[Ninety-Six]

Now that I finally have a new rig, the first game I immediately went into playing was Doom 3. As in the original 2004 version (via dhewm3). Until now I only had access to the BFG Edition (on console), and while that was fine the changes really kinda broke the game. It works great for Lost Mission (since LM was designed for the way BFGE works), less so on D3 and RoE (And I learned that BFGE cut out a lot from RoE for some reason).

Even though it is a game from 2004, I couldn't get it to run on any previous machine, because after about half an hour, every model would start flickering. It was basically unplayable. Apparently at some point there was an update that broke the game on integrated graphics. And this happened regardless of running the original .exe or the source port.


Now that I can finally play the game the way it was intended, I can say that I genuinely really love the game. If you can accept that it doesn't make narrative sense for there to be "no duct tape on Mars," but does make sense from a gameplay mechanic logic point of view, it's a great time.

Do I like it better than classic Doom? Honestly, I don't think I can answer that question. They're far too different for a fair comparison I think. Doom 3 is very much a Half-Life style game (Specifically HL1). Although, Doom 3 does have better gunplay than HL (or even HL2) so I'll give it that.

[Reaper_Man]

Okuplok has finally been beaten in a UV Max single-segment run by Coincident

[Doom64hunter]

NNC, on 14 April 2025 - 09:22 AM, said:

Marketing trick. They show us they care for the game and add patches when community needs. Withhold stuff like this then later add them in a patch.

Like DNF's DLC.

The actual reason is that the update and release process for Bethesda/Nightdive is very long and sluggish (mainly due to required console parity) and Sigil 2 came out too late for it to be included in the original package.

[Ninety-Six]

Doom64hunter, on 28 April 2025 - 01:34 PM, said:

The actual reason is that the update and release process for Bethesda/Nightdive is very long and sluggish (mainly due to required console parity) and Sigil 2 came out too late for it to be included in the original package.

Why was it made into an official add-on prior to this instead of being merged into the main package? I assume the add-ons have to hit console parity thresholds to be made an "official" add-on too, right?

[Ninety-Six]

Finished OG Doom 3 and Resurrection of Evil.

Man, they utterly butchered RoE in the BFG Edition. And I can't fathom a single reason for it. Like, okay, I can sort of see why they removed the Bio Suit mechanic(s) (although I don't find that section any worse than most outdoor sections; they both have the same frustrations), but I can't understand why they toned down the combat? RoE gets very violent towards its endgame. And wasn't the point of the BFG Edition to make it more like classic doom, hence the embedded flashlight, larger ammo pickups and slightly faster movement speed? And yet, so many monsters were removed, and specifically from RoE. I mean the base campaign got some cuts too but it didn't lose anywhere near as many monsters as the expansion did (and to be fair I'm just as confused as to why monsters were removed in the base campaign too).

RoE got so slimmed down that it even lost an entire section of Hell. And, maybe I'm wrong on this, but I thought the Hell levels were generally considered the best parts of Doom 3 and its additions (I certainly think that)? So why was there less Hell in the BFG Edition?

[Ninety-Six]

Does anyone know if there's a Doom 3 mod out there that recreates the Xbox version of the campaign? Like I know there's "no reason" to seek it out since it's a truncated version of the PC original to fit the limits of the console, but I'm still curious to see the changes anyway, without needing to find an old Xbox.

[Phredreeke]

Doom 3 and RoE on the original Xbox will run on the Xbox 360 with a harddrive, but not Xbox One and later

[Spirit Crusader]

If you want a based source port without woke players join odamex

[Reaper_Man]

Can't kill demons anymore, because of woke 😔

[Ninety-Six]

Changed gears again. After Doom 3 (and then actually going in for seconds, playing both it and RoE except from console starts just as some small way to change up the experience, as I don't think I'm ready for Nightmare yet), now I'm playing the two mobile RPGs, courtesy of the recent project(s) to port them to PC. I have no prior experience with either of them, as I didn't have a phone that could run these sorts of games when they came out, and I hadn't even played any other Doom game by this point yet. So I'm going in completely blind with absolutely zero preconception.


