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The New DOOM Thread (2016)

Trodat

Arcane
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Goldeneye has a faster pace and better level design than most pc shooters.

Most PC shooters are shit so that shouldn't be impossible to achieve.

Doesn't change the fact that GOOD PC shooters are light years ahead of anything-console.

Which PC shooters are so good? I can't think of many that offer proper levels and varied objectives to complete (unless you count Deus Ex and tactical shooters). I found No One Lives Forever and Return to Castle Wolfenstein inferior to Goldeneye/Perfect Dark.

I'm thinking this more from a multiplayer point of view, it's true that there's not that many SP shooters with good levels, unfortunately.

RtCW had fantastic MP like it's sequel W:ET. Both of those feature gameplay virtually impossible to mimic on a console.
 

Durandal

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My team has the sexiest and deadliest waifus you can recruit.
Goldeneye has a faster pace and better level design than most pc shooters.

Most PC shooters are shit so that shouldn't be impossible to achieve.

Doesn't change the fact that GOOD PC shooters are light years ahead of anything-console.

Which PC shooters are so good? I can't think of many that offer proper levels and varied objectives to complete (unless you count Deus Ex and tactical shooters). I found No One Lives Forever and Return to Castle Wolfenstein inferior to Goldeneye/Perfect Dark.
Do keyhunts count as varied objectives?
Otherwise:
Marathon series (aside the shitty platforming and physics)
FarCry 1
Unreal Gold
Jedi Outcast
Half-Life 1 + OpFor
System Shock 2

Although I find it hard to describe what makes 'good' level design. You can easily point out shit level design, but I find it hard to differentiate 'good' level design from 'excellent' level design.
 

Dayyālu

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I find rather funny that I was to type "Well, let's take as an example Marathon: it's not even a PC game but it has a far better level design and enemy variety than Goldeneye, that seems a gray corridor shooter where you shoot the same kind of foe again and again and again"

And then Durandal comes to steal my suggestion. What a pity.

Which PC shooters are so good? I can't think of many that offer proper levels and varied objectives to complete (unless you count Deus Ex and tactical shooters). I found No One Lives Forever and Return to Castle Wolfenstein inferior to Goldeneye/Perfect Dark.

Let's say that Doom and the Build engine games had a good level design mostly out of the fact that they where not "simulations" but the idea of a fun level was paramount: the best example are the Doom levels Tricks &Traps, or Barrels o' Fun: they don't make any sense, but they are a little treasure of peculiar situations to fight in. Hexen with its hub design was also very good: sure, we were all confused as hell in the first fifteen minutes, but the concepts and the interlocking levels and items to find made it a fairly interesting experience.

System Shock is a mediocre shooter (and painfully easy with modern ports and mouselook), but again, simply enemy variety and external factors (like the low-light levels) can make it a compelling fight. Take the Groves, as example: they are a mad rush while you costantly lose energy and health and fight rather nasty foes, and you have a precise objective. As a bonus, you can find rather useful extras is you are fast and smart enough.

"Second generation" shooters (post Half-Life stuff, mostly) had this weird balance of gameplay and enforced "realism": RTCW has some excellent open levels (the Airfield) and in the closed ones the simple interactions of different foes (Nazis, Monsters and Experiments) made some fun sections. No One Lives Forever had more style than substance, despite some lively attempts fo diversify gameplay (sniping section!).

AvP 1999 is varied, with very good level design (the Alien levels are awesome, even if they pale if compared to stuff like Thief). You can toy with your foes or charge them: in the Ferarco level, you have to deal with Flamethrower civilians and androids, and have a different set of ways on how to deal with them: again, "fun" level design is to give the player a situation he must solve and an array of solutions, be they skill, planning or equipment found previously. If you want to see how such a game is not possible on console, simply check the 2010 remake, where the console limitations (slow movement, bad controls) pretty much killed the game.

Jedi Outcast is a weird beast, as it has some very good levels and some that are rather terrible (I value a level where it's easier to find secrets than to find how to proceed bad). Yet, try it: the amount of thinking you have to do in combat (prioritize targets, items and powers) and outside of combat (how to proceed, "what the fuck I'm supposed to do now", etc) is remarkable.

