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Doom 3 Review: The Legacy from ID Software Continues
Doom 3 Review: The Legacy from ID Software Continues - PCSTATS
The original Doom was not the first 3D shooter to hit the market, but its astonishing graphics and game play quickly captivated gamers.
Filed under: Games Published:  Author: 
External Mfg. Website: ID Software Aug 19 2004   M. Dowler  
Home > Reviews > Games > ID Software Doom3

Seething with Demons

One scene, where you are led through a maze of burned out generators by a lone survivor from the laboratory with a lamp sticks in our minds. The contrast of the bright light bobbing ahead of you and the utter darkness on every side, no doubt seething with demons, is amazing and terrifying.

Fear and loathing - The Atmosphere and plot

This is where Doom 3 comes into its own as an experience. The corridors of Mars City are claustrophobic, poorly lit and teeming with machinery that smokes and sparks and rumbles with a life of it's own. Take the fact that the darkness just around the corner is teeming with lurking enemies hoping to tear you limb-from-limb, and you have a game that screams to be played with the lights way down and the sound way up, in full 5.1 surround.

While the early levels are composed of standard (if brilliantly realized) space/industrial hallways and rooms, the environment later gives way to something altogether more alien and Doom-like.

There is a plot here, though it takes a backseat to the overall atmosphere, which remains the star of the show. As expected from a game of this genre, the plot plays out through cut scenes scattered through the levels and through bits and pieces of information you glean from exploration. Your actual goals on each level are simple and boil down to finding this key card or that button, nothing to distract you from the actual game, but pieced together well enough that you always have a sense of where you are going and why.

Throughout the game you will find abandoned PDAs whose contents you can download to your own pocket computer. The TAB key brings up the PDA interface, which is very nicely executed.

From this screen you can review the email and audio logs of the (deceased) owners of the aforementioned PDAs you found, as well as the occasional video file. The audio logs are the most compelling of these, and are extremely well realized and acted. As a nice touch, you can start an audio log and close your PDA screen while continuing to listen. Wandering through an abandoned base with a dead man's voice in your head, jumping at shadows… We haven't had a gaming experience like this for a long time.

Through the audio logs and email, as well as the cut scenes, a picture of the plot starts to develop, though you will probably have a good idea of the protagonists right from the start of the game.

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Contents of Article: ID Software Doom3
 Pg 1.  Doom 3 Review: The Legacy from ID Software Continues
 Pg 2.  Opening Half of Doom 3
 Pg 3.  Zombies and Enemy Marines
 Pg 4.  Graphics of Doom 3
 Pg 5.  — Seething with Demons
 Pg 6.  Fear and loathing pt. 2 - the sound
 Pg 7.  Multiplayer Doom 3

 
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