Doom Clones, Quake-likes, let's talk First Person Shooters!

[Octopus Prime]

Console ports of Doom also got more DLC; the 32 level campaign of Doom Zero. Chock full of new monsters, bosses and sprites.

Which is quite a bit of new Doom, so the title is quite misleading.

 

[Octopus Prime]

Despite how incredibly front-loaded the difficulty is (and BOY, is the difficulty at the front of the game), Project Warlock is really scratching the itch for 90s-style FPSs better than most games that insist they're invoking 90s FPSs.

Including ports of other 90s FPSs.

 

[madhair60]

Yes, I had a fair amount of trouble getting into that simply because the first few levels are so aggressively difficult.

 

[dosboot]

I've heard someone else say they found Project Warlock's levels to be a lot more in line with Catacombs 3D than Doom, and despite barely touching Catacombs 3D I found this to be quite true for myself. It's a feeling that I can't pin it down much more precisely, but I think it has to do with the flat, one story rooms and how encounters tend to play out.

 

[Aleryn]

Never played Catacombs 3D but it reminds me of Wolfenstein 3D. I'll go try the Project Warlock demo, thanks for mentioning it.

 

[Octopus Prime]

It’s got a real Kid Icarus-y difficulty curve where you progress in strength far faster than enemies do, but the first couple of levels leave you with low stats and scarce weapons and you have to clear the first section of levels on a single life to even unlock the ability to upgrade anything.

With the Vampire Axe and the Magnum Pistol alone, nothing in the first episode poses any real challenge.

 

[John]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1364032751184138240

I haven’t played the Saturn version of Quake, but I’ll check these out sometime.

 

[Trar]

Console ports of Doom also got more DLC; the 32 level campaign of Doom Zero. Chock full of new monsters, bosses and sprites.

Which is quite a bit of new Doom, so the title is quite misleading.

I'm just pleased they're porting the cream of the massive crop of user made Doom content. There's an absolute ton of it and it's a great decision for the official storefront version of Doom.

 

[Octopus Prime]

So Quake is out on modern consoles now.

My love of Quake pales in comparison to that of Doom, but I’m still eager to revisit the brownest game and ‘suppose a fool

 

[madhair60]

It's an extremely good port. If you own Quake on Steam, you already own the port, too.

As well as the existing expansions (Scourge of Armagon and Dissolution of Eternity) there are two new episodes by Machinegames included. Less fortunately, I have to say that I am not impressed by them. Level design leaves a little to be desired.

 

[Fyonn]

Quake's alright. I much prefer Doom and Duke 3D and Blood. Damn, you know what, I haven't finished Blood yet. I should fix that. Blood's great, it's all the fun of the Build Engine with basically none of the "has aged very poorly" stuff.

I used to be upset about how shitty the Ion Fury dev team ended up being, but at this point it feels like New Blood is publishing something incredible every other week, so it's fine now. I'm extremely looking forward to Supplice in particular at the moment. The pixel art in that game is just sublime.

 

[John]

Back on the Doom Train. I loaded up the Doom 64 port on the Steam Deck, and played through the first 8 levels. I really like it, the levels seem much more puzzly than a typical Doom "find key, open door" progression, more of a Marathon feel. The prerendered sprites didn't age well, but the level design is good. I don't know if I like that enemies just teleport in when you flip switches, vs just hiding them in monster closets.

I also looked up how to access the secret levels, and nuts to that, at least the first one. I'll just play through everything like normal, and not worry about missing stuff, or look into if the console exists and will let you load in any level.

Oh, and speaking of Doom, Rebecca Heineman tweeted out some more pictures from the FMV photo shoot that was supposed to accompany the 3do port. They're certainly something, click through for the whole shebang, and read the story at the link below that.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1561827633217912836

The True Story Behind Doom 3DO’s ‘Missing’ FMV Scenes

Straight from the mouth of the Cyberdemon

www.timeextension.com

 

[estragon]

I've recently been slowly playing through the original Doom I and II for the first time and just finished Doom II. I've never really been into FPS games or even first-person games in general, but I figured I'd try these out since they're so influential.

I'm not going to become an FPS-head anytime soon, but these are definitely both incredibly fun, and I can see why they became so popular. I think if I wanted to try a modern successor I'd give the Halo games a shot, because historical or contemporary military/special ops shooters that go for a realistic setting don't appeal to me in theming at all.

