Doom 3 review

Sometimes I happen to actually finish games in my backlog just a few years after they were released. Doom 3 is the most recent title that falls into that category. Back when the game came out, it offered the most amazing visuals seen on PC until that point and kept gamers tense with its quick action, creepy atmosphere, and sudden surprises. For those of us that are trying not to spend as much right now and want a good, cheap game to play, could Doom 3 possibly fill that hole?

Gameplay - 7/10

While Doom 3 visually looks like a dramatically different game, as you start exploring the facility, everything seems oddly familiar if you've played any of the previous entries into the series. One new aspect is that there actually IS a story this time that you see in game, even if it is essentially a more in-depth rehash of the same fundamental story in every Doom: Humans are on mars, humans dig too deep into Mars, ancient demons awaken and slaughter/zombify everyone, etc. Instead of just restricting the storytelling to cutscenes, you'll occasionally encounter living humans who might have a bit to contribute or data/audio/video discs that you can read in your handy-dandy PDA whenever you wish. It's executed in a manner that fits the game, since if you don't want to know anything about the story, you could pick up the discs strewn about the facility and never read or listen to any of them and you'd be perfectly fine for the most part. Occasionally, you come across a locked door that you'll have to look through a certain PDA entry to find in order to progress and sometimes you still have to find an item that is essentially a key card in order to get through a locked door, but none of it feels intrusive and since you're going through twisting corridors in an abandoned facility on Mars, most of them are fairly linear in where you need to go to find them. As far as enemies are concerned, there really aren't too many things here that are completely new, but that's perfect for Doom 3. All of the weapons perform just like you remember, which is incredibly comforting when you're staring an imp with a fireball glowing in his hand and you just instantly know that switching to your shotgun and blasting him in the face will stop him in his tracks. In terms of scares, the experience starts off well and they do a few things throughout the game to keep you on your toes, but one feature that might get a lot of people more frustrated than creeped out is the games dependence on what are literally monster closets. You'll find yourself walking down a hallway time and time again and...BAM... you see a door to your right slide open, a monster pop out and hit you, then you kill it. It's cool the first few times, but after playing the game for 6+ hours, you'll start to grow tired of it since it seems more like a cheap attempt at increasing the difficulty. Of course, no game like this is complete without boss battles, and Doom 3 has several. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on what kind of gamer you are), all of the bosses are defeated by the classic formula of circle strafing and shooting tons of bullets into it or something nearby, making the boss battles against artistically epic enemies last about 2 minutes.


Graphics - 9/10

Looking back at this game in 2009, it still holds up remarkably well. At the time, I remember this was graphically that year’s version of Crysis, the ultimate test for any pc. Now that many of us are capable of running this game maxed out and in any resolution desired without any major framerate issues, it’s an impressive technical feat. While the outdoor environments might be a bit bland, the indoor locations look eerily haunted, with steam busting out of pipes as you walk through a metallic hallway with a few dim lights flickering on and off. The character designs and models look extremely well, especially with all of the shading effects on them to create a more realistic (or haunting in the case of enemies) setting. All of the animations look extremely fluid, making this easy to go back and look at without you having to make any concessions to the time period.

Sound - 8/10

I’ll admit, there were several moments in the game where I was positive I had killed everyone in a room and I’d hear a howl from behind me and actually jump in my seat. Unfortunately, most of the gun sound effects aren’t as well done as the environmental sounds, but it does make pretty good use of surround sound if you’ve got it. The voice acting is pretty solid which helps to give the illusion of the NPC’s that actually sounding like they’re interacting with each other instead of being in separate rooms reading a script. The one downer about the voice acting is that nearly every PDA recycles a few voices, but each one is acted incredibly well and helps you get a sense for what that character might have been going through when they recorded the log.


Overall - 8/10

For about 20$, you can now pick this up on steam and if you love mindless shooters or just creepy games, you definitely need this in your collection. It’s just long enough so it doesn’t feel like you’re getting ripped off while also cutting off just before the monster closet + shotgun to face combo starts to get old. It DOES have a multiplayer component, but I was unable to test it out so that might be worthwhile for some of you out there looking for an extended experience. Once you’re done with the game, you unlock an extra difficulty as well, so you’re definitely going to be getting a lot of bang for your buck. While the game itself doesn’t feel like it gets stale, it is a bit of a downer when you walk into areas and you’re able to predict exactly when something is going to pop out of one of the monster closets, which kind of destroys the atmosphere. All in all, it’s a solid package and something some people might be able to finish in a weekend since you’re more or less facing the same types of enemies with all of the classic weapons and they all work exactly like you remember and expect them too.