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First Person Shooters (Games) Entertainment Games

Marine Finds Duct Tape on Mars 536

Posted by simoniker from the sticky dept.
mhore writes "It seems that one of the biggest complaints about Doom 3 has been resolved. Thanks to Glen Murphy, you may now use your flashlight and weapon at the same time, thanks to the ingenious 'Duct Tape' mod! While some may think this ruins the game play, I disagree and think it is worth noting." There's plenty of other Doom 3-related coverage over at PlanetDoom, including a pointer to a new IGN review, which PlanetDoom considers "a lot more fair and balanced than some of the reviews we've seen so far", with an overall 8.9/10 score.
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Marine Finds Duct Tape on Mars More

Marine Finds Duct Tape on Mars

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  • Thank the lord (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Rooked_One ( 591287 ) on Saturday August 07, 2004 @12:04AM (#9906836) Journal
    I kept wondering why, why why why, that marines in the year 2195 didn't have flashlights standard on their helmets.... or why for that matter our hero in this game didn't have a helmet. =/

    • Thank the lord-A vain attack. (Score:5, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 07, 2004 @12:10AM (#9906886)
      " I kept wondering why, why why why, that marines in the year 2195 didn't have flashlights standard on their helmets.... or why for that matter our hero in this game didn't have a helmet. =/"

      Flashlight on helmet==target.
      Helmet==messes up hero's hair.

      • Re:Thank the lord-A vain attack. (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Z-MaxX ( 712880 ) on Saturday August 07, 2004 @12:10PM (#9909025) Journal
        Which reminds my of the RIDICULOUS three-eyed headgear that Sam Fisher wears in Splinter Cell. Looks cool, but totally impractical. A bright green triad of glowing lights moving slowly through the shadows... and the guards never notice. Oh, but one ray of light from a regular light source, and BAM, they're all over you.
    • I can get a light for my handgun, shotgun, rifle, and so on. They are plentful. When weapons are used tactically, they are common, some even have them built in. I can see that maybe not EVERY gun would have a light, but SOME of them should.

    • Re:Thank the lord (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Haliburton still has the contract to provide all the gear. This also explains the need to scavenge ammo.

    • Combat survival 101 (Score:5, Informative)

      by SmallFurryCreature ( 593017 ) on Saturday August 07, 2004 @06:08AM (#9907795) Journal
      Lesson 1: DO NOT SIGNAL YOUR PRESENCE TO THE ENEMY.

      One of the things any real soldier knows is that once you give your position away you MOVE. So a sniper never stays in one place after a shot (make note snipers who are suprised that after they shoot me I kill them in computer games). With night fighting the flash of your weapon means that after you fire a round you move since the enemy now knows exactly were you are.

      Same deal really with search lights. Sure they make it easier to see but the poor guy operating it will probably be the first to die as he is the easiest to target.

      Putting lights on your body or weapon is a big NO-NO. Why not just paint your self a big fluorescent target on your chest and be done with it?

      The only ones who use lights on their guns are special forces like swat teams. They operate at such speed and with such overwhelming force that the enemy doesn't have time to respond. A swat team could go in with sirens on their head since they are not supposed to stay still and engage a heavily armed enemy.

      Watch the movie ET and the opening scene where all the cops are walking with their flashlights shining. Now imagine they are soldiers and you are the enemy waiting in ambush. Who do you think is going to win?

      There is also an other reason why not to use a flashlight at night. Your eyes can adjust to the dark and make use of what little light there is available. Start shining a flashlight around however and your eyes won't adjust. You will see very good in the small cone of the flashlight and be blind outside. Not good.

      So lights on weapons or worse the body are a clear sign you are watching a movie. They can only really be used when you are reasonably certain that you are operating at such speed against a less prepared enemy that the giving away your position and presenting a brightly lit target makes up for you being able to see.

      How does this relate to doom3? Well what happened is pretty realistic. The marine realises he is not in a normal combat scenario so he uses duct tape to adjust to the situation. So the question is not why the marins do not have lights on their weapons or body pre-fitted. The question is why ID did not give their soldier some duct-tape after he learned of the changed situation. Then again how many FPS have you seen where the hero tapes clips together for faster reload, tapes two guns together for extra fire power? We seen it in the movies, gotta be sound tactics or they wouldn't use it.

      • Re:Combat survival 101 (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Draeven ( 166561 ) on Saturday August 07, 2004 @06:48AM (#9907871)
        I do agree with your commentary and logic on lights, but as far as Doom3 is concerned, it doesn't apply. Things simply know where you are, once they are alert to your presence (Froms ound, etc) There is no place to hide, they seek you out. We have tactical rails on everythying from pistols to rifles these days, it doesn't make a lick of sense to me that we'd go over 100 years in the future only to downgrade our tactical weaponry. If the guy wasn't meant to shine a flashlight around in the first place, they wouldn't have given him one at all. It should have been on his rifle and or handgun to start with. Maybe an optional item to pick up, but still.

