Doom 3

[Steve]

This is a classic case of developer believing their own hype and going for style over content with an outdated idea of what drives the market. Sadder still, I can see various reviewers falling for the hype and hailing Doom 3 as the best thing since sliced baked produce. Sit the game along side the original and this is a stunning piece of gaming software. Play it alongside any of its contempories though, and its shortfalls soon become apparent.

http://www.hexus.net/content/reviews...lld19JRD05MTg=

[elvisizer]

There was no other platform that had any sort of first person shooter on it . . .

arrrgh. not true. bungie released pathways into darkness for Macs in '93. and then marathon came out in '94 and put doom and doom 2 to shame. so there.


the rest of the review was great, though- i thought it was a very fair evaluation of doom 3 the game instead of page upon page of drooling over doom 3 the game engine . . . .

[Nick]

lol, in that case, lets take in Robocop 3 on the Amiga... that was before them too!

/note to self... research Macs too...

dammit!

[yamangman]

If we can stretch to '94 that was when the original system shock came out Although it's a bit more of an adventure. Sit this game aside many contempory games and they pale in comparison. No comparison is ever made however.....

[Applecrusher]

Loved this review!!

its EXACTLY how I saw the game.. But you didnt comment on how weak and slow shooting the plasma gun was

[Nick]

Thats odd, I thought the plasma rifle was the best weapon in the game. It seemed pretty powerful against most enemies, fairly accurate and with an ammo load thta'd let you take down a few baddies before needing a re-load....

The chaingun and machine gun felt pretty useless compared to it. The machine gun seemed desperately underpowered and only good for the early zombies or the skull crabs... but it was the one thing that there always seeemd to be extra ammo for in the later levels.

[turkster]

Nice review but after all that you give it 7 .

Considering what you said about it in the review I would hardly imagine it merited 7 Hexus points.

[Nick]

I dont know, I thought that it was an OK game, just not a stunningly good game. Its scores over the average for the graphics engine alone, which is superb, no matter how bad the game is. The game itself makes good use of the engine in some places, which shows some spark of good game design, unfortunately, for me anyway, the spark of good design is just that, a glimmer rather than a roaring flame.

Perhaps 7 was too generous, but I think 6 would have been too harsh given the good things here.

[turkster]

Yeah I see but it doesnt leave much room for a product to be absolutely brilliant (assuming you stop at 10 points) .

[Nick]

True, but I'm more subjective when I do a review... I generally take 5 to mean average compared to the latest gaming standards, then I go with the scoring from there. So for example... if I said Far Cry or Half Life 2 was the best game out there, then I'd consider how the game I'm reviewing holds up against them...

But times change, technology improves and coders get better... so the score is really only a score relvant to that particular time that the game is reviewed againsts its contempories. Hence, with HL2 and D3 both being current games, the score gives you a good idea of which to go for out of the two. There's a Far Cry review coming very, very soon (its just waiting to be coded for Hexus) so that'll give you even more choice.

[yamangman]

There's a Far Cry review coming very, very soon

I love these exclusive reviews

[turkster]

Looking forward to the FarCry review .

[brammers]

About right with the score.

A quick paragraph:

Good fun - plenty of enemies to shoot and plenty of tension throughout. A little humour and a genuinely forboding atmosphere. Delta Labs 1, where you don't get attacked for a long time while walking through utter carnage and seeing imps run about all around you was very very scary. Some stunning sections, hell blew me away. The zombies here are waaaaaaay scarier than HL2's pretty weak Ravensholm section, a lot more is made of the way that these people used to be your co-workers... But other than Hell itself, nothing truely spectacular and despite the fun it does become repetitive, I won't say boring but repetitive instead. I liked the ability to zoom all the weapons a lil, made them much more useful. Much preferred to HL2's CS "inspired" random conefire effect. So yes, lots of fun and heaps of atmosphere, but it didn't change my world.

[Nick]

I love these exclusive reviews

I reckon the real beauty in them is the fact I go and buy them myself. I do get a few games sent in by publishers, but not a huge amount considering how many are released.

Having had to shell out my own cash for the games gives me a very 'real world' perspective on whether these are worth buying or not. After all, Mr Joe Public will have to go out and shell out his hard earned cash too, so it's worth knowing that the review is from someone who has invested their cash in it first.

On top of that, with very few review samples coming in, I have no need or reason to doctor a review for the sake of keeping a publisher happy.