The chainsaw and the BFG are back! Despite flaws, Doom 3 maintains the atmosphere of the original games well.
When I heard about Doom 3, I nearly wet myself. I was prepared to like it no matter how much it sucked, a feeling very much akin to when I heard about Star Wars Episode 1. Thankfully, unlike a certain Star Wars prequel, Doom 3 didn't suck. It wasn't great, but it didn't suck. And it didn't have Jar Jar Binks, which automatically makes it much better than Episode 1. But enough of that.
Graphics-wise, it was amazing for the time. The engine, the dynamic lighting, the intense action, and the great gameplay left me a very happy camper. Most importantly, it felt more or less right. The original doom games told in as few words as possible a horrific campy invasion of earth from Hell, starting in a high tech mars base and ending in Satan's living room, with John Romero's face being inside the brain of the devil. The plot was minimal, cheesy, campy, and a bit like a B movie, but it gave you an excuse to slaughter zombies and demons en masse with a chainsaw and rocket launcher. In the same way I love Army of Darkness, I loved Doom. There was no intelligence, no real high art, no sentient thought to it all, it was just an awesome slaughterfest full of delightfully satanic images and manly weapons such as chainsaws and double barreled shotguns. Doom created the space marine FPS protagonist, and in my Doom saturated pscyhe, everyone but Gordon Freeman is actually the Doom Marine in disguise, with the exception of the Master Chief, who is the Marathon guy in disguise. Even so, what Doom did for the FPS genre was so influential, it deserves it's fame and adoration from all the people whose lives it touched.
Doom 3 has some big pants to fill, and sadly, it doesn't do its predecessors or it's namesake justice. However, I think in this day and age, it is impossible to have a game as influential as Doom, ever. But as acting as a sequel to the Doom games and retaining the same feel, this game succeeds, and really, that's all that can realistically be expected.
The game has practically zero plot, although the plot that is given is haphazard at best, which was somewhat of a disappointment- leaving me wishing for the text narration of the previous games. It takes pointers from System Shock 2 with the audio diary part, as well as Deus Ex with the internal email system. These portray the plot and feel of the world better than the cutscenes, which actually resulted in me having more interest in the side plots than the relatively uninspired primary plot.
But wishing for any decent plot from anything Doom related is like watching Sitcoms for the special effects. The game delivers delightful ultraviolence, and that makes it the good game it is. If I had one complaint, it is that the only thing new about this game is the engine. Other than that, it plays, feels, and generally is just more of the same Doom you know and love, just evolved a bit, and less awesome. It tries to be scary at times, but only succeeds in being unnecessarily bloody- which, it being Doom, is perfectly fine. Another thing that I was grateful for was it not crossing the line, in a sense. Doom has always crossed the line, but it has done so tastefully. Too many games these days cross over to the point where the pointless ultraviolence is tasteless and repulsive, but Doom 3 keeps the levels of ultraviolence at around horrific, never too the point where it becomes too ridiculous or stupid.
The gameplay is where this game shows it's true roots- it plays very much like a Doom game- no real surprises there. It's a challenging nonstop shoot fest, and the only complaint I would have is the lighting issue- for most of the game, you can't see jack, and you can't use both your flashlight and a gun at the same time- apparently there was an electrical tape shortage on Mars right around the time of the invasion. Even so, the game is fun, and the violence is pretty much nonstop, if not slightly unimaginative. The set pieces are there, Doom 3 just brings it all to the 21st century. And despite it being more of the same, it's Doom, and that's not a bad thing.
One of the points I felt was particularly weak was the level design. Without Romero, the levels just aren't the same. Sure, the engine is great. Thank you Carmack. But please, Romero, please, come back and give us the same amazingly fun levels you gave us in the original Doom games! The levels are very much like anything else in the FPS world, and are relatively uninteresting, which is one of the biggest flaws with the game. Another thing I missed was the surrealism present in the original Doom games. Sure, the added technology allows for realism not possible in the original games, but there was a certain element of strangeness and slightly silly surrealism present in the original games completely not present in Doom 3. It's almost as if it takes itself a little too seriously, which is rather detrimental both to the plot and the general feel. Doom is supposed to be about good times, slaughtering demons, and cracking open a cold can of Surge as you frag your buddies. Doom 3 seems more like it's trying to push a story, provide an upgrade to the saga, and generally seems like it's trying too hard, and yet not hard enough in certain areas. In that respect, I think it really lost a lot of it's audience, but then again, most of the Doom fanatics had already lost their allegiance to doom thanks to Quake, Counter Strike, and Halo. If anything, it simply serves as an update to the Doom world we all know and love, and while it gets a lot wrong, it's still Doom, and for that, I love it.
A final note, the music isn't that great. That was one of the more tragic aspects- the music wasn't memorable at all. They should have had Nine Inch Nails working on it, like with Quake. With Doom, the music is one of the more important albeit frequently overlooked aspects of the game. I'll always remember the first level music from Doom 1, and many of the tracks from Doom 2. But Doom 3, yawn.
In any case, Doom 3 fails at being as important, impressive, or downright fun as the original games, but it succeeds at being a Doom game. Just not as good as the originals. But despite this, it's good to go back to Hell and tear things apart with a chainsaw.