I enjoyed Doom III despite the fact it sold well.

StarStabbedMoon

@LittleBigPlaneteer: Since the Wii, and Petz, and shovelware in general.

sarcasmOD

I loved Doom 3. I don't know why people hate on it so much and yet love Halo. What were people expecting? Serious Sam was already out on shelves and they could have got their classic fix that way (also a great time, by the way). Doom 3 was and still is one of my favorite shooters because they tried something different and focused a lot on atmosphere and pacing rather than the standard 'arena' type gameplay where you have a series of gunfights connected by quiet breaks in between. Doom 3 is an "Aliens" game done right... until the very end. The whole thing fell apart at the end.

dunetiger reads kotaku, seems pleased

@LittleBigPlaneteer: You are misunderstanding/misreading the article. No where in the interview did Hollenshed say "Our game sold 3 million copies, that means it must be g4reat!"

You can't really fault his logic when you're misinterpreting what was actually said.

BlackANUS

The hell level in Doom 3 is still one of the greatest things ever.

GregoriusH

@Dogysamich: Glad I'm not the only one who saw that.

Pyro Jack

I had alot of fun playing Doom 3 for the X-Box when it came out.

StealthMaster86

@RigorMortis: gah beat me to it

smuckersisgood

@LittleBigPlaneteer: Well, if it sold 3 million copies then it made money, and if its your job as a ceo to make money for your company thats probably how he got the job. Makes sense to me.

"I get this occasionally - why don't I think Doom III was successful? We sold over three million units! It's the most successful game in id's history."

He didn't say anything about quality per se. He said it was "successful" just sayin

I personally liked doom 3. it was the first game i got for my old xbox and i enjoyed it.

smuckersisgood

@LittleBigPlaneteer:
Dude, his job as a CEO is to cause iD to make money. Now let's go through this slowly.

3 million sales = Money = Success

Where exactly is the fucked up logic here?

RigorMortis

He can consider it a good game in that people like it. Nothing sells 3 million if people are hating it in masses. Just because that sect of people that call themselves "hardcore gamers" may deem something bad, doesn't mean that it is to the majority of consumers.

DefHamster

@invictus:

I agree, I'll blind buy an Id game every time.

The SmacK

@The Topic: "That that haters! Doom III made money, and money can buy things. So there."

THAT THAT HATERS!!! THAT THAT!

Dogysamich

Other things that make money:

Mercenary work.
Prostitution.
Pawning your roommate's stuff while he's at work.
Betting on your own team and then throwing the game.
Insurance fraud.
Softcore pornography.
Selling your plasma.

Doom III, making friendly with the neighbors.

wild homes is being recast!

Eek his picture just showed up for me. I think this is one of those times I wish it wasn't working. ><

LittleBigPlaneteer

*totally hates on doom 3*

thejakeman: visit my site!

What? It was great! Terrifying even! I love that game...

The Magnificen7

Just think what a non-mediocre Doom 3 would have done for sales!

Draylorn

I think people expected a half-life and got a Doom game and were very pissed off.

Having played both Doom 1&2 when they were released, I thought doom 3 was great and kept very close to what made the older Doom games fun.

Doom 3 was a very straight forward shooter with really good atmosphere. It's probably one of the freakiest games ever made.

The SmacK

"Well, instead of burying that money in the ground, why don't we use it to buy things? Things we like?"

Miksho

Don't those Petz games (like Horesez, Dogz, Catz, etc) sell like in the millions and millions as well? Must make them as good as Doom III.

Scaramanga

I thought Doom 3 was very good. Doom 2 will always hold a special place in my heart that no game can touch but still Doom 3 was very good in my book.

Stevetrop

I loved Doom3. I was expecting a Doom game though, so many people were expecting CounterFarBattleStrikeCryField. All of my expectations were met, even exceeding in some areas, and I felt it was alot more suspenseful then F.E.A.R..(which I also liked).

It seems the game industry isn't immune to the "they ain't happy if they ain't bitchin" syndrome.

For my money id can do no wrong and I will continue to blind buy their games until they give me a reason not to.

invictus

"Our game sold 3 million copies, that means it must be g4reat!"

How the fuck did this guy become a CEO with that kind of logic? I'm not saying Doom III is bad, I'm saying his logic is fucked up

LittleBigPlaneteer

Since when did game sales = quality?

Was that a joke or something?

LittleBigPlaneteer

What the? I haven't played Doom 3 yet, but I've heard nothing but good things from everybody who's played it.

Diesel_Power

Really?, it outdid Doom II and Quake II?. I guess kudos to flashlightless fright fest.

PsycheE

I really liked that game and I had it on my PC but I have unfortunately misplaced my copy of it.

Sollus

It probably sold 3 million because of DOOM I and II...not because it was the best DOOM.

Vecha

People still care about Doom III?

Sigma-D

doom 3 was okay (never beat it though) but it just didnt feel doomy enough, you know? serious sam 1 (not the crappy 2nd game) felt doomier.

pandafresh

So now they're saying Id sucks...

J0hnny-Kickass

Now if only I could find the duct tape...

rabidkeebler

To be fair, the Doom Classic mod for Doom 3 was an absolute blast. Classic levels recreated with new and hilarious cutscenes? Made the whole ordeal of the actual game worth it.

