Doom³

The Good
This game has great atmosphere. Fans of movies like the Alien series will not be disappointed. The graphics are remarkably fluid and realistic, even by Xbox standards. I felt like I was interacting with real people and creatures, not just shooting targets. This effect made the first few two or three nights of play fairly intense.

The Bad
Some music would have been nice!!!!! Being a musician, that's my first complaint. There's no music here until the heavy metal played during the closing credits (also the menus screen.) Once the effects of the atmosphere and graphics wear off you're really just left with the same old first person shooter. Also, the game takes forever to load (even on Xbox) and I got tired of loading up a game only to be wiped out in an instant and sit and wait at the loading screen again.

The Bottom Line
Its a solid but very traditional first person shooter that doesn't get too far away from its predecessors. Hardcore fans, myself included, will be entertained but the gameplay is so frustrating that its hard to imagine much replay value. Good enough for a rental, but don't throw down the $45 to own it.

The Good
Doom 3 is a spectacle (I know it's DOOM3 but that's not even English, let alone proper English) . It puts itself forward as the benchmark of its time for graphics, sound, design and presentation. No many games have the gloss and shine of Doom 3 (what with all those spectacular lighting and shadow effects). As audacious as it is, it succeeds where its ambitious lies. It really does look and sound great. As you progress through the levels and admiring at how cool it is, you'll be inspired to continue the drudgery of looking at a black screen for the next cool thing to amaze you eyeballs.

Humanity is respented by the three major races (I didn't see any Hispanics, Jews or Arabs though; maybe they're all getting along on the love planet, Venus), nice to see the future really is a bowl of neopolitan ice cream--though when they become zombies there becomes no difference. The interface with in-game computers is innovative, gets you back into the action quick.

This is definitely a love letter to the first Doom. This act of revisionism will cause us nostalgia-prone 80's babies to live over once again that initial "whiz-bang"-gasm that got most of us into gaming in the first place. For the most part it succeeds in replacing the first Doom in areas like graphics and presentation; however, revisionism is always a tricky thing...

The Bad
Doom 3 is a spectacle, just like the way your aging mom dresses twenty years her junior and tries to flirt with your friends. It's difficult to look away from a car accident, especially when it's the most amazing car accident at which your gawking eyes can look.

Doom 3 simply didn't have to happen. I think I heard a story somewhere about how those id(iot) guys approached senior management after completing Quake IV and dropping a ultimatum along the lines of, "We want to make Doom 3 or else we all quit!" Well, the world or even the world of videogames is not better for this.

The original Doom is a cool game, an influential one that many will remember fondly upon. The operative word here is "remember". I myself remember going over to a friends house to play it into the wee hours of the morning, scared to death at those (at the time) cutting edge graphics. Cool factor MAX 10 vector five.

But you can't go back. What is called "Doom 3" is really Doom 1.5; it's just an updated version that is less than the sum of the first one's parts. When it's the exact same thing done all over again and not the third in the trilogy (not much of a trilogy either, wasn't Doom 2 like an expansion pack idea?) you have nothing new to say. So it becomes 15 hours of gameplay of nothing.

I will clearly say that I like the first Doom much more than this one. Who cares if you can look up and down? Who cares if you can jump? Who cares if you have the best graphics in the world? The first one played so much better than this one. The two crucial gameplay elements to the first one are missing here: puzzles and being in mortal fear of your life.

It's rather sad: there aren't any puzzles of note. This is one brainless shooter that offers you no choices, really. In actuality you're quite simular to the zombies: there's no thinking. Most sad of all is the fact that id designed such a marvelous interface with which to interact with everything; you can hang onto the mouse without breaking up the action. Honestly, there's no point to all this worthless reading of emails and messing about with PDF's.. what a scam. Please don't dress up your aging mom in sheep's clothing.

The wonderment of the first Doom is the realization that there are new places to explore, you just have to be smart (or diligent) enough to find them. You see where that imp is sniping you from that balcony? You can get there... you just have to figure it out. This idea of having secret areas puts in an adventure element that has you enjoying looking around the level and not just looking to flip a switch and advance.

Doom 3 is not a scary game. It might have been back in 1990, but this is the po-mo world that we live in; "Scream" the movie pointed this out to the masses so we can't turn a blind eye to this. Nothing is scary here. When you play through a game where it is dark all the time, this effect of fear is lost. You would get scared in the first Doom when the lights turned off because the lights were on in the first place! No contrast, no effect.

The use of scripted events are very lame. When there is a darkened hallway in front of you, your first instinct is, "hmm, looks like an ambush, better get out my shotgun," and your instincts are always correct. Something will always jump at you from the darkness. Now I know everyone is a genius, but the reason why you know is because id is simply too predicable. This game is exactly the same from start to finish.

There's nothing wrong with being influenced, but shouldn't you game companies try to hide it a little bit, or even try to have different influences? Aliens was a great movie, so great that I'm watching it every time a play a contemporary videogame. (but as unicorn b lynx pointed out, at least the computer screens aren't green). This game is exactly like Halflife, exact that Halflife has the enviable position of coming out about 10 years earlier (speaking of which, yet another game with many influences that doesn't try to hide it--but which also made it everyone's grandmother's favourite game).

