Doom 3 (2004)

The most interesting thing about Doom 3 is its gaming engine. People were blown away at the time by the real time lighting and Id doubled down on it. Doom 3 is about atmosphere first and foremost, then action and horror followed closely behind. This is what resulted in the infamous flashlight mechanic. While I'm not gonna defend the silliness of marines on Mars not being able to attach a flashlight to their hi-tech laser guns, what I will say is the game was designed around this mechanic. So for better or for worse, it is the intended experience. And I think it works.

Doom 3 is certainly a horror game, but I found most of the horror to be on the cheap side. It relies heavily on spawning enemies behind you to sucker punch you over and over again. This does create an atmosphere of paranoia, where I found myself constantly turning around in case a new enemy spawned or popped out of a closet... again. But it can still manage horror on a more creative level. Such as entering a room, to see a pentagram scrawled in blood and lit by candles to have demons spawn in. Or fleshly tendrils growing and subsuming the Mars space. Creating a fusion of machine and flesh.

Doom 3 is very linear. There is some exploration, but when compared to Doom 1 and 2, the secrets are far fewer and exploration is more limited. While technically Doom 1 and 2 were linear in the sense of progressing from stage 1 to 2, the levels themselves were often more non-linear and encouraged exploration, or you running around pressing the interact button along every square inch of wall in the off chance of a secret wall... so it's different, but not necessarily inferior. The upside to this more linear focused experience is there wasn't ever a time I had to think about where to go. It does manage to maintain a consistent pacing as a result.

The nature of combat is also quite different compared to Doom 1 and 2. Doom 3 is still firmly an action game, but the scale and speed are significantly scaled back. Where in Doom 1 and 2 you could enter a large room with 50 demons, run around like you were on crack circle strafing and blasting away, in Doom 3, you typically only contend with 2-3 demons at a time. Enemies are still threatening, and a part of me thinks this was more a limitation of hardware and the game engine. Doom 3 pushed limits of graphical fidelity for its time. To run Doom 3 required a super computer at the time. Which I didn't have. I remember going to my friend's house after school, where his Dad had this sweet set up of 8 good computers all LANed up. We would often go here after school, play Diablo 2 or Warcraft 3 via LAN, take breaks by jumping on his big trampoline. Rinse and repeat. This is where I played Doom 3. I never beat it though, so it was nice to finally go back and complete it. So tangent aside, basically I think the engine and hardware couldn't handle rendering more than a few enemies at a time, otherwise it would completely brick your PC. Just my speculation. Also it is a shame that enemies would evaporate into dust after dying, unlike in Doom 1 and 2, but again I think this was hardware/game engine adjustments. So the game would actually run reasonably well.

I'd say where Doom 3 peaks is with Resurrection of Evil (RoE). This feels more classic Doom in comparison. Funny enough it also introduces a gravity gun, totally not because Half-life 2 came out the same year as Doom 3! No way! But most importantly introduces the Super Shotgun which was sorely missing from the base game. The shotgun in the base game was just bad... the spread of the gun and damage were all RNG, making it very unreliable. Using it, you basically had to treat it like a melee weapon, pressing it against an imp and even then it sometimes didn't one shot the imp. The other weapons in the game are good (well except the pistol of course). With the Plasma Rifle and Chain gun both being great with lots of utility.

Overall, this was a fun replay. It's a pity that big budget studios don't take risks anymore. While Doom 3 is flawed, I respect the boldness and departure it made. The game engine was very unique and has a great aesthetic and atmosphere to it. Not my favorite bold sequel (Majora's Mask), but still a fun one. Also play it properly, with that stupid flashlight!

Settling on a 2 here, for me. I believe this is a "you had to be there" game, which I respect. I bet it was awesome. But I felt the core loop of the game to be mundane, the atmosphere not up to par, and with too many things that I consider annoying. The flashlight isn't top of the list, either. It's mostly the encounter design. (And after all that, I don't think I got hit once by the final boss. Bizarrely easy).

