Review

What if I just say that Doom3 is inferior in nearly every respect to Chronicles of Riddick?

Ok, what if I just say that Doom3 is like the original Doom in spirit only, but is better looking and less fun?

No, not satisfied yet? What if I just say that Doom3 wants on the one hand to be a survival horror game, but isn't scary, and wants on the other hand to be a free-wheeling shooter, but suffers from horribly cramped levels and annoying scripting?

What - you're still here? Ok, fine, how about this: Doom3 is, in all likelihood, precisely what id wanted it to be, and that's the real tragedy of it.

This isn't a case of my expectations being so high and unrealistic, corrupted by nostalgia, that *nothing* id did would be good enough. Sure, I loved Doom the way your parents probably love Jimmy Buffett. But more than anything else, I viewed Doom3 as the perfect opportunity for id to prove that it is, in fact, creative, that they can still blaze the trail. I wanted them to take liberties, do something fresh. I was going to be the last person to take id to task if some weapon wasn't included, or some old favorite bad guy didn't make an appearance. In fact, my expectations for the new Doom consisted mostly of hoping that id would not be so beholden to the original that the new game would end up in creative purgatory - neither a real homage to the first nor a good game in its own right.

To id's credit, they took the gutsy approach. They didn't 'remake' Doom, they 're-envisioned' it. The tragedy, then, is that they tried to do the right thing and failed. The feeling I'm left with is the same I had when Michael Jordan came back and played for the Wizards. On the one hand, there's the icon, the champion, the entity that defined the level of competition for a generation. And then on the other hand there's the spectre of mediocrity, the stark realization that the game had moved on.

Recall that id hasn't really done a single-player game since Quake 2, in 1997 (and some people will chuckle derisively at 'Quake 2' and 'single-player' in the same sentence). A lot has changed since 1997; certainly for gaming in general, but more importantly for shooters. I'm sure id realized that Doom3 was their chance to show that the industry had not passed them by, that they are more than just an engine licenser. With Doom3, id definitely got itself out of the early 90's. The problem was that they only got to about 1999.

I think a lot of people were worried that id would come out with a shooter that aped the current generation, barely able to distinguish itself save for the patented graphics. Well, that wasn't the case. Instead, they made a game that apes much earlier generations, including parts of System Shock 2, Resident Evil, and Half-Life, and ultimately doesn't distinguish itself save for the patented graphics.

Good

• The video logs are nice.

• The voice acting is excellent.

• I liked being able to start playing an audio log, then close the PDA screen and continue to investigate the surroundings while the log played. It's a trivial thing, but I noticed it.

• The interactive UIs are cool. These are surfaces in the game that are actually usable, like keypads, computer terminals, etc.. There was a lot of hype surrounding them, and they're undeniably impressive. But they don't really rise above anything other than gimmick. If this technical feat contributed significantly to the 4+ years of development, then it probably wasn't worth it.

• Hell was fantastic! Oops. I didn't just let the cat out of the bag, did I? Pssst -- guess what, you eventually end up in hell. And it's awesome! Honestly, I want to vacation there. The visual aesthetic was perfect, it was precisely what I wanted hell to be. I could've gone for twice as much hell and half as much corridor crawling on Mars.

Bad

• The levels are so claustrophobically constricted that there's essentially no opportunity for tactics. You spend most of the game in spaces so small and restrictive that not only will you know where the bad guys are going to come from, but you'll know that you really won't have any chance to actually duel it out once they spawn. You'll either get the quick draw kill or you'll get mobbed and, depending on the severity, quickload and try again.

• Speaking of getting mobbed, one of the things I found most frustrating was the view disruption that occurs when suffering a melee attack. It's so severe that it makes it nearly impossible to recover efficiently and actually deal with the situation before suffering so much damage that you're forced to quickload.

• Enemy bodies disappear almost instantly. Yeah, that's immersive. I don't care how fancy your bump-mapped, shadowed, textured surfaces are. In case you were wondering how I could possibly give Doom3 a score of 1 for immersion, this is just one of the things that undermines the immersive graphics.

• Another thing that undermines the immersion is the frequency of cultural in-jokes in the emails. Congratulations, you've got a sense of humor. Go write for Leno. If you want to infuse some humour into your game, but can't figure out how to do it without breaking character, then don't do it.

