HL2 vs. Doom3 vs. FarCry: A Review

[Acert93]

I have to agree with the Half-Life thing, its one of the best games ive ever played But Doom3.. ugh.. id put that way down there as one of my least favourite games. They ripped the plot (what little there is), weapons, monsters, environment straight from the originals, and just slapped on a fancy graphics engine... and the gameplay can be summed up as "pick up ammo > demon spawns > kill demon > repeat" whilst running through extremely repetitive levels that all look exactly the same. Supposedly its a horror / action game too.. but i find it pretty hard to be scared when everything dies in one click of the mouse (hello shotgun). Annoying maybe, but definately not scary.

Everyone has an opinion and taste in games. My guess Doom 3 is a game that (1) Tries to recreate the ORIGINAL Doom experience of shoot everything with (2) Start of the art graphics and (3) and to bring ambience and a scary atmosphere to a totally new level.

The game did not scare me necessarily (I honestly think Ravenholm was scary... and I actually jumped out of my seat on the airboat level when a Zombie jumped out of the water), but it DID scare a lot of people.

FPS is a BIG genre and not everyone is looking for the same thing. Some people want a game you get in, point kill, and then get out. I had to set time aside for HL2 because of the story and the pacing... with D3 you just jump in.

While D3 is not my cup of tea, I know a lot of people who love it. I played the original Doom and Doom2 with my dad. He really does not like FPS, but he got Doom 3 and LOVES it. Why? It is simple, it is fast, and it is atmospheric. Not every game has to be HL2 (I know... this is sad to me hehehe) because not everyone wants HL2. There are gamers out there who want traditional FPS. And to that end Doom 3 is a success. Find locked door, go find key, back track to door, kill EVERYTHING that moves in the process, wash, rinse, repeat.

I would agree with my opinion on Doom 3, but I know a lot of people who like it. D3 is different from HL2 and will appeal to different gamers. D3 is a great classic FPS, but most HL fans do not want classic FPS shooters, we want what HL offers

 

[-h2o-]

Well, Half Life 2 pwns all

 

[donutty_uk]

HL2
FarCry
Doom3

But..How about originality...

Far Cry came out of the blue, so to speak. In which other game can you fly a hang-glider over a tropical island? The graphics are very nice, but the mutants are the worst enemies ever! They are badly animated, textured and modelled.

Half-life games will always be a benchmark and to aspire to. They set new standards of innovation. Lets hope this spawns a breed of super-game. The press said Doom 3 was as close to an interactive movie you could get. HL2 is now!

 

[MrWynd]

if you've ever heard of it, you know what i mean

1 on 1 tetris attack > 1 on 1 halo 2

 

[MiccyNarc]

I played the Doom III demo and hated it.
If demos are supposed to make you want to play the final game, Id failed miserably.
The graphics were very good, almost as good as HL2. But the gameplay....I hated it.

Far Cry was good. Excellent graphics (better than Doom), fun gameplay, bad story.
Half Life 2 has extremely good graphics. While technically they are worse than both Doom and Far Cry, in action they look much more realistic. The gameplay is about as good as Far Cry, in my opinion, but the storyline beats all.

 

[g911turbo]

Why is SMB ranked so low? That's "ghey".

 

[ryan330i]

Thanks for the comments. You make some good points. I'll have to agree that 'graphics' as a category is poorly labeled, as I do want to consider all underlying technology that makes the games possible.

As such, I have to disagree with you that FarCry's 'gameplay in all directions' is a design element ...at least purely so. It's really a combination of design and technology.

My goal in the graphics category was to discuss all the underlying features of the engines that *allow* particular artistic design and gameplay approaches.

While the Doom and Source engines are spectacular, they may not support FarCry gameplay or design decisions without modifications to handle long distances or lots of foilage. Likewise, the FarCry engine, although it has a physics engine, probably wouldn't support the physics-heavy gameplay of HL2 and the indoor AI problems I described would surely have to be addressed to accomplish indoor-heavy gameplay like Doom 3.

Really, my goal was to disect the games according to how a development team might divide the work.

Engine guys don't care whether the game will have monkeys or zombies, or what the gameplay is, they just have to meet requirements for draw distances of 2.5 miles, or support the latest pixel shader, or provide tools that allow for convincing character emotion.