        And were this a better simulation of reality, eyes adjusting to the darkness would be a useful thing, but since the game doesn't program such things into it, and thus it's not possible to see into that dark corner now matter how long you stare at it, using that kind of logic for doom3 is simply flawed.

        More duct tape, less stupid story driven programming.
        • What's the point in making it so exactly logical it is no fun? If you don't enjoy the darkness fine, just say so. But saying the darkness aspect of the game is silly because it is easy to tape a torch to the gun and thus it is not enjoyable is just daft. It's a game. It would be less fun if it was 100% believable. If you disagree with that statement then I am sure there are other games for you, but it seems daft.

          Did you get similarly annoyed that in Doom1/2 you could jump of a ledge of any height and not d

    • Re:Thank the lord (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Arathrael ( 742381 ) on Saturday August 07, 2004 @07:28AM (#9907949)
      I just want to know why he can't hold a flashlight in one hand and a pistol in the other. I mean, you can see his reflection in the bathroom mirror in game. It's a one-handed flashlight. It's a one-handed pistol. The maths isn't hard.

      I was also slightly disturbed that the majority of people on Slashdot and elsewhere, rather than thinking along those lines, seemed to instead jump to the idea of duct tape, and occasionally helmets. But then I realised that perhaps if the majority of people, a) only use one hand for everything, and b) have an obsession with duct tape, I would probably be happier not thinking too much about it. :-)

    • Re:Thank the lord (Score:5, Funny)

      by atomicdragon ( 619181 ) on Saturday August 07, 2004 @07:33AM (#9907958)

      Although I know it is mainly to make the game darker and scarier, which is more enjoyable to some people (and I rather take fun over realism), I think that it is still not too unconceivable. I am sure they have all of the technology there, but they don't always have their stuff together. One email in the game mentions how they got a shipment of chainsaws by mistake and there seem to be other logistical blunders. So I would guess things don't always run too smoothly there. Maybe their shipment of gun lights and night vision equipment was sent to the moon by accident.

      That, and I have to wonder how many flashlights do they need. It is in the future when they would think power should be readily available and everything is supposed to be brightly lit.

      And as to the question of why there was no duct tape around, I think the demons knew what they were doing. The first thing they probably did was take all of the duct tape, since they knew its awesome power. Why else would stuff all of sudden start breaking and failing through out the base? Hell does tend to break loose when you can't find any duct tape to hold it in place.

    • I kept wondering why, why why why, that marines in the year 2195 didn't have flashlights standard on their helmets.... or why for that matter our hero in this game didn't have a helmet.

      He did have a flashlight on his helmet. His real goal throughout the whole game has been to find his helmet!

  • Well this is all due to our hero... (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    MacGuyver. That prick. Incidentally, Duct tape makes a fine prophilactic.

  • Poor guy... (Score:5, Informative)

    by Compholio ( 770966 ) on Saturday August 07, 2004 @12:05AM (#9906844)
    "In anticipation of a slashdotting due in 10 minutes (god bless being a /. subscriber), the images have been removed from the front page. You may still view them here, if you're interested: screenshot 1 [glenmurphy.com], screenshot 2 [glenmurphy.com] (image quality has also been reduced)."

    • Re:Poor guy... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by FrenZon ( 65408 ) * on Saturday August 07, 2004 @12:09AM (#9906884) Homepage

      Actually, the server is so far holding up fine. I don't think quite so many Slashdot people click on gaming-related links as other stories.

      I'm more worried what will happen if visitors go elsewhere on my server, as there are some quite large files there. Oh well :D

      If the access logs prove to be interesting, I'll summarise and post them, as I was always curious what it was like to be slashdotted.

      • Poor guy...Eulogy for a server. (Score:5, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 07, 2004 @12:32AM (#9906975)
        "If the access logs prove to be interesting, I'll summarise and post them, as I was always curious what it was like to be slashdotted."

        Well first the room lights dim to red, and a warning klaxon goes off. Then there can be heard the increasing sound of steam escaping, with the gagues on front registering overload. Then the server case starts bulging, rivets popping and flying across the room. There's a call for evacuation over the intercom, while solid steel pressure doors drop down. Standing outside five minutes latter, a muffled boom can be heard. A moment of silence, then a call is placed to Dell.
      • Great mod man, to quote my friend when doom3 first came out: "I guess all the ducttape is being used to hold the portals to hell closed so I cant even ducttape my flashlight to my shotgun"
  • These text mods are great, but I can't wait until id releases the game dll source - then the REAL fun starts.

    • More important... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by ImaLamer ( 260199 ) <john.lamar@g m a i l . com> on Saturday August 07, 2004 @01:40AM (#9907207) Homepage Journal
      Remember when Quake hit the shelves? It was being hailed as a jump in FPS, and IMHO took PC's to the next level. Soon however there were a million Quake clones it seemed.

      Most were licensed by id. There were problems because their servers were supposedly hacked before they could license the game engine out to other developers. No matter, id licensed the Quake engine out to many companies. Many games were fighting against Quake yet they were using Quake's engine. Next everyone else got into the market - making their own engines.

