Doom³

The Good
I've been a huge fan of Doom ever since the original came out back in 1993. For me, the Doom experience was always about just a few points:

• Visuals to rival everything the market has yet seen
• Sky-high production values
• Solid level design
• Thousands of challenging monsters and locations

Ladies and gentlemen, it took 11 years, but Doom 3 delivers. Oh boy, does it deliver. The shivers of excitement started the second I clicked on New Game and didn't stop for a minute. Doom 3 owns.

Visually, the game is not merely beautiful, great or even amazing as Half Life-2 was; it's nothing short of astounding. It's been well over half a year and I haven't seen anything even remotely close to the level of visuals I experienced in Doom 3. Everything looks so astoundingly detailed, right down to the rubble around the caves and the prickling hairs on the marine's fingers; the character models compare favorably to that of any game out there with the exception of HL2 - but whereas in HL2 the only genuinely impressive characters are the chief ones (Alyx, G-Man and three or four others) all character models in Doom 3 are extremely detailed and convincing. Despite claims to the contrary the locales are actually very varied (industrial-horror constructions, offices, dig sites, alien caverns and of course two kinds of hell) and all of them are ridiculously well-modeled and textures. I also readily state that the stones that comprise the final levels of the game are certainly the most realistic I've ever seen.

While I readily admit taking Doom 3's side on the classic "Doom 3 vs Half-Life 2" debate, it still astounds me that a lot of the HL2 proponents cite Doom 3's "lack of variety in enemies" as one of their chief arguments. While I always wish for more variety, Doom 3 definitely has a huge range of enemies: two kinds of marines, five or six types of zombies, imps, cacodemons, lost souls, arachnids, maggots, bosses and more (full list); the enemies inevitably become stronger and more varied as you progress in the game. Adherence to the classic FPS dogma is not necessarily a bad thing, particularly not in an oldskool game like Doom.

Another aspect of Doom 3 that resulted in a lot of consternation is its generous use of dark areas, so much so that Glen created the so-called Duct Tape mod for the game a few days after it was released. I first played the game with the duct-tape mod, and let me tell you: it detracts from the game horribly. I just finished playing the game a second time, this time at the highest difficulty level and without the flashlight mod, and it is so much more fun this way: more challenging, scarier and also quite a bit longer. The first time I played through the game I finished it in two 6-hour sessions; this time instead of taking less, it actually took me about 30 hours to finish the game. Do not play the game with the duct tape mod! Instead, put on your headphones, turn off the lights, crank the volume way up, make sure no-one disturbs you and play into the night. You'll enjoy it far better, I guarantee it.

The architecture and level-design is extremely impressive. A lot of the areas are obviously specifically designed to give a sense of urgency and claustrophobia; the open spaces are even worse (Doom games always tended to make you fear the quiet even worse than the turmoil). The various types of architecture make sure you never get bored with the surroundings, and if you're anything like me you'll find yourself spending minutes just staring out windows, or reading miscellaneous text off monitors, simply because it looks so damn good. The variety I mentioned earlier also means you have to adapt to various kinds of combat with various enemies: mostly shotgun and chainsaw for close quarters combat; automatic weapons outside; be extremely conservative with the way you waste ammo, use grenades judiciously, always use the least powerful weapon for any given task. At the high difficulty settings the game does pose a challenge (although not as difficult as I'd prefer) so it's important to get a feel for the game rather than running around shooting at things randomly: you may survive a couple of battles that way, but the next time you'll be facing a hell knight and you're out of ammo, well, sucks to be you.

The sound design is amazing. The music (though there is relatively little of it) is very appropriate, the constant background noises are simply magnificent: machinery hums, electricity buzzes, and certain areas that are obviously references to levels in the original Doom games even sound the part, albeit that much more detailed and spooky. Weapon sounds are minimalistic but appropriate, the monsters sound as you'd expect. Voice acting is surprisingly good, even (and maybe particularly) for the background characters - some of the voice logs are downright eerie.

Also, the plot does work. Yes, it's simple. Yes, it's minimalistic. But it works, and works well at that. The various PDAs and monitors are loaded with background information to help you get a feel for what's going on around you; admittedly I found it unnecessary in the original Doom, but in Doom 3 it really helps build an atmosphere.

Lastly, the game captures the Doom spirit perfectly. I was worried (particularly considering the rumors that the monster count has been drastically decreased) that Doom 3 will not feel like Doom; it's difficult to explain the distinction, but the way things behave and the game "feels" is absolutely Doom, which is absolutely a good thing. Playing Doom 3 has been one of the most satisfying gaming experiences I've ever had.

