VideoGame Doom 3 is one of the best and scariest Sci-Fi Shooters of all time.
Doom 3 is not the original Doom. That fact is probably what made purists angry. However, for any horror fan, Doom 3 is a godsend. The game's story is pretty much the same as the original Doom, but thanks to the help of a professional writer, the guys at id managed to flesh out the story and answered some of the questions that lingered. For instance, how did the UAC get the teleporter technology? They reverse engineered Martian technology that breached Hell. How did the demons invade? A Mad Scientist strikes a Deal With The Devil and deliberately destabilizes the teleporters. Why are there chainsaws on Mars? Shipping mistake. The game's storyline is revealed mainly through PDA's (like Bio Shock, although Doom 3 came earlier), detailing everything that has happened or is happening (The unfortunate thing is that a lot players don't seem to care about the recordings except for locker combinations). The graphics and sound are very good. In fact, they were revolutionary for the time. Unfortunately, they're not so impressive nowadays (Doom 3 was released in 2004) The graphics and sound are still sufficient, even today, to help sell the game's main selling point: atmosphere. It's is very creepy. The PDA logs are creepy, the the flickering lights are creepy, the monsters are scary, etc. It gives a sense of dread and makes the player watch his/her every step and is constantly looking behind his/her back. Monsters can always attack the player at any time. It can get annoying for some people, but this troper thought it was awesome. It keeps the player on edge, and can make him/her hesitate picking up an item. Gameplay wise, it's very similar to the original Doom. However, it's much slower paced, which angers any Doom purists. It's still the same run and gun gameplay that involves the player picking up items and blowing up demons with an huge loadout of weapons (all the originals are back and new ones are thrown in). But, even with the similarities, it's not meant to be "Doom with better graphics". It's a new game with a new direction, and the gameplay fits very nicely with the atmosphere.
In short, Doom 3 ISN'T the original Doom. However, it's one of the greatest Sci-Fi shooters of all time, and certainly one of the scariest.
VideoGame Doom 3 forgets what made the series so good
Doom was praised in its time for its atmoshpere. Its dark hallways, flickering lights, enemies that could sometimes seem to come from nowhere and surprise you, and odd "sci-fi meets supernatural horror" style.
But what it's really remembered for, is its fun gameplay.
Doom 3 totally forgets that. Instead it tries to aim for creating a dark, spooky atmosphere, with enemies that come from nowhere, and the "sci-fi meets supernatural horror" style, and superficially, attempts to be what Doom was, only enhanced. But in the process, it forgets what made Doom good.
Doom and especially Doom 2 had fun level design, and enemies that were a blast to fight. They had a good weapon balance, with pros and cons to every weapon. The action was fast and fun. Multiplayer was both cooperative and competitive. Finally, there was an absolutely massive community based around creating new levels, modifying graphics and sound, and trying to build onto Doom. The game had a lot of love.
iD Software seemed to forget all that when making Doom 3. In their interest of trying to scare players, they made the action slower, and came up with cheap gimmicks like having enemies appear out of every dark shadow in existence. My brother quickly wised up to that trick when he was playing, and would aim straight at every dark shadow just in case some monster magically came out of it, which they inevitably would.
Cooperative multiplayer was tossed out, though later added in a port. And as for a modding community? Forget it. You won't find the countless thousands of levels for this game that its predecessors had. Modders just don't care for it that much.
But another thing that gets me is some of the design decisions the company made without thinking. Players come across audio logs recorded by unlucky people, that have useful information (usually passcodes to open doors or lockers), often at the end of the message. Why can't you fast-forward through them? Has technology gotten worse in the future? There's a TV showing a news report at one point in the game, but all it is, is a reporter talking, with no footage of the news stories themselves actually shown. How lame! All the "future" tech is outdated!
Doom 3 fails both as a sequel, and it fails at what it tries to do differently.