Doom III review

iD has always had an eye for the first person shooter, from the early days of Wolfenstein through the revolution of Quake and the first Doom games. Gamers all over the world wait with baited breath for the latest instalment of Quake and Doom for an excuse to upgrade their graphics cards and CPUs.

The console world is always looking for a new FPS, to push the hardware and allow them to have a comparison with their PC gaming friends. Doom III promises much, a graphical benchmark on the PC and receiving rave reviews for it immersive experience. The Vicarious Visions Xbox conversion has a lot to live up to.

Hell on earth (or Mars)

Doom III, as with the previous games is set on a research facility on Mars where something has gone wrong and a gate to hell has been opened up. As a voiceless nameless, appearance-less 22nd Century Marine working for the Union Aerospace Corporation you have the responsibility to save the world. The story and game mechanics and level design are decidedly traditional whilst the visuals and sounds are ultra modern and realistic. This creates a realistic environment in a game that feels a little outdated.

The darkness definitely creates a moody tense atmosphere but it can also make it difficult to pick out the slowly lumbering zombies and demons that populate the levels. As your health gets low, getting hit turns more of the screen red for a few seconds. If you're attacked from behind it can make it a foregone conclusion that you're going to die as the enemies can be difficult to pick out when you spin around in a panic with the outer surround of the screen covered red.

Hell is other people

The Xbox version adds a co-op mode so you can fight off the forces of hell with a friend. This adds a few enemies and power ups and some slightly different dialogue. This tends to make it a bit easy as you respawn close to where you died with your backpack full of weapons right at hand. You can run the Co-Op on any of the campaign levels which gives you the opportunity to spoil the single player game especially as iD has tried to integrate puzzles with the main core of the action.

As you move through the game you collect PDAs from scientists which contain information on unlocking supply lockers and security doors. Generally, collecting that sort of thing just conveys the story and I don't really bother with it, massaging the ego of the game designers trying to believe that they're great story writers. Doom III forces you to read through the background to the story if you want to gain access to the storage closets.

That's what hell looks like

Hell on Mars is certainly an attractive place. There aren't many Xbox games that can claim to use the graphics potential of the console to this extent. The surround sound mix isn't as effective as it could be especially as it would really help to locate off-screen enemies. The pre-rendered scenes are effective both dramatically and in terms of their appearance but it's the in-game graphics that deserve the special mention.

The lighting scheme is a bit dark which has the side effect of getting your bearings right when you're forced to backtrack through dark corridors. The elements that leave Doom 3 feeling like an old rehash of games decades old are the important ones: level design, story and gameplay. The level design is completely linear with locked doors forcing your path, although it's not always clear where the game wants you to go. The levels are remarkably samey as well with lots of tight areas making the later rocket launchers rather redundant.

The up close battles, which is more or less all of the battles, look great but feature rather dim enemies and plenty of them. The story has plot holes which might not be a massive problem but things like, incredibly powerful sentry droids all over a base where everyone's getting massacred and your advanced marines inability to carry a torch and a weapon at the same time.

Little angels

The demons in Doom 3 are rather dim opponents, even those that used to be advanced marines. Those marine zombies use some tactics, using cover in a basic way and crouching to avoid fire. The other hell spawn tend to not move around too much allowing you plenty of easy shots, although they can take a few.

Of course, if you're a hardened Doom fan then you'll find lots to keep you entertained spotting your favourite enemies from the original series along with all of the new slaves of Beelzebub. There's nothing wrong, of course, with a straightforward shooter based on the classics of the genre it's just that the likes of Halo have moved expectations in a lot of important areas like level design, weapon selection and enemy AI.

Controlling the demon inside

Doom 3 handles quite well with standard FPS controls. The left stick looking after the walking the right looking after the looking. The back button is used to quick save which can be done as often as you like which can take away a bit of the challenge if it's over used, especially with the number of dark alleys and ambushes.

The black button brings up the PDA after a bit of a pause. A bit of gentle rumbling on the force feedback rounds off the experience. The control scheme should be familiar to FPS gamers and it works well, never working against you.

Doom 3 falls short of the expectations placed upon the Doom series and iD. It's not as progressive or modern as you might hope in terms of the important features of AI and level design. In some ways it's a throwback to the 90s early FPS games but in terms of presentation it's amongst the best on the market. It's an odd combination. Doom 3 seems to have taken a leaf out of EA Sports book, advancing the presentation and tweaking it a bit but not really advancing other aspects.

The FPS market is a competitive one and not keeping up with the Jones' could sink this battleship. It's certainly true that graphics aren't everything and it's not necessarily a problem when the graphics are a main selling feature. Doom 3 definitely has gameplay to back it up but it's gameplay from a few years ago while the rest of the world has moved on.