X-Box snags Doom 3, Microsoft rolls naked in money

I wish developers would learn to stop making pretty graphics their top priority. I'm all for good looking games, but the general public couldn't give a stuff about how many polygons you can shift at what frame rate. They just want games that are fun.

Not that I'm levelling this accusation at Doom III, which should be a ton of fun. I'm just tired of being tantalised by endless photoshopped preview screenshots of "the next big thing" when all I want to know is "will I enjoy playing it"?

Post of the Day.

Whitehead makes a point that I always try to put across.

Graphics are held up too high these days. You see so many games that look pretty but only last about 5 hours.

I would trade first-rate graphics for an involving story and a lot of replay value ANY DAY.

Verbal, who was the guy signing in under your screen name yesterday who touted Resident Evil:0's greatness because it LOOKED "mighy fine" with "awe-inspiring" lighting?

You should have a talk with him if this is the way you feel.

And Micah floors the kid with a wicked right jab!

Commencing countdown to first "Rath's Brother" joke...

I don't care about the graphics. I just want the chainsaw.

That was the one thing that annoyed me about Quake. No chainsaw

All systems go.

But the game only takes about 5-10 hours to beat.

Did I not say i'd trade amazing graphics for involving, lengthy gameplay?

That holds true even though i've cited RE:0's amazing lighting and graphics.

How will the X-Box Doom 3 stand up to the PC one? Is there something in the console that MS can or has upgraded? I thought that for Doom 3 to really blow away the competition, it needed Direct X 9 on a video card that was built for it. If that is true, and the X-Box is running on a DX8 GeForce 3/4 level card, how could that be without putting in a new card like the Radeon 9700 or the next gen GeForce card and an update to the graphics software in the box?

No offence to you, sorro, but this is why I don't like the "graphics obsessed" mentality of the games industry. We've been conditioned to think it's all about how it'll look, not how it will play. If the Xbox version is marginally different visually, what difference would it make to anything?

The reason that developers nowadays focus a lot of the graphical aspect of the game is because if it wasn't for the updated gaphics you would just be playing the same game you were playing back in the 32,16,8-bit, eras. I have to admit though that I am somewhat of a graphical whore. But I know I'm not the only one, because deep down inside every gamer there is some of it. If it weren't true then why are there 30 million PS2 sold, if all you want is to have a fun game? There were fun games on the PS1, NES, SNES, etc., the reason you get a new system is the updated graphics. Every year we may get about 2-3 REALLY innovative games, I think this year's is going to be "Blinks: The Time Sweeper" for X-box. Check up on this game, if you want to talk about innovation.

Why aren't we all driving around in Model T Fords, if all we want to do is get from A to B? Because it's the current market standard. Graphics aren't the only improvement to be made in the next generation of consoles. Those 30 million consoles weren't sold to hardcore gamers who know, or even care, what the frame rate of their machine is. They sold to people who wanted to play the hottest games, and the PS2 was the machine that played them. The fact that they look nice is a bonus. More people play Minesweeper and Tetris than will ever play the latest over-hyped PC game.

My beef is with developers who spend three years developing a lighting system that nobody will notice, and six months on the actual gameplay. I have a problem with PC games that are touted as the next big thing on the basis of three screenshots taken from a super hi-spec machine that most home gamers can only dream of owning. And I'm tired of mediocre games that are hailed as technical breakthroughs because they have slightly better graphics than another game.

Most of these technical tricks go unnoticed by the average shopper in the games stores anyway. I'm not saying that graphics are unimportant, just that the constant emphasis on minor graphical improvements (especially in the world of PC video card penis envy) is really getting on my tits. Most people care no more about what's inside their console or PC than they care about how their microwave works. If you played Doom III on Xbox and PC next to each other, I guarantee most people wouldn't even spot the difference, let alone care.

[quote]Daddy Whitehead:
And Whitehead sums up my dislike of the PC gaming world in one sentence. Thank you sir.

man, i could tell you some great stories from the development side of things that'd piss you off even more...

and based on the incredible shit they showed at E3, fitting that Doom3 onto X-Box with no quality loss is a virtual impossibility. but i suppose if anyone can come close, it's Carmack

Goddamn, how right-on can one man get?!?

Give this man a cookie....or at least some pie!

So, none of you have ever played Quake or DOOM before I guess.

Why assume that DOOM is going to be all graphics and no gameplay?

Silly.

