<blockquote>Quote:<hr>Along with a few other members of the media, HomeLAN got a chance this morning to play the Doom III deathmatch demo that’s on display at QuakeCon. The four player deathmatch took place on a level co-designed by id Software and Splash Damage. Here are our impressions of the Doom III QuakeCon DM demo:
The gameplay itself was standard deathmatch; in other words running around in a level going after the three other opponents and making sure they are dead. There was nothing terribly innovative, but it was still fun.
The partial list of weapons in our demo consisted of the pistol (very weak), shotgun, (strong at close range), machine gun (very effective), plasma gun (shooting white balls of energy) and the rocket launcher (no explanation necessary there). You can also use your fists to attack but they are really only effective when you have the Beserker power up (more on that later) and you also have a flashlight for seeing in dark spaces that can ales be used as a melee weapon. As you might expect, ammo for the various weapons in the Doom III DM demo were all over the map as was armor.
The Beserker power-up allows you to use your fists as a one-shot (one fist?) one kill weapon against your opponent. Your vision in the game becomes blurred while you have the Beserker power up and you hear yourself scream as well, which is rather bloodcurdling but very effective; it makes you sound like a banshee. The visual effect on your character as others see you is a set of red rings around your character.
Visually, Doom III looked very sharp. We couldn’t find out what the hardware specs were on the demo machines, except that it was running at 640x480 resolution with no AA enabled. Despite this low resolution, Doom III is one of the best looking PC games we have ever seen, with very detailed character and weapons models, some incredibly realistic level textures and of course the Doom III lighting model, which makes dark spaces very dark indeed. You can even shut off light in certain areas in order to high from opponents.
The level itself was mostly of a sci-fi high tech metallic theme, as one might expect from Doom III but a small portion of the level had been “converted” into the demon’s den with orange and red light, bricks and lots of blood. Some of the level had some animation, such as what looked like a sci-fi reactor section that fired up and called the level to glow red while the reactor was going. Movement in the level felt a little slow but that may have been due to the crampness of the level itself
Rag doll physics was in evidence during the Doom III multiplayer demo, including objects like boxes and barrels that could be moved by weapons fire and a dead body hanging from the ceiling during one portion of the level that could also be moved by weapons fire. Some glass windows could also be smash but unlike most glass in games the window didn’t shatter all at once but rather in pieces.
Overall, Doom III deathmatch played pretty much like deathmatch from other id Software game but there is no doubt that the graphics are incredible. We hope to talk to folks from id to hopefully get more info about their plans for Doom III multiplayer later at QuakeCon.<hr></blockquote>
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