DOOM 3 VR - March 29th

[lol no-guy]

So poor little chap Ian from Eurogamer streamed the game up until Comms, and he's probably the only guy in history to have ever been consistently felt scared from Doom 3's jumpscares since '04/'05.

 

Edited March 29, 2021 by lol no-guy

[snapshot]

Lol, also launch trailer

 

[scalliano]

Just got done up to the Vagary boss fight, sadly I'm gonna have to rerecord the entire thing because I accidentally hit the Share button during gameplay and that's a level of private information I'm not ready to post on Youtube :P

 

First impressions, well, it's Doom 3 BFG Edition in VR. However, there are a few things of note:

 

- Flat cutscenes. I was kind of hoping that they would be reworked in kind of a Farpoint style, allowing the player to look around while things were happening. Apparently the PC mods can do this, but hey-ho.

- The shotgun feels like it has a MUCH tighter spread. Demons drop much more easily from a lot further away.

- A lot of people are complaining about the blurriness of the game. It's a PSVR game, it isn't any more blurry than most other titles. I'm playing on a base PS4 and haven't really had any issues.

 

Really enjoying it so far, the flat version is going to be tough to go back to.

[AtimZarr1]

11 minutes ago, scalliano said:

- The shotgun feels like it has a MUCH tighter spread. Demons drop much more easily from a lot further away.

 

That sounds interesting. I'd be curious to know if there were any other balance changes.

 

---

 

There are some features/changes mentioned in this Slayer's Club FAQ article. For example, they removed "many flashing lights" but assures that "lighting/atmosphere stays close to the original."

[scalliano]

Started again, video is still uploading to YT at time of posting (46GB wtf), most likely will have to wait until the morning before I can publish. Had to stop one map short of where I got to earlier today thanks to some insane Aim controller tracking drift that I couldn't get rid of while playing. A few more things I noticed:

 

- You can now duck underneath Imp fireballs a la OG Xbox Doom 3 (absolute win).

- Certain strobing effects have been toned down or removed completely. Understandable, given the format.

- Guns seem to sit higher than your hand position - much of the footage you'll see has the weapon (particularly the MG) pretty much right up under my chin.

- No head-tracking option whatsoever. This sucks for anyone just playing on a DS4. One point to Doom VFR, methinks.

[Caffeine Freak]

Actually... after watching some of that four hour playthrough, I'm not so sure they DID use the maps from the BFG edition. They clearly maintained some of the same changes, like removing that annoying collapsing staircase in Alpha Labs 1. But this version still has the cheesy red-flashing 'they took my baby' scare from Alpha Labs 4, which I *distinctly* remember being removed from the BFG edition. 

 

If they didn't tinker with the maps in any significant way from the original release this time around, this might actually be the title that finally convinces me to get a VR headset. 

[Edward850]

18 minutes ago, Caffeine Freak said:

But this version still has the cheesy red-flashing 'they took my baby' scare from Alpha Labs 4, which I *distinctly* remember being removed from the BFG edition. 

No that's still in BFG edition. It's just weird to trigger (always has been), it's done on both a timer and area trigger so you can get ahead of it and the rest of the sequence won't complete until you step back.

Edited March 30, 2021 by Edward850

[Caffeine Freak]

2 hours ago, Edward850 said:

No that's still in BFG edition. It's just weird to trigger (always has been), it's done on both a timer and area trigger so you can get ahead of it and the rest of the sequence won't complete until you step back.

 

Huh. Okay. I've only played through the base campaign on BFG edition once, that might explain why I missed it. 

[scalliano]

 

[wheresthebeef]

Enjoying it so far but no move controller support and having to use a dualshock kinda sucks.

The shotgun has become very OP, with the only "nerf" being that there's no laser light.

[scalliano]

Actually died in Comms Transfer - accidentally stood just a bit too far back during the Trite fight.

[scalliano]

Just as an aside, the reason a lot of this gameplay is a bit lop-sided is down to the fact that I has a squint in my right (dominant) eye corrected when I was 4, but when the surgeon was resetting it they did so at a bit of an angle, so what's slanted to everyone else is bolt upright for me. Was never really an issue in my life until I started capturing VR gameplay footage, but there you go :P

[Caffeine Freak]

@scallianoCurious, how many times had you played through Doom 3 prior to the PSVR version?

[Edward850]

7 hours ago, scalliano said:

Just as an aside, the reason a lot of this gameplay is a bit lop-sided is down to the fact that I has a squint in my right (dominant) eye corrected when I was 4, but when the surgeon was resetting it they did so at a bit of an angle, so what's slanted to everyone else is bolt upright for me. Was never really an issue in my life until I started capturing VR gameplay footage, but there you go :P

I was wondering about that. I was under the assumption that everyone just played VR at a dutch angle. :V

I'm curious to see if any footage I record will come out the same-ish once my PSVR arrives.

Edited April 4, 2021 by Edward850

[scalliano]

10 hours ago, Caffeine Freak said:

@scallianoCurious, how many times had you played through Doom 3 prior to the PSVR version?

More than I can count - at least once or twice a year since the original release, including the OG Xbox versions.

[scalliano]

More drift towards the end - basically the gun was aiming 90 degrees to the left of where I was holding it. Sucks that you can't recalibrate ingame.

[scalliano]

So, just a head's up on my playthrough - I do plan to finish the game and uploading the rest of it but I've broken my leg O_O so VR gaming is off the table for the next 6 weeks at least. Bummer.

[Edward850]

@scalliano As an aside, do you have problems with the PSVR headset fogging up, and would you know of any tricks to make it stop doing that?

[Immorpher]

So far I have preferred Doom 3 VR much more than Doom VFR. On my end, perhaps since I wear glasses, I havent had fogging issues. Although when I play in VR, I turn the heat off in the house.

My aim controller loves to drift over time, which is annoying. Not sure if its because I got it used, or my hands are heating up its gyros. I found all kinds of wild theories on how to fix it. Haven't had luck with it yet.

[Edward850]

10 minutes ago, Immorpher said:

My aim controller loves to drift over time, which is annoying. Not sure if its because I got it used, or my hands are heating up its gyros. I found all kinds of wild theories on how to fix it. Haven't had luck with it yet. 

I suspect it's just the nature of the beast, it mostly relies on the relative movement. I tend to find placing it sideways on my lap for a couple of seconds then bringing it back up corrects it.

[Immorpher]

1 minute ago, Edward850 said:

I suspect it's just the nature of the beast, it mostly relies on the relative movement. I tend to find placing it sideways on my lap for a couple of seconds then bringing it back up corrects it.

I'll try that! Thanks :D

[scalliano]

9 hours ago, Edward850 said:

@scalliano As an aside, do you have problems with the PSVR headset fogging up, and would you know of any tricks to make it stop doing that?

Sometimes, usually during the summer. I'm in Ireland so even that isn't much of an issue.

 

As for the Aim drift, I've found that giving it a quick shake up and down usually corrects it, though not always.

 

So, I've been watching Ian Higton's livestreams of the game and last night he made it to Central Processing. I haven't got that far yet in my playthrough but I do know what to do. The VR version has a pretty big issue for people who aren't as familiar with the game as the rest of us - there's a security monitor you have to view to get an access code, but the headset is such low resolution that the camera you're supposed to look through is difficult to make out. Several times he looked at the monitor correctly but completely missed the code and ultimately had to rely on chat to get through. There is a secret PDA which also has the code, but the problem with that is that it's a secret.