If you like fps games and aren't looking for open ended gameplay, pick this game up.

User Rating: 8.3 | DOOM 3 PC
By Shredder133 | Review Date:
After many years of waiting for Doom 3 I can say that it was well worth the wait. I have to mention some things that you should keep in mind about this game. 1- this is pure fps action and uses minimal ai, no open endedness, and this game embraces those things. 2- yes, this game is dark. It's meant to be, it's a horror game. 3- if you choose to ignore those first 2 points you will be disappointed with doom 3. id Software has created a game that they said they would, a tense, dark, creepy action filled fps. The story, which you should already know, actually was more involving that I originally anticipated. The cutscenes were very well made and didn't take you out of the game at all. Also, your character has visions sometimes, and while these don't necessarily tell you much about what is going on, they do immerse you more into the sense that this base has been overtaken by hell. The aspect that tries to give you more story about other characters, the pda, is something that was as good as bad. As you try and escape from the base, you come across pdas left behind by dead scientists and the like. These pdas contain emails and audio logs that often contain cabinet codes, door codes, and random pieces of information about that characters last couple of days. While I enjoyed reading these emails and the voice acting in the audio logs were top notch, having to do these things feels like it jolts you out of the game. Contributing to this feeling is that using your pda does not pause the game. This is a serious problem since the pda takes up your whole screen, and sometimes bullet fire directed towards your character can be mistaken for gunfire in an audio log that could be playing. The first and most noticable aspect of doom 3 is it's graphics. There is no game that looks as good as doom 3. Not far cry, not anything. Mind you that I am reviewing this game on a 1.5 ghz p4 and am playing it in 640x480. Yes, 640x480. Even in such a low resolution it looks amazing. There are so many great visuals, but the one that stands out the most is the lighting used in doom 3. Shadows are cast realistically, more so than any other game, so that you can see long, dramatic shadows as enemies come around the corner. Surprisingly, for a game that likes to show off shadows, your character casts no shadow and there isn't a muzzle flash on your weapon. These two things really took me out of the game, but thankfully you can enable them by entering your config file, which I highly recommend that you do. The next area in which doom 3 really shines is in it's atmosphere. Walking through blood stained hallways, labs with broken glass everywhere, and even the surface of mars, you feel like you are there. Some levels seemed to be a bit overused, but once I felt that, the level design would often change and I was once again engrossed in where I was. Special attention should be paid to the gui system used as it really keeps you in the game and works incredibly well. Along with the graphics, id kept saying how much time they were spending to make doom 3 a true 5.1 surround sound game. Having some logitech z-680s I took this news very well. Unfortunately, I was a little disappointed given my expectations. That's not to say that the sound isn't really good, but I felt like they could've given you more sound from the rear to make you feel more immersed. I could tell when an enemy was behind me, but even painkiller did a better job of using surround sound. The weapon sound effects did lack oomph, but the sounds were fitting to the weapons. Keep in mind that I was running this game in low quality, so I did not have hardly any variation in enemy or weapon sounds, but I cannot say how it would be on better system. The enemies in doom 3 are some of the best monsters created in a game. They sound and look very scary, and fighting them is fun for the most part. The star of this game is definitely the imp. Their appearance, sound, movement, and unexpected arrivals made me look forward to every encounter I had with the imp, which were many. Gameplay. If you've played any fps game, this is nothing new in terms of gameplay. While people looking for something that pushes tactics and gameplay may find doom 3's action boring, I thought it was really fun. Most of the time you will enter a room and pick up a pda (or some other item) and enemies will teleport in all around you (or come out of a wall, etc). It gets repetitive at times, but as the game throws more and more diverse enemies at you it gets enjoyable again. Since this is a horror game, the developers have tried to make it as scary as possible. They succeed, sort of. I was only scared out of my seat a couple of times, but I went through the entire game with a feeling of uneasiness. Lastly, multiplayer. It's basic, it's fun, and there aren't many maps. Unfortunately, there aren't many other maps that have been released at this time, but this should change soon. One important point I have to make is how terrible the in game server browser is. Coming from id this is a huge disappointment. Let me explain- the server list is set to filter out those servers with passwords- when attempting to join the server I will be prompted for a password. I will try and join a server with 1/4 people in it- server full. I will try and join a server with the lights out map listed - i will join the edge 2, or some other map. There are many more things like this that have happened when I try to join a server, and id needs to patch this issue more than anything else in the entire game. If you can actually get into a server, the games typically run with little lag, and are a blast to play. It's refreshing to play a game where you can hide in a shadow, be 2 feet from an enemy, and not have them see you because their gamma isn't cranked up all the way. I'm sure this will become a lan favorite. Those are my views on doom 3. If you've learned anything from this review, remember this, keep this game in context- it does exactly what it said it would do, and nothing else. (MY review score is actually around a 9.0-9.3, but gamespot says my score is an 8.3 based on what I put into those checkboxes)

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