VileRancour wrote:

Only 9 levels? I wonder how this stacks up against previous official DOOM II add-ons.... or some of the better WADs from doomworld over the years.

I found it quite enjoyable and challenging at times. Some really well thought out maps.

You know, after watching some footage of this on youtube, and thinking that it looked "mildly insane" on the difficulty curve, I realized that my DOOMing skillz must be rusty as hell compared to whatever the norm is these days...

Am I alone in thinking what a total insult it is for Bethesda to release this BFG edition Doom III? I mean, a ten year old game, which I bought on the SOLD OUT label for £5 about 6 years ago at Game Plc. Oh wait it comes with Doom 1 & 2? Well that's awesome. Six floppy discs worth of data is always a bonus. Oh there are 7 new maps never played before? OMG that's worth the £40 right there. Oh and the 'enhanced' graphics... enhanced graphics for console hardware, which I had in my PC in 2004. Yeah, I'll take 4 copies please!

Don't you think it's sick?

The only reason I could begin to justify what they have done is if a console owner who had never played the original Doom III wanted to buy it. But I don't think the average console gamer in 2012 would even LIKE the game. It's way harder than anything else out there FPS wise. And console gamers don't like the idea of playing a game for over 10 hours and then realising they can't finish it.

So apart from the odd hardcore and open minded, skilled console gamer new to the Doom franchise, and even then £40 is STILL far too much to ask ( I mean it's almost humiliating ) ... then who the fuck would buy this overpriced shit?

Not to mention, I already own a few copies of Doom III (one of which I bought from a car-boot sale last year for 50p) and I played though it recently. I played it in 1920x1080 with 8x AA and clocked in around 240fps + on my modern gaming rig. Last week I came across a mod that some guys made for Doom III around 2010/2011. It's a free mod, which includes new high resolution textures, SSAO, motion blur, HDR, Bloom, Parallax Occlusion Mapping and a ton of other enhancements. Did I mention it's free? Yeah and it makes the 'BFG' edition of Doom III look like a ZX spectrum port.

Maybe Bethesda should have tried to hire the guys who made that mod, because god knows they are short handed and work on low budgets. Or maybe they enhanced it solely for consoles, which can't DO any of the engine tricks that the FREE mod does ... so they just added some lighting and slapped £40 on it.

.....

Am I alone here? ^^

Console guys can't have mods or homemade releases. They are stuck to what the publishers feed them and they don't voice much against it. One of the reasons I like the PC is that it is more open and people will voice their opinion much more when it comes to this stuff.

But doesn't it gall you that Bethesda, the creators of the Legendary Morrowind - and of the older Elder Scrolls series which revolutionised the genre and added a great deal to PC gaming - have released BFG?

Cos Morrowind pushed boundries of modern hardware back in the day, as did Daggerfall and even Arena. But now they release the BFG Doom III edition to PC gamers who own ATI 6990's and i7-2500k's, and add some fucking coloured lights.

Is that not just taking the piss?

I've been awake for almost 36 hours, smoked a carton of cigarettes and drank galons of coffee. Perhaps I need to sleep, I seem to be getting testy. BUT I stand by what I say! ^^

Anyways rant over.

Iris030380 wrote:

But doesn't it gall you that Bethesda, the creators of the Legendary Morrowind - and of the older Elder Scrolls series which revolutionised the genre and added a great deal to PC gaming - have released BFG?

After what they did to Id and the PC release of Rage (which still doesn't work properly) I've given up on Bethesda. They have joined the ranks of Activition and EA in my eyes, and thus cashing in on the BFG release is to be expected.

Rage? Try Brink. On second thought, DON'T try Brink.

My initial skepticism about the Bethesda+Splash Damage announcement earned me a ban years before Brink had its bad launch.

Morrowind was the last good thing Bethesda have done. Oblivion was a retrograde step from Morrowind with a terribly streamlined/simplified design. Skyrim was better but still feels shallow compared to Morrowind.

It's all part of the commoditization of gaming where games are designed by committee to maximise sales- rather than by people who love games and have a vision of something they'd like to play, as it was in years gone by.

DonutKing wrote:

It's all part of the commoditization of gaming where games are designed by committee to maximise sales- rather than by people who love games and have a vision of something they'd like to play, as it was in years gone by.

Agreed, but... games are a commodity, and - like most big companies - Bethesda exist to make money. The game devs who have a vision are out there working on indie projects.

And times change; one way or another people don't have time to play epic, complicated games for months at a time anymore. Not even kids seem to have capacity for that. Skyrim's greatest achievement is pulling off a facade of complexity while actually being very simple to play.