Here are a few final tidbits I couldn't really build a paragraph on:

• Considering what the engine does, it's astoundingly fast. It runs very well with antialiasing on my machine (AthlonXP 2800+, Radeon 9800XT, 1GB RAM) and with slightly reduced details it runs impressively well even on older machines (and even a friend's Radeon 9600-equipped laptop).
• The loading times are not awful, and a 30-second level load will last anywhere from 10 to 90 minutes of gameplay, which is damn good considering the immediate competition... *cough* HL2 *cough*
• I have seen ZERO bugs on the game's first release. I bought it as soon as I could, played the first version start to finish and it was absolutely stable (both technically and as far as gameplay is concerned).
• The game is certainly every bit as linear in nature as Half Life 2, but still "feels" a lot more open-ended; you never have to blast your way through a hardly-visible wooden barrier, or run through a corridor with 9 locked doors out of 10.
• Doom 3 is not actually scary. Yes, there are a lot of "jump out of your chair" moments, but it's not genuinely claustrophobic nor genuinely scary. The only game to ever rate that in my scale was System Shock 2.
• AI is weak, but is not expected to be anything else. Check out my response to A Gamer's Manifesto which goes into this in more detail.

The Bad
I have very few qualms with Doom 3. The primary concern is with its length; the first time I played the game it felt very short, but if you read this far you already know that turning off the duct tape mod has considerably increased replay time. The only issue that remains is that, because of the somewhat abrupt ending, the game feels more like Episode 1. I haven't played Resurrection of Evil yet so I can only hope the extension is appropriate.

The double-barreled shotgun is sorely missing, which also proves my previous point that the game feels more like the first in a series; another shortcoming that's supposed to be remedied by RoE.

The Bottom Line
The long-awaited sequel to Doom delivers and more so. It is one of the most enjoyable games I've played in ages, not to mention the most visually astounding game yet seen on the PC. Play it.

The Good
The graphics engine is awesome. There's hardly anything original as far as visual effects are concerned, but it's definitely something never seen in a computer game before. The human heads and the lighting engine is particularly worth noting.

Level design is superb. While there's not much room for fantasy (most of the game takes place in a high-tech labyrinth filled with computers and other hardware equipment), there is a lot of high-quality architecture work, strategically positioned pentagrams, blood splatters, dead bodies, and some kind of spooky demonic protoplasm seeping through the walls. A short trip to Hell is a welcome break from steel and plastic, but I'm sure you'll be glad that you got out of there eventually - I was expecting a boatload of hell knights to drop on my head every moment.

Old foes are back, with only a couple missing; the weapons have been mostly redesigned, and their design and balance is completely different, but that's okay (BFG's here and it works the same, so I'm happy).

The Bad
Scares get old really quick; most annoying ones include an imp jumping at you soon as you open the door, and a steam jet blowing in your face as you pass by. There are a few good ones, but you'll be very unlikely to get scared as soon as ten hours into the game.

There is hardly anything that you haven't seen in Half-Life or System Shock 2. In fact, the game feels like a complete rip-off of that stellar pair. I know it probably won't bother a lot of people, but when similarities are so blatant, you start to get annoyed.

The game is so dark it's hampering the gameplay. Sure, a dark room here and there is cool and fun, but when it's dark ALL THE TIME, you throw up your arms in desperation. A flashlight is helpful, but not by much; besides you can't fire with a flashlight on. A common "close quarters encounter" means switching from flashlight to your primary gun, firing a few rounds in the dark, then turning on the flashlight to see if it's dead, and moving on. That darkness and repetitiveness annoys a LOT of people I know.

The Bottom Line
Get it if your computer can handle the graphics and if plagiarized gameplay doesn't bother you. If you want a scary shooter, look for System Shock 2 instead.

The Good
When id software released the original Doom, it soon caught the attention of gamers for its frenetic gameplay and great graphics. Rumour has it that some people bought computers just to play it. Call me crazy, but Doom struck me as being way overhyped, its immense popularity more due to a clever marketing plan by id than merit on the game’s part. Its brain-dead, million-kills-a-minute gameplay and a “story” that you could write on the back of a postage stamp might not have impressed me, but Doom’s still-large fanbase must have convinced id that doing a third game in the series would be worthwhile. So, after four years in development, we find ourselves looking at Doom 3.

