Doom III: Resurrection of Evil review

I was not a fan of Doom III. At least, I wasn’t a fan of the PC version. The Xbox port however… well there was something ultimately magical at work there. How else can you explain my love for it? I certainly can’t.

Perhaps it was the shift from keyboard and mouse to controller that did it for me. Or maybe it was the co-operative mode. Hell, it could have been the fact I got to play the bloody thing above twelve frames per second.

Whatever it was the important thing is that it changed me. Doom III on the Xbox was great. And so is Resurrection of Evil. Being a port means it’s more of the same. But what’s interesting is Resurrection of Evil is ultimately a marked improvement over its predecessor.

Return to the Red Planet

No one has stepped foot on Mars in two years. Not since scientists opened a portal and unleashed Hell. A UAC satellite orbiting the red planet receives a faint signal emanating from beneath Site 1. The cause of the signal is unknown so a small research team is cobbled together and despatched immediately.

You’re a member of this research team.

We never know your name but as far as Doom lore goes it isn’t important. That said, as far as Doom lore goes Resurrection of Evil has a much stronger premise than Doom III did (evil scientist in league with the devil opens portal and kills everyone…BOO!).

The signal belongs to a hellish artefact which has suddenly appeared in the middle of a dig site. In what can only be described as a very smart move, Nerve wastes no time getting the artefact into your hands. In fact, it’s the very first thing we see in your hands when you start playing.

Heart of Darkness

The artefact serves to highlight one of several new additions to Doom III’s gameplay that ultimately make playing Resurrection of Evil a much more engaging experience. And while the artefact may be bullet time in disguise it shows Nerve’s got the balls to change things.

This is never more evident than in the clearly plagiarized Ionized Plasma Levitator – or Grabber as the game refers to it. In short, it’s Half Life 2’s Gravity Gun and it’s nowhere near as fun.

However it’s there because it adds diversity and also lets you grab those pesky flaming skulls and shoot them at each other.

A further example of diversity is the number of closet scares.

In Doom III walls would suddenly slide away to reveal hidden closets where monsters dwelled. At first the effect proved genuinely terrifying – backing up to a wall as multiple enemies descended on you, only for the wall to slide away to reveal more.

But by the end of the game the number of times this happened was nothing short of ridiculous. In Resurrection of Evil I counted two closet scares in the whole ten hours I spent playing it. And I explored as much of the levels as possible.

Fear of the Dark

The almost complete abandonment of closet scares has forced Nerve to think of more genuine ways to scare the player. And sometimes it does this with aplomb. No longer can you second-guess where the spiders will crawl out of, or which panel a zombie is hiding behind.

The best example of Nerve dreaming up new scare tactics is during the Delta Labs toward the end of the game.

Fans of Doom III will remember this as one of the first areas you plough through. But in Resurrection of Evil it’s one of the last areas you visit – and arguably the scariest. Here Nerve shows us how unkind two years has been to the leftover zombies and spiders.

Their desperation for eating you is clear and apparent in the way their skin hangs off their bones and the sounds of glee they emit when they attack. The spiders… well, they’re spiders and that alone should make you shit yourself. Only these buggers look haggard and make horrible squeaky sounds.

Devils in the Details

Unfortunately a number of problems plague Resurrection of Evil that I cannot fail to mention.

Most glaring of course is the total lack of an auto- or quick-save feature. This made for many situations where I became too engrossed in the game to save it and ultimately had to replay large sections when I died.

After the stellar job Vicarious Visions did with the Doom III port it’s unfortunate to see the few glitches Nerve let through in its port of Resurrection of Evil. Some of these range from the small (audio pausing during the various audio logs you can find) to the large (sound delay during a couple of cutscenes).

Finally, if I’m going to be nitpicky, the end of game boss is an absolute walkover. The first time I faced it I made full use of the artefact and kicked its ass in bullet time. Feeling like I perhaps cheated a little I replayed the sequence without the artefact and ended the game with nary a scratch.

Despite these problems it’s hard not to enjoy Resurrection of Evil regardless of your thoughts on the original game. Nerve has stuck enough diverse tweaks into the format to make for a thrilling, admittedly more terrifying experience.

Resurrection of Evil is a much better game than Doom III. Trust me.