I see what they were going for. I'm only a little bit into the first one so far, but I like how they approached the problem of "how do we take a fast-paced shooter like Doom and put it onto a brick phone with limited controls?" They took out the need for dodging or aiming (leaving that up to stat calculations), but tried to keep everything else about the combat. Weapons still have specific roles to play so the player can make tactical decisions (albeit the roles are much different now, and a bit more explicitly "use this gun on this enemy" but the point remains), enemy health isn't crazy high so encounters are quick (I'm sure later enemies will have bigger health pools but I'd imagine your damage would scale with them), and the pseudo real-time/turn-based fusion tile combat system does still give you some movement options.


Also using the fire extinguisher on lost souls is hilarious.

[DualBackdrop365]

Ninety-Six, on 11 May 2025 - 12:02 PM, said:

Changed gears again. After Doom 3 (and then actually going in for seconds, playing both it and RoE except from console starts just as some small way to change up the experience, as I don't think I'm ready for Nightmare yet), now I'm playing the two mobile RPGs, courtesy of the recent project(s) to port them to PC. I have no prior experience with either of them, as I didn't have a phone that could run these sorts of games when they came out, and I hadn't even played any other Doom game by this point yet. So I'm going in completely blind with absolutely zero preconception.


I see what they were going for. I'm only a little bit into the first one so far, but I like how they approached the problem of "how do we take a fast-paced shooter like Doom and put it onto a brick phone with limited controls?" They took out the need for dodging or aiming (leaving that up to stat calculations), but tried to keep everything else about the combat. Weapons still have specific roles to play so the player can make tactical decisions (albeit the roles are much different now, and a bit more explicitly "use this gun on this enemy" but the point remains), enemy health isn't crazy high so encounters are quick (I'm sure later enemies will have bigger health pools but I'd imagine your damage would scale with them), and the pseudo real-time/turn-based fusion tile combat system does still give you some movement options.


Also using the fire extinguisher on lost souls is hilarious.

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[Ninety-Six]

Yeah that's on my list, too. Honestly I'd been waiting on that one for a while and I'm glad it got the same PC treatment as the others.

That said, I'm putting it off for just a bit longer, as I have some other Wolfenstein stuff I want to get through first now that I have a machine that can play them.

[DualBackdrop365]

Imagine how cool it would be if there was a duke nukem rpg for mobile phones rather than those horrible 3d duke games with awful framerate. Also I forgot to mention that wolf rpg might be the first official id game where it is implied that B.J. is doom guy's ancestor (during the final boss fight).

[Ninety-Six]

DualBackdrop365, on 13 May 2025 - 09:40 PM, said:

Imagine how cool it would be if there was a duke nukem rpg for mobile phones rather than those horrible 3d duke games with awful framerate. Also I forgot to mention that wolf rpg might be the first official id game where it is implied that B.J. is doom guy's ancestor (during the final boss fight).

Nah that was already implied in Doom RPG (which came first), with the doomguy being named BJ Blazkowicz (and then Stan Blazkowicz in the sequel because that's not confusing). I'm also pretty sure that id made official comments cementing that fact a good long while prior, and including Billy Blaze in the family as well.


I bet John's thrilled at the PC ports. I remember a few years ago he publicly lamented the lack of good emulators for these old mobile devices since without them there wasn't a way to play any of id mobile's catalogue (except that one DS port of O&E, though even they're getting the PC port treatment now). Well turns out reverse-engineered source ports are another viable method.

Now all we need is some way to play Doom Resurrection and the whole original id mobile line will be available again.

[DualBackdrop365]

There's currently a ios emulator under development called touchhle. It can run very few games yet and unfortunately doom resurrection is not one of them but the dev is very active so maybe it will work in a year or two. It's available for android, mac and pc.

[Ninety-Six]

DualBackdrop365, on 14 May 2025 - 03:45 AM, said:

There's currently a ios emulator under development called touchhle. It can run very few games yet and unfortunately doom resurrection is not one of them but the dev is very active so maybe it will work in a year or two. It's available for android, mac and pc.

Dope. Thanks for the heads-up.

[DualBackdrop365]

What's your excuse now doom 3?

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[Ninety-Six]

Finished Doom 2 RPG (w/Major on Normal).