Pezdispenser

doom 3 was good, the end bosses were ridiculously hard though

TheNocturnalSun

Honestly I must say I'm in the camp with people that liked Doom 3. Not since the original Silence Hill has any game scared me as bad as Doom 3. They did some pretty cool and revolutionary things like the somewhat hated flashlight (which I sort of liked) and all the scripted encounters.

All in all I think it was pretty good...

Helioz

I remember a cop friend of mine who bought a GeForce 3 Ti200 card, then a few months later bought an ATI 9700 Pro because he heard that Doom 3 was going to be optimized for it (ended up selling the GeForce to me for much less than he paid for it ^_^). Imagine his surprise when it finally came out...Oh well, he still enjoyed the game (and for that matter, so did I; in fact, I still have it installed for when I want to play it again).
I agree that Doom 2 was more balls-out fun, but Doom 3 was still great.

relic1980

Good to see you other two guys are still out there posting.

Doom 3 was a big let down and I did not enjoy it.

mhlaxp

or Maybe it sold well because of its name.

NickyJ

I never thought the game was bad. I enjoyed it for what it was. It looked really great on the Xbox, great controls, and some pretty damn eerie moments.

Xcite79

You meant TAKE that in the last paragraph, right?

Tietsu

@LittleBigPlaneteer: because he uses that logic he became a ceo. in the buisness world more copies sold = great game. Now to the consumer it doesn't mean that but they don't care because they made money.

taftsearlobe33

@rianfrost: It seems like he didn't read the article, and now is to ashamed to admit it

smuckersisgood

@LittleBigPlaneteer: well, sales actually are something of an indicator of quality, not a perfect one, but aquaman sold poorly for a reason, and oblivion sold well for a reason, because if a game is truely horrid, word gets out, and all the marketing in the world cant save it, but if it has quality to stand on, well, that word gets out too. Now we can all think of good games that got overlooked(beyond good and evil, psychonauts and okami for me), and bad games that sold well, but in general, great games sell pretty well, and garbage moulders on the shelf.

rianfrost

I really enjoyed Doom 3, as well as most of the reviewers at the time. I think the problem was that a lot of people wanted it be more in line with Doom 1 and 2, and the only problem is that shooters have actually evolved since then.

Also, when a handful of people whine about a game on the internet, it just helps solidify it's popularity, in my opinion. It lets me know Halo, Brawl, Metal Gear Solid, and Bioshock are all really that good,

Thorax

Doom 3 was great, people just complained because it bitch-slapped their computer to hell and back. That, and people saw screenshots of Hal-Life 2 and were expecting Doom 3 to be the same.

The original Doom is still the best however.

D00mM4r1n3

Madden makes a lot of money too.

There are better ways to say Doom 3 was good.

I was a fan of the flashlight, for instance.

Snake726

It was a good game, especially for its time. That being said, there are aspects that I definitely don't like, such as the fact that if you see a stash of ammo, you're almost guaranteed to get attack as soon as you pick it up. Luckily, Doom 3's expansion corrected a lot of the problems and was much better, as a whole.

Now where's my money?

sariah

I don't get the hate either. It's a flawed gem, but it's still a gem.

ShaggE

Exactly. Wii Play is easily a ten out of ten.

Hopanoe

What the hell? What is this? Hip Hop?

"Lil Wayne sold teh most so he is teh best alive!!!11!"

Revolutionary

DOOM 3 was amazing , i love it , really old school :)

symphony_of_the_night

That that haters?

lol whut?

pewpewlazer

DOOM III co-op over Xbox Live was surprisingly awesome, even though the single-player campaign felt like a retread. Overall, I enjoyed it.

billnabors65

"Lets make a game where you hang out in hallways that all look the same and then whenever the player grabs health or ammo a monster is spawned behind them!"

"No one is going to want to play that."

"...Uh, what if we slap the Doom liscence on it?"

You know what else sold well? 50 Cent's game, Disturbed the band's albums, Pogs, and Cabbage Patch kids. Sales don't mean quality.

Bluur

Best blank screen I ever played.

with occasional bits of light. But not much.

MetaKz

@hollowfreak: Same as this guy. Almost.

It ran okay on my old PC, got to Hell and quit playing for whatever reason - bought it on Xbox much later and started to play it through again, but didn't make it too far - I blame new 360 releases for that, mostly.

Then again. That game made me jump so much, it was almost uncomfortable. And that's the point, right?

It wasn't bad. But it was a good thing it came out BEFORE Half Life 2. Different games, but nevertheless people will and did draw parallels and say, 'Hey - Doom 3 fails in comparison!'

'Different games' seems to do little to soothe the fanboy anger.

sir_carrot

I thought the game was very good, bought the limited edition of it for the XBox and loved the game. Cant wait for Doom 4!

D3m0n1k_Ang3l

Yeah but put that money in a room in Doom III and no one would be able to find it.

Len Bias Cocaine Surplus

The only reason I hated Doom III was because it wouldn't run on my pc, so I bought it for my xbox and it was good. Some of the best lighting and audio I've experienced to date.

hollowfreak

I can't imagine why an anticipated sequel to a game that EVERYONE played might sell so damned well.

Face it, that game would have sold like hotcakes even if it was just "3 hours of Pip farting on a snare drum."

Diddy_Mao

I had a fun time with it. It was way more suspenseful than F.E.A.R. if you ask me.

dead_red_eyes

I always forget about how cool it is on the internets to hate Doom 3.

