Pretty pictures
As far as I'm concerned, Doom 3 is the ultimate demo. Amazing graphics, cool sounds, horrendous monsters, good atmosphere, and its even interactive. Yeah, as a demo of how the Doom 3 enginge functions, it was pretty much perfect. From a gamers point of view I was less impressed however. In fact, although I was (and am ) a big fan of both Doom 1 and 2, I did not bother to buy Doom 3. I simply do not buy a game which has an advertised lifespan of less than 10 hours, and where the replay value equals nill. Well, nill -1 actually, because you'll probably do it in even less time the 2nd time around.
Doom 3 is no exception however. For a lot of games, the duration is about 16 hours (think Max Payne, another really nice demo... think Unreal 2... etc). Usually, the comment is that the graphics are great... yeah right. I'm truly sorry, but I'm of that old generation, and that generation expects games to last. What did Warlords II, Civilization, Lemmigs, Dune 2, Master of Magic and XCOM have in common? Hours upon hours of gameplay, that's right. The advent of graphics over gameplay seemed unstoppable for a while. Games that offered a truly devastating single-player experience were few and far inbetween. I don't really fancy coughing up USD 50-60 for 10 hours of fun, especially if its essentially a clone of something I have already done before.
That was the whiney part. Now, lets move on to the fun part: The reason why it is actually good there are games like Doom 3. Doom 3 was an excellent demo, and a lot of people bought their engine for other games. The same went for example for the original Unreal Tournament engine. Obviously, Unreal Tournament offers hours of gameplay as well as a nice engine, but that's not the point. If a company invests USaLot into an engine, they have some more time to actually focus on the gameplay instead of said engine. Some of the finer games ran on a bought engine. The Doom 3 engine also showed what could be done at that point, and how to get there. Sourcecode wasn't listed, but little details about technology get others thinking in the same direction.
The downside of those nice and shiney graphical engines is that they need a monster system to function. For me, blessed with a crappy Athlon 850, this means I cannot play certain games on the level of detail they deserve. I can hear you thinking already... "Ha, that's why he's such a slouch and complains about gameplay... his system isn't up to par so he can't enjoy the graphics..." Well, no. I don't exactly lack the funds to purchase an ubar system. I lack the interest. Why should I upgrade my system to a 4 GhZ processor when its outdated next week? When I do upgrade, I want ot be sure that I spend my money for a game that lasts.
Lately, a lot of gaming companies are moving into the gameplay value area again. Guild Wars is a prime example of that: Great content, great replay value, and amazing graphics. Other jewels include for example Dawn of War and Knights of the Old Republic. Dawn of War deserves a mention for the nice killer-combat moves they have, on which one can zoom in, and KotOR for being an RPG with simply amazing graphics. There are more such jewels, of course... Final Fantasy seems to have hordes of dedicated fans, and not only because of the pretty pictures. It offers value for money. If I hadn't bailed out of GW, I would probably have upped my PC for that. The Elder Scrolls are coming, Part IV, and that's another of those amazing games... filled to the brim with quests and content while at the same time being graphically amazing. MMORP without the MMO part. These developers have understood what attracts gamers and makes games legendary: Gameplay and Pretty Pictures. Because, and that is the honest truth, it is nice if the gameplay is good, and I'll return to that game, but if the graphics are also good, I will buy a legal version and support the company ;o)
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