Doom 3 Review

As you may or may not know, Doom 3 was released yesterday for the PC. Xbox release will be coming Spring 2005. I skipped most of work yesterday to go home and play. One word describes it best: wow. I expected it to be a storyless demon slaughtering rampage, but I was wrong. You start as a marine (no name, like in GTA3; it’s supposed to be you) and you go to Mars where secret experiments are being held. One man goes missing, and you are sent out to find him.

You get a pistol and some armor and head out. The man is standing in front of a control panel, begging you not to make him leave “You cannot possibly comprehend what I have seen”… You hear an explosion and the portal to hell opens 10 feet in front of you, allowing 2 flaming skull dudes to escape, although you can’t kill them. Then, the portal opens on top of the scientist, and he turns into a zombie. After this, all hell breaks loose, quite literally.

This game is extremely scary. You learn to get out your shotgun, have it fully loaded and crouched before you open a door, because many times something will dive on you, or attack you. One drawback so far in the game is that if you pump a zombie’s head full of shotgun pellets, it takes 2 shots(or 3) to kill him. If you shoot him in the chest, it takes one, but everyone wants a headshot!

So far in the game, I have seen quite a few types of hell-spawned things; plain zombies (many varieties), flaming zombies, fat zombies, weird flaming ball throwing demons, 3 headed zombies, machine gun zombies, shotgun zombies, and one of those weird dog things. Good news, the BFG is in this game. If you dont know what that is, “Big ____ing Gun” As well as the pistol, shotgun, assault rifle, grenades, plasma rifle, rocket launcher, and chainsaw. Booya!

Doom 3’s multiplayer is pitiful. I hate to say it, but it really is. First of all, you must be a human. Everyone’s exactly the same. Second, only up to four people in a game at a time. Third, very few levels. Fourth, only 4 gametypes; Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Assault, and Team Assault. Why not include CTF, id?

The graphics are incredible. The lighting system is awesome. Unless you are in combat, you always have your flashlight out. Something really fun to do is when one of those plain, weaponless, slow zombies comes out, run up and smack him with the flashlight, and draw back so he can attack, and miss, then smack him again and he’s dead! id must have a sense of humor because in the kitchen, there is a (playable) arcade game, “Super Turbo Turkey Puncher 3”, with a logo on it that is very similar to “Capcom”.

Some miscellaneous stuff: in the settings, you can make it more like classic Doom by turning free look off, which makes it so you can only look left and right. If you shoot someone more than you need to, their body will “disintegrate” and their skeleton will fall to the floor, and you will catch a glimpse of their brain!

Doom 3’s graphics are insane, definantly best to date. The sound is also the best of the best; featuring Nine Inch Nails and 6 channel Audio, which they use a lot. I can’t give them a lot for gameplay, it’s pretty basic. You cant throw a grenade just by pressing a button, you have to switch to it, and there are no new advances in the gameplay. Creativity gets them a six as well, because although this is one of the first games designed to scare you, they took most of everything from Doom, introducing no new weapons and very few new enemies. Replay value gets a four because let’s face it, this game is fun because its scary, it makes you jump. If you have already beaten it, its just a hassle, unless you have some mods or something. All in all, I’d say this is my favorite of the Doom series and it was definantly worthy of my $50.