Which version is the better one to play?

[VinnieLe]

I bought the classic Doom classic collection and it came with 3 different versions of Doom 3. Which one of them is the best version to play. I'm talking about quality of life improvements, how little the game crashes, the performance, and whether or not it is the full package.

[Lippeth]

Based on the logo, it looks like the version of Doom 3 included in Doom: The Classics Collection is the BFG Edition, which removes many sound effects, quite a few set pieces and enemy placement, and makes quite a few changes to the visuals and gameplay, arguably for the worse, or at least at odds with the original presentation of the game. I still consider the 2004 pc version of Doom 3 to be the complete version of the game, but I play the BFG Edition on occasion with CstDoom3-BFG that restores much of the missing content as well as fixing many new issues the BFG introduced, and a patch I made to restore all the removed sound effects.

The BFG Edition is still Doom 3 and is a perfectly reasonable way to experience the game for the first time. Both versions are equally stable in my experience.

[Dryspace]

"The BFG Edition is still Doom 3..."

I don't agree, and this distortion and cannibalization of games should never be supported, any more than it should be tolerated for literature and cinema.

[Lippeth]

It's still Doom 3 in that the takeaway would largely be the same if you were to experience one and not the other. The BFG Edition is certainly lacking when compared to the 2004 pc release, and why they did what they did is beyond me, but broadly speaking you'll have used the same weapons, fought the same monsters, gone through the same levels and met the same characters. Meaning if the BFG is all you have or are able to run, it's still worth experiencing because Doom 3 is definitely in there, and with the right mods it can get pretty close to the original. It also has its own set of mods and tools that can't be experienced with the original game.

I agree that preservation is important, but what's done has already been done, and since the Steam release now includes both the 2004 and 2012 releases, I'd say it's perfectly preserved and then some, and the most complete way to experience all Doom 3 has to offer is to eventually play both versions.

[solidap]

Play the original 2004 version first. When people talk about how amazing and innovative Doom 3 was, that's the version they are talking about. You don't get that same experience with the BFG version. Which is a kind of "remix" of the original game that results in a much different experience.

[useofextremeforce]

I was only able to play the original on Xbox when it released. (Same with ROE)
At that time I didn't know how butchered it was until I played the BFG Edition. Even with that one. I didn't know that they changed a bunch of things in it.
Only until recently. I finally sat down and started playing the original version and it's by far the superior game.

[Stalin]

BFG got achievements unlike the others if you care about this

[Walikor]

Original version with dhewm3

[dprog1995]

After playing og version and ROE expansion, you can play the lost missions campaign in BFG version.