When has a new id game not provided bang for the buck in it's given genre? I can't think of one. As for getting done with it in a weekend and being disappointed with it's length, again - you must not have ever played DOOM or Quake before, because those games are fast-paced action games, not adventure, rts, rpg or anything else - never once has it taken longer than a weekend for me to finish any installment of each series because I play the sp game like a fiend and then I jump right into mp. Q3 has given me 3 solid years of entertainments as other games have come and gone. Quake1 alone kept me busy for YEARS. Name me another game which does this and again, I will point back to id as the template that made the 1000's of hours of added multiplayer gameplay a normal inclusion in games these days.

Another factor here is the quality of the graphics - games that have movie-quality graphics such as DOOM are going to require LOTS of artistic resources and long development times to come together. id is not an army like Square: they are a small company of less than 30 employees at last count. It's not feasible to require someone to blow away the current graphics barriers, give you great gameplay and then also make it epic in length. That's not how revolutionary game-making works. Half-Life is a perfect example of a game that offered great gameplay but was essentially built on 2-year old technology by the time of it's release. What they did with the gameplay was revolutionary at the time and the length was good(except for all the shitty levels in the other dimension near the end involving massive jumping puzzles), but the tech wasn't new. That is not id's agenda as a developer - they do what they know and the imbedded fanbase they have LOVE it. For fans, this consistency of pure action games is refreshing. I'm tired of RPG-meets-RTS-meets-Tombraider diluted crap: gimme action. I don't mind companies that specialize rather than co-opting.

There are folks who don't enjoy the FPS games by id - they are not who it's being sold to. Carmack and co. are doing the necessary task of pushing the envelope. They've hired profiessional sci-fi/horro writers, done complete storyboards of the game's events and created a revolutionary lighting system that EVERYONE will notice.

The claim from this developer is that the tech in the new DOOM has been designed from the ground up for ambience and fear. The happy byproduct of that work is:
A) it WILL revolutionize 3-d gaming environments, just as previous id games did. People with a pulse and any familiarity with the video games and their graphics will notice the lighting. Why? It's never been done before.

B) the licensing of the engine will put it in the hands of other AAA developers who may make titles that you'll prefer over an FPS about shooting zombies and demons on an abandoned moon(ooh I know - it sounds SO lame and BORING...yeesh).

It's also going to feature a multiplayer game out of the box(for pc), which while being smaller in scope(4-8 players right now) is in line with all previous id games, and an add-on will appear 4 months later(prior to E3) that expands the multi-gameplay.

If you enjoy FPS games, you should anticipate this for obvious reasons - if you don't anticipate it, it's simple: it will still revolutionize the FPS games you DO want to play in the future. If you just don't like FPS games, then wtf even worry about it except to disparage the fucking King of the genre you don't care for?

It's the new fucking DOOM.
What do you expect from id, an adventure game? An RTS? Something with shitty graphics? Go on and ask Jet fucking Li to get off his ass and start making comedies then, since obviously he NEEDS to branch out into other territory, right?

:]

As for the graphics, that's great that X-Box will look as good as baseline pcs. It still will not look anything like my 2.4ghz Pentium 4 and GeForce4 ti4600, ever. That's why I own a pc, because I reap certain rewards for upgrading and blowing my cash on it - it's a decision that pays off for me visually and performance-wise, as well as being part of the cutting edge of rendering advances. Basically I dig that fucking shit and appreciate what id does to push the envelope, and they do it better than anyone else so far. At least id is con$ciou$ of bringing the game to more folk$ on other platform$ tat are capable.

This game is gonna fuckin rock and it will also look better than anything else out there. I don't see that as a problem for the industry, especially not for us as gamers who liked the original DOOM.

wow.. rant-O-rama.
sorry. I should use preview more often.

Like gameplay instead of graphics? Easy answer play RPGs. You can pick up Planescape torment, Icewind Dale, Balders Gate, etc at bargain basement prices. Tons of fascinating story driven gameplay that should keep you busy for hundreds of hours!

Nuff said

'Nuff said indeed.

yeah that really addresses the issue at hand.

:]

No offense taken. I think that the graphics arms race is a little out of hand, but from everything that I have read, the Doom 3 experience is all about the creepy look of the place. There aren't going to be hundreds of enemies attacking you at once, and if the focus of the game is going to be on graphics, then losing the things that a DX9 Radeon or (eventually) GeForce card can do and moving back to a GF3 would be quite a blow.
With RPGs, the focus has not been on the graphics but the storyline, so I look at the story instead of how pretty it looks. If you hype a game on how it will look, it should deliver, just like anything else.