Thursday, August 12, 2004
Doom 3 Review! World of Warcraft Review!
So here we go, one review that is incredibly late, and one review that is incredibly early!
Doom 3:
Ok, I admit that I have not finished the game. But I have played probably through 1/2 to 2/3 of it, and it is tremendously disappointing. Not only is it disappointing, I actually hate playing it! I found myself slogging through the game just so I could beat it (I still will eventually), just so I could write a review. But you know what, I have an inkling that it isn't going to get any better. The main thing wrong with Doom 3 is that I find its gameplay to be absolutely awful. Basically, the game's premise could be summed up like this:
Player walks into room.
Room's lights mysteriously go out.
Player is forced to use flashlight (because they don't have flashlight mounts on guns in the 22nd century)
Player suddenly sees terrifying demon coming at him, and switches to a weapon
Player can no longer actually see demon, so player backs up.
Player is killed from behind by other demon that has popped up from a wall behind him.
This is fun? I'll admit, this isn't a terrible game. But when you wait 9 years for a game, and it's being published by one of the seminal developers in the video game industry, you expect something a little more than ordinary.
And the graphics, well, let's just say that they are absolutely ridiculously good. But why spend all your time making incredible graphics if the gameplay sucks? I can just download video card demos from ATI or NVidia that show a bear yawning or something. The answer is that they can sell their engine for millions of dollars.
Another problem is that the engine looks so good that you have to wonder what the hell they were thinking in making every single room look exactly the same, turn of all the lights so that you might as well have turned off your monitor, and having monsters disintegrate so that you can't appreciate the detail and artwork?
There are some scary moments in the game. But most of them rely on the "holy crap, there's a monster there that I was not expecting at all." But I actually think the scariest part of the game was when a scientist is leading you through a section of hallways where the lights are totally out. You know something terrible is going to happen to him, and when they make you wait in the darkness for a while, it really gets your nerves on end. Unfortunately, moments like that are few and far between. But just having things jump out at you isn't genuinely scary, it's more just being startled. I know that it isn't genuinely scary because I wouldn't even want to play a genuinely scary game.
But this game is basically just a graphical update of Half-Life. There is nothing new in terms of gameplay, and you're still just one guy who was just going into work when shit went down and horrible creatures came out of a teleportation device. And of course, there is a lunatic corporate guy who is running around screwing everything up. There's no real story.
My last two complaints about Doom 3 are more about what SHOULD have been there. I was hoping for a few more references to the original Dooms. The imps should have been brown, and the cacodemons should have been bright red! Some recognizable touches should have been put in, so that you knew what you were fighting right away. About the only thing I recognized was the revenant.
Lastly, what the fuck were you thinking, id, when you left out co-op multiplayer? If Doom 1 and 2 could have it, and you worked on this fucking thing for 5 years, and the Xbox version is going to have it, you really sold us out. Not only that, you charged us all an extra 5 bucks because you knew everyone was going to buy it anyway. Well, id is off the list of Automatic Buys.
Ok, that's enough.
Next up:
World of Warcraft:
Ok, obviously World of Warcraft has not been released. But I was lucky enough to be a beta tester, so I looked through the terms of service, and they don't restrict me from making early reviews. But, two disclaimers: 1) I have never played another massively multiplayer online (MMO) game. 2) They are probably going to change the game a bit before the release, but I feel that the gameplay and mechanics will stay largely the same. All they are likely doing now is balancing the different characters, adding quests, fixing bugs, and maybe adding a few new features.
At its heart, the gameplay of World of Warcraft, is indeed killing monsters, creatures, animals, and other humanoids. You murder thousands and thousands of these things, and it's all great fun. There are plenty of ways to do it, guns, bows, axes, swords, shields, frost spells, fire spells, etc. The standard stuff in a role playing game. But at the other heart of WoW (two hearts?) is the strong encouragement from Blizzard to play with other people.
For example, there are a lot of quests (read: things for you to do to get money, items, and experience points) that you can do on your own. But Blizzard also implemented a few quests that have Elite status, in which the monsters have very high hit points and are very strong. But if you group together with other people, then they are doable. So it is only by joining a group that you can finish these quests. Some of them are pretty fun.
Also, they encourage grouping outside of quests by making certain skills complement other skills. For example, you can become an expert at potion making, but you can't actually get some of the ingredients unless you are an expert at herb finding. So this encourages you to get a friend that you can share skills with. One person finds, one person creates, and they share the benefits. And of course there are plenty more skills that potions and herbs. Solo players can buy whatever ingredients they need, but playing in a group certainly helps.
