When I heard they were remaking Doom 3, my first thought was, "Already!?" but then I realized the game had actually come out 8 years ago. Maybe a re-release isn't such a crazy idea after all. Doom 3 has always been a solid game that successfully married a survival horror aesthetic to classic Doom run and gun gameplay-- albeit with some polarizing design choices. Players have argued about the game's flashlight (you couldn't use it and a gun at that same time, resulting in a lot of shooting into the darkness) and the game's reliance on "monster closets" to dole out cheap scares. Does Doom 3: BFG Edition fix these issues, and 8 years later does it still stand up with all of the advances that have been made in FPS design? Hit the jump and I'll let you know.
First of all, yes, the flashlight has been changed. It's mapped to a button and can be used while you are holding any weapon. That does change the pace of the game for sure, but honestly it's probably for the best. Your flashlight will go out if you use it for too long, but that was never an issue for me and I never found myself blind firing at demons. It would be cool if there was an option to play the game in it's original form so you could experience the tense situations that swapping from flashlight to gun while being marauded from all directions by zombies in the dark, but it's honestly more fun to just run and gun with flashlight available whenever you need it. It feels more like Doom that way anyways.
If you hated the original Doom 3's "monster closets", well, you are going to be disappointed to hear that they are still there. Let me offer this though, maybe they aren't so bad? I mean, they are explained in the lore of the game! They are teleporting demons who have teleported from Hell itself to a laboratory on Mars that researches teleportation. Doesn't it kind of make sense that they'd be able to crawl out of almost anywhere to get the jump on you? Plus it never really damages the gameplay balance or anything. Basically, I think the whole monster closet argument is a non-issue, brought up by people who don't get the tone of the game. It's designed from the ground up for stuff to jump out at you!
Alright, now that I have the major complaints of the original Doom 3 addressed, let's get to the meat of the review, the real stuff. I guess I'll start with the graphics, as that was the real revolutionary thing Doom 3 had going for it back in 2004 when it came out. For the most part, they stand up thanks to the improvements the folks at id software injected into this new version. The enviroments look good, the monsters look excellent, that stuff works. The only thing that doesn't is the human NPCs. All of their faces look really, really weird. They look like they've already been monster-ifed! It's due to the bump mapped faces and low poly count on the models-- it works for the monsters as they are supposed to look horrifying and otherworldly-- but not for the good guys that are actually standing still in front of you so you can see every weird face shadow and strange eyebrow ridge. I've seen some reviews harp on the game's lighting (mainly Eurogamer, as I couldn't disagree more with their review of the game) claiming it is at fault for only being the extremes. Areas of light are vibrant and bright, and dark places are pitch black with no in between. I don't see this as a flaw though! It's more like a stylistic choice. It makes the hallways of the Mars base the game takes place in seem that much more hostile. The severe lighting is definitely part of the game's aesthetic and not some sort of fault or limitation that you could mark the game down for. It's on purpose and it's why the flashlight is such an important tool in your Doom 3 toolbox! There is one point I will agree with Eurogamer on though, and that's the monster design. Most of the game's monsters are based on the ones from the original Doom, but their designs in Doom 3 more often than not take out the things that made that monster look so iconic in the first place. Remember the bright red Cacodemon? Well in Doom 3 it's kind of a bland beige. The furry brown imp? Well, he's got no fur whatsoever. The classic pink Demon (while still a sort of pink color) suddenly has no eyes (like a Quake enemy) and walks on all fours. It's sort of disappointing, especially if you grew up having the brown imp throw fireballs at you in the original Doom like I did All in all though, the graphics hold up for the most part. Just don't look directly at the human NPCs.
Now gameplay is probably Doom 3's strongest point. The running and gunning feels fantastic. The guns are cool and fun to shoot (especially the plasma gun, which you'll use a lot) and dancing around the enemies to avoid jumping attacks and fireballs is really a joy. The game's use of real health (with Half-Life style health stations and health kits to boost your health like from the olden days) actually adds real tension to the firefights, instead of shooting dudes then hiding until your shield recharges. I'll say this over and over until the end of time, but it's 100 times more fun to strafe an incoming fireball than it is to hide behind a chest high wall and wait for a guy to reload. The fall back to some of the more old school conventions in the FPS genre actually feels completely and totally refreshing. I didn't realize it until this game, but I really miss this stuff. Just the health system alone changes the game's tone immensely and gives your actions (and mistakes) feel like they have much more weight within the game. If you screw up in Call of Duty, you just go hide somewhere for 30 seconds. If you screw up in Doom 3, you better hope you can scrounge up a medkit somewhere. If you need a medkit, by the way, you can probably find one stashed around the game's levels. If you're desperate for health and observant enough, Doom will reward you with well hidden health packs, ammo, and armor shards. Not some much that it makes the game too easy, mind you, but enough where you'll find yourself in rewarding situations where because you were smart enough to climb a couple of crates and crawl into a vent, you now have 68 health instead of 23. Another gameplay mechanic that I think really works is the game's PDA. It keeps track of your objectives and weapons, but also downloads the e-mails and audio logs from other people's PDA's you find scattered throughout the game. It adds a whole level of optional lore and story to the game. If you care about the plot and game lore, it's all there for you to consume through these e-mails and audio logs (which exist in the game before Bioshock made them cool again) and if you don't and just want to shoot some monsters, you can ignore them completely! The game does reward you for fully immersing yourself in the PDA delivered lore with codes for storage cabinets littered throughout the base, which is a cool bonus. There's decent depth in some places of the design and absolutely divine simplicity in others. It's the kind of great design you would expect from the guys who basically invented the genre.
The game's sound effects are pretty good too. I really like the sci-fi sounds of the guns, like the whir of the plasma gun charging and the bouncy twang of reloading it. The voice acting isn't going to win any awards, but it's by no means bad, just kind of hammy, really. The music is pretty much non-existent as they pretty much go for ambient sounds instead of a rockin' soundtrack. I guess that works better to support the game's spooky tone, but on the other hand it's kind of a disappointment considering the original Doom had an awesome soundtrack, even with just its synthesized midi tunes.
Basically, the game is good and I had a blast playing through it again, and if you played first person shooters any time before the year 2000 you probably will too. There's also a whole cornucopia of content here as well, you get Doom 3, you get its expansion pack Resurrection of Evil, a 7 level pack of lost levels, the entire original Doom and Doom II, with multiplayer! It's worth the forty dollar asking price, for sure. Sure, there's some graphical letdowns, but nothing really bothering about it! If you're a fan of the old school, you're going to be a fan of Doom 3: BFG Edition.
No comments:
Post a Comment