little gusts of wind designed to simply make enemies pop out of cover a tiny bit sooner. If you absolutely must use artificial mechanics in a game, make sure they make a reasonable amount of sense with regards to whatever scifi or fantasy explanation you use, and make sure that it's actually making the game fun. I hated that the shotgun was so useless in TNO, you are forced to cheese with the rocket launchers, silenced pistols (that's right, as opposed to unsilenced) and iron sights. Wow, such fun, much genius. The thing that makes old school shooters so fun is that all weapons have their merits, and you are expected to make do creatively with whatever you have. You should not be able to fall on just the lazer weapon and camp next to a wall charger. Throwing knives exist for the sole purpose of unlocking their perks for the sake of using them again for the already said reason. It makes me angry that I ever bothered with the system because it was so tedious and ultimately fruitless in the end.
I want to capitalize on the fact that I was really surprised with what TNO did with blazkowics and the drama in the game. It did not come off as cheesy or forced. It was genuinely good. They succeeded in humanizing a badass killing machine in a very convincing way.
And why does Wilhelm wait 15 years to all of a sudden use that grey matter he picked up from your friend?
There seems to be nod to Doomguy's resistance to possession with regards to his "abnormal" cerebral cortex. It would be nice to see a real connection between Wolfenstein's new story focused world and to also continue an even better story into Doom 4, with some nods to blazkowics. I think there was a part of TNO where Wilhelm implies he is possessed by the devil, just like the main baddie from Doom 3 is. That would be a really cool connection, perhaps they are blood relatives?
Lot's of unorganized ranting. Had to get it out of my system. I would like for game designers to really look at this stuff and take it to heart.