Then I'm quickly reminded in the comments section of posts like this. The funny thing is, everyone bitching uses the exact same 2 or 3 gripes. "it's dark", "no flashlight", "guy pop out of walls" Bla bla bla.

I mean seriously? Didn't you folks play Doom 1 & 2?

I'm a fairly selective gamer and I don't finish many games. I finished Doom 3. In fact, if you didn't finish it, you missed out. The final 3rd of the game was far and away the best part. It was classic doom gameplay with fantastic graphics. Not sure what people who didn't like it wanted out of it.

subnet6

Doom3 was a great game, the only thing i hated was the flashlight.
Multi-player could have been better...

MadSystem

Doom 3 wasn't my cup of tea :( Glad to see it did well, congrats to id.

Struct09

I am one of the people who bought Doom 3 from day 1, just based on me liking Doom 1 and 2. I didn't like Doom 3 as much as I liked Half Life 2, or the original Dooms for that matter. I thought it was a little repetitive for a game made in 2004, and it dragged a lot in the middle section. Also forcing you to switch between a flashlight and your primary weapon was a horrible design decision, especially when enemies can teleport right behind you any second, and they jump at you out of no where. In these split-second moments, you don't have the luxury to cycle between a flashlight and a gun. You just want to press on the trigger.

However, I did enjoy the freaky atmosphere, and the re-imagination of the old Doom monsters. And the graphics and lighting were simply amazing.

optimusprime

50 Cent's game made money too...that doesnt mean it was a good game. As a matter of fact it was god awful.

Fermbiz

Doom 3 was so shitty I won't be getting Doom 4. And I gave it a long time, waiting to see if it would ever turn into Doom. It didn't.

Slust

@dunetiger reads kotaku, seems pleased: while the halo series has never been one that i cared for, do you really want to take my quote of a "truly horrid"(with the superfluous e) game and apply that to halo3? really? marginal games can get by by appealing to their market, in halo's case, homophobic 15 year olds with antisocial personality disorders(i kid i kid..kind of ) but you really want to argue that halo 3 was truely horrid? if not, then my quote doesnt really apply.

rianfrost

I really liked it, it was what it was, a very simplistic classic style FPS, you could say it was a Doomclone in and of itself :-).

The only thing was it was dark and did a lot with atmosphere, which I really enjoyed. Also the cube made things odd late in the game, but other than that it was Doom with PDAs and less enemies on screen at any given time.

Hell from Doom III was probably one of my favorite levels in any FPS ever.

JimElNino

How many of those 3 million actually bothered to finish that snoozer of a game...

and that figure likely includes sales in the console release, I'm sure.

OmegaVader

It's a bad game. I own it. That makes me a hypocrit of course.

RPGZero

It was ok...you can't really be thinking while playing it and the flashlight mod makes it much better.

Darkest Daze

@rianfrost:

because if a game is truely horrid, word gets out, and all the marketing in the world cant save it

That doesn't in the least explain the tremendous success of the mediocre Halo 3. In fact, all the marketing in the world did save it. It may not be Limbo of the Lost, but neither was Doom 3. :D

dunetiger reads kotaku, seems pleased

So do alot of crappy mini-game collections on the Wii. But, it doesn't mean that they are good games.

TF2Soldier914

@subnet6:

Did you play Doom 1 and 2?

I don't remember Pitch Black Rooms.

I remember running and gunning against countless enemies, with ambient sounds scaring the shit out of me.

While Doom 3 was far from horrible..it failed in comparison to the previous titles.

Sorry if you think i'm being "cool on the internet".

Vecha

Doom III dark?? I just don't see it.

/pun

godot

@Zazu_Yen: Monster closets *are* annoying, but anyway I think Serious Sam plays closer to Doom than Doom 3 does.

eastx

I thought Doom 3 was loads of fun, but I probably would have enjoyed it even more if it played closer to the classic Dooms and less like Resident Evil.

eastx

I'll say it one more time, id set out to re-make the gameplay experience of DOOM on a next gen graphics engine and that's exactly what they did. No more, no less.

It's got the monster closets, the teleporting monsters, every room with stuff sitting in the middle is a trap, etc. etc. The only DOOM era run-n-gun convention it's missing is the monster swarms, because it would have overloaded even top of the line game rigs.

Oh yeah, they had some modern conventions, like nice scripted events, cut scenes, and I really liked their interface for manipulating in game control panels (where your target reticle turns into the 'mouse' pointer when you're over a control) I don't know why more games haven't emulated it. But basically the game-play was ripped from DOOM unchanged which was their goal, remember, and it gets old pretty quick. Go back and play doom; it was fantastic back then, groundbreaking even, but now so many games later you'll find yourself getting bored.

Other games have done essentially the same thing better, Serious Sam for one, Painkiller more recently.

DOOM 3 has a killer engine though, never before or since have dark, claustrophobic industrial workspaces been so well rendered. I spent no small amount of time during my play through it just standing and watching the multiple colored light sources play over the normal mapped curved piping of some incomprehensible machine.

Until the next monster closet sprung open.

Zazu_Yen

@rianfrost:

haha No, it's not "truly horrid." I just wanted to take the opportunity to slam on Halo 'cause it's one of those victimless hobbies - no matter what I say about Halo, people still play Halo. If you prefer, I can point you to the record-setting sales of the first Deer Hunter game. Sometimes, the right marketing can make a terrible product fly off the shelves (in this case, it was a bright orange box and Wal-Mart making it very visible).

dunetiger reads kotaku, seems pleased

@BlackANUS: Actually, his logic flow is either broken or he did in fact imply that great sales is indicative of how good a game is.

