I'll
just admit right at the start of this review that I am a
huge baby. You would have figured it out by the end of the
review, but I wanted to spare you the detective work. I
don't like horror movies, spiders freak me out and I probably
would have never played Doom 3 if a review copy
hadn't shown up on my desk. But for you loyal Fanboy Planet
readers, I sucked it up long enough to get through the most
terrifying experience that I've ever had with my Xbox. That
includes playing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant
Melee.
Having
scared the bejesus out of the PC gaming crowd last year,
Doom 3 makes its way to the Xbox. On paper, that
sounds like a recipe for disaster. Doom 3 was designed
to have cutting edge graphics and was meant to be played
on a top of the line PC system, not the 3 year old Xbox
system. Fortunately, the hard-working hellspawn over at
Vicarious Visions made an almost seamless port of Doom
3 for the masses to relish in.
Doom
3 is a relaunch of the original Doom series,
with you playing as the lone marine on a Mars outpost overrun
with demons, zombies and other horrors too perverse to name.
You'll blast your way through corridors of carnage picking
up parts of the storyline as you go. The plot is revealed
though emails, video logs and voice mails that you find
along the way. Rarely do you interact with any other characters,
which only adds to the lonely, paranoid feeling you have
while playing.
Doom
3 creates an atmosphere of tension and fear guaranteed
to keep your hair standing on end even after you've turned
the game off. A zombie lurks around every corner, a spider-looking
thing crouches in every crevasse and don't even think of
picking up ammo and health because an ambush is soon to
follow. There really needs to be a warning sticker on the
box to prevent people with heart problems from playing the
game.
Game play is standard first person shooter faire with
the only real twist being the incorporation of your flashlight.
Marines of the future haven't figured out how to mount their
flashlights to their guns, helmets or shoulders, so you'll
have to carry it around in one hand with your gun in the
other. Unfortunately, the guns with any real firepower require
two hands, so you'll frequently find yourself attacking
the darkness and then praying that their isn't something
standing in front of you when you turn your flashlight back
on.
The
plot is nothing players haven't seen a few dozen times before
and starts almost exactly as the original Half Life
did. Doom 3 doesn't reinvent the wheel; it just
adds chrome rims to it and then covers them in blood. The
graphics are crisp and look surprisingly good on the Xbox.
There are rare instances where pixilation can be seen and
spurts of lag, but if gamers that haven't played the PC
version won't really know what their missing.
Enemy AI leaves a lot to be desired, but they are zombies,
so maybe my expectations are too high. Most enemies will
shamble or charge straight at you in without regards to
your position or firepower. Lighting and sound are top notch
If
you think you'll be too scared to play Doom 3 alone,
then you can bring a friend along for the ride with co-op
play. If you push him in front of you as a blood sacrifice
or sit on his lap when the demons start attacking is totally
up to you and we here at Fanboy Planet won't judge you either
way. Doom 3 is also Xbox live enabled so you can
share your blubbering with thousands of teenagers who will
totally make fun of you.
The
only significant drawback to Doom 3 is the multiplayer
which maxes out at only 4 players. With most online games
holding a minimum of 18 players per map, Doom 3
will seem claustrophobic by comparison (I assume unintentionally
and not that it's part of the horror atmosphere). The maps
are small, dimly lit and not that entertaining after a few
rounds of blood shed. There are several multiplayer modes,
but multiplayer isn't what Doom is really all about.
Play Halo if you want good multiplayer, play Doom
if you want a visceral single player game.
