By now, most of you have already made up your mind about whether you will pick up Doom III or not. It’s been out for over a month now and the hype has pretty much subsided. After looking over countless reviews from other sources, it seems that some liked the game a lot, where others simply liked it. No one was quick to bash the game for its traditional gameplay style, and Doom III made off with respectable critical praise. Let me first start by saying that Doom III is an absolutely beautiful game. The graphics shine in every single area and while it does require a monster to play it at its highest, everyone with a decent card can play and google at its magnificence to a certain degree. The game is very good at optimizing the graphic settings to work for less powerful computers, and this is attributed to Id’s time taken into optimizing the engine, but still, the game will sometimes run pretty choppy for some with the lower end hardware. Does this mean you should jump up and spend hundreds of dollars on a new video card? Not really, mainly because for at least another year, not every game is going to feed on specifications so high as with Doom III. Textures pop out at you, the enemies have an eerie but realistically colored look and most of all, the environments often defy what PC games have been offering lately.  

So, great, it has amazing visuals, but what about its gameplay? Doom III is a game that will satisfy those who take it for what it is, a homage and a small evolution for the popular series. Those expecting to be blasting holes in giant industrial buildings and picking up and throwing cans, will be sorely disappointed, because the Doom series has always been about the straight up action, and less about the details. You will find yourself slowly walking through many different hallways, waiting for the next beast to pop out on you. Perhaps the biggest addition to its gameplay would be the attempt to scare players. In the first few maps, you will most likely jump here and there, because while the formula is familiar, the setting has never been so creepy. Then as you progress, the levels become more and more similar, and when you finally complete the game, I doubt any of you will be scared. It’s a great game that falls on the short side, but if you take it for what it is, and not what others have made it out to be, you can come out thoroughly satisfied. Written By: Joseph Bennett

  Although I had never played longer than fifteen minutes on any of the previous Doom installments I was still swept up in the craze surround the third (excluding any “special” versions like Doom 64) official piece to the series. Could graphics really look this great? Did I need to buy a brand new system to play them? It was great news when I heard Doom 3 was running smoothly on lower than top-of-the-line video cards. Enough back-story, though. Doom 3 is a heart-pumping crawl that throws a real story to the side and has you creeping around, clutching your mouse and praying that what you BELIEVE is in that dark corner really isn’t there. It’s a mixture of scare tactics and general tension. I would like to say I was scared out of my wits because a monster came out of somewhere I didn’t expect it to, but I can’t. In fact, the game relies on the player being scared out of his wits by the groaning and voices coming from the dark and distraction tactics. Yes, I do find it frightening when one Imp will leap from behind a corner and as I dodge and fire in his direction another hellspawn leaps seemingly out of nowhere to slash at my back, throwing the shot off. This can be conceived as my inability to compete against the simple dodge and fire AI, but I’d rather put the blame on a system that depends on making you panic (because you’re down to 10 hit points and only a clip of pistol ammo) rather than scaring the player. Oh, but it does it so beautifully.

The graphics and (specifically) the textures are crisp, clear and stunning. Not only are the environments so sadistically and gorgeously rendered, but the lighting (or lack of) sets the entire mood for Doom 3. No one was expecting a storyline with twists and id knew that. Good thing they stuck to what makes horror what it is both in games and on the movie screen. The experience, visually and aurally is excellent and almost makes up for the predictable enemy patterns and cheap tactics. Fortunately, you can put up with cheap human tactics online as well, although the developer’s built-in 4 player combat didn’t keep me playing. There are much better multiplayer experiences even if the maps are just as gorgeous and well-thought-out as the singleplayer. I drooled at Doom 3’s visuals and I shelled out the extra five dollars on its release, but it won’t be staying on my harddrive for long when I have other multiplayer options like Call of Duty.

Written By: Chad Phillips