I am, however, fascinated by the talk surrounding this game. I'm reading the Making of Doom 3 book. And the reviews at the time...hm...though I didn't like the game, I am glad I played it because now I get to go back in time and look at the conversation with hindsight. Since I can't find it digitized, I might buy Game Informer #138 on eBay where it is reviewed. Next stop, GameFAQs, who has user reviews of the day still up.

I think I'll play this next. I'm trying to churn through all the books I own but never read in an effort to clean some shelf space. I have The Making of Doom 3, which looks really cool, but I want to play it before reading the book. Here's an archive.org link to the book if you want to take a look: https://archive.org/details/makingofdoomiii0000kent/page/n5/mode/2up

The question is, do I play it with or without the flashlight mod? The game has a lot of dark areas, and originally you had to put your gun away to pull out your flashlight. So, it became this other scary mechanic of not feeling prepped with your gun out and all. However, this was due to a technical limitation at the time. Supposedly, John Carmack has said that he actually intended for your guns to have flashlights attached. Anyway, it's a contentious part of the game, and one that was altered in the BFG edition. You can play the original, or a version where your gun has a flashlight on it so no need to swap. My gut wants to play it "as intended", but having just come off Dead Space remake, I could use a less scary game...hm...we'll see.

This is such a great shoot 'em up game. You are just tearing through bad guys, and hellish creatures left and right. Light on puzzles with more of a focus on the action, which is what was expected. On top of all of that the story is actually decent!

I played the BFG Edition and it was great. I know if changed some of the mechanics of the game, allowing you to have a flash light on while shooting a weapon. It didn't ruin the game, but it made me think about how specific areas were easier because I could have a flash light on and shoot at the same time.

If you are into FPSs I recommend, this game is a classic!

Doom 3 is amazing. It is the long awaited sequel from its 2D predecessors to the new 3D era. And it did exceptionally well. I enjoyed every minute of it and it marks the beginning for my modern age gaming, because of the enormous upgrade in graphics.

In Doom 3 you play as the good old Doom Guy that we know and love. You did not get a name to keep the mysterious character of “Doom Guy” intact. You arrive on Mars as a soldier, ready to join the military there. You already have been given an secret assignment and need to see your superior, Sergeant Kelly to discus further details. But once there, all hell breaks lose and your arch nemesis attack the base. You get your trusty shotgun and start killing your way to the Mars station to clean up the infestation and, when possible, try to rescue your fellow humans stationed on Mars.

All the classic enemies from Doom I and II are there. The Imps are ready to throw their annoying fireballs at you once again, the zombie soldiers point their rifles at you and the Revenant is just as overpowered as he was in the previous games. They added some new enemies and they are well done. I have to say that the baby-mermaid-fly abominations really creeped me out the first time I encountered them. They came out of the blue and took me by surprise.

Doom 3 has some unique features, especially for its time. You interact with a lot of monitors and displays without entering an overlay GUI and use those screens for opening doors, read lore and information about the station on Mars or just to play a nice game of Turkey puncher. The use of your PDA is also a very nice feature to keep all your lore, weapon information, quests and map in one place. It is organized and I like it very much.

The AI in Doom 3 is also incredibly decent. They react to your movement and when you stare too long at their computer screens, they get annoyed and let you know. Later, the possessed zombie soldiers use cover and actually use tactics and care when attacking you.

The graphical upgrade from the previous installments is legendary in contrast. It looks really beautiful, while still maintaining that classic dark corridor theme from earlier installments. The new weapon models, enemies and environments was, and still, is amazing for its time. I especially like the really clear and sharp text that is displayed on TV screens and computers and many times you can interact with it.

Doom 3 has one of the best sound designs that I experienced in games so far. The effects for loading your weapons, shooting your weapons, bullet impact, enemy hits and the screams and death rattles of your foes is just epic. You can almost feel the impact of your shotgun, blasting an Imp into oblivion and the scream it makes afterwards lets you know: “Oh yeah, I murdered your ass”. There is almost no ambient music, so you are left with your own thoughts and the creepy unexplained sounds in the distance.

The DLC, Resurrection of Evil is a nice add-on to the game. In this DLC your adventure continues with six new levels, some new enemy types like the Hunter and some new weapons.