      This is what I hope happens with Doom III. In 6 months I want to see screen shots of other games using this engine. I love the game, it is pretty awesome, but wait till other artists get their hands on it. Competition always keeps things spicy.

      Doom mods will be nice, but new games will rock.

  • Way to be prepared. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Omni Magnus ( 645067 ) on Saturday August 07, 2004 @12:07AM (#9906863)
    This is the first time I have ever heard of a small site that was able to sucessfully defend itself from a slashdotting, due to an early warning.
  • running around in the dark was only fun for like 30mins then it became annoying. I've used this mod and it is great, it works on the machine gun so you'll still be in the dark if you switch guns. Increased accuracy, less wasted ammo and a more enjoyable game.

    With the flash light if you tried to shoot while using it, it just used the flashlight as a stick instead of switching to your guns.
    • Maybe it's just the fact that my comp sucks (Athlon XP 2000+, Geforce 4 4200 TI, 512 MB PC2100 RAM, 7200 RPM 8MB Cache HD), but this duct tape mod *really* chops up the game. I can run it fine on 800x600 (ouch) with medium details, but with the mod it just kills the frame rate. Now, I'm not a frame rate whore, but when it gets so that I can't aim my freaking shotgun, I get kinda annoyed.

    • HOW-TO: Fix your Gamma in game (Score:5, Informative)

      by Jonah Hex ( 651948 ) <[moc.liamg] [ta] [smtodxeh]> on Saturday August 07, 2004 @01:48AM (#9907233) Homepage Journal
      ..for those of you still playing, hell I would of quit in the first level without adjusting the engine's gamma. This doesn't do anything to my framerate, YMMV

      Pull up the console (Ctrl + Alt + ~)
      type "r_gamma 2" (max is 3, default 1)
      Adjust brightness downward a notch or two      ; especially if you cranked it up while looking for the fucking gamma control like I did.

      And here's a bonus hacking tip, the developer's own config files (keybindings, video settings, etc) are stored in one of the *.pk? files (in D3's case pak000.pk4). Usually you can pull out some interesting command usage, especially when one developer has binds to useful commands and functions as in-game editing menus. From the johnc.cfg file, a few lines out of many such as rebinding console to a normal "~" and Flashlight Batteries (MP option?), plus the fact that he doesn't mind his game dark.
      bind ~ "toggleconsole"

      seta si_flashLightBatteries "0"
      seta si_allowFlashLight "1"
      seta r_customHeight "486"
      seta r_customWidth "720"
      seta r_gamma "1"
      Jonah Hex (aka [TFO]DogMeat to my MOHAA old mod friends :)

  • Flashlight + Pistol (Score:5, Informative)

    by HungSquirrel ( 790165 ) on Saturday August 07, 2004 @12:08AM (#9906868) Homepage
    There is another mod that gives just your pistol a flashlight.

    http://dlx.gamespot.com/pc/doom3/moreinfo_610416 8. html

  • Appropriate name. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by strredwolf ( 532 ) on Saturday August 07, 2004 @12:10AM (#9906887) Homepage Journal
    Now how about:

    1. Modding all the weapons to have this feature, and...
    2. Modding all the models so they look like they have the flashlight strapped on 'em with duct tape.
    • #1 is trivially easy. #2, not so much.

    • Re:Appropriate name. (Score:5, Informative)

      by randyest ( 589159 ) on Saturday August 07, 2004 @01:21AM (#9907149) Homepage
      Yes. The name is clever. Many have asked "don't they have duct tape in 2045?"

      Of course the anwer is yes, but you don't have any when this particular shit hits this particular fan. Sorry. Life is hard. And it's much scarier this way!

      But, if you're as scared as this guy [slashdot.org] or this guy's friends [slashdot.org] then I have I a deal* for you (*not a monorail.)

      It's easier to install than this new duct tape mod, requires no file download, and works 100% of the time. You're not restricted to a smaller-beam, or to duct-taping your flashlight to small arms only. And there's no modified doom3 files to cause problems in multiplayer when cheat detectors check your files.

      Ready for it?

      You think I'm effing with you, don't you?

      I'm not.

      Pull down the console (ctrl+alt+~ -- now that's security through obscurity! I be you were expecting just ~ eh?) and enter:

      r_gamma 2

      If it's still too dim for your panties to hold your dump, up it to something closer to 3 (over 3 is meaningless.)

      Still crying mama every time you hear "come one hurry!"? Ok, open up Mr. Console again and do a:

      r_brightness 1.6

      You can push that up a bit higher if your teeth are chipping each other, but it gets ugly fast.

      If you don't want to do that every game, find C:\Program Files\Doom 3\base\DoomConfig.cfg (or your equivalent in the case of non-standard install or other OS) and search/replace any existing settings of the above mentioned variables. Add them if they're not already there. Anything in DoomConfig.cfg gets executed on startup.

      Be sure to use a nightlight and make sure mommy tucks you in, BTW.









