4/5 ★ – pinksteady's review of Doom 3.

A flawed yet unforgettable blend of horror and carnage Doom 3 was originally released in 2004 - that’s 15 years ago, and it holds up surprisingly well. It was recently re-released and ported to current-gen consoles (PS4, XBOne, Switch), which took everyone by surprise. I couldn’t help but to replay it as I really enjoyed it the first time around. Doom 3 gets a lot of stick, and to be fair for good reason. So let’s start with those (and then come on to all the positives afterwards, because basically I really enjoyed this game)... For a start, it doesn’t really ‘feel’ like a Doom game, if you compare it to Doom 1 and 2. Those games were about fast-paced carnage, often against loads of monsters at the same time, and often in wide open spaces encouraging movement. The mechanics of those games were designed to encourage maximum carnage. Doom 3 on the other hand is more of a tense horror game, full of jump scares, dim lighting, and narrow corridors. Monsters attack in fewer numbers, and the game focussing more on the intensity and fear that comes from confinement. By taking this approach, I think Doom 3 narrowed its target audience somewhat, and by using the Doom name it sets itself up for comparison to the original game, which resulted in mixed reviews because it is so different. Next up - pacing. It took me 13 hours to complete the campaign, and by about 8 or 9 hours in I would have been happy for it to finish. Not because what I was playing wasn’t enjoyable, but it just ‘felt’ too long. Partly this is probably because of the toll it takes on your senses - it is a stressful game to play! But also the level progression is a bit odd. The boss fights are weirdly timed - each time you fight one, it feels like it could/should be the ending but it isn’t. You jump from Mars to Hell to Mars again and then end up somewhere in-between, and something about it all just doesn’t piece together into a slick start-to-finish experience. Hard to articulate, and it wasn’t a huge downfall, but it just took a bit of the excitement away. Finally, the weapons are undeniably pants. They look and sound terrible, and are deeply unsatisfying to use. I was really glad they fixed this in Doom 2016 (which they did and then some). However, despite these flaws, there is SO much to like... When it came out, the lighting model alone was ground-breaking. I remember spending ages just looking at the shadows cast on a wall from me pointing my flashlight at a railing. A railing. The lighting was incredible, and what’s more, it is still incredible. Playing this 15 year old game again, I can’t really fault the lighting. It just looks awesome. Lighting is employed throughout the game for dramatic and scary effect, often plunging you into darkness. You have. flashlight which depletes until it recharges, which is usually fine, but many times I’d forget about it during a fight and would suddenly be in the dark with baddies attacking - it was great. The game also puts a ton of effort into the environment and story. PDAs can be found lying around throughout the game, each with audio logs and emails contained that help unpack what caused the mess the player finds themselves in. The Mars base that most of the game is set in is extensive and well thought-out, with each area serving a legitimate purpose (e.g. Recycling Centre, Administration etc). Although you spend most of your time exploring rooms and corridors, the levels remain surprisingly interesting and engaging. The base is really realistic and fun to explore, and on the whole the game delivers a holistic, well thought-out and compelling environment. As this is a horror game, one question to ask is “is it scary”? I think the answer is a sort of yes. The game relies pretty heavily on lighting and jump scares to deliver most of the emotional scarring, and while this does work well (you just can’t avoid jumping!), the technique does get a bit old. Also it gets increasingly hard to believe that the undead corpses of the Mars base all suddenly chose to creep behind endless hidden panels and somehow trigger them open at the opportune moment. Never do you walk into, say, the canteen and have to fight off 50 corpses, it is always just one that is deliberately hiding in the most bizarre location. Who builds a base with so many hidden panels anyway!? There was something a bit unbelievable about it - if the demon hoards wanted to kill me, wouldn’t they all swarm me rather than wait, one by one, in corridors and corners ready to startle me on their own (and then immediately be killed)? Despite this, the 13 hours it took me to complete the game were 13 hours of unavoidable tension. This is not a relaxing game to play! I frequently shouted at my TV when some monster caught me unawares, and there were plenty of moments of intense fighting for my life (in the game). This is good - it kept me coming back. The game’s depiction of Hell, and some of the Hell-ish contortions that take place in the Mars base, are ambitious and look great . From walls being ripped off before your eyes to reveal bloody skulls encased in gory tissue, to levitating hellscapes surrounded by fire and chains, I feel Doom 3 doesn’t get enough credit for some of its environmental achievements. It does relate back to the structure problem though - at a later point in the game you briefly Hell... HELL! And its just for a bit, to grab something, then you’re back on Mars. It felt like a missed opportunity - if you’re going to put Hell in your game, you can’t treat it like a side quest. As an aside, I think Doom 2016 (which is awesome and you should play it) owes a lot to Doom 3. A lot of groundwork for realistic depictions of the Mars UAC base, weapons, monsters, plots and story mechanics, can all be traced from Doom 3 to Doom 2016. Even the hero of Doom 2016 seems to have been discovered in Doom 3 (the canon/timeline is admittedly disputed). Doom 2016 just does it all better, relying more on open area, mass monster and fast paced carnage but blending it with the technology and corporate scientific environments we explored in Doom 3. The few characters that existed and had dialogue in Doom 3 were great - Swan and Betruger stand out, and watching their dynamic unfold really added to the otherwise tenuous storytelling elements of the game. I’m also a big fan of the ‘pre-things-going-wrong’ period some games offer at the start, where you get to explore and see things as they are normally. Doom 3 does this really well and memorably, even using this time to give you sneak peaks into the ultimate baddies and what they’re up to. I suppose I should mention that the publisher Bethesda is mandating (for now) a login to their account to play the game. This is obviously complete BS and they should be shamed for it - there is no value offered to the consumer by forcing them to sign up for an account to play a 15 year old game, and it just feels like typical corporate nonsense from people who don’t play games. All in all, I really enjoyed this second play through (can’t believe its been 15 years!). There’s something unique about what Doom 3 offers. There aren’t many games like it - F.E.A.R. springs to mind - and I hope it retains a fond place in people’s hearts despite its flaws.