He comments on the "mass-misperception" of the dissenting opinion, but fails to clarify if the dissenting opinion is based around the quality of the game or the fact that people are putting words in his mouth. If it's the latter, then the spiel about the "three people on the internet" serves no purpose and Kotaku is misinterpereting the dialogue.

In any case, the point is rather moot. If he's getting butthurt because there are people who think the game sucks, then he has to wake up to the fact that some people think Doom 3 is a POS. Their opinions aren't any less valid than his in this context.

Sqrfrk

I don't know why people didn't like doom 3..I like doom 3...I enjoy the game very much..the only thing that was stupid was the flashlight thing but I got over it..So I'm glad I play it

DespisedMC

Really enjoyed Doom 3, never understood what the criticism was about. It's true while at some moments it dragged on, but it tried to switch it up by having you go outside on mars, and into hell (which was incredibly awesome and scary).

DigiMish

The main game mechanics get really old very quickly.

It got to the point where every time the lights went out in a narrow corridor, I would just spin a 180 (in complete darkness, mind you, switch to shotgun, and pump a couple slugs into the imp that was invariably behind me.

Then, I'd pull out flashlight and find my way out. At that point, its just not scary any more.

One of the bosses, a giant flying dude that dropped bombs and crap, I just nailed with the pulse pistol until it died. Didn't even need to waste ammo on it.

ludwigk

@eastx: "I think Serious Sam plays closer to Doom than Doom 3 does."

Yeah, it's in the monster swarms, it was a key part of DOOM and the 4 or 5 monsters max you'd get in DOOM III just weren't the same. Serious Sam and Painkiller DID do it better.

Zazu_Yen

I find it incredibly sad that a game that attempted so hard to recreate System Shock 2's gameplay mechanics made more money and probably sold more units than System Shock 2 itself.

Atheist Jew

It's a decent game. It's just wasn't Doom.

detoys

Doom III was like the second coming of Jesus. People expectations are so high it really dosent matter what you present. Some people will still be disappointed.

Doom III was not a bad fps. The graphic engine was great and still is, the start of the game was good, both atmosphere and action was great and the bosses where cool. Was it perfect? No, the "flashlight or gun" thing was lame, weak A to Z story telling(Unlike eg Halfe Life 2), weak MP game.

But lets us all hope Doom IV, confirmed btw, is better than Doom III.

JojoTheSlayer

I enjoyed it. It had flaws, but what game/product doesn't?

silentbob343

I've always been more appreciative of the technology and the effort Id goes to to push the boundaries than I have been of the games themselves.

Devittron

I'm always amused at how any id related post seems to draw out the uneducated/trendy gamer. It's like they can't resist taking a pop at the old timer. id are far from a perfect developer but they've given us gamers a consistent line of quality games through the years.

Doom 3 wasn't quite what I expected but I think it stands out there as a very original work and well worth a play through. I've also found that having a new LCD to play it on meant the dark CRT levels that were once a chore are actually now much more fun to play.

BTW id ROCK! Thanks for FREE Quakecon every year. Thanks for innovating game distribution with Quake Live. Thanks for Quake 3 because that just was the most awesome time in my gaming history.

Jelster

@Atheist Jew:

I hope this is a reference to Bioshock 'cause I have no idea how you're drawing comparison between Doom 3 and SS2. Either way, Bioshock or Doom 3 both had something SS2 had very little of - marketing. Bioshock was marketed out the ass as a AAA title (that's a lot of a's) and Doom 3 in a similar vein (plus a lot of OEM tie-in deals). The only people who really knew about SS2 were fans of SS. Plus, SS2 is an ugly game. Ugly games with great gameplay don't survive, no matter how good they are; otherwise, this gen wouldn't be what it is. /snarky

dunetiger reads kotaku, seems pleased

Doom 3 was great. it was just that people expected it to either be totally arcade or totally serious, and instead it was somewhere in between. if you actually just sit down and play it its incredibly good.

Zimmbous

@Atheist Jew: I always thought that the Doom 3 engine would be perfect for an SS2 remake, but in no way can I see how Doom 3 was trying to recreate SS2. Doom 3 was a straight FPS with a flashlight mechanic and PDA while SS2 was a hybrid FPS/RPG/stealth game. And Doom 3 didn't even attempt to have RPG or stealth elements.

Mezodon

I thought Doom 3, along with the expansion, was a great game and very deserving of the high sales numbers. It was nothing like its predecessors, but it was still Doom and still good in its own way. There is a very vocal group of people that hated it, but overall, it was well received... the people complaining are always louder, giving the perception that it must've been a bad game.

Mezodon

I actually enjoyed Doom 3 the only thing I really didnt like was the cheap enemy spawning behind you stuff.

Zootalor

@The SmacK: Uhm.. Doom WAS Half-Life. Literally. It was Half-Life but with all references to another planet scribbled out and "Hell" written above them.

HikariOblivion

@pandafresh:

This.

For me Doom was as much about taking on stupidly huge amounts of enemies at the same time as the mood and fear.

Doom 3 felt too much like they were so caught up in showing off the bells and whistles of their new engine that they forgot the spirit of the original games.