The art guys really have a particular theme or feel they want the game to have. The ships must look organic, and the bad guys must sound menacing and the hero must evoke empathy from the audience...their goal is to make sure the audience is interested in the story regardless of whether the game is Myst point-and-click, RPG, or FPS. In fact, they probably wish it was a movie so they could have complete control over the experience.

Finally, what is left is gameplay. Developers focused on this make sure we have fun. They decide whether there will be jumping obstacles, obstacles using the physics engine, or red/yellow/green key hunts...how hard are the bad guys to dispatch? What happens if I run over Alyx? Of course their decisions will heavily influence the other two categories, but some clear delineation is possible I feel.

That's not to say these are perfect categories, and in fact your method is very similar, but maybe moves some of the non-visual technologies into the gameplay category, which is probably just as valid.

Interesting write up there, although I think you were too narrow in graphics. It really needed to be 3 categories:

1.) Graphic technology
2.) Artistic design
3.) Immersion: Interactive design/world

Some of your points, like FarCry's "gameplay in all directions" is an design element. If Doom3 was totally limited to closed hallways you would have a point, but Doom3 does have some open areas.

We also must be careful making a distinction between Artisitc design and Graphic technology. A game that has an good engine with excellent artists/animators will look better than a game with a great engine with poor artists/animators. A lot of this also has to do with taste, preference, and reference. HL2 tries to mimic the real world--which it does a good job of. FarCry tries to mimic a tropical island--which it does a good job of. Doom3 tries to mimic a make believe space outpost0--which it does a good job of. Artistically, I would say my _preference_ is HL2>D3=FC. Technically I would say D3>HL2=FC. Personally I hated FC because I thought it lacked execution and the story was linear and the "go any direction" theme really did not work (ton of non-passable areas in which real life you could scale). I thought the graphics were GREAT, but not well incorperated into the game itself. FC could have taken place somewhere else. D3 did a good job of using the graphics as a way to tell their story. True, not much of a story there, but if you are looking for a classic FPS (which a LOT of people want) with a lot of shooting, then D3 and the engine did the job. But again, this is a lot of taste and has to do with art design preferences--way to subjective.

And finally, because of HL2, when we discuss "Graphics" we now need to consider interaction. Do the NPC animate well? Do their body movements jive with their expressios? Do they have good facial animation and lip sync? How is the voice recording? Are the worlds interactive? Can I break stuff? Can I interact with stuff? Do I influence the world around me believably? Does this aid the story?

D3 and FC both had some basic physics... but they did nothing for the eye candy. And both games had shaky voice overs, lip sync, etc... These REALLY detract from the IMMERSION.

Even if Source's rendering technology may (not saying it is, just giving a devils advocate) is not better than D3 or FC in many/any areas, the immersive technologies in Source make the graphics more enjoyable. I would rather see a 512x512 picture on the wall that can be interacted with, shot, thrown, tossed, and so froth, instead of a 1024x1024 static painting on the wall. To me, the picture that MOVES is better graphics because it is more immersive. But calling this graphics would not be fair.

Anyhow good post, but you should broaded "graphics" because the Doom3 engine, overall, is the most advanced. The 3 games all take different art/design directions that they all execute well (even if you do not like them).

 

[Burnhard]

Hmmm interesting read. I have to agree with you except I haven't played Farcry so I can't comment on that (not yet completed HL2 either, I have a job and a wife!).

But where would you place HL2 on your all-time favourites list? Mine would read something like this:

1 Elite
2 Half-Life I
3 Homeworld
4 Half-Life II
5 Eve Online
6 Giants
7 The Thing
8 Unreal Tournament 2003
9 Blitzin Chess (haha)
10 Medieval Total War

I just convinced myself I spend far too much money on videogames

 

[Acert93]

Gotcha. Do remember from an engeering side that developers are not necessarily limited to how an engine performs in the flagship game. e.g. See all the games that use versions of the Quake 3 engine or the Epics Unreal engine technology. CoD and MoH are Quake 3 engine based games, yet the appearant "limitations" of Quake 3 are not found in those games. Same goes with the Doom 3 engine. I have see people make some huge outdoor maps and on hlfallout.com there was a post to doomworld forums I think where someone had taken the HL2 textures and was recreating buildings and stuff. They looked very good and the author was showing that Doom3 could have very detailed textures w/o a problem. The thread made a good point of distinguishing between the game engine and the games that use them. The artists, their abilities, and the art direction affect our judgements a lot. e.g. HL2 looks VERY detailed, but in reality does not always have a big poly count. FarCry has some huge open areas, but HL2 does too. One must wonder if one planned a HL2 level to be large if they could do similar.