Ugly

• Having enemies spontaneously appear around you isn't scary. It's not. It's annoying and frustrating. Doom3 does this so religiously that you just become numb to it. When you recognize that there isn't really anything intelligent that you can be doing to protect yourself, because the attacks are scripted to always exploit you, then you stop being careful and become apathetic. It's not scary. This is the same complaint I had with Aliens vs. Predator 2 (which is a better game, btw). In fact, I'm going to quote myself because the description is so appropriate:

  Behind-the-back creature spawns are way, way, waaaay overused. This has the very unfortunate effect of dampening the immersion. Tension comes from expectation coupled with control. This is very important -- make note -- if you don't have control over your situation, a sense of resignation takes hold. Tension manifests when you feel that paying attention and being careful can affect your situation. When aliens magically appear behind you when you cross an invisible trigger, no matter whether you were listening carefully, or paying attention to vents and doors and lighting, or carefully navigating corners, the result is that you stop doing those things. That's not scary, that's annoying.

• The flashlight. Surely you've heard about the flashlight. I don't give credence to any argument supporting the flashlight decision. It's wrong wrong wrong. It doesn't make the game more scary. It doesn't make the game more tactical. And it sure as hell doesn't make the game more entertaining. It's a terrible decision. It's one of the single worst game design choices I've ever encountered. Ever. After playing the game in its original form -- i.e. unable to use a weapon and the flashlight simultaneously -- for barely 30 minutes, I wanted to yank the CD out of my drive and fling it into the garbage.

• After being nearly instantly disgusted with the flashlight situation, I looked to community mods for a solution, and not surprisingly found a plethora of choices. But here's what was really disappointing -- basically every mod I tried, whether it was tiny or ambitious, was an improvement on stock Doom3. How is that possible? How is that every random 15 year old that cranks out a weapons mod, or a damage mod, or a monster mod, is able to improve on id's efforts? Hell, even the sound mods were better. I think this speaks, louder than anything, to the game development (not engine development) capabilities of id if in fact Doom3 was released to their satisfaction. Failing that, it speaks to the possibility that Doom3 wasn't finished, but that both id and Activision recognized that their profit window was shrinking, and needed to get their tech demo out so that they could get on with their license opportunities. After sampling tons of mods, the impression I was left with was that Doom3 had been released with beta polish, that it essentially hadn't been tuned.

• No co-op. No, I don't want to hear any f***ing excuses for it, like the game being designed for fear and tension and therefore incompatible with co-op. No. They didn't get the fear and tension right anyway.

Beautiful

• Sure, the graphics. God help you if you don't have the rig to run it.

• Mod support. Yes, I just ripped the game because all of the mods I tried improved on the game, but that doesn't mean I don't recognize how fantastic it is that id enables all those mods to exist in the first place. I wonder whether in fact some of the explanation for the lack of polish is that id figured they didn't need to waste their time on it, since the community was going to overhaul everything they did anyway. I'm not justifying it, mind you, just wondering...

Summary

It's never a good sign when I finish playing a game and have *no* desire to review it. That was the case with Doom3, which I actually played back in November of last year. I was just underwhelmed. I didn't *not* enjoy it. Once I'd grabbed a few mods to customize the game to my preferences, I strolled through the campaign without incident. But after killing the last boss, I got up, got a drink, and went to watch TV. I hardly gave the game a second thought, and couldn't muster any energy to write about it. The experience was just flat, flavorless.

There was never any doubt that I'd buy Doom3. For years, id products have been the gateway to solid community projects, and I knew that Doom3 would be no different. However, I'd hoped that my investment would net me a AAA game to play while I waited for the inevitable total conversions. Granted, they gave it the ol' college try with Doom3, but considering the time and money dedicated to the project, I was optimistic that this time id was really going to step up and make people like me eat our words.

Nope.

But still, remember that this is just my opinion. You may love the cramped, unforgiving, shooting-gallery play. I still recommend a flashlight mod, though.

P.S. -- if you don't mind looking at one spoiler screenshot, then checkout this and then this, for old time's sake. Sweet.