One the upside, I hated the movie it spawned less than the books the previous games were stuck with.

Mikaze

Oh god. Proof id Software is dead.

Yeah, it sold well. So does The Sims. So does Madden. So did Myst. So did CARNIVAL GAMES.

HikariOblivion

*sigh*

I just want to see if id can make good on their promises about the new engine... The one that's supposed to blow UE3 out of the water.

I couldn't care less about Doom... Or as an acquaintance put it "It's dark, and you can't attach a light to a gun" I was interested in Rage until they shot off their mouths AGAIN...

bobtheduck

that guy looks like metallica's bassist.

xbulletholes

Yeah, but it only sold so much because people could not know how the game will turn out at the end... :/

Some people were expecting something better than that... (including me)

Shad0X

The main thing Doom 3 has going for it is atmosphere. I was just playing it again today, and I'm surprised just how well designed and detailed (not to mention creepy) the game world is, even by today's standards. I also really like the interactivity of the in-game computer screens, which isn't something which I have seen in other games even today.

Yes, the gameplay leaves a bit to be desired, but I think the factors I've mentioned pretty much make up for that.

PiotrSkut

If you try to make a good game and it sells well, it tells you it's a good game.

If you make a shitty game and it sells well, it means you are a crook and you enjoy it.

That being said, Doom 3 is awesome.

TheurerDiciple

Hell, I bought Doom III. Was it the best? No... but it's hard to compare. It didn't have an onslaught of Satan's army exactly, but it was technically awesome. A great atmosphere, graphics, gameplay was fun, etc.

It was hampered though. PDAs? OBJECTIVES? Story? Too much for a Doom game. Once Trent Reznor was gone I had already lost hope but went for it anyway.

Doom III wasn't the game it should have been, but it was a quality game, just not worthy of the mantle.

Absent Blue

@wild homes is being recast!: You had me at Prostitution and Softcore Porn. :P

masterdingo

I loved Doom 3, I don't understand the hate for it at all. It kept all the classic features of the original and added lots of fun new ideas.

My favourite part was the fact you couldn't hold a torch and a gun at the same time. I'm forever seeing people complain about that, but it was one of the primary mechanics of the game! The whole point was that you would need to use your torch to see and then you would have to frantically hit the F key to switch back to your weapon and plunge yourself into scary darkness to deal with whatever monster has just lurched out at you. It was designed to induce panic and frantic running/back-pedalling in the player, and I thought it worked perfectly.

It's also one of the most polished games I've seen in years. With most games, if you look around hard enough (and sometimes you don't even have to look too hard) you can spot the occasional rough edge, glitchy clipping or something that looks unfinished. But with Doom 3, everything looks so beautifully crafted. And even more amazingly, it's a PC game that didn't need umpteen patches to make it work out of the box!

photoboy

I'm old - I admit it - but I loved Doom 3. It was pretty much exactly what I wanted and expected: a remake of the original - the game id had in their heads all those years ago - the graphics and atmosphere were incredible, the gameplay was solid, and little touches like the interactive computer screens were, to me, really impressive. True, Doom 3 didn't revolutionize anything, but it was exactly what I wanted.

Monster closets - yay!
Creepy sounds in the dark - yay!
Imps, Pinkies and Hell Knights - oh my!
A shotgun, from the guys who made the shotgun a standard - oh God yes.

I'd kill for Doom 3 on the PS3 (which'll never happen, but I can dream).

Chances

hehehe, what are the figures on returns? >)

Balaan Wrath

@PiotrSkut: Agreed, it's best aspect was the atmosphere. The controls were solid as well. The only thing I didn't really like was the weapon and some monster designs. I would have loved to see the Demon be a giant shaved gorilla again rather than have mechanical legs. It would have been fine if the back legs were flesh. The weapons also looked a bit funny, specifically the pistol and shotgun. The pistol would have been better if it looked more like a Beretta 9mm or HK45, maybe even a Glock 17 (and maybe a 18/18C as an upgrade?), and the shotgun looked like nothing more than a tube. A giant piece of PVC piping.

I still have it installed and love playing it from time to time, especially with some awesome mods for it (LMS and Classic Doom, for example).

Nutlink

I didn't play Doom 3 enough to say I liked it or not.. but also, I stopped playing because it didn't feel like a Doom game at all (personal opinnion, feel free to disagree).

But yeah, I did buy it because it was a Doom title. So count me in for people who got it because of Doom 1 and 2.

Now, I think it's just plain stupid to just ignore people who didn't like it. "three people on the internet" my ass.

There were so many people who didn't like it that it even became a joke.
[aidenvdh.rootnode.net]

So there you are. Yeah it was sucessful, kudos for id. But don't just go ignoring the fact that lots of people didn't like it too. It's not only bad for us, it's bad for you too.

Bokusatsu_Tenshi

Most people bought it back then, because of the massive hype.
The game itself was a very mediocre shooter with some fancy graphics.
and yes,:
Sell numbers =/= game quality

neojam

Because there has never been a bad game, movie or book that has sold well that was bad? Right? . . . Right?

Doom3 got where it was on the hype from Doom 1 & 2, but as a DOOM game it was a major disappointment, where the previous games were nothing but balls to the wall action, Doom3 wanted to be a shitty survival horror game where you had to listen to every annoying PDA entry just to get some ammo and do I even need to mention the enemies that would just randomly spawn behind you.

