Doom 3's design is rotted to the core and nowhere is this more apparent than the game's story. The game's story is so pedestrian that you probably spotted it walking across the street last week. I'll sum it up in a sentence: man goes to mars, and demons spew out of artifact from hell. The rest you can probably fill in with your imagination so long as you've seen more than three B-horror films before. Although the game starts up with a rather immersive
Half-Life sort of intro where you walk through the base and the game fills you with back story through audio logs reminiscent of
System Shock 2, the game's plot and pacing never is justified by these attempts at storytelling.
This all leads me to the game's biggest problem, which is a problem that has long since plagued the company since the days of John Romero. Back when
Quake II was in production, John Romero was pushing hard for
id Software to make a game supported by a plot that supports the action rather than serves as forgettable backstory that is presented as a text screen -- which is how the game eventually turned out. Despite Romero's best intentions, Carmack was the brains behind the company who made the engines and he was the one to dictate where the game would be heading. Where that was the
Quake franchise in 1998, I can't help but see there being a similar conflict going on in this title.
The design often rings false. For example, the game is a classic shooter with some of the most well balanced weapons and enemies to grace any first person shooter. In this sense, the game relies on nothing but the player's competence at aiming and moving. Yet, even when the player is playing to the best of his ability he will often need to hit the quickload key not because he accidentally fired a rocket at a cacodemon standing right in front of him, but because the game is stuffed full of these so-called "monster closets" that spawn an enemy unexpectedly who gets the drop on you. It's like the distant cousin of a quick time event, because you'll often get your ass handed too you and need to quickload back to your last save because of it. Yet, what was the player supposed to do?
ID Software have said time and time again that this is the
Doom series re-imagined, and I can understand how these "monster closets" add to the scare factor but it is counter-intuitive to the rest of the game. This isn't the only evidence of there being a rift in the game's design. As you progress in the game, you get to bigger, more open areas that offer a pure, fluid FPS experience more akin to
Doom and
Doom 2. Needless to say, these are the highlight of the game yet they couldn't be more opposing to everything that came before it. Which raises the question, why didn't they just make the entire game on this blueprint...you know...the
Doom blueprint that garnered the game a huge fanbase over a decade ago.
My point is that
Doom 3 reeks of corporate calculation which I blame on John Carmack's stubbornness to embrace anything new that can't be conceived in 0's and 1's. You can see him in his office saying, "Hey, people love this
Half-Life game. Let's do some of that scripted event stuff. ..hmmm and these
System Shock 2 reviews are off the charts...people must love audio logs!" No people don't love fucking audio logs! People love games that offer an immersive, fluid experience, which
Doom 3 isn't.
For all the shit I talk about the game, I went into
Doom 3 expecting very little and came out having played one of the most competent shooters in recent years. Despite all my bitching, the game is expertly designed when you take out all the previously listed complaints. I can't think of another shooter where I found myself using every single weapon until the last boss, which I attribute to smart enemy design. The levels, while redundant, take advantage of the game's graphic engine and put the player in some of the most terrifying situations you could imagine, leading to a handful of memorable scares. The game's graphic engine might be a bit dated now, but the animation and sound design will forever remain timeless and prime examples for games to come.
Doom 3 starts off as a
Half-Life wannabe but it eventually becomes the
Doom you remember with chaotic action mixed with a goofy B-movie atmosphere. Hell, you even find emails in the tail-end of the game with really lame in-jokes which makes me wonder why didn't ID Software just make the game they wanted to make, rather then trying to appease both their old fanbase and what they perceived the critics wanted in 2004. Despite all the games faults,
Doom 3 is a solid shooter that may overstay its welcome at a lengthy 15+ hours of gameplay but the production quality and refined shooting makes the game worth picking up at a bargain bin price. I just wish ID Software stuck more to their guns...literally.
All the things people have against this are things of praise for me. I see criticism towards the gun sounds and design when I found that to be one of my favorite things about the game?? Or the criticisms towards the repetition of doors, sprawling hallways and things lurking in the dark where its hard to see when that’s kind of the point?? Ive even seen the soundtrack take criticisms when its one of the most endearing factors in the game: low rumbling drones and ambience. Its kind of miserable but in a very cool way.
Much of this game is meant to be more of a swallowing and suffocating trudge through a broken down, isolating station than a constant shoot out and so many people just seem to miss that point. The controls are fine, sure theres mechanics like the flashlight being its own tool but that seems to add a bit of challenge to this.
And to that one comment…Only spawns two enemies at a time…no? You must not have gotten far. There are plenty of rooms where it floods you with more than just 2 enemies.
the only doom I didn't bother to finish
of course the problem isn't that the game is different, my favorite doom game is doom eternal and that is quite different from any doom or quake game
the problem is that this game is trying to be both a classic doom fps and a horror game, but it's mediocre at both, where they trade the unique and fun level design of the classics for much blander and linear levels, and an horror atmosphere that is literally just "dark room + random jumpscare"