This might also be why I have a certain fondness for Doom 3. It's definitely very flawed and not as good of an entry as the current franchise but I see it as an expression of OG Doom's scarier moments, such as the blue keycard area in E1M3.
Yep, I posted a dozen pages ago that Doom 3 is a lot more like the original shareware episode than anyone admits. There are also a lot more nuDoom style "big monster arenas" in Doom 1-2 than people admit as well.
Yep, that's what I think too.
Doom 3 could have been truly great and it had all the ingredients. Even now, after all these years the engine still feels smooth and well made, the textures are well-made, the lighting is still impressive and some of the enemy designs are just really cool.
It was clearly a labour of love, which is why I have a certain fondness for it but it has serious pacing issues due to the fact that the Mars levels drag on for too long and for some strange, inexplicable reason, there is only one Hell level aside from the final level. I will never understand why you returned to Mars just as the game was starting to get more interesting. It's like you eat steak and when you are full of it and can't take another bite, the desert comes but after you take a couple of bites they take the desert away and give you more steak. They could have done so much in Hell that would have been a contrast to the realistic sci-fi levels and not just visually but also gameplay wise. Demonic cathedrals, castles, weird abstract shapes, fleshy areas with pools of blood, fights that involve more enemies at a time, devious traps.
Due to the fact that you can make hell abstract, some areas can be more simplistic looking and have simpler lighting so you can have more monsters at the same time but since temples and such places don't require so much geometry to make them look good you can make it work visually too. On an unrelated note, I think Croteam chose Egypt for this exact reason. A pyramid requires only a couple of polygons to look convincing, as opposed to a martian installation.
You see glimpses of what could have been and it's just really sad the developers didn't manage to fully articulate what they wanted to say. It's almost like they wanted to avoid a Xen situation so they wanted to make a single hell level that was really good and while it was, it felt more like an appetizer for something much more interesting. You get a few more glimpses in the Lost Mission hell levels, where each room is expansive and looks distinct and I especially like the gothic cathedral and the boat sequence but the journey is sadly very linear and short.
Ultimately, the thing that makes Doom really interesting is the contrast in all of its aspects. For example, the blue key area from E1M3 I mentioned that feels like a retro Doom 3 area is dark, cramped, poorly lit and has a monster closet but the area right before it is large, expansive and very bright. Some areas are colorful, others are very brown. Some fights take place in tight corridors with a couple of imps and well placed shotgunners while others are slaugherfests in large areas. It's like Doom 3 based the whole game on areas that were only like the blue keycard room. There might have been technical reasons for this but I see no excuse for they there was a single hell level in the game. They got the moody sci fi base and fire and brimstone feel right but that's not enough to fill a 13 hour experience. Likewise, there is nothing wrong with arena fights just like there is nothing wrong with dark areas and monster closets. The problem arises when these features become a crutch for your game.