I can take a couple of months off from playing Skyrim and then pick up from where I left off no worries. But I can't do that with Morrowind! And that's a major selling point for me these days.

Iris030380 wrote:

Am I alone in thinking what a total insult it is for Bethesda to release this BFG edition Doom III?

I would like to play the new levels. I don't want to purchase the game all over again to do that. Plus, from what I'm told BFG edition for PC is a port from the console version. I already have Doom 3 and RoE on PC. Why can't they release an update to that version?

vetz wrote:

After what they did to Id and the PC release of Rage (which still doesn't work properly) I've given up on Bethesda.

What doesn't work properly? I played Rage since before premiere (had a copy for the press) and it worked pretty well then, some things were fixed after AMD released their drivers. I played it recently on a nVidia and it works flawlessly.

GL1zdA wrote:

vetz wrote:

After what they did to Id and the PC release of Rage (which still doesn't work properly) I've given up on Bethesda.

What doesn't work properly? I played Rage since before premiere (had a copy for the press) and it worked pretty well then, some things were fixed after AMD released their drivers. I played it recently on a nVidia and it works flawlessly.

1. ATI Crossfire doesn't work
2. Texture still pops in (like I've never seen in other games)

Lets not mention the hopeless options menu on the PC version (sadly though this is not uncommon these days).

vetz wrote:

1. ATI Crossfire doesn't work

The game was never advertised as being Crossfire/SLI compatible. You can disable Crossfire mode, so what's the problem?

vetz wrote:

2. Texture still pops in (like I've never seen in other games)

It means the CPU is to slow. Sure you haven't seen it in other games, because they don't use virtual texturing.

vetz wrote:

GL1zdA wrote:

vetz wrote:

After what they did to Id and the PC release of Rage (which still doesn't work properly) I've given up on Bethesda.

What doesn't work properly? I played Rage since before premiere (had a copy for the press) and it worked pretty well then, some things were fixed after AMD released their drivers. I played it recently on a nVidia and it works flawlessly.

2. Texture still pops in (like I've never seen in other games)

This seems to be getting more common. I've noticed this with both Borderlands and Dishonored. I'm guessing they both use Unreal engine since I noticed this when UT3 first came out. Highly annoying. It's not a slow processor issue it's a engine/game developed for the LCD hardware issue. (consoles)

badmofo wrote:

Agreed, but... games are a commodity, and - like most big companies - Bethesda exist to make money. The game devs who have a vis […]
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DonutKing wrote:

It's all part of the commoditization of gaming where games are designed by committee to maximise sales- rather than by people who love games and have a vision of something they'd like to play, as it was in years gone by.

Agreed, but... games are a commodity, and - like most big companies - Bethesda exist to make money. The game devs who have a vision are out there working on indie projects.

And times change; one way or another people don't have time to play epic, complicated games for months at a time anymore. Not even kids seem to have capacity for that. Skyrim's greatest achievement is pulling off a facade of complexity while actually being very simple to play.

I can take a couple of months off from playing Skyrim and then pick up from where I left off no worries. But I can't do that with Morrowind! And that's a major selling point for me these days.

Games are a commodity yes. Baring some very ancient games, back in the times when bedroom coders would write their game then take a few copies to the local corner shop and pin them on the wall for others to purchase, or maybe upload them to a BBS, games in the past 2 decades have been made to make someone money. And I don't mind paying for a good game, as a tribute to the developers EFFORTS and TALENT, and of course the enjoyment I get from the software.

So these days, there is little effort going into the games. The talent is held back because the publishers are telling the teams to reduce detail and creativity to match the desires of the casual console gaming audience, their primary if not ONLY sales target.

Times change, but usually for good. Not for bad. You don't see cars getting more dangerous and harder to drive do you? They become cheaper, more economical with better features and sleeker looks. Well in the PC games industry, we have gone back to the Ladas and the Model T's.

I think most people here agree with me, and either you really are not too concerned or you're missing the point entirely. How can you not be upset, if you call yourself a gamer, at the way we are heading backwards at lightning speed with the sole reason being the greedy publishers and media companies wanting to get rich quicker?

badmofo wrote:

DonutKing wrote:

It's all part of the commoditization of gaming where games are designed by committee to maximise sales- rather than by people who love games and have a vision of something they'd like to play, as it was in years gone by.

Agreed, but... games are a commodity, and - like most big companies - Bethesda exist to make money.

If they really wanted to maximize sales and were focused solely on the money they would listen to the fans about what is wrong with their approach. A happy fan base would mean more profits. There are two reasons that they don't. First is they are afraid to take risks. If something is out of their control it might not be successful. Why change something that is working for them? And it works for them because of the second reason. The fans will keep buying their games despite how unhappy we are with them. We want to support the industry thinking maybe they'll do better next time. But they won't and we never learn.