Halo would have been an excellent PC shooter, if not for the sluggy movement and the lack of horizontal fighting: it's somewhat slow and clearly designed to be fought with auto-aim.

Enough examples of good PC shooter levels?
 

34scell

Augur
Joined
Apr 6, 2014
Messages
384
Do keyhunts count as varied objectives?
No, I mean stuff like planting bugs, talking to certain people, escorting, blowing stuff up (outside CoD style linear sequences).

I find rather funny that I was to type "Well, let's take as an example Marathon: it's not even a PC game but it has a far better level design and enemy variety than Goldeneye, that seems a gray corridor shooter where you shoot the same kind of foe again and again and again"

The games you mention are mostly just about getting from A to B with some obstacles placed in the way, whereas in Goldeneye/Perfect Dark you have to actually seek out objectives before leaving to beat the level.
 

DraQ

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Where is the general feeling of carnage? In Doom this'd pass off as EEEAAASSSYYY

It's 2015 gaming dude.

Will there be more open areas?

It's 2015 gaming dude.

Why is the level design consist of only tight corridors?

It's 2015 gaming dude.
:negative:


Where's the metal? What is this pussy shit one calls music?

Call of Duty crowd cannot accept harsh ambiental noises for from original Quake or claustophobic industrial rock of Quake 2.
I couldn't accept the latter either.
:troll:
Q1 soundtrack, OTOH was :obviously:.

Haven't read the thread, but what makes the new Doom game a Doom game? Is it only the name being used for marketing purposes, or does any of the monsters, weapons and - most importantly - gameplay still feature in the game?
As far as I'm concerned Id has been dead ever since Carmack's Romerotomy.

Actually, it's quite similar. The AI seems just as inept and incapable of reacting swiftly or hitting the player even if they have hitscan weapons.
The resulting gameplay is similarly just running around executing helpless foes.

You're talking about AI, that's only one gameplay component. Movement, gunplay/weapon feel, enemy hit reaction, sound and visuals etc (all of which Q2 does well).
It shares the same main problem - pretty much everything an enemy can do is effectively countered by every player's action possible short of standing still. Everything else is secondary.
Although it does seem to have Q2 style stunlocking too so I'm not sure what do you mean by "enemy hit reaction" - it's just as bad because of how it shits on the gameplay.

from what little I've seen so far these devs are completely inept at getting the old-school FPS gameplay feel right, they just inserted the ridiculously over-the-top gore and thought that would do the trick.
Apparently.

The issue with Quake 2 is that they made the "proper" difficulty setting hidden. You have to manually type skill 3 on the console and than load the first map (base1). Regular "hard" setting is really just normal.
The real joke is that this "proper" difficulty is banalshiteasy as well. I physically can't tell the difference between Q2 difficulty levels, including not so aptly named "hard+".
In any you just prance around with little care and shoot shit dead without any perceivable resistance or danger.

WASD and left thumbstick movement are about equal as far as FPS are concerned

Objectively false. Left stick is pressure sensitive, so walk key is essentially integrated and can allow for varying degrees of movement speed. Left stick also has an angular resolution of what, 32? WASD has 8. So you can walk in 32 different precise directions with the stick, 8 on WASD.
The thing is movement precision matters little in an FPS, and the extent to which it matters can mostly be emulated by moving intermittently or weaving. OTOH aiming speed and precision is crucial, so is situational awareness and turning speed conveyed by mouselook, so the advantages of KBM completely outshine the advantages of pad. Mouse is the king.

Sure, some superduper controller combining the advantages of mouse and KB's number of keys, with ergonomics and analog movement of pad would be ideal but:
  • It doesn't exist.
  • It would still offer little more than just KBM
  • It would cost money
So no, not likely to happen.

LASTLY, dumbfucks, if you were such fucktard enthusiasts you'd know that DOOM, possibly the fastest shooter, was designed for keyboards only. you know, when mouse in FPS wasn't even a thing? But no, apparently reasonably precise console sticks can't handle anything but PC-born snail-pace games like Colla Dooty and Counterstrike.
Like I said, these things are conveniently forgotten.
More like those things are no longer relevant. Doom style gameplay isn't coming back. Exact aiming in both planes is now a thing, it isn't going away and mouse is currently the only way you can manually aim in arbitrary directions that's both fast and precise.