Doom3 did suck, because it was'nt a DOOM game. Demons, Mars, Guns, there really was'nt much to screw up, but they did it anyway.

Sniper_Zegai

Oh damn, at first look I thought you had taken a picture of david hayter and photoshopped him/beaten him with an ugly stick... I regret nothing!

eskimo-bob

Doom 3 was great. I remember getting high and trying to play it. Absolutely terrifying.

cio

Like Internet Explorer, it's user base is not a proof of quality.

m-p{3}

Doom 3's problem? It was a one trick pony that recycled the same tricks over and over from the first 30 minutes of gameplay, into hours of gameplay... and that's lame.

otimus

Doom III was what it was, a new-engine update of the old game. It was just like Doom I/II, but with fancier graphics. I think people were disappointed because it didn't really do anything new. I would still give it a 4/5, but I think Prey is a much better Doom 3-engine game.

Strangelove

Wow. This guy is an idiot. DOOM III sucked ass. Doom 1 and 2 were good, so 3 sold well. It doesn't taking a fucking genius to work that out.

stargateheaven

Doom 3 wasn't great, but it wasn't anywhere near bad.

Needed more enemy variety, but it definitely can make you crap your pants.

The Amazing Exploding-Man

"Our game sold 3 million copies, that means it must be g4reat!

How the fuck did this guy become a CEO with that kind of logic? I'm not saying Doom III is bad, I'm saying his logic is fucked up "

Umm.. I hate to be the one to tell you this but your logic is the one that's fucked up. Who gives a shit if a game is good or not if it moves 3 million copies? The job of the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) is to ensure profitability and financial accountability to the shareholders and often this obligation has nothing to do with whether a game is good or not.

Wake up idiot; he's CEO because he has presided over the company's most successful release ever and deserves credit for such. The games industry is flooded with now defunct developers that broke new ground and received critical acclaim only to see their brainchild flop in the market and sink the organization.

thund3rstruck

Who hates on id? Really. They started the whole FPS genre in the first place. They run Quakecon for free ffs.

SpeedNut

"I don't remember Pitch Black Rooms."

I suggest you replay Doom on the 386 it was designed for and see if you don't crank the gamma up. Doom was too dark too, but everyone just cranked the gamma and played it brighter than it was intended. Back then, there was no source lighting like games today. Each pixel glowed with it's own degree of brightness so they couldn't do light and shadow like they can now. I totally felt like the darkness in Doom 3 was a modern implementation of the feel they attempted back in the original Doom but weren't capable of due to technological limitations. The flashlight mechanic seemed annoying at first, but it was integral to many of the frantic moments in Doom 3.

"Sorry if you think i'm being "cool on the internet"."

Oh, don't worry, I don't think you're being cool. ;)

Also, reading through all the comments so far, reaffirms my thoughts on the game. Apparently the "cool to hate on Doom 3" is starting to wear off as tons of the comments previous to this one are people saying they really liked the game (although perhaps with caveats, which is totally fair).

subnet6

Quality and success are two very different metrics. Todd Hollenshead here is using his wiley ways as a CEO to mix that fact up using a blatant straw man argument. He starts off talking about people who think the game is bad (as in being bad, not doing badly) and quickly moves on to the fact that it did well (doing well, not being well).

As if a game's success is supposed to stifle people who do not believe it was a good game?

I will not deny that Doom 3 was successful. I will, however, deny that Doom 3 was what I consider to be a game of quality.

SirDanF

All the major game review sites shamelessly sucked DOOM 3's big fat d*ck when it was released, showering it with 8s and 9s. I love how so many of the same sites now quietly acknowledge that the game was a pile of crap. So why did you give it a 9 when it came out? Just retarded, or did they slip you a little something under the table?

burko

I bought the game and really enjoyed it.I think some of the people that keep going on about it being bad either just dont like fps, couldn`t run it at the time ,or now even (like crysis) or are just gaming snobs.There`s a lot of high profile games out since that lots of people think are awesome and i think are total shit but i dont go shouting about it everytime they`re mentioned.Sure it wasn`t perfect but it was a lot of fun for me and i kept playing until the end unlike some so called better games since which lost my interest half way through.

UFO

Doom 3 was not a bad game, for the time it was huge. Nothing way too crazy and I wouldn't say the best Doom, but still a very solid game.

boots555

@WizarDru: According to GameRankings, Doom 3 received just five 10s in its lifetime and only one of those came in the first week of release from a site I've never heard of. Oh, and I finished the both the game and the expansion without any cheats. Even if most people indeed didn't finish Doom 3, that says nothing about the game's quality. There have been numerous posts on Kotaku about the trend of people not finishing long games in general, and Doom 3 was very long.

Mezodon

I bought it because it was Doom 3. It failed on multiple levels for me, mostly because of 2 reasons. Doom 2 is one of my favorite games- one that rewards you for exploring. Doom 3 penalizes you, and by about the 1/2 way mark you never want to touch another pickup. Don't bother exploring, because it is way too few and far between to justify it. Doom 1 & 2 were all about swarms of enemies.. Doom 3 due to limitations was all about 1 enemy at a time, sometimes 2.

Somebody could remake Doom 3 now and make it the way it was supposed to be- it would be awesome.

