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 An id software release is one of those rare occasions cherished by FPS lovers. Since Wolfenstein 3D, every new id game has arrived with enormous fanfare, and naturally Doom 3 is no exception. Does it do justice to the first two Dooms? Here's a description of Doom by someone dimly remembering it from years gone by. Man, i remember doom. You got your super shotgun, your rocket launcher and pow! Down go those fukken demons, you're runnin around dodging fireballs and rockets and shits blowing up all around you and wam! There goes another pinky and then one of those big things with horns is throwing green shit at you and you're backing into a corner and you pull out your bfg and blow everyone to hell. Man why can't they make games like that anymore?Here's another memory of Doom: Hell yea i remember doom, stalking through the flickering corridors waiting for shit to jump out at me, i remember the first time i turned around and a demon was right there in my face, hell i nearly fell out of my chair! And remember at the end of that one level where those two huge monsters come out of their cages, and it's the first time you've seen them and you're like "holy shit!" And you try to run away but get your ass handed to you. Man why can't they make games like that anymore?Which one of these is right? Are both? Are neither? The biggest problem with Doom 3 is it can't decide what it wants to be. On one hand, fans remember it as a shoot-em-up with nonstop action where players are death machines, blowing away monster after monster until they wade knee-deep in the dead. Other fans remember it as a tense and frightening game of suspense punctuated by action, where much of the time was spent wandering dark corridors, hearing the indistinct grunts of far-off monsters and waiting for something to pop out at them.  Doom 3 tries to cater to both of these visions of the original. The problem is that neither version was strictly true, and beyond that, they're incompatible. Is the player going to be constantly on edge and afraid that death will come for him at any time, or is the player going to be a walking arsenal that takes on everything and only succumbs to overwhelming force? Both of these games could work, and either could have made a excellent basis for Doom 3. But instead id tried to mash them together like peanut butter and chocolate, though the result isn't quite as sweet. |