MUCH better and harder than original game
That's not much of a feat.
:troll:

also rebalances the gameplay (generic dudes are now able to survive a shotgun shot from a close range
So it removes the only remaining reason to ever use normal shotgun?
 

DraQ

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Do keyhunts count as varied objectives?
No, I mean stuff like planting bugs, talking to certain people, escorting, blowing stuff up (outside CoD style linear sequences).
Then even Q2 qualifies (apart from talking to anyone and escorts, obviously).

Pretty much everything past Q2 qualifies as well, plus some stuff before it (Hexen 2, Strife, System Shock).
 

Maldoror

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Messages
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Here's what YouTube has to say about the new DOOM™ trailer! :stupid:


i1z80Xh.jpg
 

DraQ

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System Shock is a mediocre shooter (and painfully easy with modern ports and mouselook)
System Shock's main failing is lack of mechanical variety to the enemies. Most of the time they are either ISO standard hitscanners or enemies firing slow, easily evaded (or deflected) projectiles. Other than that they only differ in sprites and stats, requiring no different strategies past choosing weapon dealing appropriate damage type and capable of piercing the DT.

Everything else about the game is pure poetry, maybe aside from abstract blockiness of many levels, and some derpy enemy design.
 

Lyric Suite

Converting to Islam
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Mar 23, 2006
Messages
56,164
You guys are forgetting Jedi Knight (fuck Jedi Outcast).

Also, you are forgetting that shooters in general are a popamole genre. The PC counterpart to something like Goldeneye is very much stuff like No One Lives Forever or Deus Ex. Pure shooters are about great action and level design that fits that action. Hexen could get away with something more challenging because the gameplay was slower.

This argument is moot because level design has nothing to do with whether controllers are just as good as keyboard+mouse for this type of games.

Goldeneye has a faster pace and better level design than most pc shooters.

Fast gameplay?



Just because enemies die in a twitch doesn't mean the gameplay is "fast", or that it involves mad reflexes and accuracy. If think it is funny for you to bring up Goldeneye because i used to play that game in deathmatch all the time with my consoletarded friends, usually with me dominating the match completely to the point it was just ridiculous. And that despite not being particularly familiar with controllers. This brings me to another argument, because the existence of a game like Goldeneye may "prove" that in principle there's nothing preventing a console game from having "complex" level design or shit like that, assuming that was what you were trying to say. But that is not something that needs proving, since it is only logical. What the existence of such a game does not prove however is whether the average console gamer is more "casual" oriented than the average PC gamer, and since the entire raison d'etre for the consolization of PC gaming was the desire to tap into that sweet, sweet console market share which is fueled entirely by hordes of casual players which outnumber PC gamers ten to one, then it follows that games had to be simplified as well. You can make your console shooters as complex as you want, but if your game isn't going to sell anymore than it would sell on PC, than than doesn't really count as "consolification". True consolification means pandering to people like my consoltarded friends, who make up the vast majority of console gamers and who are the primary target for modern, popamole shooters.
 

Dayyālu

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No, I mean stuff like planting bugs, talking to certain people, escorting, blowing stuff up (outside CoD style linear sequences).

The games you mention are mostly just about getting from A to B with some obstacles placed in the way, whereas in Goldeneye/Perfect Dark you have to actually seek out objectives before leaving to beat the level.

I fear I lost you. System Shock 1&2 all have this and even more - you are free to wander on the station/ship as you please, in a very nicely done "Hub" fashion. Strife is another example, as DraQ pointed out. But even with that, it's semantics: even AvP 1999 had "objectives" (Kill specific foes, destroy generators) and then exit the level.

Everything else about the game is pure poetry, maybe aside from abstract blockiness of many levels, and some derpy enemy design.

How can I deny this? I like even the Cyberspace sections!

You guys are forgetting Jedi Knight (fuck Jedi Outcast).

Jedi Knight is a better game than Jedi Outcast (and Jedi Academy) but the basic mechanics of Jedi Knight are a bit wonky. Yet, Jedi Outcast has still a rather old-school level design, as it is built to give the player challenges and not to paint a pretty picture for screenshots.

