Gameplay
Same old story, same old faces.
The Doom3 story is simply a retelling of the original Doom, it's almost like a remake of an old movie now with all the special effects and sound enhancements that today’s technology has to offer. For those not familiar with the story this is how it goes, as well as the minor changes to the new version.
"You are a marine, one of Earth's toughest, hardened in combat and trained for action. Shortly
after reporting for duty at the Union Aerospace Corporation's Mars research facility, a massive
demonic invasion overwhelms the base, leaving chaos, horror and uncertainty in its wake. As
one of only a few survivors you must use overwhelming firepower and all of your combat skill
to battle through the demon hordes, find out what went wrong and prevent the evil from spreading. Only you stand between Hell and Earth."
Sounds simple enough doesn't it?
"enough chit-chat!"
Doom 3 is more story driven that the first game, there is a kind of plot that drives the game along, and while it's certainly not going to win any acting awards it's pretty good all the same. These story elements become apparent in the very first stages of the game. Walking around the first few sections you find yourself able to "talk" to other characters in the game. You basically click on them and they will tell you one or two things before repeating them all over again. Your character does not have anything to say through the whole adventure apart from the ocassional grunt and scream, so unfortunately it's a case of just shut up and listen.
As well as the NPC's blabbering on you pick up another new addition to the Doom world, a PDA (personal data assistant). Here you download emails, video streams and other bits of information. Throughout the game you will find other character's PDA's that not only give you their private emails but will also contain voice recordings 90% of the time. This is how the story manages to unfold. I find it quite ingenious as it prevents the action from letting up in the game, you can listen to the recordings as well as fight the demons. The downside is reading through the e-mails Deus Ex style. This tends to break up the action and as a lot of the time you need to read the emails to find pass codes to important areas it's not unheard of to forget to read one and have to search through the list of PDA's (there's a lot of them) until you find the right passcode. It would have been easier, I feel, to automatically open the doors that you have passes for even if you haven’t read the email. Or maybe I'm just lazy?
Gun's, we need guns
The first few steps in the game revolve around getting to the labs where the scientists are doing experiments and becoming increasingly cagey. You pick up your pistol, armour and flashlight (yes flashlight) and head to what is called "the dungeon". Here you meet more disgruntled workers and some really spooked individuals some of which tell you not to trust anyone. This section acts as a mini tutorial on opening and closing air locks, entering new areas, interacting with the item lockers and using the flashlight. The flashlight becomes a valuable tool in the dark corridors of Doom3, some places are pitch-black and you cant to afford to waste time fumbling through the darkness.
The problem with this flashlight is that you can only use a weapon when the light is unequipped which can lead to some frustrating blackout fire-fights. On the other hand it also makes for some tense creeping around in the dark.
After getting through to the end of this short tutorial all hell breaks loose as the scientist, engineers, workers and marines become possessed by demons and turning into zombie like creatures that aim to kill you. The first few zombies are just like the zombies in most other games, they just walk up to you and take swipes at you. If you are unlucky enough to get caught up in a mele attack by any enemy in this game you will find your view getting knocked left and right, up and down and your aim will become increasingly difficult to focus. If you become surrounded like this with only a pistol and a flashlight then you can be pretty sure that you will be dead by the end of it.
The weapons in the game are a disappointment; there aren’t many for starters, and those there are don’t have any alternative functions. All the classics are there but where the hell is the Super Shotgun? It's certainly not a very inventive line-up of firearms for an eagerly anticipated FPS I'm afraid.
The weapons in the game are a dissapointment, there arent many and those that there are don't have any alterntive functions. All the classics are there but where the hell is the Super Shotgun? It's certainly not a very inventive line-up of firearms for an eagerly anticipated FPS I'm afraid.
The Looks or the Lifestyle?
The whole game's presentation is immaculate, quite simply put this is one of the most beautiful
games I have ever played. There are only a couple of games that I would rate as highly in the
graphics department and two of them have been reviewed here already (you know who you are)
Id Software have produced a graphics engine that churns out lovingly rendered polygons and pixels at an impressive rate. Shadows are cast realistically over bump mapped textures, the monsters animate realistically and the attention to detail in the machinery in the industrial corridors of Doom3 and the eerie caverns of Hell are absolutely of the highest quality.
It's an obvious matter of taste of course, some people might not like all the industrial machinery and red warning lights that make the game look like homage to the Alien saga, but I love it to bits. If Ridley Scott made a game, it would be this one. There are also some lovely video screens in the game that amazing seem to run full length FMV sequences. They seem to have little or no impact on game performance at all, making them a simple and effective touch.
The physics engine is pretty much like any other these days, you can push things over (wow) and enemies have rag doll effects when killed, certain background objects also have your usual decals when shot at. These beautiful graphics animate ferocious monsters that you will want to dispatch as soon as possible. As well as these monsters looking good during normal encounters there are moments in the game where the actions of the demons are scripted, with things popping out of walls to attack you, running along walls when they don't usually, throwing exploding barrels at you etc. My favourite is when you first meet the Pinky demon (totally different to what was shown in E3 by the way). However are these well scripted monsters smart enough to make sure you don't ever finish Doom3?
"If I Only Had a Brain..."
The AI of the enemies in Doom3 is rather lacking, it's certainly purposely disguised by the great graphics and scripted elements of the game. Sadly when it really comes down to it the enemies have a very limited arcade style 'kill or be killed' mentality. For example, you can pretty much predict a shotgun sgt. attack because you will hear some strange demonic intercom buzzes and then the zombies will rush into whatever room you are in, hidden or not, and they will shoot you.
There's no "oh he might not be here, let's try somewhere else" thought in their mind, they will simply follow you until they catch up with you.
This sorry scenario is the same with all the enemies, plus when they do find you they will do very little to defend themselves. They might occasionally run for some basic cover from your gun-fire, but other than that there are really no tactics in AI. Which compared to other recent competitors on the market, doesn’t shape up to well.
There are some really great bosses in the game though, but for a Doom or Id game I have to admit I was expecting something a little tougher.
Once you start playing the game after a while you realise that you really are playing a pretty faithful version of what Doom was all about in the first place, making the game pretty linear by today’s standards. The 'missions' are basically get to the exit without getting killed, running, shooting and fragging in a non-stop assault.
Just like the original Doom you walk into a room and for some bizarre reason the walls open up and demons pour out, collect a big gun and you are lowered via an elevator into a room full of monsters to use the gun you picked up. Classic Doom frights I know, but it works!
Overall the game comes off as a little too easy, even on the legendary Nightmare setting. It's got some solid hours of gameplay though.
What was that noise?
The sound in Doom 3 is pretty impressive, there is some ambient "music" tracks blended into the machine noises and screams you will here over your intercom device. There is no music as such though, with the Chris Vrenna opening theme being the only real music in the game and unfortunately for those who thought that there would be some left over Trent Reznor sound effects still in the game there aren't (you can however download them elsewhere on the internet). I have heard the SFX Trent Reznor made for the game originally and they are far superior to the new sound effects we have in the final version of Doom. They current ones do their job though.
The Voice acting is pretty good too, there are some familiar voice-over artists in here such as Cam Clarke (Liquid Snake, Dogtanian, Baldurs Gate, Neverwinter Nights) and they help to bring out some emotion in the story, although I will say that after a while I couldn't care less about most of the characters.
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