Yes, technically it’s a just a poorly optimized, leaked spoiler demo, but DAMN! I’d seen screen shots and a bad copy of a bootleg video someone shot at E3 but actually playing it on my system is a whole other story. This game is going to be unbelievable, the character models look almost as detailed as those in ill-fated Final Fantasy movie. Even at a near stand still 15 frames per second on my Radeon 8500le I could tell that there is some seriously creepy atmosphere in this game. Broken lighting fixtures creaking and swaying overhead cast moving shadows, tortured whispers of lumbering zombies hidden in darkness play into your ear, this is going to be one hell of a cinematic game. I will definitely be shelling out 50 clams when this baby hits the shelves.
How is the gore factor? Are there perfectly rendered intestines? I can’t wait for this one either.
There’s no team play right?
Dammit.
Funny you mention it, the intestines are particularly nicely rendered. The gore is awesome, bullets leave realistic wounds precisely where you shoot them, and you can all but smell ichor oozing out of disemboweled zombies. This is a whole new level for gib realism. 
As for online features, I couldn’t say. I barely got the three level demo to run on my system and it’s just a demo, and an unofficial one at that.
Where did you get the demo?
Safe bet that’s a question that can’t be answered precisely without risking the Wrath of Mod, carnivorousplant.
I’m envious, cainxinth…
I’ve seen plenty of screenshots and probably the same crappy video from E3, and I can safely say that Doom III will be the game that forces me to upgrade my computer.
Hey, then I’ll be able to play the copy of Return to Castle Wolfenstein that’s gathering dust in my desk drawer. Double the updated Id Software “nostalgia.” Hooray!
carnivorousplant, I think Larry Mudd answered your question best. Nothing a quick google wouldn’t answer for you anyway.
Larry, I’m definitely gonna need an upgrade too. Even at 800x600 with most of the cool new effects off, I chug along at 15 fps, and I have a very decent system (Athlon 1.4, 512mb, Radeon 8500le with 128mb). I’ve heard even Radeon 9700’s are finding the demo mostly unplayable. Even when the final version is debugged, optimized, and released I bet nothing short of a GeForce FX (NV30) will break 50 fps. I think the really crazy thing is that the GFX is based on DirectX 9, which has a whole cadre of incredible new effects, and Doom III is still based on DX8.1. In the next three years games are going to start doing a damn good job impersonating movies.
It’s a cash cow too, the video game industry already out-grosses Hollywood. The money is just divided up among a greater number of smaller players. Pick the right gaming company stock and you could be holding on to the next Warner Bros at pennies on the dollar. Of course pick the wrong one and you have… AOLTW? 
I want to be excited about games like Doom III. I really do.
But when it came down to “spend upwards of $400 to upgrade my computer to gaming shape for about a year” or “buy a PS2 for half that and enjoy gaming goodness until 2005 at least”, the choice was easy.
I remember reading in an interview from during E3 John Carmack saying that there was some trouble with the Radeon drivers so that the games graphics were significantly scaled back.
What you are playing is the game on medium graphics settings.
Doom III is coming to Xbox as well. Supposedly looking just as good.
Heh-- I remember the brief confusion I had after seeing my first Doom III screen shot. It was captioned “So and so shows off the console graphics for Doom III” and was presented in the context of an E3 article. I’m squinting at the monitor in the picture, pissed that it wasn’t a close up. Who wants to look at some clown standing beside the monitor at a convention? Admittedly, the Doom III booth was pretty cool – very atmospheric. Then I realized it was a screenshot, and I was looking at a game character. Jaw-dropping realism.
I’m betting that the in-game consoles are going to beat the heck out of the ones in Duke Nukem.
I just finished downloading Doom II for kicks. Let’s see how it holds up after eight or nine years. Hell, the original Quake is still playable… Those cats at Id knew how to make games.
Mrs. Plant and I still play Doom II. She tends to hold the trigger down and spray. I wish to heck she’d look for her spouse when she does that…
Yay. Yet another game my antique machine (all of a year old) can’t play. It’ll probably show up under the tree this Christmas, and go on the shelf of next-year’s-games, right next to Morrowind and NeverWinter Nights.
It won’t look as good. John Carmack has gone on record as saying they’re going to have to scale the graphics back significantly to make it playable on the Xbox. Got that from Slashdot.
Minimum graphics card will be a Gforce3 – you’ll be able to run it playably on medium graphics settings.
When is it supposed to be hitting the shelves. I built a new PC this past June just for purpose of playing this game. Of course i should have waited, seeing how I can now build the same machine for 25% to 30% less.
I still play Doom II, virtually every day. The beauty of the game is the simplicity of the controls and the thousands of player created WADs out there. Plus, you get to kill stuff.
I played Unreal for a while, and had trouble with the controls. Quake was easier for because the controls were so Doom-like. If the basic control setup continues into Doom III, I’m likely to buy a copy, and a new video card if need be.
Frank, do you do co-op or death match?
I still haul out Doom II every once in a while. For a while, my favorite study break activity would be to take Slige (a very cool random map generator), set it to generate a 4 level map with an arena/boss level at the end and then rampage through it. I had this all set up on a batch file, so all I had to do was double-click the shortcut and voila, a completely new game every time. Slige was very, very cool. Too bad new games are too complex to have a playable random map generator…it really adds a lot of replay value.
There was a Penny Arcade strip about the leaked Doom III alpha a while back. Worth digging up, if you feel ambitious–should be the beginning of the week before last, if I’m not mistaken (don’t feel like searching for the strip at work).
Nope, single player only.
Slortar, your version of Slige must be later than the one that I once had. It would only do one level at a time, with no boss level capability. I thought Slige levels were OK, but very linear. Since the puzzle factor is as appealing as the carnage, Slige was a little lacking in my view.
For my money, Eternal is the best set of WADs ever.
I heard Quake 4 is based on the new Doom engine, if so sweet!