Roenick92

Doom 3 was excellent, I think this guy might have hateritis, that is, inflammation caused by haters. lol

aphex242

@HikariOblivion: I'm not sure what you're saying, here. That Doom 3 was just like Half-Life? Or that Doom was Half-Life because they used the same engine? Or that they played exactly the same? Because I'm not following you, here.

Half-Life practically INVENTED the interactive cut-scene story-telling style. Even Doom 3, made years later, pulls the focus off of the player. Half-Life is told entirely from a first-person perspective and still manages to tell an engaging story. HL took inspiration directly FROM Doom and Quake, but is radically different in many ways...which is why they had trouble finding a publisher initially. They were considered 'too ambitious' in their design...and this was at the height of the 'me too' FPS releases. The Half-life series features puzzle-solving as a core tenet of it's gameplay, and has a much more relaxed pace than the Doom series. It also features a much more sophisticated AI, far outstripping anything ID has ever produced.

Doom 3 was well-crafted, but not really enjoyable, to me. Painkiller is what Doom 3 SHOULD have been, IMHO. Doom 1/2 had dark areas...but there were also plenty of bright areas, too. Doom 3 was all-dark, all the time. It couldn't handle large numbers of enemies and felt repetitive. Everyone I know who played it either quit half-way through from boredom or used cheat codes just to rush through it. It was successful in terms of sales, but the ridiculous ratings it received initially of solid 10s were just over-inflated due to hype and the rush to deliver a review first. Doom 3 was a solid game...but it was hardly the greatest game out there.

And judging by the stuff posted here, there's not even much consensus on details. Some people say it was exactly like Doom 2, while others say it was nothing like it.

WizarDru

Any game that scares the shit out of me that much deserves praise. Some areas (esp. the end) became too clichéd and many opportunities were squandered but this game dripped with atmosphere.

I think the reviewers were just too afraid to replay it.

mariospants

I remember when Doom 3 and HL2 came out, I only had enough money to buy one of them.

I bought Doom 3. I chose poorly.

Not too much later, I bought HL2, and obviously, the experiences aren't even comparable.

I loved Doom 1 and 2, but Doom 3 was painfully mediocre. It was just a bad game.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Prey is the game that Doom 3 should have been.

PaulMorel

@WizarDru: Basically, what I'm saying is that Doom 3's play style apes Half-Life's. Unlike the original games, Doom 3 is more about going through linear corridors wrecked in JUST the perfect way that escape is possible and occasionally shooting a few zombies. Or solving an elevator puzzle.

HikariOblivion

It's not a terrible game by any means, it's become too cool to bash it now. I enjoyed it, and whilst it didn't give me the same sense of awe that Doom did originally, it had it's moments. It's staying in my collection for the forseeable future anyhow.

TearsandScreams

Now lets all remind ourselfs bad movie games sell too.

What does that tell you?

JamieA

Jaws Unleashed sold well, too.

Shifty_Pete

I came in here to throw out some defense for Doom 3 and was pleasantly surprised to find after scanning the page of comments that there really isn't anything bad being talked about it except all the regular people who are afraid of the dark. Doom 3 was a sensory experience that required you to pay attention to sound, and was much more immersive for the effort. All these flashlight crybaby people rely too much on their vision, especially since all of the monsters either had glowing eyes or threw bright projectiles. Aim for the noise/eyes and use the light cast by the projectiles to your advantage. I punished Doom 3 almost never using my flashlight.

UltraMagnus

Well, I imagine that also accounts for the fact that it was packed in with EVERY VIDEO CARD MADE at the time. That's how I got my copy, and that's how I'm the 4th person on the internet to say that, yes, the game is bad.

All that graphical capability and I spend half the time trying to scan through PDAs so I didn't have to read the amateurish fiction. Though I guess someone got paid to write that, so I suppose that makes it professionalish fiction. /shrug

liquidnumb

@bobtheduck:

What exactly did they shoot their mouths off about? I mean, compared to the weekly Epic statements on... well fucking anything to get some press, I think id have been pretty quiet on id tech 5 and Rage. If anything they should be faulted for not promoting themselves harder to developers.

I'm looking forward to Quakecon this year and especially Carmack's keynote which always has some geekish gems and insights that he personally wants to relate, rather than the corporate PR bullshit we're often subjected too.

Jelster

One more thing: A CEO is responsible for keeping the company profitable first and foremost, so Hollenshead is correct in that Doom 3 was a commercial success. However, as we all know, many games and other media can be commercially successful while being critical flops, so $$$ != quality.

Ubik2501

Doom 3 was not scary, it's graphics and monster design was unimpressive and the scares consisted of the lights going out, guys coming out of hidden rooms and depriving you of your flashlight.

Spiderbait

I've been a fan of Doom I & II since they came out, and still play them (mostly in the form of player-made WADs) to this day, and I actually enjoyed Doom 3 quite a lot. It's not the exact same kind of game as the originals, but I think iD did a good job of making a current-generation FPS game while paying tribute to the original. The flashlight mechanic was just that: a specifically designed mechanism of the game to instill a greater sense of dread, horror and panic when used correctly. I'll grant that it wasn't 100% successful, but a lot of game fans have a habit of taking one flaw - no matter how minor - and blowing it up to such titanic proportions that it overrides their actual enjoyment of the game.

