Doom 3

"A very good port of a great FPSer"

Doom 3
Doom 3 is a very high energy, fluid, and flashy first person shooter. It may be a port of a PC game that has aged over a year, but it performs as well as it would on any high-end PC. Doom 3 on Xbox is an amazing port of what is believed to be one of the best shooters in history, and it continues a legacy like none other, and show's that even the pioneers of First person shooters can hold their own.

Gameplay: Doom 3 is a very immersive experience and makes you feel so logged in; you may never even blink at first glance. Set aside from the awesome opening visuals, you'll get a feel for doom 3's gameplay engine, very fast. So the learning curve is actually quite low, and for experienced First person shooter fans, it will fit like a glove. Doom 3 offers several difficulties for the player, you can pretty much feel right at home with the recruit setting as it spares you at least some mercy. But it all comes down to personnel opinion. The game opens up with a very blunt, but effective cut scene. You have arrived on Mars, the UAC (union aerospace corp.) facility. You get to walk around and gander at the pretty graphics, before the action takes off. The gameplay from here gets better. The PDA you have can store door codes, audio logs, even videos. If you ever need to unlock a certain Locker, you may try to listen to or read somebody's log you may have picked up. The game has a neat interface system, that through out the single player, if you find a computer of any kind of keypad, or other screen interfaced object, the games weapons are disabled and your crosshair turns into a cursor, it's actually pretty cool, and easy to follow. Now getting down to the grit of the gameplay, you're going to have a lot of weapons action. Your right triggers fires the weapon and that's that. The weapons are all fully remade original DOOM hardware. The Pistol, the shotgun and BFG9000 are all there. Even the crazy berserk power-up returns and its pretty cool. The weapon combat is very simple and becomes rather boring and repetitive, but nonetheless, it's still amazing to watch.

The famous DOOM enemies have also returned to the series, they all seem to be in tact and look great. The Imp for example has been totally redone. The classic doom PC games the imp was a Brown, horned creature, but now it's a very alien-ish monster with a lot of eyes, but it still hacks fireballs at you, one of the best things in the original games. The gore is violence that results from an invasion of hell, is very gruesome. The bodies of researchers, marines and even civilians litter the halls and dark corridors of the UAC. The zombies in particular are very cool, there are so many different kinds, from fat zombies, headless ones to flaming ones, doom 3 has it all, like a freak show from hell, literally. As for the boss fights, the game is half and half. The first two are poorly rendered and look cheap, while the last two (including the all famous cyber demon) were great looking and were very unique. There are also some puzzles in Doom 3, but nothing that will hurt your mind too bad, more like find a key item and back track a little. So the gameplay in the end is very smooth and looks great running at those 60 frames per second. The few gamers that hate claustrophobic games, you may dislike this game, especially the hell levels. They even may turn of religious peoples, but it's not to bad, other wise the game uses its potential and scores. A great alternative if you don't want to spend hundreds on a new PC video card. Great gameplay, a solid 8/10.

Graphics/audio – Doom 3 is the best looking game on Xbox, hands down, no questions, bar none. The textures are amazing and the lighting is superb. Everything looks extremely detailed, and the game never gets bland. The outside levels look awesome and the hell levels are beautifully animated. Another plus of the Xbox hardware is real time bump mapping, this game is a great example of that. The doors look great and have such a real look to the. Thing id software praised was its new and improved smoke effects. Well, it looks better than real smoke, in the end… really! So puffy and vibrant, it's absolutely amazing to watch a rocket speed by with smoke pouring off it. The game is just eye candy here, there, everywhere! The fire effects are pretty good as well, but look sort of dull compared to games like Riddick and half-Life. The best thing overall though HAS to be the great frame rate, its quite powerful. It normally holds up to about 60, but often times may dip a little bit, but its almost un noticeable, I dint even see one until the end of the game. So it's a winner in visuals. But how about sound you ask? It sounds very creepy, but fresh. Its best played it 5.1 surround sound. The guns scream aloud. Ahem, that is if it's cranked up all the way, ha-ha. But seriously it's fantastic. 10/10 for sure and don't hold me to that, its only 2006.

Control – Doom 3 feels very fluid and welcoming, it doesn't hold your hand all the way through, but long enough to make you stable enough to play through it. The game begins with little or no combat. So you have plenty of time to adapt to the tired, but simple control layout. I like it a lot.

So if your really looking for a game with plenty of atmosphere and action, doom 3 may just be your golden ticket to happiness, and its worth every penny, I recommend this game highly to fans and gamers alike.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 07/20/06