      And yes. There are monsters both under your bed and in your closet.

      Bwahaha! :)

      • Re:Appropriate name. (Score:3, Informative)

        by Merovign ( 557032 )

        What you and many other fanboys seem to misunderstand (or ignore) is that I'm not scared - I'm bored.

        The 213th time a monster jumps out of a shadow it's not scary, it's tedious.

        The game is pretty good, but it's kind of a one-trick pony in this regard.

        Oh, look, more than three items on the floor. Must trigger a monster event... yep.

        Oh, look, a dark room. Must trigger a monster event... yep.

        Oh, look, the screen turned red... again...

        To some extent this does improve later in the game, but I almost didn't

  • Darkened room = less need for this mod (Score:5, Insightful)

    by IvyMike ( 178408 ) on Saturday August 07, 2004 @12:15AM (#9906915)
    I've found that by playing only at night, in pitch black, so that my eyes start to adjust to the dark, the extreme darkness of this game isn't that annoying.

    If I play in the morning before work, when the sun has risen, my eyes can't dynamically adjust from the light room to the dark screen, and I can't see anything. Maybe I need to eat more carrots or something.

    In any case, the bonus about doing it this way is that the game is way scarier at night. :)

  • Get a few more FPS. (Score:3, Informative)

    by Izago909 ( 637084 ) <tauisgod@g m a i l . com> on Saturday August 07, 2004 @12:15AM (#9906917)
    I was able to get a few more frames by toying around with some settings. Open your DoomConfig.cfg file and look for:
    seta image_cacheMegs "32"

    If you have a newer video card you can move the number up. I have a 9800XT and got it up to 96. Anything more than that and I start loosing preformance. The beta Radeon driver [ati.com] also helped a little bit.

  • Not buying it (Score:4, Insightful)

    by kryocore ( 629960 ) on Saturday August 07, 2004 @12:17AM (#9906920) Homepage
    I was anticipating this game since it was first announced, and now that I've seen the trailer and all the IGS vids, I don't want it.
    I bought RTCW, and I hated walking through a morg with monsters coming after me. It wouldn't been way cooler if Carmak and his crew designed something more realistic (but not 100%) like the Bourne identity. It freeks me out walking around in dark corridors not knowing what the heck is beside me.
    Good job ID, you made it so scary I don't want it!
    There was nothing scary about the firt Doom, the graphics were so bad that it didn't matter. Boy how that's changed.

    • Re:Not buying it (Score:3, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Good job ID, you made it so scary I don't want it!

      Pussy.
    • It's not that scary. The creepiness and scariness run dry pretty quickly. You get freaked out when there is something unexpected, unfortunately the same formula is played out over and over (walk into a room, and wait for things to jump out) that its not scary. There were very few instances where I was scared, usually something being thrown through a window right in front of me, or a zombie jumping out of the deep shadows, but having things teleport in behind me (which occured much more often) didn't frea

    • Re:Not buying it (Score:4, Insightful)

      by sad_ ( 7868 ) on Saturday August 07, 2004 @05:34AM (#9907712) Homepage
      There was nothing scary about the firt Doom, the graphics were so bad that it didn't matter.


      sure, now they are bad, but back then, oh boy! i played that game again and again, and let me tell you how scary it was! it got me jumping out of my chair when my mother would walk into the room. the original doom used lighting as well to create fear, you must remember all the halls which were half lit, or with flashing lights, or the many traps where the lights would go out and a secret door would open releasing zillions of imps.

      it was scray then, it is scary now, it is DOOM :)

  • Fair Review My Ass (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Jack9 ( 11421 ) on Saturday August 07, 2004 @12:18AM (#9906932)
    Apparently the only fair reviews are those that are proportionally positive in respect to the square or the hype+publisher's net-rep. Oh wait, it's an IGN review (rolls eyes).

    I have to honestly disagree that Doom 3 is a "good game" in any respects other than graphics technology. I can check out how well my current video card will run with entertaining benchmarks for free kthx.

  • Author's Comments (Score:5, Interesting)

    by FrenZon ( 65408 ) * on Saturday August 07, 2004 @12:23AM (#9906949) Homepage

    While this mod is not for everyone, I've tried to maintain a certain level of paranoia by making the flashlight only attach to your smaller guns (but not the pistol - that would spoil the early early game), and making the cone of projection much smaller than the hand-held flashlight. This leads to situations where you're in a pitch black room, but can only see a very small area, which for some is much more claustrophobic than holding the default wide-angle flashlight. This especially applies when swinging your view around, and catching a glimpse of an enemy, who you are then unable to find as they've run off into the abundant darkness.

    Granted, as you can still use the current flashlight it does make things slightly less scary, but Doom3 has plentiful amounts of scariness to spare. Like playing the marine in Alien vs. Predator, I know of several people who still can't play it even using this mod, due to fear.