I do want to play a bit more Doom but I'm unsure where to go next. I played both of these on Hurt Me Plenty and that was hard enough for me, so I'm not necessarily seeking out extreme challenges. On the other hand, my perception of difficulty doesn't seem aligned with the sentiment I see when I look through Doom discussions on other forums. For example, the consensus among the Doom community seems to be that Thy Flesh Consumed (Episode 4 of Doom, added after Doom II) is the hardest part of Doom I or II. But personally I think that was probably the best set of levels in either game, both in level design and difficulty. In contrast, I'm not a big fan of, for example, Doom II's tendency to drop you into a monster closet surrounded by the undead enemies with undodgeable weapons on all sides, which is exacerbated by the undead enemies getting chainguns in Doom II. I find this to be both more difficult and less interesting than Thy Flesh Consumed.

Given that, does anyone who has played a lot of Doom think that the TNT or Plutonia levels would be worth it for me? I'm a bit wary because even the positive things I've read about them seem to be couched in the idea that they're for the most hardcore of the hardcore Doom experts, which I'm not. On the other hand, to bring up a parallel example, I've really enjoyed for example the Famicom Super Mario Bros 2 or Fromsoft games, and that's another case where its advocates often discuss them in terms of pure difficulty, and I think those advocates don't understand what makes those games fun (and also exaggerate the difficulty).

Or maybe should I just skip those and go to Doom 64, which is presumably made for a more general audience, and not players who think Doom II on Ultraviolence was too easy?

Or, any thoughts about TNT/Plutonia vs Doom 64 more broadly, or any of those individually?

 

[FelixSH]

I'm bad at FPS games, and don't like most of them. Doom I and II are exceptions, because they are dumb fun. I also prefer I over II, because I don't like the giant, open levels that much. Also, I tend to play these on the easiest settings. Just so you know where I'm coming from.

Even on the easiest setting, the one that I played (don't remember if it's TNT or Plutonia) was way too hard for my. I think I made it through one or two levels, using savescumming all the time, before I accepted that they just aren't made for me. I couldn't tell you more details, has been a few years since, and I don't remember the level designs at all.

Haven't played Doom 64 in ages. I vaguely remember it being douable, difficulty wise, similarly hard as the first two games. Just stopped playing at some point, maybe because the passwords on the 64 version were way too long. But I remember it feeling like a fitting sequel to the first two games.

 

[madhair60]

Play Doom 3! It rules!

 

[FelixSH]

Isn't Doom 3 also pretty different? Not worse, just different? Never played it, but that's what I heard, which might be of interest.

 

[madhair60]

It is pretty different and pretty great!

 

[estragon]

I should probably rephrase/clarify a bit: I'm definitely going to play Doom 3! But, first, I'm trying to figure out what to do with the releases in between Doom II and Doom 3.

More specifically, I'm also definitely going to try at least Doom 64 before Doom 3. Does anyone think TNT/Plutonia might also be worth a shot?

Also, I was going to ask this after finishing Doom 64, but since it came up: Any recommendations re: original Doom 3 vs BFG edition? It seems like the BFG version loses some atmospheric elements by deemphasizing the focus on lighting in the original.

 

[Octopus Prime]

Doom 64 is exceptional.

Not a fan of Doom 3, personally, but YMMV.

Kind of feel like Duke Nukem 3D is the ideal bridge between Doom and Doom 3, personally. Maybe Quake. Depends on whether you’re trying to match Doom 3s grim oppressive feeling or Doom 1s ludicrous heavy metal vibes

 

[madhair60]

BFG Edition 100% sacrifices a little atmosphere, yes; in the original release your flashlight was something you had to manually switch to. In BFG, it's strapped to your weapon and can be switched on and off while still having your weapon ready. This is definitely detrimental to the atmosphere, to an extent.

However, to a much larger and more significant extent, it makes the game markedly less of a frustrating pain in the arse, and several magnitudes more fun.

 

[MetManMas]

Dunno all the visual specifics (most are lighting stuff I think), but gameplay-wise the big differences between Doom 3 and Doom 3 BFG are that the former has less ammo in general and an infinite flashlight that can't be equipped at the same time as your weapons while the latter has limited/regenerating flashlight that can be used with guns and more ammo. And the Lost Mission campaign, basically made of cut content.

