Earlier this year, as DOOM 3 was being released for the Xbox, PC gamers were getting a taste of the expansion pack, Resurrection of Evil. Now the expansion is on its way to the Xbox to give those who fought bravely through the UAC facility, the chance to enter hell again. At this year’s Quakecon, Activision had set up a demo of the expansion, allowing players to check out the grisly addition to DOOM 3. Resurrection of Evil is set two years after the catastrophic incidents at the mars research facility rendered it vacant of life and abandoned of all the experiments that were taking place. Now one of the scientists, Dr. Elizabeth McNeil, who left the base before the events of DOOM 3 took place, has returned to investigate a beacon that is emanating within the bases deepest recesses. As it turns out, there is an ancient relic there that you discover, but soon you realize that the UAC aren’t the only ones interested in it. The disturbing Doctor Betruger, who eluded you at the end of DOOM 3, also has his sights set on it and with his demon form and his control over an army of demon minions; he will stop at nothing to retrieve it from your corpse.

Resurrection of Evil features three new weapons, 6 news hideous creatures and a whole new adrenaline pumping adventure to propel the DOOM universe to where it has never been. In addition to the gruesome enemies found in DOOM 3, some of the new creatures that make an appearance in the expansion are the Vulgar, a grey skinned, long tail beast that can toss green balls of plasma at you, lunge long distances as well as crawl along walls and ceilings. Another skin crawling fiend is the Forgotten Ones. These flying horned skulls are reminiscent of the original Lost Souls from DOOM and having them come flying out of the darkest corner, making a beeline for your noggin, is a heart skipping moment. Thankfully the expansion loads you up with a few new fancy weapons as well. Hailing from the original DOOM series, the double barreled shotgun makes an appearance, an earth shattering and skull breaking appearance at that. As well, there is a nifty weapon known as the Ionized Plasma Levitator, which in all sense and purposes, is a duplicate of the gravity gun from Half Life 2. The levitator, or “the grabber” as it is called, can be used to pick up small object and small enemies to either move them out of the way or throw them at enemies. Also as a nice little twist, you can use the Grabber to snag enemy projectiles out of the air that are tossed at you and return them to the sender.

In DOOM 3, the soul cube was the demonic weapon that you used to diminish the forces of hell. This time around, you have a weapon called the “artifact”. When the game starts its opening scene, it features you finding it in a dig site deep beneath the base and when the game starts, you have it in your possession from day one. Although it is a powerful weapon, it is useless until you fight the first boss. Each of the three bosses in the game, known as Hell Hunters, reward you with a special power that they imbue the artifact with when they are defeated. The first, not far into the game, is Hell Time which allows you to slow down time ala Max Payne, the second and third are Berserker and Invulnerability respectively. When you find a corpse lying around, and being a DOOM game there are plenty, walk up to it and you will suck the soul out of it with the artifact and charge it. You can only hold up to three charges at a time so if there are no corpses in the area, you will want to watch how often you use it.

From what we got to see at QuakeCon, Resurrection of Evil seems to be an exact port over from the PC version single player wise. The graphics are as gorgeous as they were in DOOM 3 for the Xbox and that is definitely saying a lot. The action is fast and intense and brings back that suspenseful unsettling feeling that DOOM 3 delivered so well. As for the multiplayer, the demo showed off a 4 player deathmatch which ran smooth as butter on an all new map which will hopefully be one of many included with the expansion. Although the PC version had up to 8 player multiplayer as well as a CTF mode, we’ll have to wait and see if the Xbox version follows suit. All in all, even though the expansion is shorter then DOOM 3, pulling in roughly at around 8 hours of play, Resurrection of Evil for Xbox is looking to be another great ride into hell. With a price tag of $29.99, it will be interesting to see what extra features will be added to the disc when the game is released, which at the present time is somewhere around mid- October 2005.