  • PlanetDoom's inherent bias? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ajutla ( 720182 ) <ajutla at gmail dot com> on Saturday August 07, 2004 @12:29AM (#9906962) Homepage
    There's plenty of other Doom 3-related coverage over at PlanetDoom, including a pointer to a new IGN review, which PlanetDoom considers "a lot more fair and balanced than some of the reviews we've seen so far", with an overall 8.9/10 score. And yet PlanetDoom is a member of "the GameSpy network." Didn't GameSpy and IGN have a merger [writenews.com]? Isn't this basically GameSpy/IGN praising its own review...?
    • Ever since since IGN and Gamespy became evil (you know, before they were fledgling companies trying make it by actually providing good honest reviews and quality service for free) I've just learned to ignore what they say, and just use their product (gamespy) or look at pictures/movies (IGN). I advise everybody to do the same.

  • Flashlight=Greatest Weapon Ever (Score:5, Funny)

    by porp ( 24384 ) on Saturday August 07, 2004 @12:30AM (#9906972)
    Look at the flashlight from the viewpoint that it is a weapon. It shines light and lets you see shit. That's its purpose. This marine travelled to Mars, not expecting a hell intrusion. Instead he gets one, has few weapons, picks up a flashlight and some other weapons and starts kicking ass. Awesome.

    Okay, it's the future. Dudes in the future should have high tech badass gear. I mean, nightvision, we have, but in the future, shit, man, there should be some crazy shit that looks through walls and sees DEMONS. And, it sees them in the dark! Damn, in the future, they might even have dogs that wear electric turbons that allow them to focus energy that allows them to make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. WOW.

    This is a game. He went in without a weapon. Apparently, which is plainly obvious, there are idiots that work on Mars and do stupid shit. They're conjuring Hell and demons and crazy ass spiders. It's clear they care little for their own safety; and, therefore, they have not duct taped flashlights on their machineguns.

    I'll continue playing without a pussy flashlight taped on. I'm in hell, and I'm kicking demon ass. F a flashlight, and F this mod.

    Down with the DEMONS.

    porp
    • It's not like the flashlight is made with inferior technology and empties itself in 30 seconds!
    • >Dudes in the future should have high tech badass gear

      Yep, like PDAs and Laptops twice the size of the ones I own in 2004. Later in the game its revealed you're in a steam-powered amusement park haunted house and just really, really confused and going to spend a lot of time in prison.

      Whoops, I should have written ***Spoiler
    • Yeah quite. I'm quite a way into the game now. At first I couldn't hack the darkness too well and struggled to fight/find my way about. Now it is easy, I've got the hang of it and it is awesome. You need to encourage the monsters to come into the light in order to fight them more easily, it adds a whole new strategy element I haven't seen in other games before.

      Graphically it rules with the darkness too. And boy is it scary. Rules.

      This mod is for people who have no patience in my humble opinion.
  • What?

    When you come back from hell, in d3... you do get another item that you must pull out & utilize at certain points. It's just another way of adding a layer of challenge to the game. The flashlight is no exception.

    Although in the game, it is 2145..at a research facility on mars. I find it hard to believe that there isn't one piece of duct tape anywhere on the planet. Great game, play it how it was originally meant to be played. I'm not exactly sure if it's worth $60, but it is something t

  • maybe now... (Score:5, Funny)

    by ltwally ( 313043 ) on Saturday August 07, 2004 @12:37AM (#9906994) Homepage Journal
    Maybe now I'll stop shitting my pants every time I play DOOM 3.

    John Carmack should have thought to include toilet paper with the game.

  • Don't do it! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Fiz Ocelot ( 642698 ) <baelzharon&gmail,com> on Saturday August 07, 2004 @12:38AM (#9906999)
    Ok I'm sure someone already posted this sentiment, but I'm compelled to post :P

    First off I've beaten Doom3 with no mods or outside info of any sort, it was awsome. Now about the flashlight....

    Needing a seperate flashlight ADDS a LOT to the feeling of vulnerability, that something could jump out and attack you when you are most vulnerable!

    Lets put it this way, How do you feel when you have your gun out with light, versus having no light? You can't see well, you're not sure about your surroundings...something may be over there...but it still provides a sence of security.

    Taking away the gun takes away that sence of security. You can see better, but now you're vulneable, you'd feel better if you had that gun out wouldn't you?

    So basically I think it's great game design. It greatly enhances the feeling of insecurity and vulnerability. I think even having this mod is great proof that id made a design that makes some people feel a little too insecure :)

    • Re:Don't do it! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by randyest ( 589159 ) on Saturday August 07, 2004 @01:00AM (#9907077) Homepage
      I agree.

      I will not install this mod.

      Yes, it makes sense -- space marines in 2045 should have duct tape and/or helmets with flashlights and/or nightvision and/or fucking-A genetically engineered cat-eye night-proof eyes-from-hell.

      But that's not what this space marine happened to have handy when the shit hit the fan.

      And I like it that way!

