Well, unless you’ve lived under a rock for the past twelve years, chances are you’ve probably heard of DOOM. Along with Wolfenstein 3D, DOOM was responsible for launching the now-infamous genre of video games, the much loved and sometimes much loathed FPS. The game was absolutely brilliant and remarkably simple at the time. You get a gun and you kill everything in sight, and then you do it all over again only with more enemies. That’s about it. You were never at a shortage for things to kill despite the fact that the player constantly found that they would have a shortage of ammo, but I digress.
"After about half a year of great anticipation, the most eagerly awaited shooter since Halo 2 has finally hit the Xbox."
|
Fast forward to the fall of 2004 and DOOM 3 was released for the PC. Sadly, unless one had a big rig of a computer or access to a friend’s, they were left in the dark. After about half a year of great anticipation, the most eagerly awaited shooter since Halo 2 has finally hit the Xbox. After floating in a dead sea of stale shooters lately, finally we have something that can happily sit next to our Halos on the shelf and more importantly, spin for countless hours in our systems.
Well, let me not be the first person to tell you, this game is brilliant. It isn’t the most complex game but it is one of the most atmospheric games I’ve played, second only to Resident Evil 4. It all starts with the story, which even though it isn’t the most detailed, is at least satisfyingly more than what DOOM has given us in the past. The story is a familiar tale about a scientist in the not-too-distant future who is convinced he has the key for a better life for all. Of course, the scientist does something catastrophic in the process; in this case he opens a teleportation portal which leads through another dimension, and demons and other assorted supernatural creatures start coming out the other end. Well, when there’s something strange in your neighborhood, who you gonna call?
Enter you, the player in the role of one of the United Aerospace Corporation’s elite space marines. The marine lands on the Mars Station Research Facility right about the time all hell breaks loose, literally. No sooner than you receive your trusty PDA, a pistol, and a flashlight that thankfully never dies, strange occurrences start happening and you are sent on your way.
I was very satisfied with the items and weapons that you are given to deal with the disturbance, for the most part. The arsenal given to our soldier is re-envisioned versions of the arsenal that helped the marine fight through hell twice before in the first two DOOM games with one notable addition; The Soul Cube. The pistol and the rocket launcher could be sent to the wayside if it were up to me, but everything else is well balanced and has a use in different situations. The shotgun is your best friend; you will spend most of your time between that and your flashlight. The plasma rifle fires blue bursts of goodness that saved me from many a tight spot. The chainsaw is absolutely amazing in execution - I found myself using it so much that I had a surplus of ammo when I went back to projectile weapons later. The Soul Cube is a grand, possessed, boomerang/cube of a weapon that scared the bejeezus out of me until I figured out why it was speaking to me. Yes, I said speaking to me. Finally the BFG is that same mammoth of a gun that we all remember and love as it obliterates everything on the screen (save for large bosses).
Moving on to items; I feel it important to mention that tidbits of story are not only fed to you through beautifully-rendered cutscenes, but also from your PDA. As you progress throughout the game you accumulate PDA’s from other staff at the facility. When you pick up a PDA you automatically get access to that individual’s security clearance, audio logs, and e-mails. Apparently spam filters aren’t perfect in the future, either. The audio logs do a great job of giving the story background, telling the story about how the staff was starting to feel uneasy right after discoveries were made leading up to when general unrest turned into madness. This is just one of the many moments when DOOM shines as the player sits there just reading an email or listening to an audio log and feeling uneasy. This is a testament to how precisely executed the game is in its simplicity. This, of course, brings us to the flashlight.
The flashlight is one of the most important elements in this game. You are in a facility, which has heavy strain put on its power systems, and it’s not hard to believe that in the midst of a crisis the lights will not be operating at 100%. This is yet another point where DOOM takes the ball and runs with it. The lighting is, without a shadow of a doubt, one of the scariest things in the game. You travel through a nightmarish world of dark corridors and you need to have the flashlight up for the majority of this time, to see whether or not the next enemy is around the next corner, which I might add they almost certainly are. The only saving grace offered is when lights will flicker occasionally or when they will snap on revealing hordes of enemies. This is one of the many cheap tricks that will make a person go as far to jump sporadically, even if someone enters the room to ask them something, trust me, I know.
The graphics in DOOM 3 for the Xbox, even though they can’t hold up to the power of more advanced computers, are still a force to be reckoned with. This game is one of the most visually impressive outings on the system to date - it is indeed a marvel. Most of the monsters from the past DOOM games, along with a plethora of new ones, make an appearance in this game boasting very impressive visual styles.
There is the basic zombie, which jumps out at you frequently, arms outstretched, with grey, rotten flesh hanging off its limbs. The lost souls are found again, with fine cracks along the skull itself and a nicely rendered flame trailing it as it lunges at you, jaws gaping. This is just a sample of things to enjoy. You can literally find yourself admiring enemies, in the lit areas of course, from the time they will run up to you, right up to the time where you pull the trigger. This goes for everything from Pinkys and Cacodemons right up to Satan himself.
Now despite the minor grievances I have with the spawn of hell every now and again wielding large weaponry, the mechanics behind the enemies’ movements are indeed very impressive. Each creature has its own specific muscular structure which is as believable as it could be for sci-fi, while still being really creepy as they crawl, lunge, stomp, patter, and generally come at you from all directions.
