Doom 3 Final Version Updated Hands-On Impressions
We stayed up all night plowing through id Software's visually astounding, new shooter. But has the great first impression worn off?
This weekend, we were fortunate to get to play through the first 90 minutes of the final version of Doom III a few days prior to its official release date of August 3. As you may have gleaned from those first impressions, we were pretty much blown away by the game's visuals and thick atmosphere, though we noted that the gameplay itself was unmistakably reminiscent of the straightforward run-and-gun style of previous games in the series (as opposed to that of newer, more-complex shooters). We've since spent a lot more time playing the game--more than eight hours--and are here with our latest impressions, not to mention approximately 150 new screens and 25 new gameplay movies to show you. Consider all this as you ponder that obvious question, whose answer will be revealed soon enough: Was Doom 3 worth the wait?
For the record, we captured all our media (and, thus far, have exclusively been playing the game) on a custom-built, bleeding-edge 3.4GHz Pentium 4 system with an Nvidia GeForce 6800 Ultra graphics card and a beautiful set of Logitech Z-680 5.1 surround-sound speakers. We're running the game itself at the "ultra" graphics setting at 1024x768 resolution with 4x antialiasing and all the trimmings and have been experiencing silky-smooth frame rates, for the most part--which is basically as we hoped, since the rig we set up has some serious horsepower. At any rate, even if you're already playing Doom 3 on your own machine, you might want to take a look at our movies as a point of reference. And if you aren't already playing Doom 3 and are holding out for our final verdict--we appreciate your patience. Read on.
Though we haven't finished the game yet, we've certainly played enough to get the gist of the action. And that gist is in two parts, as follows: We can't stress enough that Doom 3 is, by all means, a visually stunning game. And we also can't stress enough that, apart from the incredible graphics and the near-pitch-black darkness of most of the game's environments, it plays pretty much just like good old Doom. Which is to say, in these first eight hours of play, what we've experienced from Doom 3 is a traditional first-person-shooter corridor crawl, in which enemies frequently spawn in from dark corners (and oftentimes right behind you), and what you do is shoot first and ask questions later. Since most of the action takes place at close quarters, the shotgun proves to be one of the most effective weapons--it's capable of killing most opponents in one direct hit, and even tougher opponents like revenants and cacodemons die from just two or three blasts (at the middle "marine" difficulty setting we've been playing on, anyway).
Honestly, the darkness is really the most dangerous foe we've faced thus far in Doom 3. We haven't died often, and when we have, it's usually been because we got jumped from behind and couldn't really draw a bead on our hidden foes before it was too late. Since the game allows you to instantly quick-save your progress as often as you like (though, unfortunately, it doesn't store alternating quick-save files like many other PC shooters do), it really hasn't proven difficult to keep pressing onward. As in previous Doom games, here you keep yourself alive by frequently running across health kits, armor power-ups, and ammo packs, which tend to be predictably strewn about in the dark recesses of most rooms. And in case you were wondering, yes, there are numerous exploding barrels to be shot.
While the early portions of the game described in our previous impressions story did much to draw us into Doom 3's setting, we've since found that the plot has more or less taken a backseat to pure run-and-gun shooting--which is OK. The game itself thus far is following a straightforward, linear course. More weapons and more monsters are being introduced, and the gameplay seems to be growing marginally more challenging as we're encountering slightly larger skirmishes--but, in fact, since we also have more weapons to choose from, it's not as difficult to fend off most threats as it was in the early going, when we were still getting used to the dark environments. As a matter of fact, we're a little shocked at how easily some of the foes go down--they certainly look scary (particularly the two-headed maggots, which clamber about on all fours), but they're really not that tough.
Oh, man! Are we saying we hate Doom 3? Of course not! But it's true that we've taken issue with certain aspects of the game. Keep reading to learn more.
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- GameSpot Score8.5great
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