Ureview by: Eraser
Ureview points: 28
Ureviewer since: April 2006
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Reviewed On: Wednesday April 26, 2006
Price paid: Not Indicated
| Rating: 7 | Recommends product: Yes
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Graphics
Doom 3's graphics are quite impressive. It's another masterpiece from John Carmack, brain and engineer behind all of id Software's engines.
The most obvious aspect of Doom 3's advanced graphics engine is the lighting. Every bit of light in the game is calculated at real time. This means that light is cast in a realistic fashion on objects. Objects can cast shadows, even on themselves. This adds a level of realism and immersion to the whole world that is unmatched by any current day engine.
Another thing that draws your attention will be the consistent use of bump and gloss mapping. Bumpmaps add depth to otherwise flat surfaces and glossmaps add shinyness to surfaces. In combination with the lighting engine this creates a level of detail that is previously unseen.
Unfortunately, these graphical cost a lot of processing power and memory. For instance, in a game like Unreal Tournament 2004, the average surface takes only two texture layers: a texture and a lightmap. In Doom 3 every single surface takes four texture layers. This means two to four times the memory usage. id Software had to take this into account when creating the artwork and thus had to settle for lower resolution textures than games like Half-Life 2 or Unreal Tournament 2004.
Monsters often are a tad low-poly as well, but this too has been a design decision which with a little bit of understanding (and knowledge of the technical aspects) can easily be forgiven. The basic design, amount of detail and quality of animation of the monsters you'll find in Doom3 is stunning. Most enemies look frightening and ferocious.
Gameplay
id Software said Doom 3 is a recreation of the original. While the core gameplay is in many aspects significantly different from the original, a lot of gameplay elements have returned. Ofcourse the known batch of enemies like Imps, Lost Souls and Hellknights have returned.
Doom 3 is a typical horror game. The pace is a lot slower than you'd expect from an id Software game and while the action is there, they're mixed with tense moments of pure horror and fear. Doom 3 does, however, require a bit of immersion from the player. It's easy to not be frightened by the game, but if you take a good seat for it, dim the lights and put the speakers on volume level 10, chances are you'll have to change your underwear pretty soon.
id Software have made good use of their lighting engine. Not only are lights flashing, fading or blinking, tricks with lighting have been implemented as well. The old but still effective lights-go-out-one-by-one trick is still giving me the creeps. Doom 3 is a dark game though. A very dark game, and often have I been tempted to crank up the brightness to the highest level to be able to see the entire room more clearly. However, I quickly figured out that the darkness is the whole point of the game.
Grab your flashlight and your field of view is limited to nothing but a little blob of light that trembles on the wall. You have no idea what is creeping up to you from the left or the right... or from above. Having to choose between being armed with a weapon or your flashlight adds to the tension in the game and for me personally it was obvious why id Software chose for this solution. Without a gun in your hand you feel naked and vulnerable but a man's worst fear is not being able to see while flesh eating demons are approaching you.
One aspect I didn't like was the predictability of the game. While id Software achieved nasty surprises in a lot of cases, most rooms were too obvious to be true. A heavy armor in the middle of a room on a pedistal with a pentagram drawn on it and no enemies around? Too predictable that enemies will spawn once you grab the armor. It wouldn't be a shame if this happened once, but it's like that in most rooms.
While the inclusion of the by now notorious "monster closets" amused me at first because it triggered a bit of a feeling of nostalgia in me, I do find it doesn't really belong in a 2004 game anymore. I do find it a forgivable issue though. In an unrealistic game like Doom 3 I don't care if monsters were already walking around, were teleported into the room or were stuck behind a wall panel waiting for you to come.
Multiplayer
I expected multiplayer to be a huge disappointment, but after a few games I figured it actually works pretty well. Levels are small enough for the 4 player limit the game imposes on it's multiplayer servers and you're involved in action pretty much all the time (even in 1v1 games).
Don't expect a multiplayer game that works on a competitive level though. There have been professional Doom 3 tournaments, but I don't expect Doom 3 to be a real good competitive game any time soon.
What Doom 3's multiplayer does offer though is good clean fun. Just mess around a bit with the lights and you're already having a good time outwitting your enemy.
I don't expect Doom 3's multiplayer to be a big hit though. While it is fun, it's far from a replacement for the likes of Unreal Tournament or Quake 3. It's fun for a while but can get boring after some time.
Overall
Doom 3 is one of the most immersive and scariest games I've played. The story is rather well layed out for an id Software title and it's one of the best looking games ever made.
While in some aspects Doom 3 was a bit of a disappointment (none of the cool E3 demo "horror moments" were included in the game) in the end it's a very enjoyable experience you don't want to miss out on.
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| Pros: Excellent graphics and atmosphere. Hell. |
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| Cons: Sometimes repetitive and predictable. |
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Ureview by: npr6933
Ureview points: 2
Ureviewer since: September 2006
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Reviewed On: Wednesday September 20, 2006
Price paid: $49.00
| Rating: 9 | Recommends product: Yes
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Doom 3 is a very good game to play, it is easy at first then becomes very hard to beat. i love the graphics of the game, and the role playing, it takes awile to get used to all the features of the game but if you stick with it you will fall in love with the game.
The only bad thing i could find while playing it is, the end bad guy is way to easy to beat, i was able to beat him the fist time i fought him, other than that it was a great game, the storyline is amzing. i like the fact that they throw bad guys at you left and right, and it gets harder and harder each level.
I would recommend this game to anybody who loves a good shoter and role playing game. I have only played it ont the x-box. but it was worth the money is spent for it.
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| Pros: hard to beat, very good graphecs, good role playing game, |
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| Cons: the end bad guy is too easy to beat, can be confusing at times |
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