Oh God I agreed with Lyric Suite now the demons are going to catch me
 
Unwanted

CyberP

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"How can I deny this? I like even the Cyberspace sections!"

Even System Shock was designed to be playable with keyboard only. Nukem 3D, Dark Forces...it wasn't until Quake 2, if I remember correctly. Devs even accounted for keyboard-only players for years after that.

Lyric Suite said:
"consolification"

PC-ification, you mean. What with all the popamole FPS originating here, again pointing to Colla Dooty, Battlefield, Crysis, Far Cry, Counterstrike...

Lyric Suite said:
does not prove however is whether the average console gamer is more "casual" oriented than the average PC gamer, and since the entire raison d'etre for the consolization of PC gaming was the desire to tap into that sweet, sweet console market share which is fueled entirely by hordes of casual players which outnumber PC gamers ten to one, then it follows that games had to be simplified as well.

Bravo. Commercialization, the reason for shitty games (alongside incompetence, of course).
Consoles are plug & play, of course they'll also attract more of the less dedicated. For years though, before the great decline, there were competent games made on it, including shooters that you're obviously ignorant of.

DraQ said:
System Shock's main failing is lack of mechanical variety to the enemies.

I think the problem is more that it is difficult to see shit, and attacks aren't very well telegraphed (but most attacks are trace hit/hitscan anyway as you indicate).

I find rather funny that I was to type "Well, let's take as an example Marathon: it's not even a PC game but it has a far better level design and enemy variety than Goldeneye, that seems a gray corridor shooter where you shoot the same kind of foe again and again and again"

The dude pulling out Goldeneye as a defense isn't helping. It really doesn't have that great level design. Acceptable, varied, interesting enough, yes. But not the best out there.

Anyway, I'm not here to waste time on the ignorant. I've pointed out some objective facts, and the retards feel the butthurt. I only stand for truth, and mentally underdeveloped retards cannot handle it. You really think I'm some fanboy that is mindlessly ejaculating over consoles? I don't even console game anymore, technically. I refuse to sjupport the decline (so that means I've got to be careful on PC too, such as no Steam if it can be helped).
PC is King. It's just that the misinformation & retarded ignorance really gets on my tits.
 
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DraQ

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"How can I deny this? I like even the Cyberspace sections!"

Even System Shock was designed to be playable with keyboard only.
How the fuck did you aim in SS (or TN for that matter) without the rodent?
You could (technically) play it with just the mouse, but KB only?

Nukem 3D, Dark Forces...it wasn't until Quake 2, if I remember correctly. Devs even accounted for keyboard-only players for years after that.
Yeah, so?

I think the problem is more that it is difficult to see shit, and attacks aren't very well telegraphed
SS2 Grunt said:
And "difficult to see shit" was actually a legitimate gameplay element. Especially on the maintenance level.
Anyway, I'm not here to waste time on the ignorant. I've pointed out some objective facts, and the retards feel the butthurt. I only stand for truth, and mentally underdeveloped retards cannot handle it. You really think I'm some fanboy that is mindless ejaculating over consoles?
No, I think you just miss the point so consistently that you have made it an art form.
:M
 

34scell

Augur
Joined
Apr 6, 2014
Messages
384
This brings me to another argument, because the existence of a game like Goldeneye may "prove" that in principle there's nothing preventing a console game from having "complex" level design or shit like that, assuming that was what you were trying to say. But that is not something that needs proving, since it is only logical. What the existence of such a game does not prove however is whether the average console gamer is more "casual" oriented than the average PC gamer, and since the entire raison d'etre for the consolization of PC gaming was the desire to tap into that sweet, sweet console market share which is fueled entirely by hordes of casual players which outnumber PC gamers ten to one, then it follows that games had to be simplified as well. You can make your console shooters as complex as you want, but if your game isn't going to sell anymore than it would sell on PC, than than doesn't really count as "consolification". True consolification means pandering to people like my consoltarded friends, who make up the vast majority of console gamers and who are the primary target for modern, popamole shooters.