And one big thing for developers is legacy support. Doom3 runs on a lot of older systems well with details turned down, and the fact HL2 runs well on DX7 cards is also pretty neat. While this means high end users get less bang for buck, it does mean more sales. So while we can debate what technology is better, a lot of people are still playing with DX8 cards. In many ways how a technology performs on mid range systems is more important than how the uber leet gamers feel. In this regard HL2 and D3 really excell as gaming platforms.

Anyhow, good job on your review.

 

[Alig]

Well like most opinions, i don't agree. Doom3 has the best graphics with FarCry closely behind and HL2 behind that.

As for story...well...they all are average. No winners.

As for gameplay FarCry is more fun than HL2 and HL2 is more fun than Doom3.

Overall i've had tons more fun playing FarCry than i'm having playing HL2. Its becoming as much a chore as Doom3 become and i can't see myself finishing it. HL2 boasted in good AI and in my eyes has failed badly. When you got squad following you i get so frustrated...wherever i go theres a ****ing person infront of me "Sorry Gordon!" ...its getting beyond funny. I'm not saying HL2 is bad but the AI is certaintly nothing special...nothing FarCry didn't deliver in early 2004. Anyway, Doom3 is a good FPS, HL2 is a good FPS and FarCry is the best FPS since HL1 like it said on the box.

 

[ryan330i]

That's tough. Right now I feel HL2 is near the top (along with HL1). Maybe that will adjust with some time.

Here's a list of FPS games off the top of my head that would be in my list, in no particular order:

Ultima Underworld
Medal of Honor
NOLF
Splinter Cell (OK 3rd person --TPS?)
Deus Ex
Half Life
FarCry
Half Life 2
Duke Nukem 3D
Rainbow 6
Operation Flashpoint
Counterstrike

Hmmm interesting read. I have to agree with you except I haven't played Farcry so I can't comment on that (not yet completed HL2 either, I have a job and a wife!).

But where would you place HL2 on your all-time favourites list? Mine would read something like this:

1 Elite
2 Half-Life I
3 Homeworld
4 Half-Life II
5 Eve Online
6 Giants
7 The Thing
8 Unreal Tournament 2003
9 Blitzin Chess (haha)
10 Medieval Total War

I just convinced myself I spend far too much money on videogames

 

[Burnhard]

Well, there are several different genre in my list. If it were FPS, then Half-Life I would be at number 1 and Half-Life II at number 2. I'm not saying the list refers to how I would feel about playing them now, only how memorable they were.

 

[PhaTox]

Question always is: was it worth the money?
or: was it fun playing?
I dont care at all for polygons (what are they? can u eat those?) never did care for them playing halflife (big time fun) or Duke nukem 3d- did you care for polygons playing those? nope, i guess not.
all that is important to me is athmosphere and also a certain drive to go on: playing diablo means dreaming about finding this unique golden superoberhammergeiles (german) sword or mail plate or whatever. Playing monkey island means: give me another riddle I can laugh my ass off about.

Concerning Athmosphere I got the shivers playing MoH: remember those woods, snow falling, wolfhound crying and howling for your flesh- snipers around you and BANG- got a freakn bullit in your had?? That was SCARY and fun to play, an athmosphere ever so dense. Had this with Baldurs gate II, too. In the mines of nashkell. Music is doing a majour part.
Concerning farcry:I did not finish it. Graphics are outstanding, but who can identifiy with this bragging redneck asshole of a hero??too cool to be me- thats what I thought. Otherwise, I dont feel like shooting people in a place that looks like freaking holliday vacation in the dominicanian republic. Good place to play leasure suit larry, bad place to play a FPS, dont you agree? Take my rifle, hand me a cocktail!
HL2 is dense in athmosphere again, still I got to admit, that the drive to keep on playing was bigger in HL1 and Baldurs Gate I/II.
Are You with me?