The game is a remake of the original Doom. Just as a recap, you’re a crack space marine in the 22nd century, who has been sent to Mars with a rapid response unit to help protect a research station there. The research station is tampering with the very fabric of space and time, and a rift between our world and somewhere else has opened. Soon, monsters are pouring through the portal, and and the station is utterly decimated. All of your buddies are killed (and turned into zombies…we must not forget that), and it’s up to you to stop the tide of hellspawn before it spreads to earth.

On all levels, the game is graphically stunning. Surpassing even Far Cry in this department, Doom 3’s unfalteringly dark, claustrophobic enviroments are a treat to look at. Blood-splattered walls and eery dripping pipes crank the mood up considerably. Both humans and monsters (you’ll see far, far more of the latter category) are rendered well and look almost real. The game also has a good physics engine, you’re able to push stuff and throw it around the room. And don’t let anyone tell you that you need a top-of-the-line graphics card to play. I was able to play quite satisfactorily with a Rosewill Radeon 256MB card on the highest resolution.

The level of player interaction is superb, especially for a shooter as generic as Doom 3. You have a thing called a PDA on which you can receive voice mail and instructions. The PDAs of slain personnel can also be viewed for more information on the backdrop story. There’s a good deal of black humour in many of the PDAs, which have messages from employers pompously asserting how “immune to attack” the research station is, and how they are ignoring the deaths of workers near the portal to hell. Some PDA messages are irrelevant but funny, such as spam advertising for online RPGs and sexual adventures. Talk about satire.

The Bad
Doom’s graphics might be cutting-edge, but its gameplay is at least eight years out of date. Doom is reminiscent of the early days of the FPS genre, where no game passed its beta testing stage without the required quota of blood and gore, gameplay consisted of running around shooting heaps of enemies, and the “story” was a paragraph somewhere in the manual. Doom fans would probably say that id is trying to recreate the feel of classic Doom. Doom haters would probably say that the game’s simplicity can be chalked up to laziness on the part of id. Actually, I think that it’s a bit of both.

On one hand, it’s refreshing just to play a run and gun shooter without having stuff like a story impede you. On the other hand, it stands at variance with the whole atmosphere id has tried to weave into the game. It is hard maintain a scary claustrophobic aura and a chillingly realistic setting when the player spends most of his/her time shooting at tomato-headed monsters.

Doom 3’s story is IMMENSELY unsatisfying. Not that id has ever placed much priority on a game’s plot, but this time around it’s different. Id has obviously tried to create an interesting story, tried but failed miserably. At least the original Doom had no pretensions about the experience it meant to deliver, but Doom 3 starts off with cleverly-plotted cutscenes, an ominous atmosphere, and a number of interesting developments that leave the player wanting more. But as the game progresses, the game turns into a generic kill-‘em-all shooter and the plot is left largely undeveloped. It’s as if id intended to do a story-based game, but halfway through they lost interest in the idea and just turned Doom 3 into a mindless monster fest.

Critics are hailing Doom 3 as “a masterpiece of horror” and “one of the scariest games ever.” Humbug.

Doom 3 relies heavily upon the “BOO! Scared ya!” kind of thrill tactics that have been done to death is countless Resident Evil clones. Sure, you might be shocked the first two or three times a pink, jelly-like monster lunges at you from out of the shadows, but shocked is all you’ll be. The trouble is, there are so many monsters in Doom 3 that you spend most of your time pumping iron into them and hoping you don’t run out of ammo. It becomes extremely easy to predict where monsters will next strike. “Okay, see that extra clip lying over there? I bet that if I go to pick it up the door over there will burst open and a zillion monsters will attack me.” The monsters themselves look so downright absurd that they elicit laughter more than fear.

It’s things like this that spoil the atmosphere id has so painstaking added to the game. And for a game so bent upon realism, id apparently hasn’t done their homework. Come on! You’re a crack soldier in the 22nd century for Heaven’s sake! How come you’ve got such primitive armour? Shouldn’t you at least have a helmet? How come the marines have brought chainsaws to Mars? Why can’t you hold a flashlight and a gun at the same time?

Multiplayer mode was clearly added only as an afterthought. It supports four players (by comparison, it is fast becoming industry standard for 26 and even 32 player support in mid-range FPS titles), and while several fan-made mods hope to fix this, the game out of the box definitely is definitely not going to please Quake III fans.

The Bottom Line
Dare I say it, but Doom 3 is but another continuation of id’s trend of placing visuals ahead of playability. Once the wow factor wears off, it is actually a pretty mindless and generic shooter with not a lot of content.