YoshiM
09-22-2004, 10:13 AM
http://www.3dgamers.com/dl/games/doom3/d3demo.exe.html
I'd go for the Austrailia mirrors if you download tonight. The whole download took an hour on my broadband connection.
Finally, for those who held off buying the game (like me) Doom 3 is now available in demo form. Clocking in at over 400 MB you get three levels in which to creep around in. On an AMD Athlon XP 2200+, 512 MB of RAM and a GeForce FX 5200 the game moved fairly well and looked pretty sweet at 640x480 with Low Detail. After hopping down from Medium the character faces looked a bit fuzzy but nothing that causes your eyes to bleed.
---My take on the demo---
I played this sucker for about an hour. The mood was well set, me being dropped off at a dingy, dark Mars base with all the charm of the desolate colony from the movie Aliens. Rather than thrust me into the fray against the minions of evil, the game allowed me to wander about while it taught me how to play. My first assignment: find some scientist who went missing by going to the communications section in another building. So you get your weaponry, learn how to use the flashlight (you'll need it: there are shadows and pitch blackness everywhere) and I made my way to the scientist. This dude basically says he had to communicate a warning as he "has seen the devil and I [the scientist] has built its cage". There's an explosion heard and the room becomes awash in red light as a flaming skull appears and then flits out of the room. As I stood there, looking about for any more of those skull-things I discover one of Doom 3's weaknesses: it's too damn dark.
I know id was going for a horror approach by turning off the lights but that doesn't necessarily translate into good game experiences. I couldn't see the scientist was transformed into a zombie until I noticed the screen changing to inform me I'm being pimp slapped. After I take care of that guy I find my path back is almost dark as pitch and the brilliant boys at id decided to only allow me to either hold my gun OR my flashlight and not both. I'm sure this is to instill fear into the player but for me all it did was instill frustration. I'm controlling a marine, which is stereotypically a touch breed of soldier and he can't hold a flashlight in one hand and a pistol in the other, crossed wrist style like in the current day cop shows? Of course, zombies have night vision so when I'm switching between flashlight and pistol to shoot an oncoming foe I get blasted by some soldier who shoots me dead in the face from 10 yards in pitch blackness. Not my idea of fun and not scary at all.
To sum it up: it's a upgrade of Doom's graphics, a downgrade in intensity with some adventure elements (ala System Shock 2 with the PDA segments) to try and shore up what's basically a powerful technology demo. id, it's 2004 and there have been a bunch of FPS games that have come out since Doom 3's announcement (back in 2000) that play many times better.
But hey, that's just me. Give it a download and see for yourself.
I'd go for the Austrailia mirrors if you download tonight. The whole download took an hour on my broadband connection.
Finally, for those who held off buying the game (like me) Doom 3 is now available in demo form. Clocking in at over 400 MB you get three levels in which to creep around in. On an AMD Athlon XP 2200+, 512 MB of RAM and a GeForce FX 5200 the game moved fairly well and looked pretty sweet at 640x480 with Low Detail. After hopping down from Medium the character faces looked a bit fuzzy but nothing that causes your eyes to bleed.
---My take on the demo---
I played this sucker for about an hour. The mood was well set, me being dropped off at a dingy, dark Mars base with all the charm of the desolate colony from the movie Aliens. Rather than thrust me into the fray against the minions of evil, the game allowed me to wander about while it taught me how to play. My first assignment: find some scientist who went missing by going to the communications section in another building. So you get your weaponry, learn how to use the flashlight (you'll need it: there are shadows and pitch blackness everywhere) and I made my way to the scientist. This dude basically says he had to communicate a warning as he "has seen the devil and I [the scientist] has built its cage". There's an explosion heard and the room becomes awash in red light as a flaming skull appears and then flits out of the room. As I stood there, looking about for any more of those skull-things I discover one of Doom 3's weaknesses: it's too damn dark.
I know id was going for a horror approach by turning off the lights but that doesn't necessarily translate into good game experiences. I couldn't see the scientist was transformed into a zombie until I noticed the screen changing to inform me I'm being pimp slapped. After I take care of that guy I find my path back is almost dark as pitch and the brilliant boys at id decided to only allow me to either hold my gun OR my flashlight and not both. I'm sure this is to instill fear into the player but for me all it did was instill frustration. I'm controlling a marine, which is stereotypically a touch breed of soldier and he can't hold a flashlight in one hand and a pistol in the other, crossed wrist style like in the current day cop shows? Of course, zombies have night vision so when I'm switching between flashlight and pistol to shoot an oncoming foe I get blasted by some soldier who shoots me dead in the face from 10 yards in pitch blackness. Not my idea of fun and not scary at all.
To sum it up: it's a upgrade of Doom's graphics, a downgrade in intensity with some adventure elements (ala System Shock 2 with the PDA segments) to try and shore up what's basically a powerful technology demo. id, it's 2004 and there have been a bunch of FPS games that have come out since Doom 3's announcement (back in 2000) that play many times better.
But hey, that's just me. Give it a download and see for yourself.