In Resurrection of Evil, you play as an unknown marine that has been send on a mission to retrieve a very important artifact. You need to secure it before the invading aliens confiscate it. When found, you need to teleport the artifact (and hopefully yourself) back to Phobos Labs. Of course, this is not that easy.

You get the Artifact eventually, which lets you bend time so everything around you goes in slow motion while you walk around freely. You also get a gravity gun to push, pull and reflect stuff and the best of all: Your trusty double barred shotgun from Doom II.

It’s a nice addition and add some more fun playtime to the never ending nightmare of Doom 3.

The overall upgrade from Doom I and II is just great. It is fresh and new, while still remaining faithful to the original series. It really feels like a well-deserved sequel and id software can be proud of themselves for creating this gem.

Definitely recommend it to everyone.

Just finished the game. Really enjoyed it. It's a refreshing rethink of the Doom franchise. After playing Quake 2 not that long ago, I was very glad to find out it didn't have nearly any of the flaws Quake 2 had. By the end of it, I was starting to get a little bored at the repetition, but I think the game ended just in time. Either way, definitely one of the better games I've played.

Two other quick things to add:

• I developed a habit of turning around whenever I heard the "castrachios" teleporty noise, because they always teleport in one in front of you, one behind.
• My biggest gripe about the game is I got hung up on the geometry more times than I'd like

I remember playing DOOM 3 back in 2004 when it came out. I remember it well. I was in college, right in the middle of my exams, when I got my hands on it. I had never seen anything look as good as that game, and got hooked on it immediately, to the point of having to repeat a couple of those exams, simply because I couldn’t stop playing it when I was supposed to be studying. I recall being in awe of that dark, oppressive atmosphere that brought a sense of highly uncomfortable, addictive tension to every single hour I spent playing it. Recently, I decided to revisit it, but as usual with all older games I decide to replay, I was afraid my impression of it had been clouded by years of distance and growing nostalgia. I was really glad to realise that, in this particular instance and at least for the most part, this wasn’t the case.

To this day, DOOM 3 still stands to me as the most enjoyable game in the entire franchise. Both 2016’s DOOM and Eternal seem to get all the praise, and they do deserve it for the gorefests, unparalleled quality in visuals, and high octane, prime first-person shooting (more so in the case of 2016 than Eternal IMO). But in most other things I would argue DOOM 3 gets the edge. It has a better atmosphere, more impactful lighting effects, better sound design, more claustrophobic settings, and in contrast to the other entries, I feel it actually features a decent, somewhat grounded story, brought to the player through the same audio log/email mediums that was popularised by games like System Shock before it. Additionally, along with Dante’s Inferno, it offers one of the most accomplished visions of hell I’ve seen in gaming.

I understand the divisive nature of this game in terms of how it deviates from the franchise roots. There is a reason why this was the only one in the pile labeled ‘sci-fi horror’, as it frequently does away with the constantly frantic pacing that characterises all other DOOM releases. But at the same time, I also think this was, back then, one of the few ideal franchises to try something like this. And to me, the changes absolutely paid off. The combination of a deliberately slower pace, fantastic lighting, darker environments and narrower levels worked almost perfectly to deliver the game I believe the devs set out to deliver. The result is a consistently tense experience that, at least in my opinion, manages to grab your attention from start to finish and still holds up today. And differences aside (there are definitely more than the ones mentioned here), there is still a ton of things that make it a DOOM game. You carry a plethora of the same awesome weapons, you have a bunch of the same enemies, and essentially, the gameplay loop is the same.

A note regarding the BFG Edition. I know there are strong opinions between this and the original version. I played both and personally didn’t mind either. I don’t appreciate all changes in the 2012 release, but I appreciate the graphical upgrade and I don’t mind the infamous flashlight tweak.

After I played it, I couldn’t help but once again think of the parallels between DOOM 3 and Dead Space. To me, DS is arguably the superior game, but at the same time it also highlights the legacy of the 3rd game in the DOOM saga. There is a notable degree of influence of this game in several of the ones that came out after it. And this is a testament to how significant it turned out to be, even with all the crap it got on release. None of this means I have no problems with this game - from technical issues to the lack of level variety, there’s quite a bit of frustration to be had. But at the end of the day, I ended up enjoying revisiting DOOM 3 almost as much as I enjoyed playing it when it came out, 17 years ago. And that is something that almost never happens these days. I rate it 8.5/10.

