By Sam Coles:
Doom is a title that is influential in the gaming industry
as it has shaped how first person shooters are made; you can still feel Doom’s
influence today with FPS design. In 2004 gamers finally received the third in
instalment of the series in the form of Doom 3, it split the community as a lot
of people liked it for its tense atmosphere and others did not like the new
direction as it strayed far away from the franchise’s original vision. What do I think of Doom 3? In short I think it
is a solid first person horror shooter.
Doom 3 takes place on Mars (obviously) where you are a fresh
faced marine transferred there for standard guard duty. There seems to be a
struggle between the scientists as the council of the UAC have sent inspectors
to see what’s going on and they do not like what they see. It’s not long until
the something goes wrong and the portal of hell is opened and all the
scientists are turned into strange creatures and zombies. The story is a basic
plot setting up the environment that you’re going to be slowly walking and
shooting through for the next 15 hours.
The opening is similar to Half-life where it is a normal day and
everyone is going about their business, it’s a great way to humanise the
situation to make the disaster more believable as it is a work place and things
can go wrong.
Doom 3’s gameplay is a first person shooter, but unlike the
first two games it dials things back in terms of speed so you can no longer run
like a doped up cheetah, instead you have a steady pace as the environments are
enclosed with a thick layer of dread. You start off with a pathetic excuse of a
pistol, but it’s not long until you find a machine gun and shotgun, which makes
the pistol obsolete. You explore environments looking for keys to unlock doors,
as well as optional audio logs which give you an extra layer to the story of
what happened to certain staff members during the disaster. The audio logs add
an extra layer of depth to the story and it is there if people want more story,
but like most games of the time you can choose your level of immersion, as the
game doesn’t shove the story down your throat.
The most controversial aspect of this game is the lighting
or should I say lack of lighting, this is remedied with the use of a torch, but
this comes at a cost as you can’t use your gun and torch at the same time. I
for one like this as it makes you feel vulnerable adding to the tense situation,
PC gamers did mod it so you can use a gun and torch at the same time and it was
added in the BFG edition of the game. I think this ruins the horror experience
as the dodgy lighting was a part of the game and you feel less dread when you
can use a torch and gun at the same time.
Alongside the original Far Cry, Doom 3 was known to the push
PC hardware to its limits and a lot of people had to upgrade their PC’s during
this period. The game looks stunning even today with some great dynamic
lighting, you just don’t see dynamic lighting in games any more that look as
good as Doom 3’s it’s a shame because it looks great. The blood soaked
environments look disgusting in a good way; it looks as if a demon came through
and tore everything that was in its way apart. Doom 3’s soundtrack is good, it’s not
memorable by any means as it tends to go for ambient drone similar to the 1995
PS1 version of Ultimate Doom, the drones and chants you hear are spine
chillingly creepy.
Doom 3 is a solid horror shooter experience, is it the
follow up to Doom II that everyone wanted? No, but that doesn’t take away from
the fact that it is a solid game and is a great game to play today.
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