I think it's less about pandering (to console gamers) and more about streamlining design for graphical fidelity. The commercial appeal for huge set pieces, gimmicks and pretty graphics wasn't any less on PC, consoles merely sped up the process.

And oh yeah, fuck Jedi Outcast! Why is the gunplay so bad?
 
Unwanted

CyberP

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How the fuck did you aim in SS (or TN for that matter) without the rodent?
You could (technically) play it with just the mouse, but KB only?

It was designed to be playable that way, because Looking Glass and kitchen sink design. It's like one of four possible primary control style types, isn't it?

Yeah, so?

So facts. More aimed at the dumbass over in the corner with his dunce hat on.

And "difficult to see shit" was actually a legitimate gameplay element. Especially on the maintenance level.

I wasn't talking about light levels so much, but resolution and rendering, as well as telegraphed attacks. In Doom you can clearly see an Archville raising hellfire, or a Baron lobbing projectiles.

No, I think you just miss the point so consistently that you have made it an art form.

Ha, no.

There is no point to miss, I am of the master race (well informed and experienced) that doesn't jump on the retard bandwagon and go around bashing shit I have no comprehension of.
 
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Lyric Suite

Converting to Islam
Joined
Mar 23, 2006
Messages
56,164
I think it's less about pandering (to console gamers) and more about streamlining design for graphical fidelity.

No. It is all about pandering. And modern devs simply not knowing any better i guess.

The commercial appeal for huge set pieces, gimmicks and pretty graphics wasn't any less on PC, consoles merely sped up the process.

Arguable, except for "pretty graphics", the development of which has been slowed down considerably, or has been locked to fit console release cycles. Hence, why your first point doesn't make sense.

And oh yeah, fuck Jedi Outcast! Why is the gunplay so bad?

We were talking about level design brah. Jedi Knight runs circles on both of its sequels in that department.
 
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Durandal

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My team has the sexiest and deadliest waifus you can recruit.
And oh yeah, fuck Jedi Outcast! Why is the gunplay so bad?
Probably because most of the laser guns were projectile based. And you and the enemy were constantly moving, so it was tough to lead your shots unless you were up close or the enemy stood still.
 

Infinitron

I post news
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Messages
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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Here's something for you guys to chew on :lol:

Doom Isn’t About Chainsaws, Guns And Gore, It’s About Moving Sideways

Doom [official site] came to the Dolby Theatre as E3 began. Bethesda’s showcase event included an in-depth look at a game we already knew about, the announcement of a game that we already knew about and the blood-spattered reveal of a game we’ve been playing (in various forms) for most of our adult lives. Doom is back. Nathan Ditum was on-site for the live demonstration, and squinted through the gore and melee animations to find the rhythm of the past.

It’s a strange and difficult thing, to bring back a classic game. During the in-game demonstration of id’s new Doom at Bethesda’s E3 showcase, crowd reaction suggests that this particular reboot is on the right track. There are cheers when our hero punches a demon’s head clean off with an outrageous melee attack. There is a round of appreciative applause when an arm is wrenched off at the elbow and the palm used as a key (clever!). And there are delighted gasps as a demon is torn in the manner of a strongman phonebook trick, a wet fleshy tear from the jaw down.


(see the Hell footage from 43 minutes in)

This is Doom, right? Violence and speed – a rush of outrage and rebellion, a raucous rip through corridor’d hell. The demo is structured around the discovery of familiar weapons, a tour of just how closely this Doom is sticking to the grammar of the old Doom and its escalating keyboard-row armoury of shotguns, chainguns and plasma rifles. As each is discovered and fired – with new, reactive and hyper-violent results – ripples of warm recognition and confirmation spread through the crowd. This is the thing we wanted: old and new, fuzzy and clear, the paradox of realised nostalgia.

But how much is this upcoming Doom really like the object of that nostalgia? I’m skipping over Doom 3 here, much like id itself seems to be with the surging, shadowless tone of the new game, and I’m thinking specifically of Doom and Doom II. Recreating these games to current standards isn’t a matter of direct translation, but also of creation. It means filling in a great deal of space – an entire dimension, actually, the originals being 2D artfully posing as 3D. And it also means finding a thousand extra layers of texture and sophistication, layers that represent the Things We Expect two decades on from the launch of the original.

doo3s.jpg


It’s impossible not to see that this tearing, raging and eager-to-impress new thing isn’t Doom – not our Doom – but the resurrected idealisation of Doom, which just happens to carry the appropriate trademarks and logos. The old Doom is sealed away in the past. This is a loud and well-resourced tribute act.

