Doom 3  

There's a prototypical scene that appears in pretty much every B-grade horror movie ever made. At some point, whether you're watching a creepy thriller or an all-out gorefest, a character will wander into a dark room armed only with a flashlight. You just know that either they'll encounter absolutely nothing worse than a creaking door or screeching cat, or they'll run full tilt into the creeping terror from beyond the grave that will quickly remove several of their limbs, not to mention their puny human heads. It's such a cliche because it makes for good (and cheap) tension, and it's this tension between needing to see (the flashlight) and needing to take down the creeping horrors (with the weapons) that forms the basis for pretty much all of the tension in Doom 3.

Doom 3's plot is an up to date and shiny re-interpretation of the plot of the original game. What do you mean you weren't playing games back in 1993 when it came out? Boy, did you miss out -- and if you weren't playing games because you were too young or not born yet, then you're almost certainly too young to be playing the rather gory Doom 3. The basic plot boils down to "Scientists toying with forces they barely understand" (another staple of cheap horror flicks), this time on Mars, where a gateway to hell is inadvertently opened. The denizens of hell aren't so interested in opening up a trade agreement and perhaps a cultural exchange as they are in possessing the souls of everyone on the Mars base, and killing everyone else before spreading out into our universe and speeding up the cause of entropy by a few millennia. As one of the only survivors -- and seemingly the only survivor who remembers what ammunition is used for -- it's your job to clear out the forces of hell, a task that will see you blasting, battering and zapping your way through some of the more disgusting character designs we've ever seen. That's a compliment, by the way -- Doom 3's demons are spectacularly well realised, and part of that appeal is that they're genuinely revolting and more than a tad scary.

Early on in the game, your marine is handed what is arguably the most important part of his equipment -- and for once in an FPS, it isn't something that requires ammunition, energy cells or some kind of psychic energy. No, this most important bit of kit is your flashlight. Doom 3 is an unremittingly dark game; that's partly so iD can show off their spiffy light rendering engine, but mostly so that Doom 3 can maintain its genuinely creepy atmosphere. Your marine can't handle his flashlight and a projectile weapon at the same time -- we can understand this for most of the game's two-handed weapons, but are still a little mystified by why he doesn't heft his pistol in one hand and the flashlight in the other -- so getting through most rooms is a matter of exploring with the flashlight, desperately hoping that it is in fact empty, and jumping back to a weapon when the bad guys emerge. At which point, of course, it all goes dark and because you don't have the flashlight on any more, you can't entirely see where you're firing. This isn't as annoying as it sounds, thanks mainly to the fact that there are light areas in most rooms, and you'll find yourself gravitating towards these for most firefights. If the flashlight thing really bothers you -- and we've hit a few gamers who find it irksome -- there are already mods out there that let you duct-tape a flashlight to your gun. We reckon that's missing the point, but tastes do vary.

Doom 3 makes virtually no changes to the weapons of classic Doom -- for those of you just joining us, that means it's laid out with a chainsaw, pistol, shotgun, machine gun, rocket launcher and so on. There's also been nothing done to update these weapons, which act just as their forebears did, so those looking for alternate fire modes or custom rounds may be put off a little. That same crowd may also be put off by Doom 3's unapolagetically old-school stylings; the denizens of Hell may be a scary bunch, but they're not the brightest little demonic chappies, preferring to rush you en masse rather than employ any kind of flanking or self-preservation tactics. Of course, when you're catching your breath up besides a flickering computer array, ammo running low, and a.. thing.. comes out of the darkness at you, it's still plenty scary, even if it isn't terribly smart.

On the subject of things that are scary, many gamers may be put off by Doom 3's rather high system specifications. Just as the original did, it's expected that Doom 3 will usher in a rather large round of system upgrades, especially in the area of graphics cards and system memory. Now, there's absolutely no denying that Doom 3 looks best on a high-end system -- most systems will be totally incapable of running at so-called 'Ultra' quality -- but we were still impressed enough with how the game ran at the lower end of the spectrum to make it a worthwhile gaming investment. To be sure, if you only just squeak in at the minimum specifications, you won't have the same experience as someone running the game on cutting edge equipment, but gamers shouldn't neccessarily be put off by tales of obscenely high system specifications.

While you may or may not want to upgrade your PC's graphical grunt, there's no denying that having a good audio system -- either a really decent pair of headphones or preferably a 5.1 stereo system -- enhances the Doom 3 experience a great deal. It's a testament to the quality of level design that you'll find yourself entering a room, twitching and jumping around like a crack-addled rabbit at the slightest machine noise. Once you've seen some of Doom 3's more fearsome foes, you'll be noticeably twitchy, and ambient sound -- sans, for once, an irritating score -- plays a great part in making Doom 3 the game it is.

Like the cheap horror films that it takes inspiration from, there's a limiting factor to Doom 3's ability to shock and scare you, even given the generally superlative work that iD's designers have done keeping levels tense, and that's the fact that the longer you play it in single sittings, the less scary it becomes. That's a natural enough fact of human physiognomy -- there's only so much adrenaline that can pump through your system -- as well as the fact that there's only so many scares that can be designed. It's also worth mentioning that while the visuals still stay superb, there's been only the faintest attention paid to multiplayer Doom 3 -- you've got basic deathmatch modes, and that's your lot. That's something that should improve if Doom 3 seriously catches on with the modding community -- and we very much suspect it will.

Doom 3 doesn't really live up to the hype, but then again, virtually nothing could. Gamers have been waiting in keen anticipation for so long for Doom 3 that anything short of perfection was likely to disappoint some gamers. Still, as a single player game played in short burts and with an eye towards old school run and gun style dynamics, we there's precious little that can touch Doom 3.

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