Iris030380 wrote:

I think most people here agree with me, and either you really are not too concerned or you're missing the point entirely. How can you not be upset, if you call yourself a gamer, at the way we are heading backwards at lightning speed with the sole reason being the greedy publishers and media companies wanting to get rich quicker?

There are gamers that do it as a hobby and those that truly love it. The gaming I love is dead. I'm not sure when the last time was that I looked forward to a new game. Was it Starcraft 2? Only after did I find out it was designed as an online experience, played nothing like the original, and the intended order of the cut scenes were disrupted by the freeform mission structure making the story harder to follow. Was it Dead Space? The original was innovative but I didn't know the story would get spread out over movies, books, and console exclusive DLC as each sequel is made more and more generic.

@Iris030380 and SKARDAVNELNATE

Are you guys really telling me you can't find a decent game to play in 2012? A new game is released every millisecond, from development teams of all sizes and from all walks of life. Hardware is cheap and plentiful, and thanks to consoles we don't need to upgrade our PC's every 6 months because they've effectively capped hardware requirements for the time being.

I have a backlog of 100+ games because I can't get through them fast enough! It's a great time to be a gamer.

Sit in a rut and complain if you wanna, but I'm having a ball.

I actually find most modern games to be shallow, and they just don't captivate me.
This is partly why I like retro PCs - because I enjoy playing the old games.

I love an in-depth game that you can sink your teeth into, that you look forward to playing when you're away from it... thinking about a strategy or character build to try out when you get back to it... I haven't felt that way in years.

I would say the market is flooded with games at the moment but the general quality is going down (for titles from big publishers anyway. Indie games seem a lot better but its a matter of digging through the dirt to find the gold sometimes - the quality tends to vary a lot).

I can appreciate that you don't necessarily want to get involved in a really complex game, and that's OK. Different people have different tastes.

badmofo wrote:

@Iris030380 and SKARDAVNELNATE

Are you guys really telling me you can't find a decent game to play in 2012?

Sure I can. Just the games themselves are from 2007. I recently finished Supreme Commander and Forged Alliance. While I found some faults with the mission variety they also made me rethink my approach to resource management and the tactics I use. Where as Supreme Commander 2 looks rather disappointing as a sequel.

The most recent game I own is Crysis 2 which was enjoyable the first time I played it. Though I don't see myself wanting to revisit it. Perhaps in 2017 I'll find a game from this year that won't already have 2 sequels and has a fairly self contained story. Right now there isn't much from the past 5 years I'm interested in. I'm actually concerned about getting into a promising one-off title only to see it become a watered down series.

Edit: Isn't it time we split this thread? We seem to have gotten very off topic.

Well I did just finish DooM III again, as I stated in my first post here. Still a great run and gun game. But of the games I cycle in my spare time none of them are new except HOMM 6, which doesn't actually work and crashes to desktop mid map every single skirmish I play. Perhaps it will be fixed with an expansion? Or maybe the sales figures were so low they won't bother. You asked for a game from 2012 that captivates me? Well HOMM6 does, because it plays just like HOMM4 and makes use of my graphics cards capabilities quite well, only like I said, it doesn't work 😁

So I play Quake III (quake live), League Of LegendsL, Doom III, Homm6 and Starcraft 2, which I have to dis-agree with the previous poster in that I think SC II is the hottest PC game in many, many years. In a sea of console ports and casual games disguised as PC games, SC 2 is truely amazing. And I keep SC and Broodwars installed on every PC I have that is capable of playing it also. And I have to agree that the indie scene is where most of the interesting titles come from. The quality of them is rising FAST, while the commercial releases are getting easier and more cloned each month. Perhaps the answer lies in there somewhere? If the modders at MODDB can do these kind of things with Doom III, it gives me hope that PC gaming might rise once again. Only I think when a particular indie talent gets recognised enough by the industry to be offered a job, they tend to snap up the big paycheck before being set to work on the DLC for COD #23 for the XBOX/PS3.

I guess most people on this forum play many retro games, but my motivation to build these old PC's came mostly from the games released in past generations. The hardware interests me as well, as does benchmarking. But mostly, it's the Dos games and the glide games. And not just the nostalgia. Some of those games still stand up today unbeaten in terms of gameplay and depth.

No doubt Bethesda might re-package Prince of Persia next, at £19.99 with 7 new maps and an HD graphics option. Cos seeing as though they are cutting Doom 4's budget and staff because of low predicted sales (^^) they will need to think of something to do. The board need new rolexes. Their old ones are scratched and so last season.