Doom3 PC Review

By John "Valuum" Kuhnle
Picture comments made by JMRboosties

Doom 3 sets itself apart from any other game I've played in two ways: It's actually scary, and it's a technical wonder. I never thought a Video Game could scare me, I had played the Resident Evils, without being scared at all. But the moment I went into a dark area of Doom 3, I knew I was in for a scare. I can break down how Doom 3 scares the player in about 6 ways.

Your flashlight is one of the many important items you will use in the game.

Monster jumps out of vent/other unexpected place
Monster around corner
Monsters in a pitch black area
Monsters behind doors
Electrical shorts/other events that turn off the lights.
Monsters sneak up behind you

Doom 3 manages to mix these up, add variety to each encounter, and change up the monsters to keep you scared. You can really tell how much time the devs spent on planning out every little thing.

This game is very dark. So dark in fact I have no idea what is going on in this picture.

Now for the second thing that makes Doom 3 stand out, the technical wonder of the game. Not just the graphics are amazing, but the sound is too. I tried to play without the sound once, it wasn't nearly as scary! The sound provides radio transmissions, and very small noises that creep you out. You hear a machine running, but it sounds strangely like a voice, you listen to a fan, it sounds slightly like an evil laugh.

And who can forget, the amazing visuals. Doom 3 is way ahead of any other PC Game in terms of graphics. One complaint about Doom 3 is that you would "need a super computer to run it". This is not true at all, this game is very well coded. My 2.66 400fsb P4, Radeon 9800 128m, 512 PC 2700 RAM computer can run it at almost maxed detail fine. I haven't got to test it on any other computer, but if your computer meets the minimum specifications, I can assure you a good frame rate.

Amazing graphics, but if you don't have a fast computer you will see more of this screen than anything else.

Multiplayer was a wish of many people awaiting this game. The game is more survival horror, so death match isn't exactly perfect. But as in the previous Dooms, Co-op is amazing. A user made Co-op mod was made very soon after the release of this game.

As I said before, Doom 3 made a shift towards the survival horror genre in this game. The previous Dooms gave you large amounts of ammo, threw you into a very open world, and let you lose. This is not what happens in Doom 3. Ammo is fairly scarce in Doom 3, but not to the point where you run totally out. The game is balanced out so for awhile you have Shotgun ammo, but no Machine Gun ammo, and vice versa. This makes you think before you shoot, and not "Go Commando". The character physics are so amazing though, when you shoot a zombie to death, it's corpse either explodes, or flies away with each extra bullet taken, this permits for the occasional over shooting, just for fun.

Incredible life like visuals, when I saw this picture I thought it was a real hand.

One thing that made me laugh (after playing of course) was the way Doom 3 used foreshadowing. At the very beginning all people you walked past talked about was how bad Delta Labs were. They spoke of missing people, creatures, and how they wanted to quit. Then the UAC talked about getting extra credits for volunteering to Alpha Labs. In other words, you knew fair and square, Delta labs sucked. Also you knew that you were indefinitely going to be going there. Right up to before you arrived at your destination people talked about the missing scientist, and how "you didn't want to find him". Instead of having new monsters jump out at you, they introduced them, and showed them walking up to you. They were very blunt about this. Then you had to fight them, it was almost a joke.

Doom 3 isn't without it's flaws though. Doom 3 is fairly short on flaws, but there are still some complaints. First of all, as a first person shooter, it isn't that amazing, because you are in close quarters the whole game, there really isn't that much of a variety in combat. Load times are incredible too, I walked downstairs, got a drink, walked back up, waited a bit, and the level finally finished loading. Also, the weapons are totally overdone, I swear that every ID game uses the same weapons. Another ID signature is the setting, Dark and Industrial. Hmmm, that seems a lot like Quake 1, Quake 2, Quake 3, Doom 1, and Doom 2.

Another shot of the loading screen of death.

Also, there isn't much choice in the game, everything is paved out for you, with the occasional optional "search for the pda with the code for the storage room" side quest. There isn't much for exploring, FPS's are known for being linear, but they usually have an exploration factor. Also, I think the game could of came up with better ways to scare you than making a room almost pitch black.

But the biggest let down, was the story. It started out like "Hey, they're doing some excellent story telling. I can't wait to see what happens next". The game, in the beginning, was flat out immerse. But it degraded into a kill and advance over and over fest after that.

I spy with my little eye, something about to kill me.

What little Doom 3 lacks in substance it makes up for in style. Also, this game will scare you, that is something I have not seen in video games up until this game. And of course, you want to see how pretty the graphics are.

This will be a game to remember, and I recommend you buy it.

8.7/10