Blizzard also seems to have learned that Diablo 2 was just one big item hunt. People would run around trying to find a particular item that was important to have for a particular class. This is somewhat alleviated in WoW. For one, items are easy to come by. You can create many items if you are a blacksmith or armorer, and the quests are easy to do and give a lot of items, so the supply is always higher than demand. Secondly, the items aren't as sick as they were in Diablo 2. You will probably continually replace your entire item set, as soon as you get better things. There are no items that work as well at level 1 as they do at level 50. It is still fun to acquire things, just as it would be for any RPG, but it isn't as much the focus of the game.
One complaint that I hope they address in the final version is that there doesn't seem to be as cohesive a storyline or universe in the game. It is hard to have a great storyline for an online game where the people are continually interacting. But Blizzard has done a decent job. You start off getting a lot of low level quests, and eventually they move you to a place with higher quests. But it would be nice if there was a single driving factor that you were trying to accomplish the whole time. Obviously this is easier said than done, but I think they might be able to pull it off.
In the end, WoW does a lot of little things right. Like being able to run the game in a window, so that you can accomplish other things (there are definitely periods of downtime, travelling especially). The interface is very good, the world is well laid out, and the skill points vs. talent points system works well too. It just has the level of detail that you expect from a Blizzard game. And it's still in beta testing!
Rumor has it that WoW will cost 14.95 a month to play. Sort of a steep price, but it does seem to have a very good feature set behind it. How it compares to Everquest 2, I have no idea at all. That game has the advantage of being a sequel, and the experience of Everquest. But WoW is a fun, solid game. Whether it can transcend that into being a great game largely depends on what happens in the last few months of development, and whether the players themselves will embrace it. So far, they have. But I think WoW needs a gimmick in order to push it to greatness.
Perhaps, if they could just address my only other complaint, it would be possible. And that is that the universe seems to go on around you, but you don't really affect it. This is definitely a design decision by Blizzard- if you are instructed to kill a certain person for a quest, that person respawns a little later so that other people can do that quest. And no matter how many of a creature you kill, more will always respawn. It kind of withdraws you from the immersiveness of the universe. I don't exactly know how this could be addressed, but it would be a big step in making it a great game.
In the end, if you like RPGs, this is a good one. Is it worth 14.95? Is it better than Everquest 2? Or any of the next generation MMO games? I can't answer these questions. But I have the distinct impression that WoW is just a very well done version of a last generation game. The other games may not have the polish and support of WoW, but I think they have more potential.
So there are my two reviews. One game you definitely shouldn't pay for, and one game you might consider in a few months.
Doom 3:
Ok, I admit that I have not finished the game. But I have played probably through 1/2 to 2/3 of it, and it is tremendously disappointing. Not only is it disappointing, I actually hate playing it! I found myself slogging through the game just so I could beat it (I still will eventually), just so I could write a review. But you know what, I have an inkling that it isn't going to get any better. The main thing wrong with Doom 3 is that I find its gameplay to be absolutely awful. Basically, the game's premise could be summed up like this:
Player walks into room.
Room's lights mysteriously go out.
Player is forced to use flashlight (because they don't have flashlight mounts on guns in the 22nd century)
Player suddenly sees terrifying demon coming at him, and switches to a weapon
Player can no longer actually see demon, so player backs up.
Player is killed from behind by other demon that has popped up from a wall behind him.
This is fun? I'll admit, this isn't a terrible game. But when you wait 9 years for a game, and it's being published by one of the seminal developers in the video game industry, you expect something a little more than ordinary.
And the graphics, well, let's just say that they are absolutely ridiculously good. But why spend all your time making incredible graphics if the gameplay sucks? I can just download video card demos from ATI or NVidia that show a bear yawning or something. The answer is that they can sell their engine for millions of dollars.
Another problem is that the engine looks so good that you have to wonder what the hell they were thinking in making every single room look exactly the same, turn of all the lights so that you might as well have turned off your monitor, and having monsters disintegrate so that you can't appreciate the detail and artwork?
There are some scary moments in the game. But most of them rely on the "holy crap, there's a monster there that I was not expecting at all." But I actually think the scariest part of the game was when a scientist is leading you through a section of hallways where the lights are totally out. You know something terrible is going to happen to him, and when they make you wait in the darkness for a while, it really gets your nerves on end. Unfortunately, moments like that are few and far between. But just having things jump out at you isn't genuinely scary, it's more just being startled. I know that it isn't genuinely scary because I wouldn't even want to play a genuinely scary game.
But this game is basically just a graphical update of Half-Life. There is nothing new in terms of gameplay, and you're still just one guy who was just going into work when shit went down and horrible creatures came out of a teleportation device. And of course, there is a lunatic corporate guy who is running around screwing everything up. There's no real story.
