Doom 3

id brings back the forces of Hell with Doom 3, but does the game live up to the hype?

Whenever id Software releases a game, the industry stands up and listens. After all, id is the developer most directly responsible for the rise of the first-person shooter (originally with Wolfenstein 3D and then later with Doom) as well as the creator of the term "deathmatch."

Over the last decade, the Doom franchise has sucked up countless hours of game time, been blamed for teenage delinquency, and allowed numerous "garage programmers" an opportunity to release their own free maps and mods with a professional game engine. With Doom 3, id has returned to its roots by retelling the original story of a lone space marine, trapped on Mars and fighting the invading demons of Hell.

The Game

The game begins with your arrival on the Mars colony as a new recruit. You hear tales of strangeness but nothing concrete until you take on your first assignment and literally see the gates of Hell being opened before your eyes. In the early levels your only indications of impending, um, doom are the zombies and demons wandering the base who are hell-bent on your destruction, but as you progress through the game, the level architecture slowly changes into something a bit more insidious with pulsating fleshy growths lining the walls and lava flowing beneath the floor.

If there is one thing that Doom 3 does well, it is atmosphere. The game is a masterful piece of shadowy work with lighting effects galore throughout the levels. Enemies will often hide in the darkness, sometimes illuminated by nothing more than the muzzle flash of your machine gun. The level design is claustrophobic with a heavy emphasis on tight passageways and narrow corridors. Often, movement is at a premium, which only heightens the feeling of being trapped.

To help you navigate through the darkness, your character is given a flashlight at the start of the game. The light can be used to illuminate any object or area in the game -- however, when you are holding it you cannot also fire a weapon. One would think that a marine would be resourceful enough to find a bit of duct tape and secure the flashlight to his gun, but hey, if we can suspend disbelief long enough to allow for demons on Mars, we can overlook a little stupidity on the part of the main character.

Switching between the flashlight and the active gun is done by way of a single key. There is however a delay when swapping between the two. You will often find yourself shining a light, switching to a weapon, firing a blind shot or two, and then switching back to the light, hoping that your shots hit the target. Usually, there is a bloody stain on the floor to indicate success, though you will occasionally turn on the light just in time to see a zombie lunging at your face.

Unlike its predecessors Doom 3 does not feature an automap function, but the lack of a map is not a huge hindrance. Levels are linear in design, even when backtracking is required, so the chances of getting lost are slim to none. This is a game where you are constantly being led forward. You should never find yourself sitting somewhere wondering "What do I do now?"

The Demons

Almost all of the original demons have been reborn, and they look just as dastardly as ever. In fact, some of the new models make their 1993 counterparts look downright cuddly, especially during your short but sweet jaunt through Hell itself. Perhaps the biggest jaw-dropping moment in the game, though, occurs at the end -- when you finally face off against the CyberDemon.

To coin a phrase, "This ain't your daddy's CyberDemon." A gargantuan monster, the CyberDemon is the big fish in this little pond, and you are nothing more than a guppy struggling to survive. Without a doubt, you'll want to spend some time just staring at it in awe, but if you do, you'll go splat faster than a bug on a windshield. Needless to say, by the time you make it to this bad boy, you are in for one hell of a fight.

While the visual depiction of the demons is easily Doom 3's strong point, the A.I. driving them is perhaps its weakest -- and the one thing that keeps the game from becoming a true masterpiece. In short, these guys are dumb.

Playing through the game on the normal difficultly level, the demonic forces do nothing more than directly attack. They don't cooperate; they don't fall back and regroup; and they don't play strategically. Ten years ago, these were not things you would expect to see in game A.I., but in today's world, these features have become the rule rather than the exception, so it is disappointing to see Doom 3 lacking in this regard.

Unfortunately, the simple AI leads into a second issue with the game -- that of design. While the level design is incredibly well done from an architectural point of view, enemy placement leaves something to be desired. As if to make up for the lack of in-depth A.I., the developers simply chose to overwhelm the player at certain points during the game. You can overcome these onslaught attacks with precision shooting, but they serve little purpose other than annoying you. Upping the difficulty has always been a poor man's solution to weak A.I.

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