Dhewm3 makes running the original Doom 3 on modern hardware as plug-n-play as possible, complete with 64-bit support, widescreen and great 3D Sound through emulated EAX 4.0. Had it running at 60fps maxed out on a very slow machine.

Great, beautiful game with wonderful shadows and real-time lighting.

The three main idTech4 games, Prey, Quake 4 and Doom 3 all deserve a playthrough. Wonderfull stuff, great blend of oldschool gunplay and more modernized level design compared to the shooters of the late 90's.

Played this back when it came out in August of 2004. I was a teenager and just blew a bunch of my money on a Radeon 9800 - ATI's latest and greatest GPU. This game was going to be the tech showcase for John Carmack's newest id tech engine and boy was it visually impressive. The implementation of dynamic lighting was unlike anything I had ever seen. The gameplay also had you interacting with some pretty nifty computer panels as your main way of affecting change in the world -- aside from blowing it away with your shotgun. Looking at a panel made a cursor pop up that you would continue to control with your head look. I don' t think that version of computer panel interaction really took off, but it was really interesting at the time.

The technical prowess on show also meant the game was a real resource a resource hog. My PC at the time could run it at some myriad of middling settings at 20-30 frames per second. It was glorious.

As for the actual game, well it was okay. They aimed to make a more survival horror like entry in the series, and on that level they exceeded all expectations. That beautiful tech I was mentioning earlier was put to great use. The game was dark, bloody and your only real view into these dark metal corridors, teeming with monsters was a flashlight that you had to put away your gun to use. This design choice, combined with superb sound design made navigating anywhere an anxiety inducing experiencing because monsters could be hiding around any corner and you could hear them teleporting in from somewhere with crystal clear clarity.

The audio was being heavily relied upon to improve the jump scares. I distinctly remember the game came with an insert that said something along the lines of 'lock the door an turn off the lights..' and most of those scares from monsters popping out of closets wouldn't have landed if the sound wasn't so good!

So we've gone through some of the precious memories and positives of the game. Now for some of the bad stuff. The game falls down for me in a couple crucial ways. Firstly, the guns, firing the gun, the main way you interact with the world just doesn't do it for me. They all feel lifeless and don't have impact on the enemies the way you might suspect they should. Secondly the story. The story at its essence is a good one, although it cribs a lot from the original Half-Life six years earlier. I also don't mind being pulled out of a game for some cutscenes as long as they earn their existence. Not to compare Doom 3 to a superior game too much, but there were no cut scenes in the original half-life, and I felt more immersed any often scared in that game AND they got their story across without overwriting it. Additionally, the audio logs found throughout Doom 3 add to they story, but after hearing the same two or three scenarios play out I stopped listening to them. SHOW ME, don't TELL ME!

All in all, this game was still fun and had some good scares. I like the originals for the frenetic pace and feel they provide but this entry in the series might just be the favourite of the survival horror fan.

Mama Luigi! How about a game of DOOM with me? - Mario

With the release of the Doom series on the Nintendo Switch I figured I would finally give the games a chance by not playing them on Switch and getting them on PC instead so I could install funny mods later. I thoroughly enjoyed Doom 1 and 2, and while I enjoyed 3 as well I feel as though I only wanted to write a review for this one since I don't have much to say about the first two other than they're very fun.

DOOM 3 is a video game in the Doom franchise, released like 10 years after the original, which has a massive tonal shift compared to its predecessors. This game is a retelling of the original story, where you play as a marine stationed on a UAC Mars base to look at rocks or something. But of course, Hell breaks loose and you gotta use your guns to shoot the many funny demons that show up. The story is straightforward, but there's a lot of extra details you could easily overlook that are found in logbooks and videos that provide a nice break from the gameplay.

