If Doom 3 was one of the most eagerly awaited games in the past few years then it must also be one of the first big let-downs too. You play the same familiar role as always in the Doom series, a marine trapped in a series of levels where demons and hell-spawned creatures leap out at you and do their best to kill you outright. That's about it, really.
This time around they've added many story elements which have been lifted almost directly from Half-Life, including the use of health stations and the occasional appearance in places of the company henchman and his minder. System Shock gets ripped off too, as throughout the game you have to collect peoples hand-held computers in order to sift through their tedious e-mails and voice messages for three-digit codes that will unlock armoury cabinets and doors throughout the levels. Apart from a couple of minor puzzles involving lifts and suchlike, the rest of your time is spent walking and shooting.
When you first play Doom 3 you certainly get a few shocks and scares, I defy anyone not to, but after the 20th time you've been jumped by monsters hiding behind hidden panels and cupboards you soon get used to the fact that you will be ambushed every time you enter a large room or collect any large health or weapons packs, and the fright is replaced by resignation and then boredom. Time after time the game uses the shock of sudden appearance to try and scare the player, but once you've lost the element of surprise any tactician will tell you that you're in big trouble. After 20 hours of play the element of surprise has been well and truly kicked to death, but ID don't seem to see that.
I'll wrap this up with a short list of the biggest problems as I see them. First off, the weapons feel really weak. The weakest zombie needs a pistol clip emptied into him to drop him, and against bigger stuff you have to empty your machine gun into them just to annoy them. As always the shotgun is favourite, but even that needs 2 or 3 very close range blasts to take out even a minor baddie. Later weapons cheer you up a bit, but for the most part you're left feeling underarmed and try to make every shot count. The levels are an almost unending maze of dark tunnels and samey rooms, with the occasional huge machine or sprint across the martian surface for variety. It's constantly quite dark, interspersed with areas of complete darkness. This forces you to use the flashlight, which means you have to stow your weapon while using it. Once a demon is spotted you have to then whip out your gun again and fire away in darkness as you cant hold the torch and gun at the same time. One would think that off in the 22nd century the Marines would have by then invented some kind of infra-red or light amplification goggle system for seeing in the dark. Oh, wait... As for multiplayer, it only supports FOUR PLAYERS! That's not multiplayer, that's a complete waste of time. That's 4 guys sitting in the dark waiting for someone to make a clanging, echoing move so they can blast him from the shadows.
There's no doubt that Doom 3 has some awesome graphics, it's is biggest, and for me the only, selling point. Per-pixel shading and lighting makes the characters and levels look quite realistic, and the designs of some of the hellish monsters are genuine nightmare fuel. It's a shame then that all you really get to see is level upon level of dark corridors using this lovely engine. Doom 3 doesn't take the genre forward any in gameplay, you cant even lean left or right to shot from cover, and the levels consist solely of shooting bad guys in the dark. The graphics engine is wasted on the subject matter, but I have high hopes for any conversions, mods and tweaks that the online community will start creating when they get their hands on this. With some real imagination this could grow into something great.
This time around they've added many story elements which have been lifted almost directly from Half-Life, including the use of health stations and the occasional appearance in places of the company henchman and his minder. System Shock gets ripped off too, as throughout the game you have to collect peoples hand-held computers in order to sift through their tedious e-mails and voice messages for three-digit codes that will unlock armoury cabinets and doors throughout the levels. Apart from a couple of minor puzzles involving lifts and suchlike, the rest of your time is spent walking and shooting.
When you first play Doom 3 you certainly get a few shocks and scares, I defy anyone not to, but after the 20th time you've been jumped by monsters hiding behind hidden panels and cupboards you soon get used to the fact that you will be ambushed every time you enter a large room or collect any large health or weapons packs, and the fright is replaced by resignation and then boredom. Time after time the game uses the shock of sudden appearance to try and scare the player, but once you've lost the element of surprise any tactician will tell you that you're in big trouble. After 20 hours of play the element of surprise has been well and truly kicked to death, but ID don't seem to see that.
I'll wrap this up with a short list of the biggest problems as I see them. First off, the weapons feel really weak. The weakest zombie needs a pistol clip emptied into him to drop him, and against bigger stuff you have to empty your machine gun into them just to annoy them. As always the shotgun is favourite, but even that needs 2 or 3 very close range blasts to take out even a minor baddie. Later weapons cheer you up a bit, but for the most part you're left feeling underarmed and try to make every shot count. The levels are an almost unending maze of dark tunnels and samey rooms, with the occasional huge machine or sprint across the martian surface for variety. It's constantly quite dark, interspersed with areas of complete darkness. This forces you to use the flashlight, which means you have to stow your weapon while using it. Once a demon is spotted you have to then whip out your gun again and fire away in darkness as you cant hold the torch and gun at the same time. One would think that off in the 22nd century the Marines would have by then invented some kind of infra-red or light amplification goggle system for seeing in the dark. Oh, wait... As for multiplayer, it only supports FOUR PLAYERS! That's not multiplayer, that's a complete waste of time. That's 4 guys sitting in the dark waiting for someone to make a clanging, echoing move so they can blast him from the shadows.
There's no doubt that Doom 3 has some awesome graphics, it's is biggest, and for me the only, selling point. Per-pixel shading and lighting makes the characters and levels look quite realistic, and the designs of some of the hellish monsters are genuine nightmare fuel. It's a shame then that all you really get to see is level upon level of dark corridors using this lovely engine. Doom 3 doesn't take the genre forward any in gameplay, you cant even lean left or right to shot from cover, and the levels consist solely of shooting bad guys in the dark. The graphics engine is wasted on the subject matter, but I have high hopes for any conversions, mods and tweaks that the online community will start creating when they get their hands on this. With some real imagination this could grow into something great.