How do you release a sequel to Doom in an age of Half-Life and Halo? It can't look anything like Doom if you're going to compete - only nowadays do retro-graphics have as much of a punch as the flashier titles. In the mid-2000s, you had to show off, and Doom 3 showed off.
Deployed to Mars City, a grimy, industrial, military laboratory kinda place, we're about to see the horrors of the universe up close and personal. Doom games are shooters with a splash of the supernatural. Demons and flaming skulls and untold horrors that ought not to exist, and definitely shouldn't be angered into attacking you.
Only this time, the lights are off...
Fun Times
Doom 3 has been installed on this PC for a while now. I remember having trouble trying to get it to run or install in the first place. Maybe I overcame those difficulties or bought a digital replacement. Either way, it has been here in the library waiting for its moment to shine, and boy how it shines.
Amongst the darkness, I mean.
We are the unnamed Doom Guy, dropped off on Mars to sort out something or other. Fellow passengers have been moaning about having to come here to clean up the mess in the first place, and a man sits at a bench nearby sounding awfully depressed about being on Mars. What's not to like, mate? Look at all the pretty glowing lights!
The doors from the hangar open to reveal an area we can finally see without squinting. Welcome to Mars City, the female computer voice-over broadcasts over the speakers. Posters fill up the walls, and interactive information panels draw the eye. This is worldbuilding. The more you stop and stare, the more you listen to the locals, the more you learn about where you are and what's going on.
Every now and then, you're sucked out the back of your own head to watch a cutscene which tells you whatever the most important thing to know is at this minute. In this case, the receptionist informs us that we don't need to worry about our bags, and gives us a PDA.
This is a CRITICAL bit of kit, we're told. It unlocks doors, it keeps notes, it's got email on it. It's a journal. It's a key card. It's Doom 3's version of the Red Key, the Blue Key, and the map, probably. The only thing more important than the PDA and our luggage is that we're wanted in Marine HQ, somewhere over in that direction.
En route, we eavesdrop on a conversation between Elliott Swann and Dr. Malcolm Betruger. The Board, capital T, capital B, sent Swann here to find out what's going on, as there have been a few incidents. Betruger passes them off as overworked employees and the like. Don't worry, good things are right around the corner. Trust me. Ignore my clearly evil appearance...
So far, everyone has been a white male, usually with some degree of balding. I'm not bothered about that as much as I'm bothered about how weird Swann looks, with his wide mouth, ridiculous, almost Matrix-inspired sunglasses, and pointy head. Maybe he's more of a threat than Betruger is. Oh, shit, his bodyguard is looking at me.
 |
| Thank you, Sherlock |
Sergeant Kelly doesn't do pleasantries, and we're given a job as soon as we enter the room. A scientist has gone missing, and we need to bring him back here. Rightoh.
Following the sentry bot to the elevator allows us to take in more of the sights and sounds of the base. The locals are whispering about things that aren't human, and computer panels are advertising a way to earn some extra credits in my spare time. Thank goodness I've got a PDA to download that info.
If you've not noticed by now, Doom 3 is big on its lighting tech. If there isn't a light source hitting something, it's black. What lurks in the shadows? Why are there so many sparks flying out of the walls? How are all you lot so comfortable with this place?
We're finally given some equipment, in the form of some armour and a pistol. The security guard just couldn't open that second, more inviting locker, could he? Nope. We start with the basics. Why is the only person capable of finding a scientist a marine? Why do we need a pistol? I'm getting more concerned about this Mars City by the minute.
It wasn't until after the fact when I realised just how similar all of this has been to Half-Life, with snippets of conversations filling in the backstory, or setting up future events. The route is carefully laid out to take you past one thing at a time, as you see what kind of environments you'll be living in, what kind of interactions you'll have, who you'll meet.
Telling as much as you can in-game, rather than in a cutscene, is the whole point of the Half-Life series, and Doom 3 tries its best, resorting to cutscenes when necessary, and leaving the rest for the player to find. With so many light sources to distract you, catching those few details might be a challenge. I hope my PDA is keeping notes.
Toward the end of the run, it got dark. Very dark. You're equipped with a flashlight, but it is pathetic, and you haven't been trained to hold it in your left hand while you carry a pistol in your right, which means you're going to have two choices in Doom 3: Seeing something or shooting at it.
But nothing would need to be shot at if all you're doing is looking for a missing scientist, right? Let's hop through the airlock, enjoy the Martian atmosphere for a few seconds, and carry on investigating.
I really like these screens. The level of detail is blowing my mind, and I don't know why. They're just glorified buttons at the end of the day but damn do they look stylish. Dated, perhaps, but smart. If it's an elevator button or a wall panel, it doesn't matter, it looks great.
Around a few corners, I see a wall of the damn things, and a missing scientist watching over them.