Besides, all of you saying you played the original Doom and didn't see any of these sort of things are blatantly lying. There are plenty of extremely dark areas (end of E1M6 anyone?) and monster closets (they're actually getting much more out of control in player-made WADs than they ever, ever were in Doom 3) to be found in the original Doom games - hell, isn't that part of what made them memorable? Instead of Nazis just hanging around and waiting for you to drop on by, the game actually puts some variety in the mix!

Not to mention that the monster count in the original 3 Doom episodes was actually relatively low - it wasn't until Doom 2 that we started seeing more of the "frantic arena brawl" style that's misattributed to the first game, and its focus on that aspect detracted slightly from the sense of place that made E1 so legendary. I don't think a single Doom I map exceeded 100 monsters. Doom didn't become turly notorious for giant slaughterfests until player-made WADs hit the scene with bloodbaths like Hell Revealed and Alien Vendetta. Thankfully, giant arena brawls have been continued with games like Serious Sam and Painkiller, which are both fantastic.

So Doom 3 isn't exactly what people expected from the Doom franchise, but in retrospect the original Doom wasn't either. It wasn't until Doom 2 and the advent of PWADs that it came to exemplify that style of gameplay. Doom 3 occupies an interesting middle ground between games like Serious Sam and Painiller, and games like Half-Life 2 and System Shock 2, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I will, however, concede that the gimmick boss fights were disappointing, and that there really could have been a lot more monster variety than just IMPS IMPS IMPS every turn of the way. I mean, the "pinkydemon" is one of the most iconic enemies in the original, and they put all of half a dozen of them in Doom 3. That's crap.

Ubik2501

Sabing face much...Surely peole know by now a sequel can sell well but tarnish an IP.

Fabrice

I never got far in Doom3, only to where you first meet the cyberdogs?

The game was TOO DAMNED FREAKY for my little heart.

Rondogg

i STILL don't understand why, with so much advanced technology around, none of the guns had integrated flashlights. or hell, just tape a flashlight to a gun. that way i don't have to keep putting my gun away to see things.

Whahaa

Haters much anyone? Since there are a BUNCH of developers hanging out trolling at Kotaku I assume that you yourselves has made a better original IP sequal?

Doom 3 was no fiasco as evident in sales numbers!

DanLar75

@Whahaa:

Because it's a game, the flashlight and darkness was there to instill tension and fear. Turn on all the lights or let the player forget the flashlight exists and you remove that from the game. Then people would be saying the game offered nothing original and it was just a boring generic FPS.

Given how tight the genre is I think Doom 3 did manage to bring it's own contribution beyond mere graphical improvement for the sheer sake of it. It seems to have been something Carmack has hinted at for some time regarding the deminishing returns on increasing engine quality. 99% of the time it is a wasted effort as people zoom past that uber hi-res multi layered wall texture that cost $1000s to produce and many CPU cycles to render. Perhaps more developers should be looking at how to push their engines in directions other than sheer polygon pushing code and instead focus on the game mechanics.

I'm enjoying the outline of id Tech 5 in that respect. It aims to blur the developer line and allow artists and designers more freedom from the restrictions of the individual systems. I hope it reaches an equal penetration to id Tech 3 if only for that.

Jelster

Well, I didn't really like DooM III myself, but I saw that more because what the game is and what I like diverged, not because the game was actually *bad*.

However, I do take exception to a creator decrying criticism. Yes, a creator has to have thick skin - look at all the flak the Big Guy gets for stuff on Earth =P - but they should also be open to legitimate criticism. I can't tell whether Hollenshead is speaking only to trolls or all critics, but I fear it might be the latter.

Mister Adequate

I liked Doom 3.

Doshi

I like how Hollenshead equates a game's quality with it's sales figures.

We should be looking for id developed pet simulations and cooking games in the near future I suppose...

stranger

@DanLar75:

I think the argument being made however is that just because it sold well doesn't mean it was a great game.

Like any creative work the only things that dictate quality are what the creator (or creators) put into it and what the user gets out of it.

It's not really a BAD game, but for my money it wasn't really that great.
To some people the fact that it didn't really offer anything new was nice, it brought a feeling of familiarity to the game.
To me, I was hoping for a little bit more. I wanted something more than just a coat of paint and polish on a game I had already played into the ground by the time I graduated high school and I didn't really get that.

Diddy_Mao

I'm still waiting for the fun patch...

jaczor

Because good sales = a good game

Awesome logic skills.

Pi-face

What a pompous and naive statement "I think there are three people on the internet that keep making these posts that Doom III was 'bad'". Obviously he is out of touch with the average everyday gamer. I have ben in enough discussions, on many, many forums to know that the general consensus of gamers about Doom III is and was that it was "ok", if you had the system to run it when it came out (the card that they shamelessly tried to force gamers to "upgrade to" took another 6 months to come out) - but that it wasn't no Doom.

Painkiller was more Doom than Doom III. Doom III was more like Resident Evil - just with more bullets and no need for typewriter ribbon. It was slow, boring, extremely scripted - with barely any action whatsoever. Instead of making it the bloodbath that the Doom franchise was built upon - and what the fans expected, they went for "horror-suspense". It felt more like Alone in The Dark, with the stupid flashlight and kindergarten puzzles. It isn't that it wasn't okay to play - the disappointment set in when you remember this is supposed to be Doom.

They should have called it something else - like Dark Space One, or something...

magusat999

Doom 3 should have had more monsters like the previous Doom games but it was still excellent.

toadwarrior