My last two complaints about Doom 3 are more about what SHOULD have been there. I was hoping for a few more references to the original Dooms. The imps should have been brown, and the cacodemons should have been bright red! Some recognizable touches should have been put in, so that you knew what you were fighting right away. About the only thing I recognized was the revenant.
Lastly, what the fuck were you thinking, id, when you left out co-op multiplayer? If Doom 1 and 2 could have it, and you worked on this fucking thing for 5 years, and the Xbox version is going to have it, you really sold us out. Not only that, you charged us all an extra 5 bucks because you knew everyone was going to buy it anyway. Well, id is off the list of Automatic Buys.
Ok, that's enough.
Next up:
World of Warcraft:
Ok, obviously World of Warcraft has not been released. But I was lucky enough to be a beta tester, so I looked through the terms of service, and they don't restrict me from making early reviews. But, two disclaimers: 1) I have never played another massively multiplayer online (MMO) game. 2) They are probably going to change the game a bit before the release, but I feel that the gameplay and mechanics will stay largely the same. All they are likely doing now is balancing the different characters, adding quests, fixing bugs, and maybe adding a few new features.
At its heart, the gameplay of World of Warcraft, is indeed killing monsters, creatures, animals, and other humanoids. You murder thousands and thousands of these things, and it's all great fun. There are plenty of ways to do it, guns, bows, axes, swords, shields, frost spells, fire spells, etc. The standard stuff in a role playing game. But at the other heart of WoW (two hearts?) is the strong encouragement from Blizzard to play with other people.
For example, there are a lot of quests (read: things for you to do to get money, items, and experience points) that you can do on your own. But Blizzard also implemented a few quests that have Elite status, in which the monsters have very high hit points and are very strong. But if you group together with other people, then they are doable. So it is only by joining a group that you can finish these quests. Some of them are pretty fun.
Also, they encourage grouping outside of quests by making certain skills complement other skills. For example, you can become an expert at potion making, but you can't actually get some of the ingredients unless you are an expert at herb finding. So this encourages you to get a friend that you can share skills with. One person finds, one person creates, and they share the benefits. And of course there are plenty more skills that potions and herbs. Solo players can buy whatever ingredients they need, but playing in a group certainly helps.
Blizzard also seems to have learned that Diablo 2 was just one big item hunt. People would run around trying to find a particular item that was important to have for a particular class. This is somewhat alleviated in WoW. For one, items are easy to come by. You can create many items if you are a blacksmith or armorer, and the quests are easy to do and give a lot of items, so the supply is always higher than demand. Secondly, the items aren't as sick as they were in Diablo 2. You will probably continually replace your entire item set, as soon as you get better things. There are no items that work as well at level 1 as they do at level 50. It is still fun to acquire things, just as it would be for any RPG, but it isn't as much the focus of the game.
One complaint that I hope they address in the final version is that there doesn't seem to be as cohesive a storyline or universe in the game. It is hard to have a great storyline for an online game where the people are continually interacting. But Blizzard has done a decent job. You start off getting a lot of low level quests, and eventually they move you to a place with higher quests. But it would be nice if there was a single driving factor that you were trying to accomplish the whole time. Obviously this is easier said than done, but I think they might be able to pull it off.
In the end, WoW does a lot of little things right. Like being able to run the game in a window, so that you can accomplish other things (there are definitely periods of downtime, travelling especially). The interface is very good, the world is well laid out, and the skill points vs. talent points system works well too. It just has the level of detail that you expect from a Blizzard game. And it's still in beta testing!
Rumor has it that WoW will cost 14.95 a month to play. Sort of a steep price, but it does seem to have a very good feature set behind it. How it compares to Everquest 2, I have no idea at all. That game has the advantage of being a sequel, and the experience of Everquest. But WoW is a fun, solid game. Whether it can transcend that into being a great game largely depends on what happens in the last few months of development, and whether the players themselves will embrace it. So far, they have. But I think WoW needs a gimmick in order to push it to greatness.
Perhaps, if they could just address my only other complaint, it would be possible. And that is that the universe seems to go on around you, but you don't really affect it. This is definitely a design decision by Blizzard- if you are instructed to kill a certain person for a quest, that person respawns a little later so that other people can do that quest. And no matter how many of a creature you kill, more will always respawn. It kind of withdraws you from the immersiveness of the universe. I don't exactly know how this could be addressed, but it would be a big step in making it a great game.
In the end, if you like RPGs, this is a good one. Is it worth 14.95? Is it better than Everquest 2? Or any of the next generation MMO games? I can't answer these questions. But I have the distinct impression that WoW is just a very well done version of a last generation game. The other games may not have the polish and support of WoW, but I think they have more potential.
So there are my two reviews. One game you definitely shouldn't pay for, and one game you might consider in a few months.
# posted by Stuart @ 9:28 PM 
