Dead Space is also heavy on jumpscares but at least it has good atmosphere and the gameplay is 1000x times better.

I thought Silent Hill 2 was the pinnicle of the genre ;)

Doom 3 used a modified quake engine, that is why it feels that way. I still have the original disks, install and forget. I always liked that about ID. Now that it is ZMB I probably won't buy another as it is tied to steam. Did get BFG for the console though, that is NOT steam, YEAH!

I know, I am a steam hater, but my preference as I can not abide by their draconian TOS.

As to the other ID titles and Raven titles, I have most of them, several copies from floppies to disks to CDs.

More like it was by iD, that's why it feels that way. While it's true that Doom 3 had big chunks of Quake engine in it, you could as well call it modified Doom engine since Quake engine also used chunks of Doom engine. iD was always excellent at writing reusable code - IIRC id Tech 5 (or was it 4? That's what Doom 3 uses) still has snippets of code from the original Doom. Anyway, point being - Doom 3 engine is most definitely a new version of id engine, not just a modified version of the previous one.

Not sure why you'd want a version of the game with some really illogical design decisions left in place. BFG edition does a lot to improve on the game as well as provide some welcome extra content.

If anything, BFG doesn't go far enough. They could have made a really good game out of it if they just fixed everything that was going wrong. Randomised monster spawns - and more of them. Minigun doesn't need reloading (maybe it overheats instead?). That kind of thing could really have transformed it.

Basically, when it was released, the game has been (obviously) constructed around the way it's designed and BFG edition then slapped a bunch of mods and changed a bunch of things with no regard to how will these changes affect the original design. Like the design decisions developers have made or not, Doom 3 is a very tightly designed game - and removing the "Illogical" bits from the design doesn't make it a better game, quite the contrary.

I can understand that if you disliked Doom 3 originally, these changes might make you like it better - but that's kinda like slapping a sharpening filter on pixel art and say it's better because it's sharper. Sure, you might personally like it and that's fine, but the quality of the piece has just deteriorated. Doom 3 already allowed players to heavily modify it, you could apply the "sharpening filter" yourself - which is an option BFG edition removes entirely and pushes the modified vision on everybody.

I'm still surprised Doom 3 hasn't shown up on GOG yet. GOG already has the previous Dooms.

But I would hope for the original Doom 3, since it doesn't force the "checkpoint saving" like the BFG version.

The problem with your analogy is that your average piece of pixel art isn't in a constant state of change and growth over a five year period. Plenty of changes were made for personal preferential reasons over the course of its development. And let's not forget your analogy would require that it's the pixel artist returning to his own work and deciding that it would look better if it was sharper. Which is something they have every right to do and either you like the final work or you don't.

The flash light wasn't in the game during the first few years of development. Given the state the game was in back in 2002, which is to say fairly advanced, that means large sections of the game weren't designed with the flash light in mind at all. Yes, clearly there were sections added to make it more vital. But I don't think those sections play any worse at all without the separate flash light. They're a bit less clumsy. But I don't see that as a bad thing.

Also, early versions had radically differently balanced weapons. The rocket launcher could be used in close quarters without killing yourself, the pistol was weak as piss and the shotgun was closer to the Doom one.

My point being: these things have changed during the game's development and affected the way it plays. So whole sections of the game play differently in the original Doom 3 than they did when they were designed. The BFG edition could be seen as a continuation of that development. And while it could have done so much more. Especially to counter the fact that the lack of separate flash light made things easier, the changes aren't inherently negative. They just don't go quite far enough to rebalance the game properly.

Personally I would have preferred a more comprehensive rebalancing of the game. But what the hell. It plays well enough as it is.

I never had a problem manually saving in the BFG version. In fact, aside from the game saving at the start of every level, I never noticed any other automatic saving going on. Certainly not any checkpoint saves.

I'd fall into the benefit category. I have 3 on disc from a couple years back it was in a dumper used bin for a buck. I agree entirely with that list but I would add not only the tired ass resident evil wannabe jump scares every 15 seconds, but also the lack of the feel of DOOM -- no mass of hell coming at you in a room, it's sparse compared.

I can't thumb up a vote for the vanilla Doom 3, never. BFG though, yes I'd buy that.

The BFG version had many limitations including "[url=http://doom.wikia.com/wiki/Doom_3:_BFG_Edition#Changes]Only 14 save slots available[/url], plus one autosave slot and one quicksave slot. Save slots are shared across all three campaigns (Doom 3, Resurrection of Evil, and The Lost Mission)." The original Doom 3 didn't have any save limtations.

I think this older entry is Doom 3 (original version) too.

Well yes, games get developed over time, that's no real surprise - but the most balancing and tweaking gets done quite late into the development, not at the beginning. Long story short tho, I found the bits of the game which required you to follow an outside light source to be one of the most memorable parts of Doom 3, for instance. I enjoyed how the game played around with extremely overblown contrast between light and darkness. BFG edition is very different, and as it stands, there's no reasonable way of playing the game in the state it's been in originally - so if you just enjoyed how the game played originally, you're out of luck. It's neat that you don't understand why would anyone want to play the older version, but you're also the one who got the version closer to what you wanted, didn't you?

Fair enough. But in all honesty I never noticed the limitation. After all, why would you need more save slots for a linear FPS that doesn't have any of the completion stat screens of the first two. Kind of ironic that the 90s games had more 'achievements' than the '04 one developed from the outset with the Xbox in mind. But there we go.

I guess I never really thought of Doom 3 as some kind of survival horror game. Way too many pick ups for that. As for what I want, that would require a total rebalancing of the gameplay. Random enemy spawns (the fact that they can spawn right in your face lends itself well to that), so that each playthrough is different and enemies appearing behind you isn't just some annoying tendency id kept relying on. More enemies. Fewer pick ups. Make the minigun more like the old one but maybe more powerful and with an overheating feature. Shotgun more like the old one too. Maybe change the health system so it's not just a number. Maybe even limit the number of weapons you can carry, kind of like FEAR.

That's what I'd want. The BFG edition didn't really address any of that at all. There are other things I'd have done differently, but that would require a far more serious rewrite.