      • Re:Don't do it! (Score:4, Funny)

        by prockcore ( 543967 ) on Saturday August 07, 2004 @01:32AM (#9907177)

        Yes, it makes sense -- space marines in 2045 should have duct tape and/or helmets with flashlights and/or nightvision and/or fucking-A genetically engineered cat-eye night-proof eyes-from-hell.

        But that's not what this space marine happened to have handy when the shit hit the fan.

        Exactly. If the year 2045 is anything like the year 2004, the duct tape is in that drawer with dominos coupons, scissors, random notes, a few screws, a can opener, a few overdue bills, a popsicle, some salad tongs, a few bottle openers, and a bunch of other shit.

        Obviously the marines couldn't get the drawer open.

  • The light thing (Score:3, Insightful)

    by fahrvergnugen ( 228539 ) <fahrv@hotmail.cDALIom minus painter> on Saturday August 07, 2004 @12:43AM (#9907019) Homepage
    There were a million ways that id could have handled the light issue, but they chose to pick the one game mechanic that slaps the player in the face with the fact it's just a game. It's a game, it has rules, and I am ripped out of the immersion.

    This really upsets me with Doom 3, for those moments when I can stop playing it. It's not quite the letdown that Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Crushing Disappointment turned out to be, but it's got the same sense of wasted potential.

    I can see why gun-mounted lights got left out. It would take away a lot of the stress & fear that comes from playing the game. But here's just a few ways they could have accomplished the "Player's vision is severely restricted in the midst of a firefight" effect, without ripping the player out of the game:

    1) Only the pistol can have the flashlight out. Think about it, modern-day cops have a flashlight and a pistol out simultaneously all the damn time (flashlight held high with the non-weapon hand, pistol in weapon hand). It wouldn't have been that hard, and then they could have stuck with the massive heavy mag-lite they modelled.

    2) Helmet light. Make the flashlight bob a bit with the player movement, lead the camera on quick turns (Marine turns his head), jiggle with recoil, etc. Lots of opportunity to immerse.

    3) Right-angle flashlight in a breast pocket, a la Silent Hill 3. This is my favorite of the ideas. Put the light a little bit lower, and then if the player moves to fire a two-handed weapon, the arms begin to obscure vision, casting massive shadows everywhere and bright light back from the Marine's pale white arm into the player's face. I mean, it's not like the marine gets much sun, he's pretty reflective.

    I hope someone takes that last idea & runs with it, but I'm not optimistic.

    On the other hand, for a game as deeply flawed as Doom 3 is turning out to be, it is undeniably stressful, entertaining, and has that "just one more corridor" hook to it. Much like a Renny Harlin film, I enjoy it in the moment, but take even greater pleasure in deriding it afterward to my friends.
  • I guess it will be nice for spotting campers in multiplayer.

  • In case anyone missed it. Beta Catalyst 4.9. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by OwP_Fabricated ( 717195 ) <fabricated&gmail,com> on Saturday August 07, 2004 @12:53AM (#9907052)
    http://www.ati.com/support/infobase/4547.html

    I tried them out of curiosity, and I am indeed seeing improvement in framerates in Doom 3. I wonder though, if these tweaks are designed for OpenGL, will they translate over to other OpenGL games like Call of Duty?

  • Great game! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 07, 2004 @12:53AM (#9907054)
    This game has been getting quite a few negative reviews, so I figured I'd add my mostly positive review. Yes, the game is dark. Yes, using the flashlight and a gun at the same time is not playing the game the way it was meant to be played (if it was they would have added it). Personally I have had NO PROBLEM finding the enemies and taking them out. When I do use the flashlight it's almost always to see if there are any goodies hidden in the dark corners. Yes, my lighting settings are unchanged from the defaults. This is Doom. It's supposed to be scary, so quit whining, bitches!

    Secondly, this game delivers exactly what it promises to deliver: an old-school fps which is designed to be terrifying. It isn't a mistake that the maps are linear! I used to hate running around across a level trying to figure out what to do next in Quake 2. If you save partway through a level, you don't have to worry about being lost when you come back two months later to play again. You can't say the same for many games. When I pick up an FPS I'm not doing it to solve puzzles; I want to splatter some blood across the walls, and I don't want a learning curve.

    As an adult, the more complex a game is, the more unlikely I am to play it. I've been waiting for a game to beat Half Life in its first person experience, and I can safely say that Doom 3 beats it hands down. If it makes you bored, stop complaining and find another game. No one is forcing you to play it, and it's a lot of fun for myself and many others.

    Only complaint so far: memory requirements. When they said 384 megs min, they were being honest. I'm hitting the VM a lot with only 256 megs and it causes slowdown at inopportune times!

  • Ingenious? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by EulerX07 ( 314098 ) on Saturday August 07, 2004 @12:58AM (#9907070)
    The whole point of the flashlight is having to choose between seeing where you want to shoot, and being able to shoot there. This mod simply eliminates one of the aspect of the game.

    How about an aimbot mod for singleplayer, would that be "brilliant"?

    • Re:Ingenious? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by prockcore ( 543967 )
      The whole point of the flashlight is having to choose between seeing where you want to shoot, and being able to shoot there.

