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I wasn't planning on doing any shopping today, but it was my sister's birthday and she wanted to go to the mall so OFF WE WENT. We went in the evening, though, and while it was busy it wasn't mobbed with people, thank goodness.
I didn't do too much deal-searching, but Gamestop had the Doom 3 re-release for $20. Doom 3 holds a special place in my heart...for being one of the scariest games I've ever played. :p So I bought it.
I wasn't sure how well it would hold up after the release and popularity of games like Dead Space and F.E.A.R.; Doom 3's scariness is very much of the 'walking down dark hallways while creepy monsters leap out at you' and that's not the sort of thing that ages well. That said, after an hour and a half of playing, I'm surprised at how frightening Doom 3 still is.
Part of it, of course, is unfamiliarity--I haven't played Doom since 2005, and while I remember the basic plot points and the a few memorable scenes, things like the level layouts, objectives and minor scripted events still come as surprises. But atmospherically, Doom 3 is still an excellent game. When I was playing through Dead Space, I kept thinking "this is creepy, but it's not as bad as Doom 3!" and I can say that the first part of Doom 3 *still* scares me in a way that very few other games have.
The thing is, Doom 3 uses lighting, sound, and the claustrophobic level design to their absolute best effect. The shadow effects are still remarkably effective. Moving machinery and flickering lights make it difficult to discern shadows made by benign objects and shadows thrown by enemies, while the sections of pitch-black darkness that can only be illuminated by flashlight hide various holes and opened vents that enemies use to sneak up on you. The sound is *fantastic*, far better than I'd remembered; you can hear things over the radio, through vents and doors and rooms next to you in addition to where you are--you constantly hear footsteps and fighting and a whole host of weird, creepy shit, and you have to pay attention to it in order to find out if it's close by or something happening further away and not a right-this-second danger.
The voice work/PDA notes are both better than I remember, too. Of course, their first use is to function as keycards/password things, but the audio notes are well-acted and well-written and add a sense of inevitable dread to the story. The e-mails are my favorite part, though--in addition to the necessary 'oh look here is the security code you need to open the locked door' stuff, there's also a bunch of completely useless personal e-mails you can read and reading them all starts to reveal a bunch of inter-personal relationships and drama on the Mars colony before the whole 'Hell literally breaks lose' event. Like, you find one PDA from the guy who checks all the shipping inventory, and one of his emails is an invitation for a going-away party. But he has another email from a guy who's like "I can't remember who this guy is, I thought he was some loser from Alpha Labs but I thought his name was Alan..." Then when you get to Alpha Labs, you find Alan's PDA and he's complaining about someone from the shipping area. There are lots of other little 'stories' you uncover through the PDAs and I just find them endlessly entertaining.
So yeah, Doom 3: STILL PRETTY GOOD.
I didn't do too much deal-searching, but Gamestop had the Doom 3 re-release for $20. Doom 3 holds a special place in my heart...for being one of the scariest games I've ever played. :p So I bought it.
I wasn't sure how well it would hold up after the release and popularity of games like Dead Space and F.E.A.R.; Doom 3's scariness is very much of the 'walking down dark hallways while creepy monsters leap out at you' and that's not the sort of thing that ages well. That said, after an hour and a half of playing, I'm surprised at how frightening Doom 3 still is.
Part of it, of course, is unfamiliarity--I haven't played Doom since 2005, and while I remember the basic plot points and the a few memorable scenes, things like the level layouts, objectives and minor scripted events still come as surprises. But atmospherically, Doom 3 is still an excellent game. When I was playing through Dead Space, I kept thinking "this is creepy, but it's not as bad as Doom 3!" and I can say that the first part of Doom 3 *still* scares me in a way that very few other games have.
The thing is, Doom 3 uses lighting, sound, and the claustrophobic level design to their absolute best effect. The shadow effects are still remarkably effective. Moving machinery and flickering lights make it difficult to discern shadows made by benign objects and shadows thrown by enemies, while the sections of pitch-black darkness that can only be illuminated by flashlight hide various holes and opened vents that enemies use to sneak up on you. The sound is *fantastic*, far better than I'd remembered; you can hear things over the radio, through vents and doors and rooms next to you in addition to where you are--you constantly hear footsteps and fighting and a whole host of weird, creepy shit, and you have to pay attention to it in order to find out if it's close by or something happening further away and not a right-this-second danger.
The voice work/PDA notes are both better than I remember, too. Of course, their first use is to function as keycards/password things, but the audio notes are well-acted and well-written and add a sense of inevitable dread to the story. The e-mails are my favorite part, though--in addition to the necessary 'oh look here is the security code you need to open the locked door' stuff, there's also a bunch of completely useless personal e-mails you can read and reading them all starts to reveal a bunch of inter-personal relationships and drama on the Mars colony before the whole 'Hell literally breaks lose' event. Like, you find one PDA from the guy who checks all the shipping inventory, and one of his emails is an invitation for a going-away party. But he has another email from a guy who's like "I can't remember who this guy is, I thought he was some loser from Alpha Labs but I thought his name was Alan..." Then when you get to Alpha Labs, you find Alan's PDA and he's complaining about someone from the shipping area. There are lots of other little 'stories' you uncover through the PDAs and I just find them endlessly entertaining.
So yeah, Doom 3: STILL PRETTY GOOD.
no subject
Date: 2012-11-26 06:14 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2012-11-29 10:28 pm (UTC)From:The re-release comes with the first two games, if that would be additional incentive.