And yet.

I am struck by something, sitting in the Dolby Theatre and watching the second part of the demo, now taking place in a brown Hell decorated with spiked human skulls. I am compelled to write it down: “The rhythm of sideways.”

doom3.jpg


I am an inexpert and ungrammatical note-taker. But the point is that there is something in the timing and feel of the sideways movement during the combat in this new game that is, more than the gore or the volume, distinctly and uniquely Doom. Big and obvious changes have been made to the game’s movement (I see you, double-jump) but this recognisable inflection remains.

It sounds simple but this inflection is the core of Doom for me. During the on-stage presentation an id spokesperson says that Doom has always been about “speed,” but it’s more than just undirected pace. Doom is about a particular cadence of dodge, strafe and attack, punctuated by shotgun fire. There is a practised pattern of movement to the veteran player, swooping to avoid Imp fireballs, dashing forward to deliver a shotgun shell at close range, ducking back again to widen the angle of evasive action. It’s a pattern submerged in foggy impressions of the past, archived along with tactile memories of fingers spread over cursor keys and of hammering a Ctrl-button trigger. Seeing it in the demo is like recognising someone I knew at school – a jolting reconciliation of past and present. Old and new. Fuzzy and clear.

doo6s.jpg


Maybe given the recent, skillful resurrection of Wolfenstein – different in a thousand ways to its blocky FPS forebear, yet lit by the same historical flippancy – I should have expected more. Maybe Bethesda have it down, this strange and difficult business of bringing back the classics. What I know for sure is that the game I saw at the Bethesda showcase promises the ability to turn and shoot and dodge and move, and that when I get to play that game it will feel like I am playing Doom.
 

uaciaut

Augur
Joined
Feb 18, 2013
Messages
505
Idk i saw the start of the gameplay trailer and thought this feels more like quake than doom overall. Will have to see how it plays though.
I particularly liked Quake because Reznore made the OST, Q3 is probably the greatest multiplayer fps ever made still though.
 

vonAchdorf

Arcane
Joined
Sep 20, 2014
Messages
13,465
There is a practised pattern of movement to the veteran player, swooping to avoid Imp fireballs, dashing forward to deliver a shotgun shell at close range, ducking back again to widen the angle of evasive action.

Even if it's RPS, but it's not too wrong. I don't need long chainsaw slicing animations.
 

Lyric Suite

Converting to Islam
Joined
Mar 23, 2006
Messages
56,164
Here's something for you guys to chew on :lol:
Doom Isn’t About Chainsaws, Guns And Gore, It’s About Moving Sideways

Doom [official site] came to the Dolby Theatre as E3 began. Bethesda’s showcase event included an in-depth look at a game we already knew about, the announcement of a game that we already knew about and the blood-spattered reveal of a game we’ve been playing (in various forms) for most of our adult lives. Doom is back. Nathan Ditum was on-site for the live demonstration, and squinted through the gore and melee animations to find the rhythm of the past.

It’s a strange and difficult thing, to bring back a classic game. During the in-game demonstration of id’s new Doom at Bethesda’s E3 showcase, crowd reaction suggests that this particular reboot is on the right track. There are cheers when our hero punches a demon’s head clean off with an outrageous melee attack. There is a round of appreciative applause when an arm is wrenched off at the elbow and the palm used as a key (clever!). And there are delighted gasps as a demon is torn in the manner of a strongman phonebook trick, a wet fleshy tear from the jaw down.


(see the Hell footage from 43 minutes in)

This is Doom, right? Violence and speed – a rush of outrage and rebellion, a raucous rip through corridor’d hell. The demo is structured around the discovery of familiar weapons, a tour of just how closely this Doom is sticking to the grammar of the old Doom and its escalating keyboard-row armoury of shotguns, chainguns and plasma rifles. As each is discovered and fired – with new, reactive and hyper-violent results – ripples of warm recognition and confirmation spread through the crowd. This is the thing we wanted: old and new, fuzzy and clear, the paradox of realised nostalgia.