Disappointingly though, the games have no subtitle options* and BFG on Switch doesn't support motion-assisted aiming.

* Though if you're playing on a computer there's probably a mod for that. I'd recommend one if you play games with the volume down or have any hearing issues, the game has a lot of stuff locked behind passwords in audio logs

 

[estragon]

thanks for all the feedback, especially about the differences between standard and BFG versions of Doom 3

it turns out my TNT/Plutonia question has resolved itself—the versions that are included with Doom 2 Steam launch through DOS emulation and don't have the quality of life upgrades or nice frame rates i'm used to now, and i neither want to learn how to set setup my MEGAWADS (it's extremely funny to me that Serious Doom people are always talking about their favorite huge wads) in whatever ZDOOM or whatever is, nor do i want to sign up for bethesda.net to download through their official service

so, I'm skipping Final Doom (TNT and Plutonia), onto Doom 64

maybe someday,, once i've gone through the other stuff that's not a hassle to launch, if i'm hankering for more Doom

 

[Octopus Prime]

Honestly you aren’t missing much; Final Doom did it’s job of offering Additional Doom, but really never felt as satisfying or fun as what was present in the first two games; fan made levels are uneven but on average a lot more enjoyable than what’s on offer there.

 

[estragon]

Honestly you aren’t missing much; Final Doom did it’s job of offering Additional Doom, but really never felt as satisfying or fun as what was present in the first two games; fan made levels are uneven but on average a lot more enjoyable than what’s on offer there.

yeah my thought was basically, if i'm going to have to either figure out how to play user generated content or sign up for bethesda.net to run these anyway, at that point i will have opened the door to so many options that are surely better than the fan games with a divisive reputation that happened to get extremely lucky in 1996

 

[madhair60]

A lot of Final Doom is actually very cool and clever, but it's pretty much ruined by the difficulty.

Then again I feel similarly about Doom 2, which to me is an avowed 8 to Doom's 10....

 

[estragon]

Okay I loved Doom 64. I think it's my favorite. The classic sprites from the original games great, but I think the Harryhausen looking 3D renders in this are also a lot of fun. Weapons feel different, but overall that's a wash for me—some work better here, others in Doom 1 and 2. I strongly prefer the level designs here: They feel intelligible and navigable as 3D spaces, but not so much that they go heavy into realism. Also, I never had to end a map with an adventure game style pixel hunt where I'm clicking on every wall in the hopes that there's a key behind it. Everything felt adequately signaled, but just tricky enough to feel resistance in the back half of the game. I also love the distorted electronic soundtrack and strongly prefer it to the Doom 1 and 2 soundtracks.

I'm also glad I went straight to it instead of going for Plutonia or TNT, because I think I've had my fill of classic Doom for now.

A long time ago I got the fantasy roguelike Ziggurat in some bundle or something, and I gave that a brief try after playing through Doom games, thinking I might be able to enjoy it now. I don't think this is a good match for me at all (at least at this point in time), and it has nothing of what I enjoy about Doom. It seems to just be a bunch of encounters in square arenas. Also, it adds mouse-look with verticality—no thank you! I don't want to deal with the vertical axis. Just design the levels and the weapons so that I don't need that, please. It feels needlessly fiddly and unstable relative to the purity of Doom, and going through a series of combat arenas is just not as appealing to me relative to a well designed maze.

 

[Octopus Prime]

May I suggest Project Warlock then?

I think it’s what you’re looking for

 

[estragon]

May I suggest Project Warlock then?

I think it’s what you’re looking for

That does look cool! I think I'm taking a break from FPSs for a bit, but I put this on my Steam wishlist so I'll remember it. I'm a bit worried that some of the reviews talk about a strict lives system, because I am not very good at these games and used quicksaves to break them into challenges that worked for me, instead of having to master a full level. It has a demo though, so I can give it a try and see whether or not it seems like a match.

 

[Octopus Prime]

The games difficulty is really frontloaded; if you can get past the first couple of levels you get enough passive upgrades to last through most if not all the game

 

[fanboymaster]

I also love the distorted electronic soundtrack and strongly prefer it to the Doom 1 and 2 soundtracks.

You've probably found out about this but the composer of Doom 64 actually did a new soundtrack for the PS1 version of Doom so if you ever choose to revisit the games that might be worth swapping in for the soundtrack.