Being around the gaming community for a while I knew that Doom 3 was a highly anticipated game, but I had never played Doom 1 or 2, and so I never bothered to look into it. Regardless, I had my friend start up his copy of Doom 3 to see if all this hype was well-deserved.
Story:
The story of Doom 3 is fairly simple. You\'re some sort of space marine stationed in Mars when you and your fleet are attack by gigantic monsters. After negiotations fail and the monsters begin executing hostages you take up the roll of hero and grab your guns to defeat the alien invasion. You slowly fight your way through the entire military base, making strong military friendships, manipulating the weaker members of the squad to do unfavourable tasks, and blowing up aliens until an escape pod can safely remove everyone from the besieged base.
Gameplay 7/10
This game handles like most shooters, but with a lot more. The system demands for this game is extremely heavy and, contrary to popular belief, most of the system requirements must come from the seemingly limitless actions. Basic actions featured in other shooters are present, such as turning off lights and desecrating the dead bodies of your enemies as you search for resources such as ammo and health. On top of those actions, Doom 3 allows for the user to weld doors shut, design booby traps by rewiring door-access panels, and even design and produce a light transport vehicle capable of carrying three humans. The shooting in the game is very realistic aswell. My friend made a comment about how the guns handled so realistically that he felt as if he were fighting in Vietnam all over again. My friend also commented that the selection of weapons was visibly larger in the first few levels of Doom 3 than Doom 1 and 2 put together.
Graphics 9/10
Above I mentioned that the hefty system requirements were mainly used for the gameplay, which can be miss leading. The graphics in this game are absolutely incredible. After witnessing this game it\'s hard to remember the days of that hard-working, sweaty, Italian plumber riding down poles as he made his way from castle to castle in a 16-bit cat and mouse chase with Bowser. Firstly, it must be mentioned that this game is extrememly graphic in the material they have choosen to present. While battling the aliens, one of my fellow marines jumped on a gernade that had bounced off a wall and toward our platoon. He smoothered the impact with his stomach which was shown in full detail. After I fought off the wave of monsters I walked over to his body and used the crosshair to just inspect the details of his body. While I didn\'t follow the production details of this game, it seemed as if they had mapped out the entire digestive system for situations such as this. The blood that came out of his body was done with extreme physic details that a detective from CSI could tell you in great detail of how the man was killed. While I do not enjoy gore, I must applaude the graphics industry for how advanced graphics have become and hopefully this same technology will soon be used for games that are more up my alley(like The Sims).
Sound 7/10
The sound in this game was also very well done. Footsteps sound like footsteps, gunshots sound like gunshots, and aliens dying sound like what I assume aliens dying would sound like. The music played in the background as you venture through the military base is also very fitting as it will change seamlessly as you move from an intense fighting sequence to a lighthearted affair with your surviving marines. Subtle aural details were also paid attention too. At the beginning of the game, the laws of constructive interference are obeyed when you walk through a room where two speakers are present.
Longevity
By playing through a couple of the earlier levels, I can safely assume that this game has as much longevity as a well-liked film. Because I feel most of the games entertainment comes from the surprise and movie-like feeling, I do not feel like you can play the main campaign missions over and over without becoming extremely bored. However, I do believe a multiplayer mode is present in this game and can over countless hours of space combat, much like other popular shooters such Battlefield Earth 1942, and Counterstrike had they been set on Mars.
Adult Content
Violence 0/10
- This game is extremely violent. Your character recieves more positive reinforcement everytime an alien is killed in a creative or unnecessarily brutal manner from the other squad members, who occasionally get blown up themselves.
Language 5/10
Cuss words are said fairly often by the marines, mainly when shot or a new wave of aliens appear. I would lower this catergories\' score, but that would give the wrong impression about the games extreme violence.
Sexuality 8/10
I think I only heard one comment regarding sexuality and my mother. This comment was made while the marines sat around talking at the very beginning of the game, so I don\'t expect they\'ll have the chance to make any more similar comments during the alien invasion.
Occult 0/10
Just like other ID games you will find some pentagrams scattered throughout the maps.
Overall
As a game for mature audiences: 9/10
As a game for younger audiences: 2/10
Because of the extreme graphic nature of this game, and the praise of violence it would almost be negligent to allow a child to play this game. I would assume this game will be given a mature rating and so children should not be able to play this game anyway. With that aside, Doom 3 is a beautifully designed game that paid incredible attention to detail like no game has ever done before. Doom 3 has raised the bar for the Video Game Production Studios, which means that all games will soon reach this incredible level.
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