Doom 3 BFG Edition

[MH]

I believe that the brightness issues have been addressed in this version; that's going to feel a little strange because the dark atmosphere in a lot of the maps works very well.

There was also mention made of boosting ammo counts. I'm long past the days when I'd play something on Hard by choice though, and I never noticed any lack of ammo in it (I'm normally maxed out on all weapons quite early and tend to stay that way).

I'd personally like to see the effectiveness of the shotgun reduced a little. Did a quick playthrough on Easy a coupla months back and when I downed a Revenant in one shot I kind of thought "yeah, this gun is too powerful".

[golden_boy]

Same here, I never had ammo problems in Doom 3 except on the Hell level where you start without weapons and there are lots of tough enemies, so it's possible to run low.

Doom 3 has no "secrets", but it does have ammo stashed away underneath stairs, in dark corners, underneath walkways... everywhere. Just go off the beaten path to find some ammo and often armour and weapons too. Keep your eyes open and you will find more stuff than you can carry.

The people complaining about lack of ammo in Doom 3 are the ones who always charge blindly ahead. It's no surprise they never find stuff.

Do take the time to open storage lockers, too. There is good stuff in them.

Take it slow. Have a smoke from time to time while you listen through all the audio logs and read emails you found. It pays off.

[MH]

Or if it's your second or subsequent playthrough and you don't feel like listening to them again, but do want to be able to take time to soak in the atmosphere, just grab yourself a hold of this: Visual Walkthroughs - Doom 3 Walkthrough

[golden_boy]

Note: You can keep playing while listening to an audio log simply by putting away your PDA while the log is running.

The only time where you absolutely HAVE to read an e-mail to proceed is in the Monorail level, IIRC.

[grave_digga]

...IIRC.

If i remember correctly? Just asking this acronym.

[LaughingMan008]

Somebody said the mounted flashlight is silly? I find it silly that a heavilly armed, trained marine doesnt know how to hold a flashlight and a gun at the same time, like even security guards are trained to do. Like even I know how to do. Its not hard. The notion that none of these guys had flashlights on their armor or guns, like real military, was a level of stupid I really couldnt comprehend. Carmack blew it big time on that one. He said he wanted you to have to use one or the other in order to make the game tense and scary. FAIL. Doom 3 wasnt scary wether you could see or not. Jump scares arnt scary. They're lazy and boring. Like FEAR. FEAR 3 comes out and people are like "why is this FEAR? Its not scary" FEAR was NEVER scary. From game 1 to the end. But back to Doom 3. Not only wasnt it scary, you make the mechanics behind it, IE, no mounted flshlights in the high tech science facility military base thats built in dark caves, its a level of stupid thats trully annoying. FEAR btw, had mounted flashlights. And that was supposedly all about the frights. Yeesh....
But I digress, despite my bitching, I love em both. Doom 3 and expansion and all the FEAR games. Except Extraction Point. That sucked. Perseus Mandate made up for it though. God, im babbling....

What was the point of this thread? Ahh. Right....
Yeah, Ill prolly buy the BFG Edition. Whats wrong with putting out an updated version almost a decade after the first? It takes time, they deserve the scratch.

[KillPixel]

Looks like this is going to be quite a bit more than a re-boxed re-release:

Hell on earth: id’s Tim Willits on the return of Doom | VG247

[golden_boy]

So they edited the old maps a bit. Hmm. Some touched-up textures, added gimmicks from the mission pack to the new levels (hopefully not the entire game).

Speeding up the player, making the maps brighter and having flashlights on weapons is something that's already possible via mods, so they'll have to best that.

I'll wait and see. I liked Doom 3 as it was, so we'll see where this one falls.

[KillPixel]

I liked Doom 3 as it was, so we'll see where this one falls.

I agree. I hope this doesn't end up being "Doom 3: CoD Edition".

[Syluxguy28O3]

I agree. I hope this doesn't end up being "Doom 3: CoD Edition".

my feeling exactly.

[MH]

I've no problems with it. If I want to play Doom 3 as it was - well, I've already got an install of that. It works, it runs OK, I can play it. BFG edition is gonna be like a mod that lets me run through the maps with slightly different gameplay - equally fine. And if I don't like it, I can always go back to my Doom 3 as it was install.

[golden_boy]

I also have no problems with the existence of the BFG edition, I just might not buy it if I find it's not an improvement upon the original. :-)

[golden_boy]

So the product arrived.