Speaking of gameplay, DOOD 3, while sharing many elements with its predecessors, deviates from the formula highly. The UAC facility is more like something out of a Half-Life game, filled with twisting corridors, tight vents to crawl through and enemies showing up around corners. Close quarters combat feels more essential than long-range gun's and most levels tend to follow a linear path. This isn't necessarily a bad thing but I can understand why some would miss the more open spaces of previous MOOM titles. These levels also take a more horror-based approach, filled with dark and moody areas and sudden surprises that are somewhat laughable since some are literally "Boo! A skeleton!" There are still various elements that make it feel Doomlike, such as walls that open up to reveal secrets (or enemies) and sudden ambushes full of teleporting bastards. All the gun's from the original games are there and shooting monsters with them is still fun and satisfying, even if the world around them has changed.

As for enemies the game features a good variety which includes the old friends such as imps, cacodemons, revenants, and even a mancubus or two as well as new friends like flying babies, two-headed crawling guy or big dog. Unfortunately the game seems to forget this variety exists sometimes, and seems to favour imps heavily a lot of the time. It feels that as if every other enemy is placed in the situation it's designed for whereas imps are just placed wherever they wanted to put them. Behind doors, near other enemies, in hallways where nothing else is going on, it's imps. Stuff like this is why I found the middle portion of this game a bit stale, it feels as though for a little while the level design doesn't change up much and there aren't many new mechanics, just hordes of imps. It doesn't help that their yells are really annoying too. Fortunately the game picks back up once you reach hell and go through some tricky and exciting levels near the end.

There are a number of mechanics in MOOD 3 that I forgot to mention that feel nonsensical, there are brief sections where you're outside on Mars and you need to collect air tanks to survive, sprinting is limited by a stamina bar even though you're so slow without it, items like grenades and rockets don't feel very useful due to the tight level design, the berserk powerup returns but it's only used like twice and is extremely situational, and so on. While there's a lot of little nitpicks I have about this game I still enjoyed it very much as a whole as there are new things and surprises that show up every level, aside from the middle part I talked about earlier. DODO 3 is worth checking out if you're interested in it, but as many funny skeletons as it has, I wouldn't say it's the most essential game to play ever.

Doom 3 had so much hype around it that it couldn't have possibly lived up to expectations, but what we got was a very linear, script heavy, monster closet riddled game that was way too dark to see most of... the engine couldn't really handle large open spaces well, so arena type areas as seen in Doom and Doom II were out. Large hordes of enemies would slow the game down even on what was then higher end hardware, so large groups of monsters like in the older games, again, were out. Instead of a game that felt anything really like what we got in the early 1990s, we got a game that tried to be scary, and story driven. The scares work, but the story sucks.

The graphics still hold up alright with a few texture mods and such, and the dynamic lighting is still great. Character models still look impressive once updated textures are applied... without, you'll realize exactly why the game was so dark. Many of the original textures make the models look like they're just clay with no paint applied yet.

The gameplay can be fun, but is also very heavily flawed. For the good parts, things can be tense as hell more often than not, and you do have to be careful of what weapons you use where and when. The enemies are all satisfying to fight, and coming out of an ambush alive is very gratifying to say the least. As far as the bad, the game tends to be far too easy if you are playing below the hard difficulty, but on hard, the level design shows a lot of its flaws. The game likes to ambush the player, sometimes with four or five (sometimes six) normal enemies at a time, and it will often block all possible escapes and shut lights off when these ambushes happen. The problem is, the ambushes are almost always cheap later in the game. You'll almost always end up having to deal with a machine gunner or chain-gunner, or multiple counts of both types, and you WILL die... a lot! Reloading makes these kinds of situations a huge problem, because you cannot interrupt the reload animations once initiated. These enemies aren't like the enemies of old Doom either, they can be a bit bullet spongy if you aren't using a more powerful weapon such as the chaingun, which, by the way, fires slower than the enemy chainguns for some inexplicable reason.

Overall, Doom 3 is a heavily flawed yet enjoyable game after the initial three or four hours, and the last quarter of the campaign is great. I'd recommend playing it at least once just to experience it. I'm a big Doom fan, so its difficult for me to not be a bit let down about how Doom 3 came out, but I have to say it does have its great moments.