Amazing visuals isn't all Doom offers

The Doom franchise finally returns with a new installment on a game console with Doom 3 – thankfully no sub-title. (Some game titles are bordering on the obscene in word count these days.) And while it may not be a state-of-the-art shooter, it manages to immerse the player and actually make him feel he is experiencing the game.



The Doom franchise has always been a bit short on back story. Seems a research facility on Mars has been doing some work on transporter technology. As an unexpected side effect of the experiments the scientists have discovered alternate dimensions, and most notably a hell dimension. Now the hell dimension has started spilling into our dimension and everyone in the facility is dying horribly. The player, as a new assignee to the planetary marine security force, must survive and, if possible, close the rift between the dimensions.

From first Doom in 1993 to now the setup has not really changed. What has changed is the way the game achieves its goal of making the player run and gun like all hell is at his heels – which it is. I pulled out my 1994 version of Doom for the Jaguar to get some perspective on how much this game has changed in the intervening 11 years. While the original game is pure adrenaline shooter (and butt-ugly by today’s standards), Doom 3 is more akin to a survival-horror game played from a first-person perspective. It is clear that from the beginning Id Software must have been looking to the 1986 movie Aliens as inspiration for Doom: marines sent to investigate an outpost and finding it has been overrun by nightmare creatures. It must be very gratifying that they now have the raw system power to actually make a game that lets the player experience the feelings those marines must have experienced in the movie.

It is the feelings this game evokes that lift it above just being another non-descript first-person-shooter game. The game actually makes the player feel he is in the game and all the fear and adrenaline-soaked moments are happening to him. At the same time it is a bit like riding a rollercoaster: the feelings are real but you’re in a safe environment. Best played with the lights off and the surround sound on, Doom 3 will treat the player to some moments when they will be convinced something is in the room with them, unseen yet menacing. The game toys with the player. In one room forbidding sounds will be all around him, his nerves will be on edge in anticipation of an attack and nothing will happen. Other times what seems like a simple stroll down a quiet corridor will suddenly become a desperate fight for survival with the minions of hell.

Much has been made of the fact that Doom 3 is literally a very dark game. It can often be hard to see what is going on. This only adds to the uneasy feelings evoked in the player. Few things are more terrifying to the primate brain than a set of glowing eyes coming at him from out of the dark. The player is given a flashlight with a set of batteries that would make the Energizer Bunny turn green with envy. These things just keep on going and going. The fact that the player cannot hold the flashlight at the same time as a weapon or have it mounted on the weapon is a bit contrived, but it is obvious the designers planned it that way so the player will always be on edge as he moves around the levels. As something jumps unexpectedly at the player from the shadows and he fumbles for his weapon in a state of surprise, it is best to remember the sage advice of Aliens’ Corporal Hicks: “Short, controlled bursts.” Every nerve in the player’s body is going to be screaming to back-peddle wildly while capping off an entire clip of ammunition in the general direction of the threat.

Beyond the superb atmosphere, the game designers managed to build a pretty generic first-person shooter that breaks no new ground and does not even really measure up to more modern offerings like Halo 2 in terms of gameplay. The weapons set is a bit underwhelming. The level designs are rather stock. The game is without a doubt solidly built, but nothing outstanding. Welcome additions to the single-player campaign mode are a cooperative mode and a deathmatch multiplayer mode, both which are playable over Xbox Live or system link. Sadly for those players who don’t have friends with Xbox consoles or access to Live, there is no option to play either of the multiplayer modes via split-screen.

The controls are tight and responsive, but I had two small issues with them. The first was the left trigger as the sprint button. With analog sticks I just cannot see why this is necessary anymore. Pushing the stick varying degrees should be speed throttle enough. The second was navigating menus only with the D-pad. Coming out of the game for a moment to select something would be easier if the player could keep his thumb on the stick that is getting the most use and he almost surely already has his thumb on. Other games manage to do it. I know it is a nitpicky thing to call out, but it is a pet peeve of mine.

Graphically Doom 3 is nothing short of amazing. The lighting effects are spectacular and their interplay with the environments establishes the atmosphere that lifts Doom 3 above most FPS offerings. The characters, both friend and foe, are well detailed and animated. The environments are mostly of the utilitarian/industrial/futuristic type that are seen in the movie Aliens. Most of the game is in these environments with detours into the hell dimension and some underground excavations.



Audio easily equals the visuals. Creature growls, howls and screams are suitably ominous and unsettling. The non-player character voice acting is very good. The weapon sounds were the only place the audio came up short. They just don’t hit you in the gut. It is interesting that one way Doom 3 makes the player feel he is playing as himself is by the player’s on-screen avatar not speaking. There is no voice coming from your character that is not your own to break the illusion. The little time the avatar is actually shown is spent doing very generic things that anyone might do in a similar situation. It is a neat trick.

On its gameplay alone, Doom 3 probably would only have rated about 3.5 sharks. The presentation, and the way it manipulates the player into feeling extremely vulnerable and immerses them in a truly scary environment, easily lifts it another full shark. The title is as much an experience as it is a game and is as close as you’re likely to get to being in an Alien movie anytime soon.