The changes can be summed up as:

- blatant censorship to be able to sell a single version in countries like Germany that love censorship and the rest of the world. Resurrection of Evil (original banned in Germany) is changed to get past censorship - for everybody. Swastika and Nazi imagery are removed from the Doom 2 secret levels. Even red crosses are removed from healthpacks because the international red cross "complained about their use in games".

- Shoulder installed flashlight without dynamic shadows (unlike original Doom 3) that only works for a short time before needing recharge instead of Doom 3's original gun - vs - flashlight gameplay. Not sure if this is really an improvement, actually, but the game is now so bright that you shouldn't need this anyway.

- Brighter, flatter lighting instead of Doom 3's intricate shadows.

- Even more ammo (original Doom 3 has ammo etc. tucked away under every second staircase that people apparently never find; there is just an abundance of resources in the original Doom 3 but they felt they had to put in more).

- Autosaves that make the game stop and pop up an annoying graphic telling you that there is an autosave being made.

- Some new sounds, different mixing / balance.

- PC version uses DXT5 compressed textures; apparently no option to use uncompressed textures (unlike the original Doom 3). In spite of this, every review gloats about the improved graphics. I have to seriously doubt if reviewers actually know what they're looking at.

- Lost Mission consists largely of copy-and-pasted parts of Doom 3 and RoE levels (down to the exact placement of soda cans) with some filler and a few pink textures thrown in. The Hell levels can pass as somewhat new (despite heavy reliance on existing props) but the slogan "new, unreleased content" is rather questionable. The end boss is simply a softened, recycled version of a Doom 3 boss.

- Support for 3D headsets (in case you have one or plan on getting one).

- Use of compressed resource files, gamecode compiled into the exe, no support for modders. Existing mods (except simple sound and texture mods) don't work.

- Original Doom 3 dropped from Steam

- BFG engine released under GPL.

[Bloodshot]

I saw lost mission screenshots. Some of the copy pasting is really sad.

First pic is lost mission, then regular Doom 3 levels under:







I mean come on.

BFG edition is fine for consoles of course, since this technically is a HD release for them, compared to the (now) relatively poor looking Doom 3 for Xbox. But even so, I still feel like this is a cheap thing to do. I mean, look at valve, they had an Xbox port of HL2 that looked bad, but then they released HL2 on an updated engine with a bunch of other games that was worth way more individually then they were selling it for, and BFG edition is essentially the same price as it was buying Ultimate Doom, Doom 2, and 3 separately on steam (or more expensive if you count the bundles) and it doesn't have coop like the old Doom 3 Xbox version had, and the coop mods won't work with it, though that might change with the incoming source code release.

[golden_boy]

There are many more copypasted areas, in my opinion well over a dozen.

And the original Doom 3 did have memorable parts and even setpieces:

• large ominous machines, plasma beams stretching through several rooms, truly weird moving things
• the platforming section in Alpha labs
• "they took my baby" and other creepy stuff like it
• the Enpro trench with the lost soul girl's office
• the Enpro reactor with the burning part you had to repair
• the first mancubus battle and cutscene
• the monorail
• certain parts of delta labs (entrance, scientist escort part, test chamber, medical labs, monster exposition, zombie developers' offices to name a few)
• the horrific teleporters shortly before hell
• the creepy level with blood all over it and messages smeared on the wall in blood
• the entire hell level with the creepy entrance, the weird crusher area etc.
• the corridors dissolving to reveal hellish lava
• the entire "Sarge is waiting for you" thing
• the boss fights
• the excavation levels with the temple entrance and the huge crane area

Doom 3 also had moments where you were attacked by quite large amounts of monsters at once, for example the CPU level shortly before Sarge (bunches of Revenants and summoning Archviles combined with others), the Hell level (hellknights combined with other stuff), and all of the excavation levels (lots of wraiths, hellknights, archviles, commandos, cacodemons etc). Apparently most people who keep claiming that "there were never more than 3 monsters on the screen" never played far enough into the game.

And Resurrection of Evil did have competent and sometimes unique level design, and the hunters / the artifact / the grabber gun were OK even if a little gimmicky... plus there are new monsters, super shotgun, new and newly modeled protagonists (eg. McNeill). RoE often had almost as many enemies on screen as the Lost Mission does, too, so that's not really new either. I remember some truly brutal multi-Revenant ambushes from RoE.

I really hoped this BFG edition would contain a bunch of great new levels, like a mini-expansion, but now I'd rather play Resurrection of Evil again. Too bad.