Developer: id Software
Publisher: id Software
Rrp: £3.99 (Steam) and £3.99 (Humblebundle)
Released: 3rd August 2004
Available on: Steam and Humblebundle
Played Using: Mouse and Keyboard
Something is wrong, everyone feels it but no one knows what it is or if they do they aren’t saying. The UAC (Union Aerospace Corporation) built this research base on Mars to experiment in ways deemed to unsafe or immoral to do on Earth. We’ve seen real benefits, near limitless power and fuel, water from almost nothing. But there are whispers, voices that call and no ones there. Something is very very wrong.
This is normally where I’d tell you what the game is but… its Doom 3. If you don’t know what type of game a Doom game is then, honestly, there’s not much hope for you. Because the game doesn’t give the main character a name beyond ‘marine’ or ‘player’ I shall call him by his traditional moniker Doomguy. In this game Doomguy is a marine that has been shipped in to work a security detail on the UAC’s Mars base, turns out his first day on the job is a bit more involved than he likely thought it would be.
I remember when this game originally came out and the amount of outcry there was from the purists. At the time I didn’t really comprehend what the issue was but now I can understand their point of view. This game was a massive departure from the rest of the series, and I don’t mean because of it having a storyline. There are features that have been included that, for a game in the Doom series, don’t really make sense. The stamina bar is one such example.
Carrying on with the thought of unusual features, a interesting one that this game has is that the computer consoles that you can interact with are directly controlled by moving the camera. What I mean by that is that you don’t press an ‘interact’ button to then enter a separate screen, instead you just move your camera over the screen surface and the cursor on the aforementioned screen moves too. It’s good feature and removes the need for an interaction button, but it does have a small problem. You click the [Left Mouse Button] to press a button on screen, this is the same button for shooting the gun. If you aren’t close enough to the screen or get surprised when on the screen there is a real chance you could shoot instead of click or visa versa.
Another departure from the rest of the Doom series is that at the beginning of the game you’re given a PDA, this gives you access to your in game email, videos that you find, mission objectives and audio logs. It also happens to be what holds all your security clearances so no need to go hunting for keys, instead you get to hunt for other peoples PDA’s… Hooray.
The email’s and videos that are on these PDA’s aren’t really integral to the game but reading through them is quite interesting and on occasion kinda funny.
As was mentioned before the game its set on Mars. One thing we know about Mars is that it doesn’t have a atmosphere that we humans can breathe. Well occasionally you’ll have to take a brief walk on Martian surface. Doing this gives the player a oxygen meter, which basically acts as a timer. If you run out of oxygen then Doomguy starts losing health.
For a game in the Doom franchise all the weapons feel oddly… lackluster. They lack any real sense of power, especially the sound assets, those sound particularly anemic. What makes that so strange is that the sound and feel of the weaponry in the original Doom games still sound and feel weighty. So what went wrong here?
In some cases certain games influence future game design not by what they did right but through their failures. Doom 3 is one such title. It’s by no means a bad game, but one particular decision was so… poorly thought out that it had an effect on future titles. The decision I’m speaking of is the torch or rather, the torch as a weapon. You heard me, in Doom 3 you have to make a choice, use your torch and get light in the dark corridors, of which there are many. Or have a weapon you can fight with. Because for some apparently reason the Doomguy, a man who can carry somewhere in the region of eight weapons at once, can’t hold a torch and a pistol at the same time. Or that in the future the human race has somehow forgotten that gun mounted torches exist. Or duct tape even, there must be some duct tape somewhere on that Martian base.
Part of me wants to think it was some attempt to add a level of tension because when you see an enemy you have to quickly select a weapon to use and fire in the dark. But there’s no reason that the torch couldn’t have just restricted you to using the basic pistol which is pretty damned useless and so would add to the tension.
Being an older game the highest resolution this game can manage is still quite low, I won’t go into the specifics but its quite jarring.
Since I’m already on the subject of graphics I’ll now talk about something I don’t speak on often, textures. This game makes me speak of them simply because it keeps using low resolution textures AND fairly high (for the time) resolution textures, often within the same area. If this were a low budget title being made by some indie developer I’d be much more forgiving. But this games made by id! They have NO excuse! Especially when you consider that this was part of a big triple A budget release and was the sequel to one of the most important titles within its genre, hell within the gaming industry.
The Doom series has never been scary, surprising yes but never scary. One of the flaws in Doom 3 is that they were trying to be a horror but then only filled the game with cheap jump scares, many of which can’t really be avoided and will cause harm to the Doomguy.
It all sounds a little damning (pun not intended) doesn’t it? I suppose it is. As a Doom game this one falls rather flat, lacking any of the appeal of the originals. It’s so weird to me that id managed to miss the mark so much, they basically made the genre what it is to this day! But miss the mark they did, as a Doom game. But, if judged not as a Doom game but as its own thing, this game isn’t too bad. It’s not great either but I can think of far worse games that you can get for under five pounds.
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