My opinions are weirdly mixed. On the one hand, the engine improvements are significant. It's nice to have skies, slopes and varied floor and ceiling heights. The monster sprites are extremely detailed and well-done. I like that, contrary to the first game which was more or less an "adaptation" of Doom 3 (for lack of better term), the sequel more does its own thing. It blends elements from all 3 Doom games up until that point but isn't specifically based on any of them. I like the things it adds to the mythos like VIOS or those grotesque teleporters. I like the locations (at least on a conceptual level) it brings us. I like the extra replayability in having three different characters with slightly different base stats (although even having finished the game I don't have the slightest clue what the IQ stat is for so I'm not sure what the Doc's advantage is supposed to actually be), small dialogue changes, and then three separate difficulty options.

On the other hand, the human NPC sprites are...kinda horrendous. The proportions and posing is gonk as hell, they seem to have a smaller resolution scale in comparison to the textures and monsters so they sorta look like they're covered in blocky vaseline, and they all walk around like they just took a dump in their pants. I also found myself getting lost and turned around pretty often, in spite of there theoretically being much more variety in the visuals, and the automap. And yet I only very rarely got turned around in the first game despite the significantly lesser fidelity, fewer graphical assets, and completely flat playfields. I can't really explain why. Nor can I explain why the combat feels a lot...clunkier in comparison to the first. I wouldn't call it bad but the first game felt a lot smoother to play in that department, too.


The story also feels a lot weaker, despite the much higher production quality of the storytelling itself. The first game, despite having exactly 2 sprites for all the UAC staff to share, still made an effort to give us named characters that played roles in the story. Dr. Jensen, Dr. Kelvin, and of course Guerard. There was also what felt like proper stakes. Everyone you find is well aware of the demonic invasion on Mars, and just about everyone you meet is someone just trying to survive or hide out in the only safe zones they can get to. There was a proper climax in Sector 6 with the pursuit to try and stop the portal from being activated.

Spoiler

And, when the second wave starts, and you see the hub you've been using the whole game reduced to rubble, and all the characters either dead or turned into demons, it felt somewhat impactful.

In the sequel, we don't really get any of that. The scale and stakes are never really illuminated upon. You think you're gonna have a regular cast of characters to move the plot along (and the prequel comic only furthered this illusion), but both of your other two teammates disappear after the first cutscene, and are each only ever seen once throughout the entire rest of the game after that, for very brief moments. You think Caldex will be an important character, and he is, only up until the first boss after which he is just deleted from the plot altogether. There's SAL the AI who...does barely anything at all whatsoever. VIOS is at least a consistently appearing enough antagonist, I'll give the game that much (Although the constant fights with him got repetitive). Although even then he doesn't actually do all that much throughout the course of the story. I mean he constantly harasses you so you're properly motivated to kill him but as far as his role in the overall happenings... it's really murky, just like the previously mentioned scale and scope. Hell, we're never even told how much of the invasion is even an invasion. And the ending doesn't really help with that either. It's just left on a...very, very vague cliffhanger. I was left mostly confused by the ending and it felt a bit anticlimactic, as I'm not sure what we even actually accomplished. We killed the source of a demon virus that was somehow related to certain locations that we may or may not know about where people were turning into monsters and other monsters were appearing from Hell portals that just...exist for some reason.

[Ninety-Six]

Ninety-Six, on 22 May 2025 - 12:51 AM, said:

Nor can I explain why the combat feels a lot...clunkier in comparison to the first. I wouldn't call it bad but the first game felt a lot smoother to play in that department, too.

I went in for a second playthrough (Connor on Difficult), and can elucidate a bit more on this. A significant flaw appears to be that your individual stats don't seem to matter at all, outside of Strength. Defense seems to have no effect on how well you take damage. I constantly levelled up Agility as much as possible (using treadmills multiple times per level) and it was rare for an attack to miss me. I still have no idea what IQ does. And accuracy seems to do nothing at all. Major has the highest, to the point where within two or three levels the game tells you to stop using the target practice as you can't level up any further. And yet even when maxed out characters still can't hit the broad side of a barn. It gets particularly stupid near the end of the game, where despite having maxed out accuracy, hitting VIOS, an Arachnotron, an archvile, or a Revenant is cause for celebration because most of the time you'll miss. Starting a new game had you hitting more targets from the word go in the first game, than you hit here at the end of the second game with a MAXED-OUT STAT.


I attempted to start a third playthrough on Nightmare with Sarge, and got softlocked within 5 minutes because he couldn't hit the first enemy of the game at point blank range and ran out of ammo. What the actual fuck.