Doom³: Resurrection of Evil

The Good
Resurrection of Evil adds two major elements to Doom 3's gameplay - the IPL or "Grabber Gun", allowing you to manipulate objects from afar, and The Artifact with its bullet time mechanic.

Both of these provide some nice variety and a change of pace from the basic FPS combat. Grabber Gun lets you use environment items or even the enemies' own projectiles to fight, while The Artifact introduces short, intense sequences of ultra-charged combat which give you an upper hand over more powerful foes. The latter can be especially satisfying as you dash from enemy to enemy among demonic viscera flying in slow motion.

The strongest part of the expansion is definitely its penultimate level, a surreal and unpredictable fever dream serving as a prelude to revisiting Hell.

The Bad
The downside to the two new weapons is that they can trivialize some of the fights, giving the player too much of an upper hand. And while The Artefact never really stops being fun, the Grabber Gun feels underutilized, lacking the sandbox-like element and creative puzzle design of Half-Life 2 and its Gravity Gun.

Even though the level design in Resurrection of Evil isn't bad by any means, it does seem more linear than in the main game and some of the design elements can get repetitive at certain points. Especially the first half of the expansion feels less creative than the second.

The Bottom Line
Resurrection of Evil doesn't get quite as creative as it could, but it still ads some freshness and doesn't feel like a simple rehash of the main game. 7/10

The Good
With Doom 3, an expansion was practically guaranteed. With the way Doom 3 ended we were all expecting one. Few thought that it would be released on the Xbox however. But a few months after the release of Doom 3 we got this expansion.

In Doom 3: Resurrection of Evil you play yet another nameless, voiceless marine, who, two years after Hell broke loose on the UAC Mars base, returns in a mission to finish the research they began. ROE is a shorter campaign, but still holds the thrills and challenges of the original. There are new monsters as well as new weapons. Using the double-barreled shotgun is tons of fun, and brings back fond memories of Doom II. The Grabber is a Half-Life 2 Gravity Gun rip-off. You can grab demon projectiles and fling them back at them and this is more fun than you can shake an Imp at. The artifact replaces the Soul Cube, you use it to suck up souls and it can help you to slow down time and go berserk. It’s like Max Payne 3: Doom - ROE. There are more bosses in Doom 3: ROE, and as we have come to expect they all require a special means to defeat.

The graphics are just as good as in the original. And while not as good as the PC, they are still quite impressive. The lighting effects are spectacular, and all the monsters look scary. The weapons all look formidable. Make no mistake this is one the best looking Xbox games and truly shows its processing power.

The Audio department still shines or should I say booms? In 5.1 surround sound this game is aural bliss. There is still scant music and most of it is from the original.

The Gameplay does not stray far from Doom 3. And this is a good thing. Its new elements are all satisfying and well implemented. This one, like many expansions, is more challenging than the original game. Your return to the UAC is a good one.

The Bad
Would it have killed them to make more music? The extras are not as good if you bought the Collectors Edition of Doom 3.

The Bottom Line
Return to the UAC and finish what you started. What are you waiting for?

The Good
The game had a lot of improvements from the original, the new monsters look cool, especially note how they replaced the Lost Soul with the Forgotten One, just to make it more classic Doom like, also they added the Double-Barreled shotgun, the favourite from Doom 2, and level design was also improved, not so much repetitive designs, and overall, the expansion had a great single player campaign, and good improved online gameplay.

The Bad
There is nothing seriously bad about the expansion, only some few things which were disappointing - there is no Chainsaw in this game, and as long as you have the Grabber, you don't have any melee weapons. But that's basically it.

The Bottom Line
For those who didn't like Doom 3, and wished it was more like the original Doom, then i must say to them - God heard their praying, or at least id Software did.