But how much is this upcoming Doom really like the object of that nostalgia? I’m skipping over Doom 3 here, much like id itself seems to be with the surging, shadowless tone of the new game, and I’m thinking specifically of Doom and Doom II. Recreating these games to current standards isn’t a matter of direct translation, but also of creation. It means filling in a great deal of space – an entire dimension, actually, the originals being 2D artfully posing as 3D. And it also means finding a thousand extra layers of texture and sophistication, layers that represent the Things We Expect two decades on from the launch of the original.

doo3s.jpg


It’s impossible not to see that this tearing, raging and eager-to-impress new thing isn’t Doom – not our Doom – but the resurrected idealisation of Doom, which just happens to carry the appropriate trademarks and logos. The old Doom is sealed away in the past. This is a loud and well-resourced tribute act.

And yet.

I am struck by something, sitting in the Dolby Theatre and watching the second part of the demo, now taking place in a brown Hell decorated with spiked human skulls. I am compelled to write it down: “The rhythm of sideways.”

doom3.jpg


I am an inexpert and ungrammatical note-taker. But the point is that there is something in the timing and feel of the sideways movement during the combat in this new game that is, more than the gore or the volume, distinctly and uniquely Doom. Big and obvious changes have been made to the game’s movement (I see you, double-jump) but this recognisable inflection remains.

It sounds simple but this inflection is the core of Doom for me. During the on-stage presentation an id spokesperson says that Doom has always been about “speed,” but it’s more than just undirected pace. Doom is about a particular cadence of dodge, strafe and attack, punctuated by shotgun fire. There is a practised pattern of movement to the veteran player, swooping to avoid Imp fireballs, dashing forward to deliver a shotgun shell at close range, ducking back again to widen the angle of evasive action. It’s a pattern submerged in foggy impressions of the past, archived along with tactile memories of fingers spread over cursor keys and of hammering a Ctrl-button trigger. Seeing it in the demo is like recognising someone I knew at school – a jolting reconciliation of past and present. Old and new. Fuzzy and clear.

doo6s.jpg


Maybe given the recent, skillful resurrection of Wolfenstein – different in a thousand ways to its blocky FPS forebear, yet lit by the same historical flippancy – I should have expected more. Maybe Bethesda have it down, this strange and difficult business of bringing back the classics. What I know for sure is that the game I saw at the Bethesda showcase promises the ability to turn and shoot and dodge and move, and that when I get to play that game it will feel like I am playing Doom.


Bethesda can't hire good developers for shit, but they are pretty good when it comes to PR. The checks must flow.
 

Fowyr

Arcane
Vatnik
Joined
Mar 29, 2009
Messages
7,671
I fear I lost you. System Shock 1&2 all have this and even more - you are free to wander on the station/ship as you please, in a very nicely done "Hub" fashion. Strife is another example, as DraQ pointed out. But even with that, it's semantics: even AvP 1999 had "objectives" (Kill specific foes, destroy generators) and then exit the level.
Add Cybermage to this list. Bradley, man, why you've made awesome, but unpopular and now obscure FPS instead of Wizardry-clone. :negative:

SS with keyboard
What? Mouse is almost required element of interface here. How you would quickly pick item or change weapon while in combat? Or easily shoot these cyborgs in Medical computer node? Level 8 with its tower and flying enemies?

You know, I'm a keyboard man through and through. I even ridiculed Dicksmoker for obnoxious use of mouselook in Doom. But playing something like Unreal, Terminator: Future Shock or Cyclones without mouse (When you have it, of course. Once I was so poor, that I played Civilization with keyboard; entering city was a very slow.) is fucking retarded.

Lord, I remember playing Alien Trilogy on the PC. It actually looks uglier on the PC than the PS1
What a slugfest it was! At least I liked atmosphere. But saving only between levels - :x
 
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Sceptic

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Mar 2, 2010
Messages
10,871
Divinity: Original Sin
We were talking about level design brah. Jedi Knight runs circles on both of its sequels in that department.
To be fair, JK runs circles on just about every game ever made where the term "level design" could be used.
 

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