      I'm going to have to agree. Doom 3's whole flashlight versus weapon gives the player a *constant* feeling of vulnerability. Makes the game fairly exciting in my opinion.

      Then again, the people who complain about doom3 are the same people who are pissed off that IDKFA doesn't work.

    • Re:Ingenious? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by servognome ( 738846 ) on Saturday August 07, 2004 @01:23AM (#9907157)
      The problem is its a contrived limitation on the player to make the gameplay work. When you have a game so aimed at realism, devices such as this to make the gameplay work become an annoyance. It's a cop out on not having the extra complexity of level designs that comprehend the player having both a very limited and targeted light source and weapon at the same time.
      I have the same problem with games that have gimmiky boss battles. The boss isn't hard enough by himself so the devs make it so you can't hurt him unless he screams "slashdot effect!" which occurs for 2 seconds at 45 second intervals. It breaks the realism and just feels more like a trivial challenge. Unlike a boss battle that has a "logical" limitation like the fire monster can't be hurt by plasma weapons.

      • Re:Ingenious? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by sprayNwipe ( 95435 ) on Saturday August 07, 2004 @08:12AM (#9908043) Homepage
        When you have a game so aimed at realism, devices such as this to make the gameplay work become an annoyance.

        Realism?

        You're talking about a game where you're a military person in a science-based research lab, where they somehow manage to open a portal to hell that causes everyone to turn into demons and zombies, and that has convieniently placed guns and armor shards for you to add to yourself, and you're complaining that having to lower your torch to aim and fire with a shotgun or machine gun is unrealistic?
  • Instead of a guy hauling all these weapons around, we need an Stargate weapons mod: P90 submachine gun (with the rail options being optical and laser sights, or a flashlight), 5-7 sidearm, Zat gun, a staff weapon, and some grenades. The Zat gun would be particularly fun to watch.

    http://planeta.terra.com.br/lazer/stargate/blueb oo k/database/weapons.html

  • Hardware req's (Score:5, Funny)

    by DaveKAO ( 320532 ) on Saturday August 07, 2004 @01:33AM (#9907182) Homepage
    Wow... I can't beleive I just spent $1,700 on a new machine just to display all this damn darkness. My old video card displayed a screenful of black just fine.

  • Don't marine's have 2 hands? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by powerlinekid ( 442532 ) on Saturday August 07, 2004 @01:57AM (#9907249)
    What happened to pistol in one hand, flashlight in the other?

    Yeah it makes sense for something like an ak, shotgun or rocket launcher but I'd hope a space marine could fire that pistol one handed.

    It would also be sweet if you could use the flash light like a club. I would think the lighting effects of doing that would rock.

  • Note to futuristic Mars Base designers (Score:5, Funny)

    by AliasTheRoot ( 171859 ) on Saturday August 07, 2004 @02:10AM (#9907284)
    I really doubt that in 2145 when some architect is designing a mars base that he will read this but...

    CHOOSE YOUR GODDAM LIGHTING SUBCONTRACTERS CAREFULLY.

  • How about no flashlight? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Jace of Fuse! ( 72042 ) on Saturday August 07, 2004 @03:27AM (#9907484) Homepage
    How about no Flashlight?

    If they hadn't given us a flashlight at all would someone have complained about it just because other games have had one?

    Also, you can adjust the brightness of the game. It's SUPPOSED to be dark, that's kind of the point. That is the entire point, even. SOME games put you in a room that is supposed to be dark, but you can still see everything just fine, which isn't like being in the dark for me. I know when I'm in the dark in the real world, I can't see the demons and stuff running around trying to eat me. I don't see why a good game should be any different.

    I for one have been enjoying the hell out of Doom 3, and I'm pretty jaded about games in general because on the whole, most of them suck.

    Is DOOM 3 perfect? Well, no, but then I'm kind of bias against first person shooters. BUT I still enjoy it, so that should say something alone.

    Also, I don't use the flashlight ALL That often, unless I find myself in an unussually dark spot and want to take a better look around, but the areas that are so dark they require that are actually fairly few. Most of the rooms are are lit just well enough that you can make out everything, even if only vaguely.

    In my opinion the whole flashlight thing was so unimportant it simply never even occured to me that some children might cry about it.

  • Repeat After Me... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by ca1v1n ( 135902 ) <snook@noSPam.guanotronic.com> on Saturday August 07, 2004 @03:39AM (#9907505)
    Doom 3 is not any kind of Quake.
    Doom 3 is not any kind of Half-Life.
    Doom 3 is certainly not any kind of Tom Clancy game.

    Doom 3 is the state of the art in interactive terror. If you want a simple FPS, don't buy it. If you want a shoot-through RPG, don't buy it. If you want something that accurately represents military weaponry, don't buy it.

    If you like having to sleep with the light on after a gaming binge, by all means, buy Doom 3!

