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MULTIPLAYER
From the beginning id have
repeated over and over that multiplayer is an after-thought and that their
primary focus is an amazing single-player experience. They delivered what
they promised, but still, how does this multiplayer stack up? I’d say that,
for something that wasn’t the primary focus of the developers, it came out
rather well. The game ships with five maps for regular deathmatch, team
deathmatch, tournament, and last-man standing. One of the maps was shown a
while before the game was released at the annual QuakeCon, while another map
is a (rather loose) remake of the classic Quake 2 map, The Edge. The other
three are all new.
First let me start by
saying that this game is broadband only; anyone still using dial-up should
steer away from the numerous Doom 3 servers for fear of colossal lag. If you
think you’ve seen lag before, think again. Knowing that, I had opportunity
to play around with deathmatch for a while, but I soon found myself back to
playing single-player. After playing through the maps, I’d have to say that
my favourite map is the Tomiko Reactor, the map that was shown at QuakeCon.
It really is brilliant, with focus centred around a giant, central room
reminiscent of those giant indoor environments seen in Halo, with a massive
laser at the centre, firing regularly, where the berserk power-up lies below
a series of shifting platforms. I remembered reading about this map, so I
immediately rushed towards the centre to get the power-up, but with the
sudden reddening of the light, I found myself with a negative score.
Determined to get the
berserk, I moved again and this time managed to get the item, something
followed by a grotesque teleportation effect that landed me in one of the
smaller rooms with my vision blurry and fists out. Running about, I charged
after some people, and though I could’ve sworn I landed my knuckled square
in their faces two times, I still found myself lying on the ground with a
score of –1. Deciding to get serious, I ran about and found some real
firepower (rocket launcher, later a plasma gun) and I also played around
with the feature that allows you to turn off the lights. I can’t say that it
worked too well; sure any other foes that might have stumbled into the room
wouldn’t see anything, but I couldn’t see anything either. But I guess some
people can see because, as I moved to turn the lights back on, someone
gunned me down again.
Rockets can be painful.
As someone who’s
fairly good at deathmatching, I was a bit perplexed, then decided to stop
messing with the game. So, my conclusion is, though the game offers some
interesting new things, like the ability to turn off lights and ambushes, in
my opinion, they are only distractions that get frags for your enemies.
Afterwards, I managed to get a few frags in (rocket-launcher action, baby!)
before leaving. But while playing, something else became apparent, another
great feature in Doom 3: per-poly hit detection, meaning that characters no
longer have invisible boxes around them that, if you get a shot in the
general direction of your enemy, you hurt them. Now bullets go between legs
and under arms. This feature wasn’t too noticeable in single-player, though
it became apparent as I deathmatched; people take longer to go down.
As I said, this is a
broadband-only game. And you need high-quality broadband, too. The game ran
fine for a while, but as more people joined, I did start getting some lag.
It started when the fourth person joined and I imagine it gets worse if you
get another four people (the game has a four-player limit, though id have
stated that they expect eight-player servers cropping up as people make
their way around the limit. They were right.) to join. If you really want to
play eight-person deathmatch, I’d recommend doing it over LAN. So graphics
and technical details aside, Doom 3 deathmatch felt like Quake 3, I’d say,
with the same closed, indoor maps, only a bit darker. For fans of Quake 3,
like me, that’s good, but as I said, I didn’t hang around the Internet
servers too long.
Introduction
Graphics
The beginning
Hell invades!
Multiplayer
Mishaps that you shoot
Mishaps that you shoot (cont)
Odd, ends and a verdict
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