Classic Doom 3

Alternatively titled: Why game companies should just sell us the raw engine and let the fans make the games. So in my game retrospective, the first title I brought up was Doom. To be fairly honest, at the time of that article, I hadn’t played Doom or Doom 3 (or anything in between) extensively in at least a year.

It sparked my interest though, especially when a friend of mine read the article and mentioned how he lamented that doom on the 360 doesn’t have co-op, which quickly prompted me to point him to Skulltag. The definitive multiplayer Doom source port in my humble opinion.

Unfortunately, we never got it working because my internet is hella gay, but the fact stands it got me playing Doom again, and explaining basically the inner workings and history of the whole franchise to my aforementioned friend.

One word: Wow.

Seventeen years later, Doom still knows how to make you feel like a badass. Ripping through Knee Deep in the Dead with a shotgun on Ultra Violent mode felt good, but moreso, it was actually a challenge. A seventeen year old game can still kick my ass, it was intense. Being swarmed by imps and shotgun soldiers in a very small room can get very hectic. It’s funny, though, when I get in front of one of them, sidestep at the last second, and get ’em infighting =D.

My verdict is holy shit, how did I ever stop playing Doom.

The next step was clear, it was time to finally put Doom3 to the test on my shit 700$ laptop. To my surprise and, even more surprising – glee, I found it works just fine. At 800×600 medium quality with no antialiasing and high quality special effects turned off, granted, and with an FPS hiccup every now and again… but for the most part, it’s highly playable. Now, keeping in mind that I haven’t touched D3 in a year or so, I’d forgotten EVERYTHING about the levels, it’s like the first time playing again, and let me just say… Despite the very deliberate pacing and such, and even with a duct tap mod (which gives every gun a flashlight. Some might say it detracts from the game, but I say it makes the pacing even smoother because I don’t have to fumble around with the F key when a monster jumps out of a corner at me and makes me pee myself, just an F bomb and a bullet.) the game can still make me scream like a little girl on the more intense difficulties. I have yet to die, though. I’ve died like seven or eight times in Doom on Ultra Violent so far.

Okay, so it’s more fun than I remember it being, I was satisfied, but I had to take it further. Enter Classic Doom 3.

Yeah. It’s kinda like that.

All I can say is ho-lee-shit. Why didn’t Id do this in the first place? They could have made so much money off an expansion pack that recreates the entirety of the first doom in the D3 engine. Nope, it was fans who were genius enough to come up with this, and let me tell you how beautifully they pulled it off. I thought Doom3 was fun till I broke this baby open, and I haven’t gone back yet. The levels are created wonderfully, with a nice mix of old and new styles, not that I need to tell you that – just look at the above comparison. A lot has been added to the design when it comes to meshes placed throughout the level to beautify, and it all fits perfectly. I don’t find myself missing the BOO scares of plain Doom 3 over the adrenaline (and shotgun) pumping action of CDoom3 at all. It’s just a shame that due to copywrite issues, Flaming Sheep Software could only recreate Knee Deep in the Dead. I would pay money to be able to play through the rest of DooM like this. Until the day comes (it won’t) that Id grants the permission recreate the whole of Doom 1, bravo. You’ve trumped what Doom3 was originally tenfold.

Which brings me back to my statement – this goes for a lot of franchises now. Sonic (fangames roxxor), Unreal (UT3 was pretty, but that was about it), Doom… Just give us the engine and let us create the actual game, since fans seem to know what fans want better tan developers themselves.