Doom 3

"Doom 3 can be a great game, but it also is capable of being a not-so-great game at the same time."

After 10 years of hibernation, the Doom franchise finally makes its return to PC gamer's desktops, however does this new Doom game live up to it's classic title?

Story:
The story in Doom 3 begins rather slowly. You are a unnamed marine sent to guard a facility on Mars, run by the company known as UAC in the year 2145. You are given a mission by the marine leader Sergeant Kelly to locate a missing scientist. Once you find this man all hell literally (no pun intended) breaks loose in the base. With an estimated 90% of the faculty dead you must fight your way to the delta complex to discover the horrible truth behind these events that have occured. You are lead by your leader Sergeant Kelly and he informs you that you need to regroup with Bravo team to relay a distress call to Earth so the remaining faculty can be brought back to Earth. The only problem is when Earth's reinforcements arrive they have no idea of the demon's true intentions to use their shuttles to bring this hell to earth. The story is mostly told through PDA's which are little personalized computers that the faculty walks around with (like an organizer) which has their emails and audio logs on them. Listening to their audio logs and reading their emails can give you more knowledge on what is happening and clues as to where you need to go, and even codes for safety cabinets where you can discover armor, health, ammunition, ect. You will come across other friendly humans however they will usually open a door for you or give you their PDA, maybe some items and tell you some info and thats pretty much it through the entire game, you never actually have friendly soldiers fight along side you which is a bit of a disappointment. You are also following a counsellor and a marine who are suspicious of Dr. Betruger who is believe to be blamed for the events that have occurred, and you see their character developement, rather then your own, since your character has no name and never talks. The story seems to be left untouched for long periods of times, but when you are learning about the story it is quite interesting, and the plot of the game becomes ALOT more interesting towards the ending since it is ALOT more then just the usual "aliens taking over a base" theme, it actually has alot more to do with it then this, and its quite surprising and interesting to learn about. All in all the story is pretty good for a FPS but it's nothing amazing.

Gameplay:
Once you have a weapon this is pretty much what you do for the entire game:
Enter room, get ambushed/freaked out, shoot all badguys, think everyones dead when a whole bunch more badguys come in, kill the badguys, find the item your looking for, go back to where you need to go, and repeat this for the entire game and thats pretty much Doom 3.

Well I should give the game more credit then this, however there really isn't anything else in the game. After the disaster you make your way through the crowded and VERY dark hallways shooting down all demons and undead that get in your way. You will usually need to find someones PDA for access to the new area, and to find the exit to the level. The one thing about the game that annoyed me the most is that almost the entire game looks the exact same. All the areas are the same, and it starts to become boring, along with the shooting. You get ambushed in obvious places and at times are hopelessly out numbered. However if this is the type of FPS you like then you should have no complaints here, just keep in mind it does tend to get boring. Althrough, to make up for the levels that appear to stay the same there is a hell level which is great for a change, but once its done your back to the complex until the end of the game.

The weapons in Doom 3 are the usual assortment found in a FPS game, and you get them in the usual order. You start with just your fists, then you get a flashlight (that can be used as a weapon, but both of the previous are incredibly useless as weapons) then you get your pistol, which I have to say is REALLY disapointing as a gun. It's not a great first impression of the weapons either. The gun looks like some sort of old gun you could find in our time and it sounds really weak. The sound is just nothing to be impressed with. The shotgun is nothing spectacular either, it sounds incredibly underpowered, and it looks like some type of old school shotgun. The sub-machine gun is also nothing spectacular, it to has a weak sound, however it is usefull for awhile. Then the chain-gun or (mini-gun) also sounds weak, you would expect loud noise, but instead you get this weak sounding tin can noise, like the rest of the previous guns. However all the other "non-existant" guns (in other words, guns that are not existant) sound and look cool, especially the BFG 9000. Also to make up for the crappy melee attacks you get at the start you do get the chainsaw to make up for it later in the game, however its usefulness is limited. The game has a decent assortment of guns but I was disapointed with the sounds of the mentioned weapons. I did come to one conclusion about them though, I assumed that since the year was 2145, they developped new technology that would allow new weapons to fire with reduced noise. However, this does not explain why none of these weapons have flashlights attached to them...

The last thing about the gameplay is this game is EXTREMELY dark most of the time, and you will be constantly switching between your gun and your flashlight, which can really become a complete pain in the ass. And it does tend to get very frustrating at times when you can't even see what your shooting at and your getting attacked from more then 1 side. I almost find that a lot of the time the lack of light in the game really takes away a lot of the fun, its cool to have the creepy atmosphere and the creepy ambient music, and the shadows of demons and creepy noises from zombies, but the darkness really tends to start getting irritating. Even in the multiplayer most of the maps are to dark and it can become frustrating. It adds to the game, but takes away from the game at the same time, because it is to often, to dark.

Graphics:
The graphics in Doom 3 as you can tell are obviously awesome, these are some of the best looking graphics I have ever seen on the PC. If you have a strong computer that can handle Doom 3 on the highest settings you will definitely get the best experience out of Doom 3, unlike me I played this game on a 9200 Radeon, and I still even thought that the graphics in Doom 3 were completely breath taking, especially the lighting, the lighting in the game is amazing, to get to the point, the graphics in Doom 3 are awesome.

Sound:
The sound in Doom 3 is a total mixed bag. The music is top notch, the ambient music to the creepy noises made by the zombies and the demons is just great. However the weapons.... what happened here? The pistol, shotgun, sub-machine gun and the chain-gun all sound like some sort of toy. I really don't understand how the people at ID thought, "oh man these guns sound cool" when they were making this game. The other weapons sounds amazing though, but these guns just don't cut it at all. The voice acting on the other hand is very good and believable and very well done. However the weapons just don't sound like how they should and it really effects the game, IMO.

Value:
The single player mode for Doom 3 is surprisingly long, I would say it would give the average gamer anywhere from 15-20 hours, but a more experienced FPS player may be able to beat this game a lot quicker. The single player experience is worth the money, as long as you don't mind being constantly ambushed and experiencing near heart attacks then you will be fine. However if your the weak of heart you may want to think twice because this game can get pretty nasty, and freaky. You can tell their goal was to freak you out and annoy you with monsters at the same time. The multiplayer is nothing great though, it feels rushed and just thrown in at the last minute as a space filler. Do not buy this game for multiplayer, buy it for the single player.

However Doom 3: Resurrection Of Evil, has surprisingly fun multiplayer, which also has an increased player maximum of 8, instead of 4 which is the max for Doom 3. There is also a capture the flag mode so if you like Doom 3, then you should highly consider the expansion pack, especially for the improved multiplayer. But the original multiplayer just isn't anything all that impressive.

Score:
Gameplay: 7
Graphics: 10
Sound: 8
Value: 7.5
Tilt: 9

Overall: 8.3
If you loved Doom, and Doom II you don't really have a reason, not to get Doom 3 because its essentially a massive upgrade of the originals, and you are probably ready to get your Doom fix after waiting 10 years for an original Doom game. However if you have never played a Doom game before or you are not sure whether or not you can handle a freaky game like this then try borrowing it from a friend, or play it at a friends house. It's not very expensive anymore though, so if you watch some video's about it, read some more reviews you should be able to come to a conclusion about it on your own, however keep in mind that the expansion pack does add quite a bit to Doom 3 especially the multiplayer, so you always have that to look forward to after Doom 3, and it does improve over Doom 3 with both the campaign and multiplayer, so overall Doom 3 is a great game, that is definitely worth checking out, but it could have been better.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 05/06/05