NeuralStunner wrote:Things do not react much when shot. A significant part of classic Doom's gameplay is using your weapons to interrupt attacks and do crowd control. As it was, it was a shamefully bad attempt at a panic-inducing moment.
Thank you. That's one of the parts of the Doom3 gameplay where I knew something was frustratingly wrong but I couldn't figure out exactly what it was - and that's it! You've hit that particular nail in the head. Other than a minor flinch, the enemies pretty much just keep going when shot - even the low tier ones. Give them a face-full of lead and they just shake it off and slash at you anyway (complete with annoying camera shake, red effects and slash marks). They are almost immune to my weapons but
I get affected by the tiniest hit
.
NeuralStunner wrote:My overall impression is something that can't decide if it wants to be an action shooter, tactical shooter, or horror game... and ends up not doing any of those three particularly well.
One of the relatively early points that got me was one of the first swarms of those spider-head enemies happened. They kept coming in through small openings in an attack wave (dull in itself) and only when they were all wiped out, did a ladder to let me out of the fight area activate. I mean, sure, I've done much the same in my own maps (something doesn't happen until all bad guys are dead) but this wasn't meant to be an abstract map like a scripted version of "Tricks and Traps". It was supposed to be a realistic escape through a believable, functioning space colony. However, like much of D3, it was an annoying little battle, with frustrating enemies, attacking in an absolutely stereotypical scripted game battle kind of way. So there I was, trapped in a small area, with little room to move with a pre-determined number of frustrating, swarming enemies attacking and, to top it all off, only when they were all dead, for no logical in-world reason, a ladder appeared and let me out. How dull and unimaginative.
Cherno wrote:All faults could be excused but the devs did the one thing that is unforgivable: The shotgun from Doom, probably the greatest video game weapon ever, absolutely sucked both in sound and feel in Doom 3.
I found most of the weapons quite underwhelming. Some of them looked pretty meh, the sounds were very meh and the way they operated was often meh, frustrating or just weak too. The weapons in Doom are meant to be good. These, for the most part, were not.
And then there was the constant teleporting in front of the player and behind at the same time. It happened so often that you just knew that if you saw the teleport sequence starting, you needed to guard your rear as well as your front because there
would be enemies in front and behind you in a moment. Every. Damned. Time. Enemies teleporting in that often was horrible cheap and frustrating anyway but the front and rear thing was just bitter icing on an unpleasant, rapidly going stale cake.
And the constant excessive darkness giving no real contrast between areas, so there was no fear of the dark because there was only darkness; frustrating, predictable, not-allowed-to-use-my-flashight-and-a-weapon-at-the-same-time darkness.
In fact, IMO, there are so many flaws in the gameplay that I can pick holes in almost every single aspect of it. Sure, we could all find fault with any game but Doom3 had faults by the bucket load in so many areas of gameplay that I struggle to say much positive about it and I really did not enjoy the experience. The best I can do, and I really am giving it the benefit of the doubt when I do this, is to call it mediocre.
I'm going to hold back a bit now because I'm in danger of going into a rant about it.
Maybe I already did a bit.