A buyers guide to Doom

[The Knight]

Having heard the BFG Edition labeled as a worthless piece of crap too many times I've decided to make a non-biased thread laying out all the facts I know about the BFG Edition vs each separate game together which should help potential buyers to the version that'd be best for them. So if you're interested in getting into the Doom series and have got a some time to spare, here's what I have to say about Doom 3: BFG Edition.

One thing needs to be said, however. This thread will not mention the word "horror" or "scare" at any point. Doom 3 is not a horror game. It is a dark action shooter with a few cheap "jump scares". If you want a horror game, look towards Amnesia: The Dark Descent.

Currently the two packages are more or less the same price

Doom 3: BFG Edition - 29,99€

Doom 3 - 9,99€
Doom 2: Hell on Earth - 9,99€
The Ultimate Doom - 9,99€

Doom 3 + Resurrection of Evil

In it's entirety the BFG version and the original version of Doom 3 + Resurrection of Evil are not EXTREMELY different, the changes are not huge, they are minor details and offer somewhat the same experience. The notable changes are:

• A few things which you previously has to dig around in the config file in order to change can now be changed directly in the game such as field-of-view and proper resolution.
  
  
• Doom 3's torch which previously was a separate weapon, which you would keep out to see around you could not be used together with any weapon and had no limit on how long it could be used - this is changed to a shoulder-mounted torch which lets you use weapons with the light on, with the trade off that is has a battery which loses power after using it, so go by Half-Life rules, switch it off when you don't need it.
  
  
• The lighting in the BFG version is somewhat brightened up, not areas which are purposely dark, though. You still need your torch at times and as far as I know only areas which were unnecessarily dark got some light shed on them.
  
  
• The BFG Edition have some changes to the HUD and menus to better fit any resolution.
  
  
• As far as I know, existing mods for original Doom 3 do NOT work in BFG Edition, however BFG Edition is open-source, so it IS moddable.
  
  
• The original Doom 3 + Resurrection of Evil campaign are somewhat longer. The BFG versions had a few areas cut from the game which lowers the total campaign time and the difficulty somewhat, not a lot, but somewhat.

The Lost Mission

This a somewhat fun expansion but nothing to write home about. This will last you a couple hours and gives you a bit more content for your money. As far as I know, this is only available with the BFG Edition.

The Ultimate Doom + Doom 2: Hell on Earth

Before I continue. I am not - by any means - trying to seem patronizing here. A lot of people do not know what DOSBox or source ports are. I sure as hell didn't a few years ago.

Now, the classic Doom games originally came out Microsoft DOS, an operating system who's games cannot be properly played through modern operating systems. There for, it needs to be emulated, which is is what DOSBox is for. The Steam versions of the classic games are all emulated with DOSBox. If you buy the separate classic Doom games there's two ways to go about actually playing them.

1. Play it through Steam, which is the emulated DOSBox version. I do not recommend doing this to anyone because these emulated versions are not set up properly with their resolutions, controls and sound options and DO NOTHING to inform you how to do it yourself. It requires some digging in config files and "setup.exe" executables.
   
   
2. Play it through a source port. A source port is a program designed specifically to make the game run properly on modern systems. This is BY FAR the easiest way to play the classic Doom games short of playing the BFG versions of the classics. There are quite a few to chose from, my personal favourate is ZDoom. Getting them to work is not too complicated either.

The BFG Edition versions of the classics are as close replications of the DOS version as possible. They are fully source ported inside BFG Edition's game engine. They scale to the right resolution and have the modern "WASD + Mouse" control scheme. The downside to playing these versions to playing the it through say ZDoom is that they have a lower framerate and does not fully replicate the awesome sound of the original Doom music. And if you're really picky - The health pack which previously has a red cross on them was changed to an icon of a medicine pill and the two secret levels from Doom 2 had WWII German soldiers as enemies who were originally from Wolfenstein 3D, these were changed to just more demons. Other than that, they are very decent in my opinion.

No Rest for the Living

I actually don't have too much to say about this minor expansion. I still haven't played through it's entirety but is more or less just more fairly decent classic Doom content, which is, as far as I know, only available through the BFG Edition.

Verdict or for those who prefer the TL;DR approach

The Doom 3: BFG Edition is game you want if you want to get into the Doom series with as much ease as possible and if you're not too big into modding. The experience is a tad duller than each respective original counter part but the trade-off is that everything works properly, straight out of the box. Of course, as with any game, this game does have it own fair share of technical difficulties. It has a trouble running on AMD graphics cards, however I think there's a fix out now that solves this.

If you do decide to get the games separately, do be prepared for some mucking about with config files and source ports. It's not rocket science but might require a "how to" google or two. But you get the full experience of each game and there's many mods available.


I usually go with the BFG Edition because I like having it all in one neat package.

[valfarovhel]

I like them all, so I bought them all. But, my N64 has cancer...as much as a fan boy towards ID as I am....my friend put Daikatana in my N64. :/

[Saza]

I have all the id games on Steam except for Q3 Team Arena & Normal Arena, as well as Q4 (But I have it on disc anyway).

I'm a modding kind of guy, so I prefer the normal game.

[valfarovhel]

Originally posted by RetroFan:

I have all the id games on Steam except for Q3 Team Arena & Normal Arena, as well as Q4 (But I have it on disc anyway).

I'm a modding kind of guy, so I prefer the normal game.

I'm such a modder that I have doom on a raspberry pi via raspbian, and I coded up a launcher program for the IWADS via chocolate doom! >O Oh, and I even modded up the quake 3 semi-clone open arena on the IDTECH3. What now son?! lol

[WonderFeng]

I went for the BFG Edition this weekend because it was on a 75% discount on Steam, only cost me a fiver. I call that a good deal!

[violently]

The BFG engine is multi-threaded, so it runs much faster on modern hardware. Also in terms of modding: It's all open source. My favorite branch is RBDOOM-3-BFG...

[WonderFeng]

Originally posted by violently:

The BFG engine is multi-threaded, so it runs much faster on modern hardware. Also in terms of modding: It's all open source. My favorite branch is RBDOOM-3-BFG...

Cheers for the tip mate, about to try that mod now :D

[The Knight]

Originally posted by violently:

The BFG engine is multi-threaded, so it runs much faster on modern hardware. Also in terms of modding: It's all open source. My favorite branch is RBDOOM-3-BFG...

I made a few changes thanks to that. I didn't even know it was open source. :p

[WonderFeng]

It looks nice but for some reason it doesn't see my saved games so I cant load anything that I've played on Steam :(