By the way, if this is the future and people have money and the ability to build on Mars, why is it so ugly? This is the main thing I think about as I'm squinting at the screen; I try to imagine the place with the lights on and people walking around, but I can't imagine that people in the future share the same design sensabilities as modern Chinese. It looks cool for us "game tourist" who are visiting this world, but it just isn't real.

Making Doom 3 is making a statement that the first Doom never existed, that by updating this game, Doom is finally the game it is deserving to be through use of modern technology. But worse of all, more so than being brainless, is being heartless. Doom 3 has no soul. Besides it being cool, there's nothing to like about it. You don't identity with anything in the game, so you never get past it's superficiality.

In the original Doom you see the marine's face in the HUD, and it worsens to a bloody pulp as you get beat up or grins maniacally when you pick up a chainsaw. No, you might not be this nameless guy, but he's like you. He bleeds when hit by demonic fireballs and likes his weapons pick-ups to be more and more powerful. What's there in this game? He's just some guy, a Gordon Freeman stand-in; you never find out why he does all of this stuff.

This game takes some effort to explain some things but not others. I might understand how a nixup might lead a shipment of chainsaws to Mars, but why can't you put a flashlight on a gun? Why doesn't this guy just go home after awhile? Why is he compelled to fight the Cyberdemon? Who are the ghostly (female) voices in the game? Don't people know when a stockpile of weapons is amassed that one day those weapons will be ineviably used? What happens to this guy in the end? Because our hero doesn't talk, you don't know what he thinks about anything but even sadder is that you just don't care.

The Bottom Line
Doom 3 (or "Dooom" as the Romans would say) is bloated sign of our bloated times. This game happily supercedes presentation and spectacle above gameplay and substance.

The id that made Doom was a bunch of talented upstart rockstar hooligans who dared to mess with the rules.
The id that made Doom 3 is a group of bloated unimaginative millionaires who just want to keep their tenative position as the king of FPS's. It draws exactly the same paralells as Saturday Night Live; once a daring and funny show (remember the "Not Ready for Primetime Players"?) it's now the vehicle of choice where movie and music stars plug their latest movie or CD by reading off a teleprompter. SNL is a 90 minute commercial that stopped being funny twenty years ago.

Most telling is that this game is just like Quake IV. There are some thematic changes (like going to big outside settings and use of group combat) but you still just go and kill things in a splendid way. You're still a space marine who has to endure level after level of the ugliest space stations designed after the first Star Wars trilogy. It's funny, since the demise of the Star Trek franchise space stations have been butt ugly.

I think the bottom line is that Doom 3 is a punishing game that challenges the player to be as macho as the game is but never rewards the player. Doom 3 is the shallowest and longest puddle in videogames

The Good
Doom 3 is basically a remake of the original with added spice. Id software took a classic game and tried to basically fit it in with modern shooters. What they did was add some good small time innovations. For e.g. You can walk into a usable screen or elevator and your crosshair turns into a mouse pointer where you can interact like u were using a computer. Other additions include taking the basic plot of the first game and expanding it by adding more depth to story not forgetting some key characters. A PDA which you use to check your missions and audio/video logs you pick up.

The story is quite simple. You're sent to Mars to work with the UAC, a very advance technological company which deals with weapons research to teleportation. On your first mission, things go bad and hell invades the base possessing most on-board.

The game's major selling point was it's hyped up graphics engine. Doom 3 would have been the best looking game that year (2004) but it was surprised by long time friend Half Life 2 and new comers Painkiller and Far Cry.

But when it came to lighting Doom 3 takes the crown here. Even other aspects like Character modeling and animation were done well. The animation of the monsters are well done from the creeping walk of the imps to the run cycle of the Pinky demon. The game heavily relies on it's dark lighting reflecting shadows all over the place, it creates and interesting approach to environment design.

As for the levels they're not close to being excellent but passable as good. There are some good details here and there especially when it comes to creating a dark and creepy environment. This can be seen in the Hell level and also in the levels at the latter half of the game. You tend to travel on the surface of Mars to reach the other facilities. You don't get to see much though since you need to run across before your oxygen runs out.

The Bad
This is where the review really starts.

Doom 3 as a game overall is terrible. It faces a multiple personality disorder. They've taken run and gun and mixed it with something out of a Silent Hill game. I'm facing dozens of monsters and I'm not really in a mood to open up a PDA and listen to a freaking audio log for key-codes to open a cabinet for ammo.

My point is it's very hard to mix these 2 formulas together. Doom is not Deus Ex nor is it System Shock, it's Doom. It's about blowing up monsters and making it fun doing so.

The game first and foremost follows the new Id Software rule of making everything bulky and macho looking. The weapons look like toy guns and are a snooze-fest except for the chainsaw and Plasma gun. To top things off the sound effects of the guns are weak, so weak that they have mods to replace the sounds. As for balance? Well let's say you'll never find use for the pistol after an hour of playing.

