Doomin' it up
It's Friday night. The kid is asleep. The wife is out.
Yup.
It's Doom time! "Doom 3", that is.
I hadn't actually played the game in about three months. I didn't think it was that long, but there it was, the last quicksave.
I had gotten stuck in an area with a bunch of those watchyamacallits, um, spider demons. Yeah. Whole swarm of the sneaky bastards. I'd rush into the room and before you'd know it I was surrounded. Tried to get past it a dozen times all those weeks ago. Couldn't do it.
This time, first time around, I just kinda ease into the room. A little farther, a little farther. Scuttle scuttle scuttle. I moved just far enough to lure the first few out. I retreated to a corner where I picked em off one by one. They got a couple swipes in, but nothing serious.
Next, down the stairs. Same tactic, slowly, slowly. Click clack click clack. Back up the stairs. Blam blam blam. Took em all down.
A couple corridors later, and I was facing the first big boss of the game. Yeah, I got the game when it first came out and I'm still only a third of the way through it. That's my life. The boss wasn't too hard. A well-placed grenade, a whole belt of chain gun ammo, and about six shotgun shells point-blank.
"Doom 3" got unfairly trashed when it came out. I don't know what people expected, but if you play it on its own terms, its a hell of a game. So to speak.
The graphics are simply phenomenal. I have a 2-1/2 year old 2Ghz P4 with 512 Mb RAM and an ATI 9800 card (a good card, but definitely middle range). I have to run "Doom 3" basically on the lowest settings, but still, it looks incredible. The lighting is just stunning, and surfaces and textures are amazing. I can't wait to run it on my next rig -- whenever I get it.
But there's more than just graphics. A lot of people ragged on "Doom 3" for the predictable gameplay -- move through corridors and rooms, trigger the appearance of demons, blow away said demons. And there's some truth to that. The game is very linear. There aren't multiple ways to complete a mission. You don't have a stealth meter that will let you sneak past that cacodaemon feasting on your buddy's corpse. In that way, "Doom 3" is limited.
But what it does, it does very well. The tension and fear as you move through the Mars base are palpable. Turn the lights out and your speakers up, and it will freak you out as much as the worst horror movie you ever saw. Because it's not just a fright and then it's over. It's having the crap startled out of you but keeping enough wits to figure out where the surprise is coming from, and blowing it away. There are genuinely creepy moments, and it's those that I savor as much as the excellent gun fights.
There is also a pretty decent story going along as your character -- a new arrival on the Mars base -- figures out what the hell is going wrong. The cut scenes are well-done and limited, and there's often a cool transition that shows your guy in third-person perspective during a cut-scene, then zooms in the through back of his head for the first-person view when the action starts again. I'm actually interested to see how the story plays out.
The use of a PDA is also quite cool. As you wander through the base you will find other PDAs scattered about, and you can download their files to your own device. You will find e-mails, audio logs and even videos that help you in your mission. Many of the messages are funny, and there is even a tie-in to the real world with base personnel apparently spammed by a fictional e-commerce company of the future called martianbuddy.com. You can actually go to this Web site and obtain codes that unlock storage closests in the game and give you extra ammo and stuff. That's cool.
If you've got the gear to run it, I highly recommend giving "Doom 3" a spin.
Yup.
It's Doom time! "Doom 3", that is.
I hadn't actually played the game in about three months. I didn't think it was that long, but there it was, the last quicksave.
I had gotten stuck in an area with a bunch of those watchyamacallits, um, spider demons. Yeah. Whole swarm of the sneaky bastards. I'd rush into the room and before you'd know it I was surrounded. Tried to get past it a dozen times all those weeks ago. Couldn't do it.
This time, first time around, I just kinda ease into the room. A little farther, a little farther. Scuttle scuttle scuttle. I moved just far enough to lure the first few out. I retreated to a corner where I picked em off one by one. They got a couple swipes in, but nothing serious.
Next, down the stairs. Same tactic, slowly, slowly. Click clack click clack. Back up the stairs. Blam blam blam. Took em all down.
A couple corridors later, and I was facing the first big boss of the game. Yeah, I got the game when it first came out and I'm still only a third of the way through it. That's my life. The boss wasn't too hard. A well-placed grenade, a whole belt of chain gun ammo, and about six shotgun shells point-blank.
"Doom 3" got unfairly trashed when it came out. I don't know what people expected, but if you play it on its own terms, its a hell of a game. So to speak.
The graphics are simply phenomenal. I have a 2-1/2 year old 2Ghz P4 with 512 Mb RAM and an ATI 9800 card (a good card, but definitely middle range). I have to run "Doom 3" basically on the lowest settings, but still, it looks incredible. The lighting is just stunning, and surfaces and textures are amazing. I can't wait to run it on my next rig -- whenever I get it.
But there's more than just graphics. A lot of people ragged on "Doom 3" for the predictable gameplay -- move through corridors and rooms, trigger the appearance of demons, blow away said demons. And there's some truth to that. The game is very linear. There aren't multiple ways to complete a mission. You don't have a stealth meter that will let you sneak past that cacodaemon feasting on your buddy's corpse. In that way, "Doom 3" is limited.
But what it does, it does very well. The tension and fear as you move through the Mars base are palpable. Turn the lights out and your speakers up, and it will freak you out as much as the worst horror movie you ever saw. Because it's not just a fright and then it's over. It's having the crap startled out of you but keeping enough wits to figure out where the surprise is coming from, and blowing it away. There are genuinely creepy moments, and it's those that I savor as much as the excellent gun fights.
There is also a pretty decent story going along as your character -- a new arrival on the Mars base -- figures out what the hell is going wrong. The cut scenes are well-done and limited, and there's often a cool transition that shows your guy in third-person perspective during a cut-scene, then zooms in the through back of his head for the first-person view when the action starts again. I'm actually interested to see how the story plays out.
The use of a PDA is also quite cool. As you wander through the base you will find other PDAs scattered about, and you can download their files to your own device. You will find e-mails, audio logs and even videos that help you in your mission. Many of the messages are funny, and there is even a tie-in to the real world with base personnel apparently spammed by a fictional e-commerce company of the future called martianbuddy.com. You can actually go to this Web site and obtain codes that unlock storage closests in the game and give you extra ammo and stuff. That's cool.
If you've got the gear to run it, I highly recommend giving "Doom 3" a spin.
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