The one thing which is noticeably missing from the prior DOOM outings, however, is that the enemies here will all fade away with the same "I’m melting back to hell" animation. Where are the piles of corpses left on the ground? In the past games these carcasses were not only medals of honor but the proverbial trail of breadcrumbs as well. This is the price of progress, as they say.
Not only will you be able to see hell being unleashed in all its glory but never before has a person heard it this well. Playing this game I just had to flip on my Logitech THX certified 5.1 Surround Sound Speakers, much to my delight and to the dismay of others around me. Each of the enemies growl, hiss, snarl, roar, yell, and groan with amazing clarity. You can hear the giant creatures stomping down the path as they attempt to crush anything in their path. All this makes the game much scarier. You never can really tell when the next attack will come because even the ambient noises of everything a scientific/military facility has to offer will fill up the airwaves.
Audio Balancing is top-notch in this game with every speaker getting a workout. Enemy sounds pound out the front with great ferocity. When you finally think you’ve come to a place where you will be safe for a while, a demonic voice will start laughing which starts as a low roar from the subwoofer, until it ends up echoing throughout all of the speakers, effectively shaking the room. This, of course, brings you right back into the thick of it. I honestly thought the walls in my room would start bleeding at any moment.
"When you finally think you’ve come to a place where you will be safe for a while, a demonic voice will start laughing which starts as a low roar from the subwoofer, until it ends up echoing throughout all of the speakers, effectively shaking the room."
|
Despite all the excellent audio that this game has, however, id software has made a bold choice not to include a musical score, save for a few guitar riffs thrown in sparingly. We don’t even get a ch-ch-ch, ah-ah-ah playing during the many times the game ambushes the player.
As it pertains to gameplay, the controls are a throwback to older first person shooter games. In this generation where the melee attack is many players’ saving grace, it is noticeably absent. Also, sprinting is assigned to the left trigger instead of keeping movement refined to the control sticks. The jump button is sitting in its normal home of the A button, however, it really isn’t used too much. In a move that I’ve always enjoyed in first person shooters, players have the ability to map the D-pad with four of their favorite weapons at the time, giving the ability to quickly switch between them when necessary. Finally, in sort of an emergency maneuver for players facing dire situations, id has decided to put the quick save button on the controller in the back position. I believe this cheapens the experience somewhat by making the player reliant on quick saving multiple times, but my other side reminds me that wasn’t the tune I was singing during the boss battles. Despite these minor shortcomings, the controls are smooth as butter.
It’s all well and good that the controls are suited for dire situations, because that’s what this game is. This game is about jumping from one dire situation to the next. You will crawl through dark corridors, where your enemies will ambush you relentlessly. They will jump from around corridors, crawl out of vents, burst through walls, come through portals and pentagrams, and still attack in more sick and twisted ways to mess with your psyche. You will see nothing but evil orange eyes staring at you in the darkness, until it’s too late. Then when you think you’ve secured the area like a good marine, enemies will spawn from behind you. This is both repetitive and cheap, but it works. On a good day some of the other FPS games that attempt this fail miserably, but DOOM 3 is a textbook example how to execute this and make it feel like the first time, each time it hits you.
Packaged in with the Xbox port is the new co-op mode. Over system link or Xbox Live, a player can team up with another willing soul and fight through the legions of hell together. This is a little bit different from the single player outing as there are more regular enemies, but fewer bosses. There will be larger corridors, but the cutscenes will be gone. It’s all just give and take, give and take. Also, players will find that they need to be together to open some doors, lets hear it for teamwork! In the case that one player kicks the bucket, they will automatically be reincarnated at the beginning of the level being played, where they will have to huff it back to their buddy and pick up a mystical backpack that despite its size holds every single weapon you had. All in all the co-op is a very fun addition, especially if the friendly fire option is turned on.
The versus mode, however, is forgettable and hopefully repressible. Despite the fact that with a system link or Xbox Live you can play split screen deathmatches, that option to play split screen without system link is not there for DOOM 3. With the Collector’s Edition you are given the ability to play DOOM 1 & 2, in all your co-op or deathmatch glory on the same system. However, this is not the case with the base edition.
"The game all in all boasts about 40 levels and is a scream to play through, both alone and in the dark."
|
The game all in all boasts about 40 levels and is a scream to play through, both alone and in the dark. With a living or undead buddy through system link or an internet buddy through Xbox Live, you can fight through hell and back together. If you decide to put out the extra 10 dollars for DOOM 3 The Collector’s Edition (49.99 in stores as of this writing) you will not only have the full game but you will gain access to a plethora of special features. In all of its seizure-inducing glory you will get DOOM 1 and DOOM 2 with full co-op and death match capabilities. You will also get concept art, a list of mini featurettes on bringing DOOM 3 to its afterlife, and the G4 special "The History of Doom".
DOOM 3 is a game with a few flaws to be certain, but they are just a minor shadow in a game that accomplishes everything it sets out to do. Anyone who remembers the glory days of the original DOOM games, fans of first person shooters in general, or anyone that just has some pent-up aggression will be grounded by this heavyweight title. This game is definitely worth the price of admission and I personally cannot wait for the next chapter.