Another ridiculous idea is your light source is a flashlight. Now Doom 3 is extremely dark most of the time. In fact you don't need to play the game to even know that, it's like the symbolic figure of Doom 3.

Now the problem with the flashlight is not because you need to put down your weapon or that you can use your left hand to hold it up. It's just that it does not make any sense at all with the plot. You're in one of the most advanced facilities in the world. They manufacture teleports and advanced laser weaponry and they can't even make a gun with a attached flashlight on it? Did I mention the UAC have set up a facility on Mars where humans can reside that's to produced oxygen etc?

You can even use the Flashlight as a weapon, yeah bonk a monster on the head with it. But as a trained marine I would be embarrassed to do something like that even with half the base dead and not watching.

Getting away from that, you collect PDAs which contain peoples emails and audio logs. You need to listen to them to get a grip on whats going on as well as cabinet key-codes which normally contain health and ammo. You'll need to stay in one place to listen to these as the next room will spawn a dozen monsters and you'd be distracted.

It also lets you know you're objective which in the early half of the game was find bravo team. And when you reach them they're dead. From there it's get from point A to point B. It may say “Activate backup power supply” But if you're smart enough you'll know it translates to get from point A to B and hit a switch over there.

The main aspect, that is the action is terribly dull and boring, leave out a few moments. You're faced with a lot of monsters in a very cramped up environment. After finish them off you hear that sound “Ashawashabasha” and boom more of them spawns. There is a huge array of monsters but 80% of the game is you fighting Imps.

Speaking of which most of the monsters lack the scary attributes they did as 2d sprites in the first 2 games. Imps look and sound like aliens instead of demons. The only good revamps are the Pinky demon and Hell Knights. In fact these 2 were the only monsters which made me use the backpedal key, coz they actually were intimidating. Some in fact remain quite true to their original appearances. These being Revenant, Mancubus and my Doom 2 favorite “The Archville”. Sadly i can't believe the 2d sprite had more personality than this incarnation in Doom 3. I remember the Archville had a creepy as f**k sound when he spotted you. And when he's searching for you he gave out this sinister soft laughter only to have one of the most epic attack animations ever. All this is as usual not present here, he walks slowly summons Imps instead of raising the dead and shoots a small firewall. There are some new creatures like Cherubs, Trites and Ticks. None really interesting. Boss fights were terribly boring except for Vagary which had some interesting way of attacking you. This idea was probably suggested by someone not in the development team like the Game tester as Id Software don't have creative brains anymore. Look at the last boss, the ever famous Cyberdemon. I almost fell of my chair laughing at him. What happened to that Baptomet like massive creature which had a torn, morbid stomach? This guy is just huge and has some strange hunch like walk with some backpack kinda thing on him. Seriously Id what were you guys thinking?

There's also some “plot” in the story which involves a weapon created by the ancestors of Mars known as the SoulCube. This special weapon is a terrible addition here, you kill 5 monsters and you can fire it to drain the health from a monster and give it to you. Berserk power up makes it's way back and it's honestly represented quite well.

Finally the main reason for failure is that even as a horror game Doom 3 has absolutely no scare value leaving out the first 15 minutes of the game which is actually interesting. Throughout the game you're face with mainly cheap scares. Pick up gun and a monster jumps out, pick up ammo same thing. You then tend to wonder if it's really worth picking up anything in the game. To make things worst, the sound effects are abysmal, the scary sounds end up cheesy. Good example is that laughter which is supposed to be sinister but ends up sounding like someone coughing with his mouth closed into a mic. Room turns red in color some weird screaming sounds or laughter and once everything goes back to normal some idiotic Imps spawn. Trust me you get tired of these things. Getting to the point, sound is an important aspect of Horror games. Also Doom 3 lacks those depressive and energetic action tunes which were present in Doom and Doom 2, no music here just ambient sounds. This was obviously done because of the modernization of the game.

The game tries to act cute by throwing in 1 or 2 puzzles....and I'll just leave it till there.

The Bottom Line
So what to make of Doom 3, A game I've been anticipating for years? Well it takes 2 formulas that need a lot of good planning in order to work well together and butcher both of them quite well. This can come off as either a fancy tech demo or a really bad attempt at action horror. The game doesn't keep things interesting, boring shooting mechanics, overdone spawning of enemies and trying to fit the whole adventure style game-play of reading and listening to logs which really didn't work well with the games overdose of action. It's really boring to stay still in one room until the freaking audio stops playing. Doom 3 also has some good innovative features like using screens and consoles real-time, clever use of lighting. The lighting makes you forget that they've used low resolution textures almost everywhere. Not to forget the fluid and quite authentic looking character animations.

But the problem is the game is nothing more than a run and gun trying too hard to look like a deep shooter. I wasn't play Doom the game about destroying the army of hell in the isolated Mars base, I felt i was playing Doom: The not so scary alien shooter with NPC. Id software stick to engines, let other people handle creativity.