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Doom 3(PC) (M) (Shooter) |
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Scary
Doom 3. That word spreads waves of joy through most shooter players that have been playing video games since the old Windows 95. Why? Because the first Doom was Shareware, so thus very very popular. Doom was the game that pretty much helped create the ESRB system, as well as being one of the first of many games you don't play when mommy or daddy are around.
Doom 3 is excellent, but flawed. If you havent gotten this from other reviews, I might as well drill it into your head. The graphics are outstanding, making a new benchmark for PCs everywhere. If you can run Doom 3, you can probably run anything. Doom 3 is one hard-assed coding system, and if you don't have components that make Doom 3 happy, you probably won't get to play Doom 3. Therefore, if you have Doom 3, you must be in kudos with id, which I guess means you are in kudos with all other games for the PC.  The graphics are beautiful, yet are perfectly geared toward the theme going on. The sci-fi horror theme is perfectly potrayed, and the lighting engine does nothing but make it scarier. Memorable moments like walking through a tunnel with only a man with a lantern to guide you are excellent examples of the game's excellent theme and graphics. I actually was scared to notice the outstanding graphical quality of the "Growth" on the walls in the game, and it actually scared me beyond what I would normally be. That's impressive- graphics so nice that I don't worry about graphics, more about the game and my fear of it. This is something important to note- this is and is not your typical shooter game. Don't play this game if you're expecting your typical run through some fake base by some enemy with an rehashed weapon. This game is meant to be scary, which is exactly why I think it gets bad reviews occasionally. Unless you turn off all your lights, get a surround sound speaker system, and play alone, you're not experiencing Doom 3 properly. In that vein, I sure as hell don't recommend this game to anyone of the feint of heart, meaning leave your little brothers and sisters at home while playing this game. The gameplay is as simple as it was back when Doom was released, though a bit more complex. You have your typical WASD controls, whereas keys like F switch from weapon to flashlight, and R reloads- pretty standard stuff. However, this brings me to my one gripe about controls: the Ctrl key is the same as clicking your mouse, thus firing whatever you have. So I'll be in my CS mode and hit Ctrl to duck behind some boxes before I grenade some imp and end up grenading myself, losing a ton of health. However, many people tell me that the C button is the universal crouch, and I'm being fanboyish to consider Ctrl a crouch button. Screw you guys. The game runs at a very nice pace. Naturally, being id made the Quake series, it tends to get a little fast in the action sequences, but thats fine for me. It just requires a little getting used to the pace of the game, being as parts will give you all the time in the world to reload and fire, whereas parts like the flaming skull things will have you maniacally switching to your most loaded weapon to dispatch them before they cut away a s***load of your health. The weapons in the game deserve some credit of their own. The Chaingun is a monster in and of itself, being as I can take that thing to any enemy and basically destroy it (It has .30cal bullets, I'd like to see a chaingun with .50 rounds, like a chain-desert-eagle). The shotgun tends to be the best overall weapon to have equipped, as most stuff that jumps out at you can be bumrushed and destroyed with it quickly. The assault rifle and plasma gun, essentially the same, take a close second as to the great long-range and/or high speed weapons, but then again, they're no chaingun. Of course, nothing has to be said about the BFG 9000 except "Kaboom". I always felt like the grenades in the game were a little crappy and unusable, being as I've never seen a situation where enough enemies were amassed in an area staying still long enough for them to become more effective than a small annoyance.  The enemies in the game suprise and dissapoint me all at the same time. Sometimes I'll be thinking "Intense", but also sometimes I'll be thinking "Pussies". The imps are pretty much a joke, being as dodging and blowing them to hell with the shotgun is two clicks and a hop away. The zombified soldiers provide much more of an annoyance, being as they use guns, and tend to gang up on you like some hidden Paris Hilton sex tape. The enemies that annoy me are, of course, the flaming skulls and the spiders. Not content with making the game cheap with enemy spawns (See below), id decided to make an enemy that prefers to jump at you, get you into a corner, and gangerape you (see the Paris Hilton thing above) without letting you get a shot in edgewise. Of course, because the game shakes your camera when you get hit, this becomes a GREAT annoyance, and a reason for great swearing. The only issue with the enemies is that they tend to spawn behind you. Face it: a room is never technically clear in id's world. Pick up a med kit? Expect an enemy. Open a door? Expect an enemy. And, of course, it seems like 50% of enemies pop out behind you, so the "Get in a corner and stay there" strategy seems to apply for most of the game. This has been mentioned in every review of Doom 3 I've ever read prior to this, so this shouldnt be new to anyone looking to purchase Doom 3. Also, as a note, if I ever meet John Carmack, I'm going to ask him if the enemies that constantly "Appeared" behind me spawned out of his ass, or what. The "Boss Battles" are impressive for a shooter game. Instead of doing the typical RPG thing of making it blatantly obvious that you are facing the boss, the game gives you a cutscene (Which happens a lot, so its no true indicator) and sets you off to kill it. Its quite a bit better than switching to "BOSS BATTLE.MP3" and having you do some overly complex task to kill it. In fact, most bosses tend to die rather quickly, though you tend to die as quickly, so its all as to how much ammo is in your chaingun. One bug that may irritate people is that the update (Doom patch 1.1) will send your rear back to the start of the level you are on. While this isnt too bad, it tended to forget to set my health as to such, so after beating a huge room full of baddies in my original game and being in the state of "About to die", it warps me back to the start, which assumes I'm fully healed. Whoopdy doo.  The multiplayer aspect is pure unadulterated crap. Obviously, id knew that Doom 3 was not made for multiplayer, but I don't see why they even added it in. I felt like I was going to have a seizure playing it (The multiplayer is faster than the game) and it just added nothing new. I know the original Doom was a big hit to play over your age-old LANs, but this is a joke. I'd rather shoot myself than play this multiplayer. The mod community isnt so impressive, unfortunately. I hope to see more in-depth mods in the future, but for now, don't expect much out of the mod community. Frankly, everyone's modding for Half Life 2. Sorry, but the SDK is supposed to be better than the Dev Kit id's making. There is another issue with this game, though it is so small and insignifigant it might not matter to most people. First off, ATI cards have been reported to run Doom 3 shoddily compared to the nVidia cards. Next, it might require a bit of modding anyway for us with higher RAM kits to fix the game- sometimes, the game lags a bit when entering a new room, which is loading textures off the RAM or HDD. A simple config file tweak can fix this, but keep in mind that it does exist. Overall, I liked Doom 3. It had some flaws, but overall, it just rocked my socks off. The length of the game, plus the intense graphics and scary ambiance make it a great game for anyone wanting to show off a powerful system with a hot new game. I recommend it for anyone who can handle it.
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