He sounds awfully concerned and desperate to send out a warning message. Bad things are happening on Mars. He sounds like he's talking about opening a gateway to Hell, but that'd be silly. And then a portal that looks frightfully hellish appears on the computer screen, and the lights fail, and it gets spooky...
Ok, so, floating flaming skulls, possessed scientists, unknown assailants attacking everyone on Mars. Yes, sarge, I will be coming back to the security checkpoint on the double. Thanks for the pistol. Sorry about the scientist. Bigger problems now, though, am I right?
Oh, yep, bigger problems. Everyone is a zombie now. While I'm thankful for flames and muzzle flashes lighting my foes up for me to see, I'm less grateful for the flashlight manufacturers and the marine trainers. Why are they both so useless?
The journey back is a fight. Every corner seems to house a shambling zombie, some of them armed with melee weapons, others with guns. They're surprisingly less-shambly when they've got guns. They all fall to a few headshots, though, should I be able to line any up.
I'm playing on the easiest difficulty, and I'm already glad of that fact. The action-heavy first-person shooter I expected is now an action-heavy first-person survival horror shooter. I'm mostly alerted to the presence of an enemy threat by walking into it, be it clubbing swings of arms or thumping bullet impacts.
The violence is there for you to see. Blood splatters your view when you're hit, it splatters the walls when you fight back. This world is horrific. It's Hell on Mars.
But it looks so good. Even now, it stands out. Sure, you can see where it has aged and how far we've come, but there just aren't many games that do lighting like this, even now. Given that the entire ambience of the game hangs on this lighting tech working, it's no surprise that other titles avoid it. It's probably a hard thing to get right.
Does Doom 3 get it right? I'll tell you when there's a moment of calm.
Another nod to Half-Life appears in the form of a medical station, delivering chunks of much-needed health, ten points at a time. What is a point of health? How does a machine know how 'full' we are? What is 'full health', anyway? Before I could ponder upon these mysteries, I was attacked by another beast emerging from the darkness.
Just look at that. The only way I know I'm on target is because the reticle glows. Bullets fly in the vague direction of the threat, and fireballs are launched in response. My tactics are poor, and generally involve standing still, tanking the hits until my opponent is dead.
It won't help me in the long run, I know, but running around means losing what little sight of the foe I have, and switching to the flashlight means not having anything to shoot with. Borderline panic, and spamming the mouse button until I have to reload is the order of the day.
Frustrations
Why do you have 'ARSE' written on your head? Whatever. The route back to the rest of the marines was chock full of zombies. I passed people on the way here, and they seem to have multiplied in the five minutes since I was last here. Every shadow has a zombie, and there are quite a few shadows, let me tell you.
It's almost guaranteed that there will be something lurking around the corner waiting to kill you. Some of the jump scares are obvious and telegraphed. I even walked up to a vent shaft or something, thinking 'that's where I'd put an enemy, crawling out of there', and lo and behold, an enemy crawls out and gashes my face with its claws a few times.
Doom 3, finally, has become as chock-full of enemies as the original games. Perhaps it is time to run and gun and run some more. We know the route, roughly. Let's just hoof it back, zombies be damned.
Nope, you don't like that plan. Oh well. Mars wasn't delightful to be around in anyway.
Final Word
I told you I'd die if all I was doing was hoping to tank all the incoming hits. My tactics for traversing space bases in the dark needs some work. Perhaps they're all scared of the light, and the flashlight is the best weapon in the game...
Despite my failure, I like what I've seen of Doom 3 so far. The characters are a bit clichéd, a bit goofy looking, but I'm following their instructions and hoping to see where the story takes us all. The lighting is perhaps a bit extreme in terms of darkness levels, but it is mighty impressive when it does shine. The atmosphere is something special, something scary, but at the same time, something perhaps a bit bland?
It's hard to describe a Doom level as pretty. They're technically well crafted and smartly designed, but are they pretty? Are they interesting? Are they just painted walls to facilitate a game taking place in the middle of them?
That might be an unusually harsh criticism to level at Doom, but Doom 3 gives me vibes of the look of the base not really mattering, all the grey metal just being there to provide the lighting with something to bounce off and the zombies something to bump into. Does any of that make sense? It's bland, it's generic, it's almost a corridor shooter, and yet it looks like nothing else. I still enjoy the look of Doom 3.
It might not be a Doom fans' idea of what Doom 3 should have been, but for a casual player, I'll take what's here without complaint. I need to get better at playing it if I hope to get anywhere, though.
With Doom (2016) playing like Doom and looking like Doom 3 (in the sunlight), it's no surprise that Doom 3 itself is going to be the underlooked entry into the series. When the 1001 was written, no sequel or remake was waiting to emerge. Doom 3 was it. That was the latest. Are you going to moan about it, or enjoy it for what it is?
I, for one, am going to enjoy it.
Fun Facts
Those interactive screens I like so much? Over 25,000 image files and 500,000 lines of code required for them all...
Doom 3, developed by id Software, first released in 2004.
Version played: PC, 2004.