  • Over-repetition (Score:3, Insightful)

    by RogueyWon ( 735973 ) on Saturday August 07, 2004 @03:45AM (#9907513) Journal
    This highlights what was, for me, one of the biggest problems with Doom 3, namely the fact that iD confused "what's cool at first" with "what's cool for the entire 20+ hour game". Not being able to have a pistol and a weapon drawn is neat and scary at first, taking me right back to the original Silent Hill. After about 5 hours, it's started to get more annoying than scary because, of course, the combat is a much bigger and more frequent aspect of the game than it was in Silent Hill. When you get to and they take your flashlight away, it's back to playing "bump the wall to find the way forward", which took me right back to the old Eye of the Beholder games (in a bad way).

    It's not just this trick that gets over-used. The first time an imp spawns behind you during a fight, it scares the hell out of you. By the 20th time, it's getting old. By the 200th time, you can turn around and shoot the imp with your eyes closed.

    Doom 3 is a good game... probably the best actual game we've seen from iD since the original Doom. However, I also agree with the criticisms in the IGN review (8.9/10 strikes me as pretty much bang-on, as scores go).

  • Stop and Think About it for a Minute. (Score:3, Informative)

    by shplorb ( 24647 ) on Saturday August 07, 2004 @04:16AM (#9907560) Homepage Journal
    If people would stop and think for a minute, they'd realise that taping the torch to the barrel of your gun means that you can only use that weapon with lighting. What if you want to quickly change weapons in a dark room? I admit, being able to use the torch with the pistol would have been good. Nethertheless, as it stands, playing Doom is a lot like playing the marine in Alien Vs Predator - which is one of the scariest damn games ever when you're alone at night.

    The other key things to remember about Doom is that it's a dark game because it's dark where it's set - a sealed environment on Mars with no windows. When the power gets cut of course it's going to be dark. If you can't see even with the torch on, then make sure that your monitor is calibrated and there is little or preferably no ambient light - it's like taking a photo of something inside with a window visible - if the camera is set for outside (bright light around you) then the inside part of the scene will be underexposed (the monitor).

  • silly people. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by CAIMLAS ( 41445 ) on Saturday August 07, 2004 @05:05AM (#9907644)
    While I completely understand the logic behind having a torch attached to the gun, or being able to hold the gun in one hand and the pistol in the other , I'd have to say that I think this is a dumb mod - at least for single player.

    The whole apeal of the game is ruined if you're able to have the flashlight on all the time. Less things 'jump out' at you. The game would be much less suspenseful, and, IMO, less entertaining as a result of such a mod. Doom 3 doesn't offer much gameplay value (not to be confused with graphic quality or the engine, oh ye pedantics) without the creepyness/darkness, IMO, as FPS games are truly pretty run-of-the-mill now, and Doom 3 doesn't bring anything to that table in terms of gameplay. Removing the suspense that arrives from having to switch back and forth from a gun and the flashlight in a dark room in order to see what you're shooting at is foolish - even though it would be realistic in real life to be able to shoot and hold a light, it is not practical for the game. Suspension of disbelief is key in this game, just as it would be in film.

    Hell, if anyone complains about the 'default' game state with the claim of "reality", step back from your monitor and brain yourself with your keyboard. You're on Mars killing demons in a scientific lab which has, essentially, created an entropy engine/infinite supply of energy, FFS. Oh, and of course, there's the whole "portal to hell" bit.

    Multiplayer is another story entirely. Doom 3 has introduced an entirely new form of camping - the "stand in the dark spot in the middle of the hall and just shoot" camp. It necessitates that a person turn on the barrel flare and projectile light features in DoomConfig.cfg - without doing so, you can't even see the person shooting you.

  • If you want to modify this mod (Score:4, Informative)

    by nedder ( 690308 ) on Saturday August 07, 2004 @05:37AM (#9907725)
    The flashlight intensity and pattern of this mod is controlled by a .tga file that acts as an alpha channel. I opened it in photoshop and used the circle gradient to make the spot larger with a softer edge (the one in the mod is way too small and hard edged). Add it back to the pk4 and make sure it retains the /lights path. On a sidenote, this mod seems to screw up screenshots. I took 4 to show people and they were solid blue. You can also have some fun with the .tga and have like 2 flashlights or give it a wide/narrow shape, etc.

  • But... Gasoline? (Score:3, Funny)

    by rxmd ( 205533 ) on Saturday August 07, 2004 @07:13AM (#9907915) Homepage
    Marine Finds Duct Tape on Mars
    But... the real question is: is there gasoline for the chainsaw?

    (well, I guess in order to get the reference, you'd have to be seriously old-school...)

  • Fair to planetdoom... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Snaller ( 147050 ) on Saturday August 07, 2004 @09:05AM (#9908248) Journal
    ... being something which praises their little adopted baby ;-)

  • The BEST doom3 review out there... by FAR... (Score:4, Funny)

    by GuyFawkes ( 729054 ) on Saturday August 07, 2004 @03:08PM (#9909802) Homepage Journal

    http://www.afrotechmods.com/groovy/review/d3revi ew /doom3.htm

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